Telegraph-Journal : Love-hate electricity

Love-hate electricity

Published Monday May 2nd, 2011

Among people who consider themselves environmentalists, and perhaps among all New Brunswickers, few issues are hotter than nuclear power. To some, it is clean energy for the future. To others, it is a lethal example of that great human weakness: choosing short-term gain even if it means long term pain.

Nuclear power generates about 15 per cent of the world's electricity. Here's a quick look at the pros and cons.

The good

Nuclear plants generate electricity without carbon dioxide emissions, and a lot of power can be generated from a relatively small amount of uranium. For all the electricity it produced, Point Lepreau used only 15 cubic meters of uranium fuel a year.

The bad

Nuclear power plants produce radioactive wastes, which must be managed carefully for very long periods of time.

The most toxic is used uranium fuel. It is very radioactive and must be managed and stored carefully for a very long time, for both safety and security reasons. That might sound simple, but it's not. In fact, billions of dollars have been spent in Canada and the United States on research over the past few decades, but no permanent storage solution has yet been found. Waste is therefore typically stored on-site at the plant where it was produced.

Point Lepreau is no exception: all the waste produced since the plant opened in 1983 is still stored on site. It will continue to require secure storage for a long time, because some of its components remain toxic for an extremely long time. For example, Plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years. (A half-life is the time required for radiation levels to drop by 50 per cent, and several half-lives must pass before radiation reaches safe levels.) To put that in context, the Great Pyramid of Giza is only 4,500 years old.

Other waste includes things contaminated in the course of a plant's operations, plus components of the power plant itself when it reaches the end of its useful life. In the present refit of Point Lepreau, many of the reactor components being replaced are themselves radioactive and must be handled and stored as waste.

Even though nuclear power plants do not produce CO2 while generating electricity, they do still have a significant carbon footprint in three areas: 1) the mining and enrichment of uranium; 2) the construction, operation, maintenance and dismantling of power plants; and 3) the long-term management of nuclear waste.

The ugly

Nuclear power is widely regarded as safe, but the radiation that continues to spew daily out of the Fukushima nuclear power plant in Japan is a blunt reminder of the potential for serious consequences when things go wrong. It's hard to imagine that two months ago most of us had never heard of Fukushima.

As well, nuclear power plants are extremely expensive to build, decommission and refit, as New Brunswickers know all too well. Finally, the equipment and process used to prepare uranium fuel can also be used to produce fuel for nuclear weapons.

The pinch

In view of the above, many people wonder why nuclear power is even under consideration as a future energy option. In a warming world where fossil fuels need to be eliminated as quickly as possible, nuclear power may be needed as a bridge source of electricity, helping keep the lights on while we transition as quickly as possible to renewable energy such as wind, solar, hydro and tidal. You could argue it's a deal with the devil.

What to do

The solution starts with using less power. We need to continue investing heavily in energy efficiency. Then we need to focus on prioritizing our precious electricity for critical functions such as refrigeration, electronics and lighting, and getting our heat and hot water from non-electrical sources. Finally, we need to invest in renewable energy sources as quickly and aggressively as possible.

The sooner we do, the sooner we can turn off nuclear power for good.