Fossil Fuels vs. Nuclear Power: Energy Policy Compared

Introduction

Nuclear power, under current conditions, is characterized by much lower regular emissions compared to energy from fossil fuel burning. However, it poses its own unique hazards, of which the most notable is the risk of industrial accidents — such as the Chernobyl disaster — that have acute, long-term repercussions over vast areas. There are also security risks presented by large inventories of materials that have the potential to be utilized as nuclear weapons; fossil fuels pose no risk of this sort. Evidently, both fossil fuels and nuclear energy are not, at present, favorable for sound security and environmental policy. Furthermore, neither renewables nor breeder reactors — the two alternatives for an unlimited supply of energy — are cost-efficient at existing fuel rates to immediately become the basis of worldwide energy supply. What, then, are the alternatives available for an ecological, safe, and sustainable future energy supply? If one can reduce fossil fuel consumption and burn biomass renewably to lower emissions to less than three gigatons of carbon per year, fossil fuels can become a sounder energy form than nuclear power (Makhijani, 1997). Discontinuation of nuclear power is recommended because it emits considerable lethal residue; generating electricity via fossil fuels is proposed instead, since their emissions can be neutralized through scrubbers, and waste reuse is possible, lowering annual operating costs.

Electrical energy and its production are key elements of humanity's growth, quality of life (QOL) improvement, and enrichment of the standard of living. Electricity is necessary for the use of numerous everyday items and common technological devices — televisions, computers, lights, air conditioners, and more. As living standards rise, electricity consumption rises alongside them. Global electricity consumption in the year 2007 amounted to 495 quadrillion British Thermal Units. By 2035, this figure was projected to rise to approximately 739 quadrillion British Thermal Units — a nearly 50% increase in fewer than three decades. With a growing necessity for electricity, energy-generating technologies such as solar, hydro, wind, nuclear, coal-fueled, and geothermal plants are in great demand. The need for new power plants is quite imminent, but a critical decision involves identifying which technology is suitable to employ, as each technology comes with its own set of advantages and shortcomings (Odell, 2011).

The nuclear power sector endeavors to capitalize on the climatic crisis through aggressive promotion of nuclear technology, positioning it as a mode of electricity generation whose key asset is "low-carbon emission." Advocates assert that nuclear power is economical, safe, and capable of meeting global energy demands. However, this is a misleading claim. Nuclear power, in reality, challenges real climate change solutions by deflecting urgently required funding away from energy efficiency and renewable and clean energy sources. Nuclear power costs a great deal, carries inherent dangers, and threatens worldwide security. Furthermore, in the fight against climate change, nuclear power fails to provide the requisite reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in a timely manner; its contribution to emission reduction can be very late, insignificant, and costly (Greenpeace International, 2009).

Fossil Fuel Energy: How It Works and Its Environmental Impact

Electricity production using fossil fuels, particularly coal and natural gas, is a significant and growing contributor to carbon dioxide (CO₂) release — one of the greenhouse gases most responsible for global warming. Scientists broadly agree that a reduction in these emissions is essential, and the United States is expected to eventually join other nations in efforts to lower them (MIT, 2015). The Earth apparently has the ability to absorb approximately three gigatons of CO₂ per year; however, there is no certainty about the precise absorption and tolerance levels. Currently, the world emits around nine gigatons annually, of which approximately two-thirds arise from fossil fuel burning. Biomass burning constitutes the remaining share of emissions. Apart from CO₂ emissions, emission control technologies and fossil fuel mining also contribute to environmental degradation, whose regional and local effects are often quite serious. Moreover, current fossil fuel consumption techniques pose climate alteration risks that scientists have not yet been able to fully understand; however, these risks are likely to be permanent and calamitous. Natural gas, among all fossil fuels, generates the highest energy level per unit of carbon emissions. Nevertheless, it cannot serve as the sole source for fulfilling worldwide energy demands using existing technology, particularly given the current unmet energy requirements of much of the global population. Additionally, molecule-for-molecule, pipeline leakage of methane or natural gas is a much larger factor in global warming than CO₂ — though this relationship is not yet fully understood (Makhijani, 1997).

Coal-fueled power plants produce electricity through coal combustion. These plants represent a distinct subcategory of the broader fossil-fuel power generation category, which also comprises petroleum and natural gas plants. Coal-powered plants use steam to drive a turbine connected to a generator, which produces electric current via a periodically varying magnetic field acting on wire coils. The output of this step is subsequently conditioned and directed to an electric power grid. Coal introduced into the system is burned, with gaseous products emitted from a chimney. Water in a closed piping loop is boiled, and high-pressure steam continuously rotates the turbine. The steam is then condensed and redirected across the boiler, where it is reheated by the burning fossil fuel. The river serves as the ultimate heat sink; in some cases, a cooling tower performs this condensing function instead. Coal mined for the process is considered "impure," with impurities including sulfur, iron, aluminum, thorium, and uranium. Despite its impurities, coal is critical to energy generation's growth. Approximately 7,000 separate coal-powered units are estimated to exist in 2,300 locations across the globe (Odell, 2011).

Nuclear Fuel: How It Works and Its Key Drawbacks

Nuclear power in 2002 constituted 20% of American and 17% of global electricity consumption. Scientists have projected that global electricity utilization will rise appreciably in the coming decades, particularly in developing economies accompanying social and economic advancement. Official predictions, however, called for only a 5% rise in global nuclear power generation capacity by 2020 — a figure that is itself questionable — while electricity consumption could increase by as much as 75%. These forecasts involve very few new nuclear power plant constructions and reflect growing opposition to nuclear power as well as economic considerations in key nations (MIT, 2015).

Nuclear power stations produce electricity by utilizing energy generated from uranium atoms whose nuclei undergo fission — a process in which a large nucleus splits into several smaller nuclei. The fission of uranium-235 (U-235) into daughter products represents the key reaction in nuclear reactors. The raw material, U-235, is found in very small amounts in nature. Pure uranium ore typically comprises 99.3% U-238 and only 0.7% U-235. For a sustained fission reaction to occur, the ore must first undergo an enrichment process to bring U-235 concentration to approximately 3–4%. Uranium oxide (UO₂) is the actual fuel used in nuclear stations. Neutrons in the reactor core strike U-235 atoms, forming U-236, which is unstable and has a transitory existence. It quickly breaks into several nuclei, releasing energy. The sum of the remaining nuclei's masses is not equal to the original mass of U-236; this mass difference converts into energy, as expressed by Einstein's famous equation:

E = MC²

Here, E denotes energy produced (in joules), c denotes the velocity of light (3 × 10⁸ meters per second), and m denotes mass (in kilograms). Given the extremely large value of the speed of light, even minute masses can produce substantial quantities of energy. Furthermore, fission reactions occur very rapidly, and many reactions taking place simultaneously can generate immense quantities of energy. To illustrate the scale: approximately one thousand nuclear fission reactions will generate 1 watt of electricity. A standard nuclear power station generates nearly 1,000 megawatts of electricity, with around 10¹² fission reactions occurring per second in the reactor core. The fuel undergoing fission is consumed and must be replenished. Once every 12 to 15 months or so, a nuclear power station undergoes an outage to refuel approximately one-third of the reactor core; these outages generally last a few weeks to nearly one month, and some plants may remain shut down for two or more months. Apart from its fuel source, the technique of electricity generation in nuclear power stations is otherwise identical to that of coal-powered stations (Odell, 2011).

Fossil fuels are preferred over nuclear power in this paper because of the following shortcomings of the latter.

Costs

Nuclear power has commonly been described as the costliest means of boiling water. Despite its advocates' claims that the source is cheap, cost projections for proposed nuclear ventures have consistently proved incorrect. A review of prior and present experiences of actual and estimated expenses of nuclear projects reveals a sector supported by subsidies in which overspending is rife. Moody's ratings agency has clearly shown that, despite colossal governmental subsidy, investments in the nuclear power sector are not a sound option. The costs associated with construction of a nuclear power plant are consistently two to three times higher than estimates quoted by the nuclear industry. In India, which has the most recent nuclear plant construction experience, average completion costs for the past ten reactors exceeded budgets by 300%. The construction of a new nuclear reactor in Finland has already exceeded its project budget by 1.5 billion euros (Greenpeace International, 2009). These plants carry much higher total lifetime expenditures than natural gas plants using coal and combined-cycle gas turbine technology, at least in the absence of a cap-and-trade system or carbon tax for carbon emission reduction.

Safety

Fortunately, there has been no partial or total nuclear meltdown in the United States since 1979, when a partial meltdown occurred at one of the reactors at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island station. Though most experts consider the chances of industrial accidents lower than two decades ago, alarming precursors still arise. While the industry maintains that nuclear power stations do not pose a threat to public safety, it is still shielded by the federal government through a liability ceiling in the event of a disaster. The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act, reauthorized by Congress in 2002, protects owners of nuclear facilities from the full cost of catastrophes while limiting government-offered protection to the public if a major accident occurs. This unique federal intervention distorts competition among wholesale electricity sellers in favor of nuclear energy, underscoring the inherent uncertainty regarding the safety and potential scale of nuclear accidents.

Additional safety concerns have arisen since the September 11 attacks. A study by the National Academy of Sciences found that a successful terrorist attack on a nuclear reactor's spent fuel pool could drain the water from the pool, successively leading to a fire caused by overheating of the zirconium cladding on spent fuel rods and the likely release of substantial quantities of radioactivity. Not all reactors are equally vulnerable; the risk depends on several factors, including reactor location and type, design and location of the spent fuel pool, and the reactor's physical security level. Removing older spent fuel — defined as fuel that has undergone a 3-to-5-year decay in the pool — to a safer on-site dry cask storage space, and eventually transferring it to an off-site geologic repository, can reduce these risks (Cochran, Paine, Fettus, Norris, & McKinzie, 2005).

Nuclear energy has apparent negative health, safety, and environmental impacts, aggravated by the Three Mile Island incident, the Chernobyl disaster of 1986, and incidents at American, Russian, and Japanese fuel cycle facilities. There are also increasing concerns regarding nuclear plant security against terrorist attacks and the safe transportation of nuclear materials.

Proliferation

There are serious security issues associated with nuclear power. Commercial nuclear plants and related facilities can potentially be misused to acquire materials or technology as a stepping stone toward nuclear weapons capability. Fuel cycles involving chemical reprocessing of spent fuel to separate plutonium — which can be used in weapons manufacturing — and technologies for uranium enrichment are of particular concern, given the widespread global expansion of nuclear power.

Waste

Nuclear power presents unresolved challenges regarding long-term radioactive waste management. The United States and other nations have not yet implemented final-stage disposal activities for spent fuel or for high-level streams of nuclear radioactive waste generated during various fuel cycle stages. Because these wastes pose threats to humans and future generations, future nuclear plant investors, the general public, and policymakers rightly expect significant ongoing progress toward solutions for nuclear waste disposal. Success of the proposed Yucca Mountain disposal facility could facilitate — but not totally solve — the waste problem for the United States and other nations if nuclear power expands considerably (MIT, 2015).

Conclusion

Owing to the sheer urgency and scale of the global climatic challenge, all energy forms need to be considered by the United States, provided that environmental and international security are not otherwise undermined. Unfortunately, the current state of the nuclear energy sector is burdened with a large number of environmental, safety, and security challenges and exorbitant costs that prevent it from becoming a major tool in the fight against pollutants causing global warming.

Several decades of experience with nuclear reactors have demonstrated that they are dirty, hazardous, and costly energy solutions that will not be able to power the nation's future in a sustainable manner. Therefore, the time has come for the United States to chart a new course — moving beyond nuclear power and conventional fossil fuels and directing government investments toward truly clean and renewable energy sources and efficiency programs (Friends of Earth).

References

CCSA. (2015, November 3). What is CCS? Retrieved from Carbon Capture & Storage Association:

Cochran, T. B., Paine, C. E., Fettus, G., Norris, R. S., & McKinzie, M. G. (2005, October). Position paper: Commercial nuclear power. Retrieved from Natural Resources Defense Council:

EPA. (2015, November 3). Overview of greenhouse gases. Retrieved from United States Environmental Protection Agency: http://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/gases/co2.html

Friends of Earth. (n.d.). Dangers of nuclear reactors. Friends of Earth.

Greenpeace International. (2009). Nuclear power: A dangerous waste of time. Amsterdam: Greenpeace International.

Gronlund, L., Lochbaum, D., & Lyman, E. (2007). Nuclear power in a warming world: Assessing the risks, addressing the challenges. Cambridge, MA: Union of Concerned Scientists.

Makhijani, A. (1997, February). Comparison of fossil fuels and nuclear power. Retrieved from Institute for Energy and Environmental Research: http://www.ieer.org/ensec/no-1/comffnp.html

MIT. (2015, November 3). The future of nuclear power. Retrieved from Massachusetts Institute of Technology: web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/pdf/nuclearpower-summary.pdf

Odell, S. J. (2011). Comparative assessment of coal-fired and nuclear power plants. Hartford, CT.