[NukeNet] Nuclear power analyzed from warming angle

[Diane Farsetta]

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19247632/

Nuclear power analyzed from warming angle
Industry, academics and activists issue joint report on prospects
MSNBC staff and news service reports
Updated: 6:09 p.m. CT June 15, 2007


WASHINGTON - Nuclear power could curb climate change but it would  
have to expand worldwide at the rate it grew from 1981 to 1990, its  
busiest decade, and keep up that rate for half a century, a report  
compiled by environmentalists, academics and nuclear industry  
proponents said on Thursday.

Specifically, that would require adding on average 14 plants each  
year for the next 50 years, all the while building an average of 7.4  
plants to replace those that will be retired, the report said.

Currently, the United States, the world's top nuclear power producer,  
has 104 plants that generate 20 percent of the country's electricity.
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Nuclear power, which has near-zero emissions of carbon dioxide, has  
recently come back into fashion as an alternative to generating  
electricity from coal and other carbon-based sources that contribute  
to global warming.

While the report also supported storing U.S. nuclear waste at power  
plants until the long-stalled Yucca Mountain repository opens, 10  
dumps the size of Yucca Mountain would be needed to store the extra  
generated waste by the needed nuclear generation boom.

That outlook was too optimistic in light of how many new nuclear  
plants are currently on the drawing board, the report said.

The needed rate of expansion would be faster than during the  
industry's first 40 years and than the Energy Information  
Administration's forecast for the next 30 years in the United States.

Some individuals differed, though, on how much the industry will  
expand, and said it could still make some type of impact.

Twenty-seven individuals from organizations spanning a broad  
ideological spectrum, including the Natural Resources Defense Council  
and the Nuclear Energy Institute, spent nine months on the report,  
called "The Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding."

The group, which was brought together by the nonprofit Keystone  
Center, said that as companies limit generating electricity from coal  
and other fossil fuels, there will be more financial incentives to  
build nuclear power plants.

The Keystone panelists also said that President George Bush's Global  
Nuclear Energy Partnership could help countries and groups interested  
in building nuclear weapons obtain plutonium, the key ingredient in  
those munitions, which could help spread nuclear weapons.

While the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit organization of  
scientists focused on the environment and security, had trouble with  
most of the report, it agreed with assertions on GNEP.

"By promoting the commercial production and use of plutonium, the  
Bush administration is facilitating the spread of nuclear bomb  
materials around the world," said Edwin Lymann, a scientist working  
on security issues for the group.

The full report is online at www.keystone.org/spp/energy07_nuclear.html


Reuters contributed to this report.