Nuclear power is downright scary. Especially when the reactors that generate so much electrical power are inadvertently underbuilt (think Ukraine’s Chernobyl and Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island) or built on precarious land (think Japan’s Fukushima and California’s San Onofre and Diablo Canyon)… Exacerbated by the fact that we just do not know what to do with spent but still very radioactive fuel rods and other nuclear waste. Sitting on the Columbia River in Hanford, Washington, for example, the federal nuclear disposal site there is leaking radioactive waste into groundwater, and eventually the river. The clean-up cost is enormous.
Yet, every time a reactor is shut down, pollution and fossil fuel usage rise: “California’s planet-warming emissions rose by 2% after the San Onofre generating station in San Diego County malfunctioned, eventually leading to its permanent closure. That wasn’t the only reason emissions rose, but it was almost certainly a factor… Similarly, the share of New York state’s electricity coming from natural gas, a fossil fuel, rose by 4 percentage points after one of two reactors at the Indian Point nuclear plant closed last year. The other reactor produced its final electrons last month.” Los Angeles Times, May 18th. It’s a Hobson’s choice.
If you believe Bill Gates, and he speaks with great credibility on this issue, even with an aggressive implementation of alternative energy policies and technology, the world will still fall about 30% short in meeting its energy needs. While the Biden move to support greater deployment of electric cars and trucks made in the good old USA is a positive choice, we still have to generate the electricity to power them. And how we generate that electricity is what will directly impact climate change abatement. Gates is heavily invested in a government supported new endeavor, TerraPower, that is constructing what he believes is the necessary but vastly safer generation of nuclear reactors (labeled “Natrium Reactors”).
“Nuclear fission, a process where atoms split and release a large amount of energy, generates a lot of heat. In conventional nuclear power plants, called light-water nuclear reactors, water absorbs that heat, turning it to steam. The steam then turns a turbine to produce electricity… The problem is, that steam can also build up and create pressure inside of a reactor, which has the potential to cause an explosion.
“So TerraPower’s Natrium plant uses a different method, pioneered decades ago: liquid sodium as a cooling agent. (‘Natrium’ means ‘sodium’ in Latin.) Liquid sodium has a higher boiling point and can absorb a lot more heat than water, which means high pressure does not build up inside the reactor… ‘Liquid sodium has certain improved thermochemical properties when compared to water that can change risk profiles and reduce the probability of events that might be more probable in a light water reactor,’ says Brett Rampal, the director of nuclear innovation at non-profit Clean Air Task Force.” CNBC.com, April 8th.
But most remaining nuclear power-generating reactors were built well before we really understood the risks. This is particularly true with so-called “hybrid reactors,” dedicated both to generating electrical power as well as creating additional fissionable materials used in weapon systems. Chernobyl, for example. Or some of the reactors in Iran. As reactors are taken off-line for obvious reasons, reality sets out some very serious questions: how to dispose of the nuclear fuel that must be removed and where to deposit that waste, how to stabilize (demolish if possible) the older reactor, and how to replace the resulting lost power-generating capacity with a clean alternative.
With coastal tsunami and earthquake threats, sitting on the eastern edge of the Ring of Fire, America’s west coast faces some of the most serious issues in taking down and replacing its nuclear reactors. Southern California’s twin-domed San Onofre’s reactors have been shut down for a while but are still a problem site, and the Central Coast’s Diablo Canyon reactors (pictured above) are next on the shutdown list.
“The twin reactors along California’s Central Coast were nearing completion, and tens of thousands of people had gathered to protest. It was 1979, just months after a partial nuclear meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, and a young Jerry Brown — serving his first stint as California governor — earned a standing ovation when he declared, ‘No on Diablo Canyon.’
“Four decades later, Pacific Gas & Electric is finally preparing to shut the nuclear power plant. It sits near several seismic fault lines and has long stirred fears that an earthquake-driven meltdown could spread deadly radiation across the state.
“But if Diablo Canyon is the devil Californians know, the devil they don’t know is what happens when it closes… The plant is California’s largest power source, generating nearly 6% of the state’s electricity in 2019. That energy is emissions-free, meaning it doesn’t produce planet-warming greenhouse gases or lung-scarring air pollutants… And unlike solar panels and wind turbines, Diablo Canyon can make electricity around the clock, regardless of the weather — a key attribute for a state that suffered brief rolling blackouts last summer.” LA Times.
Basically, we don’t really know what we are doing or how to make up for the energy deficit that closing reactors entails. But we know we cannot just let those reactors continue, especially in seismically active zones, without a huge change. So… “When nuclear plants do shut down, climate advocates agree that replacing them with clean energy sources is crucial.
“That’s the problem in California, where officials acknowledge the state is likely to burn more gas after Diablo goes offline… In a recent report studying the possible closure of the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility outside Los Angeles, the Public Utilities Commission cited Diablo’s retirement as one of several reasons gas demand is expected to increase in the coming years.
“For [California] Assembly member Jordan Cunningham (R-Templeton), who co-wrote the law ordering regulators to make sure emissions don’t rise after the plant’s closure, it’s inexcusable that the Public Utilities Commission doesn’t have a dedicated plan do so… ‘I don’t know if it’s a lack of urgency, or it’s just a slow-moving bureaucracy, or they just move from crisis to crisis,’ Cunningham said. ‘So much of energy policy moves through the PUC, and they just don’t move very fast. And it’s frustrating.’
“The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in February examining what might happen if Diablo closes without a plan to replace its output. The group estimated California would emit an additional 15.5 million metric tons of planet-warming carbon over the next decade — roughly equivalent to keeping 300,000 gasoline-powered cars on the road over that same time period.
“Nitrogen dioxide pollution, which can cause asthma attacks and reduced lung function, would also rise in communities near gas-fired power plants. The added pollution would be equivalent to operating 1,750 diesel school buses, the report found… The Public Utilities Commission says it’s following the law.” LA Times.
In a nation where policy has become more reactive (pun intended), where we wait for a crisis before we attempt to correct a problem that could have been prevented, with a long-term disaster that can accompany a significant nuclear meltdown (easily triggered by a tsunami or earthquake), that approach just does not work. Experts tell us that the Chernobyl site will not be safe for at least 3,000 and maybe as long as 20,000 years, and even Fukushima – where there is a degree of containment – won’t be safe for decades. We must prioritize this de-nuclearization and potential safer re-nuclearization as a combination of facing an immediate challenge and major threat with the opportunity to help solve the much bigger climate change problem.
I’m Peter Dekom, and it is clearly time for us both to invest in our future… and insure that we can safely have one.
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