[NukeNet] [no-new-nukes-yall] The limits to nuclear: McCain shouldn't try to follow French disas

Wed May 14 14:38:00 EDT 2008

The LaGrange Sierra Club is promoting true energy independence.  We want a Nanosolar factory in LaGrange to produce nanosolar powersheets that we can install on our roofs to produce electricity.  We want the new Kia plant in our county to produce plug in hybrids, that we can recharge in our garages with our free electricity that we are producing on our roofs.  Notice that solar is a day time source, which is peak usage time.  We also want a net metering law comparable to Germany's, California's and Washington state's.

We also propose that our city, and all other cities, install nanosolar powersheets on all their municipal buildings, schools, and public housing projects.  Who wants this for your city too?  

Why nanosolar instead of conventional photovoltaic panels?  In announcing its 2007 innovation of the year award to Nanosolar, Popular Science Magazine said that nanosolar powersheets were projected to be only 1/10th the cost of conventional photovoltaics.  When you can buy a unit for your home for $4,000 instead of $40,000, won't you buy one? 

RSVP,

Jeannine Honicker
djhonicker at msn.com 

From: frieda302 at comcast.netTo: mhaim at riseup.net; kcumbow at greatlakes.net; no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com; nukenet at energyjustice.netDate: Wed, 14 May 2008 13:10:21 -0400Subject: Re: [NukeNet] [no-new-nukes-yall] The limits to nuclear: McCain shouldn't try to follow French disaster

“but haven’t the French got it down?” Only because the Government runs it ! No private ownership, no hearings, no information…now they are negotiating with Russia to take their waste. The cost (?) does not have to be revealed.  And yet, the French anti-nuclear groups now has 800.000 members. Does not sound like a success story to me
F

From: no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com [mailto:no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark HaimSent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 11:56 AMTo: Kay Cumbow; no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com; NukenetSubject: RE: [no-new-nukes-yall] The limits to nuclear: McCain shouldn't try to follow French disaster

Hello Kay and all,

While Solomon makes some important points, there are two flaws, as I see it, to his argument that pro-nukers will jump on. I hope y'all won't mind me playing devil's advocate for a minute.

First, while taking the nuclear sector to 80% of our electric mix may be impractical, if not impossible, it would certainly be possible to take the nuclear sector up to 40% or more w/o running into the sorts of constraints Solomon describes. Since this would involve at least doubling our current nuclear sector (perhaps more, to account for expected demand growth and at least some retirements) it would take decades and more than half a trillion in investment. So there is no reason--based upon Solomon's argument--to put the brakes on new nukes.

Second, many would argue that if we are serious about getting off oil, this will involve EVs &/or plug-in hybrids (PHEVs). What better time to charge these than overnight? This would significantly flatten utility demand curves and make having lots of baseload generation capacity far more desirable and cost-effective. One could thus make an argument that by the time the new nukes started to exceed our need for baseload capacity, that need would grow rapidly as we switch over our transport sector to electricity and charge up generally overnight.

It seems to me that the best counters to this are offering a far more credible and cost-effective energy plan based upon rapid improvement in energy efficiency and the installation of renewable capacity, which is cheaper and much faster to install than building new nukes. 

We need to be aware, however, that some of the same arguments Solomon uses can be turned on our clean, sustainable renewable sources. For years critics of renewable energy have pointed to its "intermittency" or what pro-renewable folks like to call its "natural variation." 

We have countered that this doesn't become a problem until renewables become a much larger portion of the mix than they are today, and that it can be addressed in part through having a diverse mix of renewable technologies and thorough linking up a geographically dispersed set of generators. 

The rest of our argument, however, is that some forms of storage are probably going to be needed. Whether this is in the form of hydrogen, compressed air, pumped storage hydro, or perhaps charged EVs and PHEVs that can be used in a grid-to-vehicle/vehicle-to-grid configuration. I love the idea of solar PV roofs for every parking lot, having your car charge up while you're at work, and providing you with enough juice to get home, provide you house's power needs overnight and still have enough charge left to get you to work in the morning. We have to acknowledge, however, that if storage can be proposed by renewable advocates, it's also fair game for the pro-nukers. 

And then the discussion will inevitably come back to cost and what risks are acceptable. 

I appreciate Solomon's insights into the French situation and his points are well taken and point out definite problems with the simplistic notion that we can simply apply a "French solution" to our energy/climate dilemma. On the other hand, we should be conscious of the sorts of counterarguments this will likely engender.

Finally, I'm pasting in below a excerpt from our last local newsletter on the French nuclear situation. It includes some good links that most of you might be familiar with, but some might find useful.

All the best,

Mark Haim

Missourians for Safe Energy

WHAT ABOUT THOSE FRENCH NUKES?:

There are few nuclear critics who haven’t been asked this question:  Sure, we’ve had problems with nuclear power, but haven’t the French got it down? Isn’t their nuclear program a success story that we should emulate here?  

The answer in a word is “No” (or is that “Non”?).

 Those who have looked closely at the French experience have found that the costs and environmental impacts have been great. There have been many technical failures, including their attempts to commercialize breeder reactors. Their reprocessing program has been phenomenally expensive and has seriously contaminated the English Channel and neighboring waters. 

France, like the rest of the world, has still to come up with a way to successfully isolate nuclear waste, and they have created vast inventories of lethal wastes. They currently are stockpiling 81 tons of separated plutonium. (Just ten pounds of Pu is sufficient to make a Nagasaki-type bomb.) 

French nukes have proved unreliable in hot weather and droughts, due to their cooling water needs. There also are serious security concerns, as French nuclear plants would be vulnerable to 911-style attacks by passenger planes. Moreover, nukes are very unpopular with the French citizenry, with recent polls showing fewer than 31 percent viewing nuclear positively, as many as 61 percent favoring a nuclear phase-out, while fully 84 percent of the French population favors renewable energy.

If you’d like to understand better why the reality of France’s nuclear program hasn’t matched the industry rhetoric or the media hype, there are several excellent sources to check out:

“France’s Nuclear Fix?” by Arjun Makhijani , PhD .
http://www.ieer.org/sdafiles/15-2.pdf  (Note: this link will open a PDF of the January 2008 issue of Science for Democratic Action. The article on France is on pages 5-8.)

“Nuclear Power and France: Setting the Record Straight” a six-page Beyond Nuclear fact sheet.  http://www.beyondnuclear.org/files/beyondnuclear/Nuclear_France_Fact_Sheet_FINAL%5B1%5D.pdf

“French Nuclear Reprocessing –Failure at Home, Coup d’Etat in the United States”
by Shaun Burnie   http://www.citizen.org/documents/BurnieFrenchReprocessing.pdf 

If you are interested in sharing information on this topic with the general public, there’s an excellent three-panel leaflet “Nuclear Power in France: Setting the Record Straight,” that can be printed at:  http://www.beyondnuclear.org/files/beyondnuclear/French%20pamphlet%20FINAL.pdf

-----Original Message-----From: no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com [mailto:no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Kay CumbowSent: Wednesday, May 14, 2008 4:47 AMTo: no-new-nukes-yall at yahoogroups.com; NukenetSubject: [no-new-nukes-yall] The limits to nuclear: McCain shouldn’t try to follow French disaster

http://energy.probeinternational.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-economics/the-limits-nuclear-mccain-shouldn-t-try-follow-french-disasterNuclear EconomicsThe limits to nuclear: McCain shouldnt try to follow French disasterLawrence Solomon13 May 2008National PostThe U.S. doesnt have a market for the nighttime power surplus that nuclear inevitably produces. "If France can produce 80% of its electricity with nuclear power, why cant we?, asks U.S. presidential candidate John McCain. Nuclear power is a cornerstone of Senator McCains plan to combat climate change, which he is unveiling this week. McCain thinks he is asking a simple rhetorical question. As it turns out, he is not. His question is technical, with an answer that will surprise him and most Americans. Nuclear reactors cannot possibly meet 80% of Americas power needs -- or those of any country whose power market dominates its region -- because of limitations in nuclear technology. McCain needs to find another miracle energy solution, or abandon his vow to drastically cut back carbon dioxide emissions. Unlike other forms of power generation, nuclear reactors are designed to run flat-out, 24/7 -- they cant crank up their output at times of high demand or ease up when demand slows. This limitation generally consigns nuclear power to meeting a power systems minimum power needs -- the amount of power needed in the dead of night, when most industry and most people are asleep, and the value of power is low. At other times of the day and night, when power demands rise and the price of power is high, society calls on the more flexible forms of generation -- coal, gas, oil and hydro-electricity among them -- to meet its additional higher-value needs. If a country produces more nuclear power than it needs in the dead of night, it must export that low-value, off-peak power. This is what France does. It sells its nuclear surplus to its European Union neighbours, a market of 700 million people. That large market -- more than 10 times Frances population -- is able to soak up most of Frances surplus off-peak power. The U.S. is not surrounded, as is France, by far more populous neighbours. Just the opposite: The U.S. dominates the North American market. If 80% of U.S. needs were met by nuclear reactors, as Senator McCain desires, Americas off-peak surplus would have no market, even if the power were given away. Countries highly reliant on nuclear power, in effect, are in turn reliant on having large non-nuclear-reliant countries as neighbours. If Frances neighbours had power systems dominated by nuclear power, they too would be trying to export off-peak power and France would have no one to whom it could offload its surplus power. In fact, even with the mammoth EU market to tap into, France must shut down some of its reactors some weekends because no one can use its surplus. In effect, France cant even give the stuff away. Not only does France export vast quantities of its low-value power (it is the EUs biggest exporter by far), France meanwhile must import high-value peak power from its neighbours. This arrangement is so financially ruinous that France in 2006 decided to resurrect its obsolete oil-fired power stations, one of which dates back to 1968. Frances nuclear program sprung not from business needs but from foreign policy goals. Immediately after the Second World War, Frances President, Charles de Gaulle, decided to develop nuclear weapons, to make France independent of either the U.S. or the USSR. This foreign policy goal spawned a commercial nuclear industry, but a small one -- Frances nuclear plants could not compete with other forms of generation, and produced but 8% of Frances power until 1973. Then came the OPEC oil crisis and panic. Sensing that French sovereignty was at stake, the country decided to replace oil with electricity and to generate that electricity with nuclear. By 1974, three mammoth nuclear plants were begun and by 1977, another five. Without regulatory hurdles to clear and with cut-rate financing and a host of other subsidies from Euratom, the EUs nuclear subsidy agency, Frances power system was soon transformed. By 1979, Frances frenzied building program had nuclear power meeting 20% of Frances power generation. By 1983 the figure was about 50% and by 1990 about 75% and growing. Despite the subsidies, the overbuilding effectively bankrupted Electricite de France (EdF), the French power company. To dispose of its overcapacity and stay afloat, EdF feverishly exported its surplus power to its neighbours, even laying a cable under the English Channel to become a major supplier to the UK. At great expense, French homes were converted to inefficient electric home heating. And EdF offered cut-rate power to keep and attract energy-intensive industries -- Pechiney, the aluminum supplier, obtained power at half of EdFs cost of production, and soon EdF was providing similar terms to Exxon Chemicals and Allied Signal. These measures helped but not enough -- in 1989, EdF ran a loss of four billion French francs, a sum its president termed catastrophic. The company had a 800-billion-franc debt, old reactors that faced expensive decommissioning, and unresolved waste disposal costs. To keep lower-cost competitors out of the country, France also reneged on an EU-wide agreement to open borders up to electricity competition.Frances nuclear program, in short, is an economic disaster, and a political one too -- 61% of the French public favours a phase-out of nuclear energy. Is France a more secure, advanced and innovative country than we are?, McCain also asked. I need no answer to that rhetorical question. I know my country well enough to know otherwise. But McCain does not know France well enough to know why nuclear powers negative record over there says nothing positive about what it can do for people over here, on this side of the Atlantic. This article is fourth in a series:Apocalypse nowWarmed-over nukesBurning in the dark Lawrence Solomon is executive director of Energy Probe and author of The Deniers.   
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