On the Green New Deal and Energy
I’m laying a
lot on your cognitive plates with this one. My initial essay on the subject some
time ago was part two of a general critique of the Green New Deal. I wrote it in
response to one individual’s opinion that “75% of the Green New Deal is good
stuff." Since a large part of my objection to it is the total disavowing
of the advantages of nuclear power, by those who know relatively little about
it, I opted to instill a little factual information into the conversation, as
someone who does know a bit about it (26 years’ experience with naval reactor
plants).
When
you preface something with "Green" one is led (intentionally in this
case) to believe it's primarily about environmental issues most progressives,
including myself, support. First off, 75% of the GND has nothing to do with
"Green" except money and the redistribution of it. Second, and to me
even more telling, is the parroting of anti-nuclear rhetoric which is even more
flawed than anti-vaxx propaganda.
The
environmental spin involved here is, like the first four bars of
"Satisfaction," the “hook.” A Green New Deal should be about what it
suggests itself to be - climate change/carbon reduction, environmental cleanup,
and EPA strengthening, such as reinstituting all Obama ecology related
executive orders and enacting them into law (missing from the GND). Period.
That's "green". My issue is with citing what is actually nanny state
economic social engineering on a scale outstripping even Sweden or Norway as
"Green." It isn't. No, it isn't. No. Not that some of the concepts
aren't great concepts, like Universal single payer Health Care, childcare and
Social Security. Much of the rest is simply idealistic and unpracticable, and
is what conservatives latch on to ridicule the entire program. The GND isn’t
“75%” good, but a fair part of it is. It could, however, have the effect when
the total impossibilities of the more outré propositions become obvious, that
the real “babies” of fighting climate change and non-carbon dependence as well
as universal single payer healthcare get tossed out with the bathwater. And
that would be a crime.
Certainly,
supporting wind options is important, and where applicable and practicable
(West TX, northern Plains, etc.) will reduce carbon admissions. Of course, you
must be willing to ignore the piles of dead birds below the turbine pylons, not to mention the maintenance costs.
Solar is also attractive in those areas, especially in western regions and,
generally, the lower flatter coastal regions of the South, where there are lots
of days with longer light. Unfortunately, the farther north we go, the shorter
the daylight hours and in winter, when we need power the most for
"green" heating, they are shortest. Battery technology is, and will
be, far from adequate in the near future to support metropolitan areas with
solar, if ever. (Can you say Seattle?)
Meanwhile Nuclear is sustainable, safe, and yet the US is lagging in the development and application of even safer and almost infinitely refuellable liquid salt cooled (LSC) reactor plants, whereas India and China are pioneering such work. We (the US Atomic Energy Commission) actually built an operating high power, small profile LSC reactor at Oak Ridge in the '60s. After more than 6000 effective full power hours and proof of the technology, the military wanted more “weapons grade” Plutonium, which LSC reactors don’t and can’t produce, so it was scrapped in favor of fast breeders - less safety, scarcer fuel.
Even the Union of
Concerned Scientists, once critics of nuclear power, have now acknowledged the
long-term benefits of this zero-carbon production along with their
acknowledgement of the safety record of the industry.
And, from the
MAGA side, I am sick unto nausea of seeing Pam Bondi lookalikes exhorting me to
vote "for energy," followed by a multi-ethnic panel of paid actors
who parrot the same party line. What is saddening is that this is presented as
if it was just a common sense, non-partisan, effort sponsored by the largesse
of the energy industry. Make no mistake - we are held captive by these people
to a degree. Don’t think so? Go to a gas station! The fossil fuel purveyors are
the money behind these ads. Dig deep enough into the background of this
commercial (for that's what it is, in truth), and the Koch Brothers, Chevron,
frackers too numerous to mention, and the coal industry are lurking there.
Sadly, we, as a
nation of sheep, were frightened away from nuclear power by an accident which
has had zero measurable effects on the general population or the environment
over the subsequent 37 years other than the higher cost of electricity as the
utility recouped their self-inflicted monetary loss. The site was called Three
Mile Island, for those with short memories or too few years to remember. That
site has been decommissioned and according to current Pennsylvania energy
policies, nuclear power is not categorized as clean energy. Meanwhile shale
development, which uses the extremely productive technique of hydraulic
fracturing, or “fracking,” has driven down market prices for electricity over
the past decade. Thus, nuclear power is forced to economically compete with the
historically low prices of natural gas and state-subsidized renewable energy
sources wind & solar) that are protected from market volatility.
I worked in a nuclear industry, the
Submarine Navy, for 26 years as an educator and operator/supervisor. Our
hundreds of thousands (more likely millions, by now) of nuclear accident-free
operating hours under conditions far more challenging than stationary power
generation (but with better food!), are testimony to the safety of the types of
reactors used in US nuclear facilities. That said, the LSC reactor design
previously mentioned is even safer! U.S. Nuclear Powered Warships (NPWs) have
safely operated for more than 50 years without experiencing any reactor
accident or any release of radioactivity that hurt human health or had an
adverse effect on marine life. Naval reactors have an outstanding record
of over 134 million miles safely steamed on nuclear power, and they have
amassed over 5700 reactor-years of safe operation!
The Chernobyl tragedy, another “scare” moment
was largely due to the type of reactor involved, which could never have
been licensed in the US, and the lack of both judgement and training of those
who initiated the event, not the nature of the use of nuclear power.
Even the more recent Fukushima catastrophe in Japan was caused by
inadequate backup provision for power, and would not have been licensed in the
US, (nor would a US plant have been at risk of a once in a lifetime tsunami.)
What passed unnoticed, is that no one died because of nuclear issues of any
sort, but several were killed by the initial event (earthquake/tsunami) itself.
In the sixty plus year history of commercial nuclear power production in the
US, there have been three fatalities, all due to accidental electrocution,
not nuclear power.
Since its
inception in 1948, the U.S. Navy nuclear program has developed twenty-seven
different plant designs, installed them in 210 nuclear-powered ships, taken
five hundred reactor cores into operation, and accumulated over 5,400 reactor
years of operation and 128,000,000 miles safely steamed. For some perspective
that's over 550 trips to the moon! Additionally, ninety-eight nuclear
submarines and six nuclear cruisers have been recycled. The U.S. Navy has never
experienced a reactor accident. By comparison, there have been more than one
hundred fatalities in the US involving Liquid natural Gas (LNG), one of the
"safe" fossil fuels hyped by the Energy Lobby. Between petroleum, LNG
and Coal industry accidents, thousands have died, including the flattening of
one square mile of Cleveland and 132 dead by an LNG explosion in 1944, and 362
in one West Virginia coal mine explosion. This of course ignores the litany of
cancers caused by carbon fuel off gassing, especially from earlier coal fired
plants.
Both solar and
wind power are attractive, especially to those who profit by making wind
turbines and solar panels. Once manufactured, both are “no carbon,” options,
but at great carbon and monetary cost for the initial installation. And for
wind power, as the Danes are finding out, there is a lifetime intense
maintenance commitment in the current state of wind technology. Solar ...well,
it only works when the sun is up, and current technology options for energy
storage for later use are in their infancy. It will also almost assuredly be
shown that while initial solar installations are less costly than wind energy, adequate
storage will be far more so, if even achievable.
Hydro is, of course,
fuel free but requires significant altering of the natural course of rivers and
the accompanying loss of various habitats, while having the obvious downside of
needing high volume flows to maintain output. Hydro is also subject to the effects of
changing weather patterns on the amount of water available. Global warming and
associated decreases in rain in the lower western states has made this an
increasingly critical concern.
Record low levels in Lake Mead (Hoover
Dam) and Lake Powell (Glen Canyon Dam) are exemplary. Glen Canyon/Lake Powell generates
power for about 5.8 million households and businesses in Arizona, Colorado,
Nebraska, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Wyoming. Hoover Dam/Lake Mead can
provide a yearly average generation of 4.5 billion kilowatt hours and serves
the annual electrical needs of nearly eight million people in Arizona, southern
California, and southern Nevada. In 1999, Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the two
largest reservoirs in the country, held 47.6 million acre-feet of water. That
has fallen to about 13.1 million acre-feet, or 26 percent of their capacity. Both
sources, especially Glen Canyon, are, at present, threatened by steadily
decreasing lake levels. In the meantime, safe nuclear energy offers a far
better alternative than coal (no carcinogens) and fracking (fewer drill induced
earthquakes). While Hydro is clean, nuclear power plants would be unaffected by
these water level concerns.
As for
“renewable” the US has, with its geographical boundaries, about one thousand
years’ worth of Thorium which is a far more abundant and intrinsically safer
reactor fuel. Thorium-based reactors are safer because the reaction can easily
be stopped and because the operation does not have to take place under extreme
pressures. Thorium is not radioactive in and of itself. The physics is too
difficult to describe here, so if interested, here's a link to an article from
Forbes:
Compared to uranium reactors,
thorium reactors produce far less waste and the waste that is generated is much
less radioactive and much shorter-lived. So, why don’t we use it now? Because,
like the Liquid Salt Reactors, Thorium can’t be weaponized as Plutonium and
Uranium can be. The US abandoned liquid salt cooled plants for fast breeders
which can make weapons grade fissionable material and has largely ignored
Thorium as a fuel for the same reason. Both China and India are building Liquid
Salt cooled and Thorium fueled reactors to support their burgeoning power
demands while we sit on our hands.
A clean and economical
solution is out there, and needless worry and Energy Corporation propaganda are
stifling it. "Be an energy voter" is partisan to the max while
pretending not to be. Don't be suckered.
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