Tonya Bonitatibus can't help but wonder how two new reactors at Plant Vogtle might affect the Savannah River.
"It's not necessarily nuclear energy we're opposed to," said Mrs. Bonitatibus, who heads the Savannah Riverkeeper environmental group. "The thing we take issue with is the mass consumption of water."
From her office in Augusta, she can watch the river and its perpetual flow of dark water moving downstream to the coast.
It's not as abundant as it seems, she said.
"The more you use or take out, the more you are taking risks," she said.
Vogtle's existing reactors withdraw an average of 64 million gallons per day, and two additional units will raise that total to 117.6 million gallons a day -- or about 1.5 percent of the river's average flow. It would be a higher percentage of the flow during drought, she said.
"Atlanta is needing more water, and the lakes upstream are wanting more water," she said. "It is an industrial river, so the more that comes out, the less is there for waste dilution. You're raising the risks of pollution."
From an environmentalist's standpoint, Mrs. Bonitatibus believes nuclear power is better than a coal-fired power plant, with its array of pollution and climate change issues. She also wonders, however, whether the billions to be invested in the Vogtle project could be better spent elsewhere.
"If you look at the vast investment going into this plant, it would be well worth looking at how much alternative energy you could get with that investment," she said. "Cost is still an issue. Maybe we should look at investing these into alternative energy."
When the last commercial nuclear plants opened more than two decades ago, climate change had not yet become a major public issue. Today, nuclear power proponents say such projects are among the best ways to avoid using more fossil fuels, such as coal and gas.
Such arguments, however, don't necessarily validate nuclear power, said Sara Barczak, the program director for the environmental group Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.
"There is a huge difference between 20 or 30 years ago and today," she said. "But the nuclear industry is like its waste: it refuses to go away."
Despite advances in technology that have made nuclear power more attractive again, many people have forgotten the huge cost overruns at plants built in the 1970s and '80s.
"What most people remember is huge rate increases," she said. "And in between you had Three Mile Island and Chernobyl."
Anti-nuclear sentiment, she acknowledged, isn't as fervent as it once was, in part because of issues such as climate change and a battle some environmentalists have deemed more urgent: the elimination of coal-fired power plants.
"What I've seen in my interaction with the environmental community is that most people aren't attacking nuclear power because nothing's been going on for a long time," she said. "Most groups are working on climate change, and like our organization, obviously stopping any major new coal plant is a top priority."
Neill Herring, a veteran environmental lobbyist who also represents the Sierra Club, said the argument that nuclear power offsets the sins of coal misstates the situation.
"The pro-nuke folks are all giddy about the low carbon emissions at the plants, but the fact that similar carbon reductions can be had for a fraction of the cost of the nuke potential offsets, and in forms that are not merely potential, but real, gets no attention," he said. "Mere efficiency can whack carbon much harder than a new nuke fleet, and at a savings to power customers, instead of at additional cost. That is what needs to be pursued to exhaustion before plunging into any more base-load nuke investment."
Ed Lyman, a senior staff scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, said there is still one major issue with nuclear power that cannot be overlooked.
"The major nuclear safety issue is still the risk of a serious nuclear accident," Dr. Lyman said. "When a number of things go wrong at once, it can lead into a Chernobyl-type accident, and you also have to ask what is the vulnerability of a terrorist act."
Although the likelihood of such a scenario remains low, the stakes will always be very high, he said.
"The potential consequences of those types of events are so severe that if we saw something like that on U.S. soil, most likely we'd see a massive public outcry that could dwarf the consequences of 9-11," Dr. Lyman said.
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Lyman has been beating his drum for years, but the fact is that we have inadvertently conducted the experiments to show just how bad a nuclear accident can be - if it ever happens. At TMI, most of the core melted after it had been starved of cooling by incompletely trained operators responding to poorly designed indication and warning systems. Despite all warnings to the contrary by "safety experts" like Lyman, the melted core material solidified as soon as it hit the bottom of the pressure vessel and only penetrated a fraction of an inch into that first of many barriers. We have done the analysis - bad things can happen to an LWR and break the plant, but the public will remain safe. The consequences are known and manageable.
At Chernobyl, a plant with less redundancy, operators turned off all safety systems and conducted an unauthorized experiment under the direction of a communist party official who ordered the operators to continue with the experiment even when the plant provided indications that there was a problem brewing. The eventual result was that there was a steam explosion and fire that released most of the core. The WHO tells us that the death toll was less than 50.
As an atomic advocate, I am not just giddy about the ability of fission to produce reliable power without any CO2. I am giddy about its ability to produce reliable, affordable power that takes market share away from coal, oil and gas. I am giddy about the fact that there is enough fuel to last for millennia. I am giddy about the fact that major portions of the fuel comes from the US, Canada, Australia. I am giddy about the fact that the US has more than a million tons of useful fuel already mined while the entire world only uses about 600 tons per year. (People who question those numbers need to understand that U-235 is the only isotope used today, but U-238 is also a good fuel in the right kind of reactor while Th-232 is also an option.) What really makes me giddy is the fact that atomic fission is largely dependent upon the efforts of legions of well paid, well trained workers instead of being like coal, oil and gas where a very tiny slice of humanity controls most of the energy generated wealth.
Rod Adams - You're certainly giddy about nuclear power and you probably have a vested interest too. But Wall Street doesn't seem to share your euphoria. Your business is just too risky for their blood and they're known to be big time gamblers too! So the utility has to resort to shaking down their customers up front and seek loan guarantees from the government. If nuclear is such a good deal - why don't investors see it and jump on the band wagon?
I most definitely have a vested interest in nuclear energy and in the success of developments like Vogtle. I have invested a significant portion of my savings and my professional education in the technology.
That said, I have determined that one of the main reasons that energy investors have not fully joined my euphoria - yet - is that they like making money on their coal, oil and gas investments. Since energy is a commodity, any major increase in supply will drive down the prices and value of competing products. Fission is extremely competitive with fossil fuels and reduces demand for them. No commodity investor likes selling less of his product at a lower price than he did last year or the year before that.
Rod Adams, Publisher, Atomic Insights, Host and producer, the Atomic Show Podcast. (Former Engineer Officer for a US Navy submarine.)
Tonya Bonitatibus, turn off your electricity. Sit in the dark. Don't heat your house, dry your hair, use hot water, watch tv, use a computer or a refrigerator. The population is growing. How do you propose to meet the population's needs? And Gas, as usual, you are misinformed. Nuclear reactors take so terribly long to build and are so expensive that no utility company has the credit or cash to sustain construction. Do you pay as you go, or do you wind up paying billions in interest later on? What is cheaper in the long run for customers?
corgimom - You are right about one thing. Nuclear power plants take a long time to build, plagued with delays and cost overruns, and have their share of mismanagement too. In short they're am expensive commodity per square inch and nothing in the cosmos produces waste as terrible as they do. They're also a Pandora's Box and nuclear proponents want the public to believe they're smart enough to keep the box closed. Nuclear submarines sink, high tech airplanes and space shuttles fall from the sky - but trust us folk, we can keep this nuclear horror contained.
Gas, turn off your electricity too. What are your ideas for generating electricity? I'm waiting to read it. You have no problem consuming it but where would you like it to come from?
corgimom GAs can't give you an intelligent debate on the subject. He only serves to stir hysteria ah la chicken little! All of the US nuclear submarines have been retired from service, not "Sunk". Gas seems to live in his own Pandora's Box of using the very thing he comdemns. Can you say Hypocrite?
corgimom - I would prefer it come from clean renewable sources rather than coal or nuclear. But Georgia Power ( G P ) has a dismal performance in renewables. I believe I've read where GP is one of the worst coal burning and greenhouse gas emitters in the nation. I'm reminded that John F Kennedy launched a great effort to put a man on the moon and we need a similar effort to develop clean renewables. Americans are hopeless when it comes to solving people problems like abortion but we're really good at solving technical problems. We understand nuts and bolts! As California goes, so goes the nation and California has committed itself to providing 33 % of its electricity from renewables by 2020. Renewables are the long term future and not nuclear and its manufactured waste. But I do realize some nuclear generation will be needed to provide for the utility's base load and I believe Georgia already has two nuclear facilities in operation.
ColdBeerBoiledPeanuts - Thank you for responding but I never said all nuclear submarines were sunk. Those are your words. But I can recall two nuclear subs sunk without having to Google the subject. You also said all nuclear submarines have been retired from service but I'm not so sure about that. An easy Google will show that the USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) was christened by Rosalyn Carter on 5 June 2004 and the vessel received the Battle Efficiency Award on 17 January 2008. So it certainly sound like the Jimmy Carter is still in service and not retired. Of course you know its a nuke. But I am aware of some nuke submarines being retired and the Navy has a problem because there's no place to stash their contaminated parts. So I'd guess the Navy is holding the old crap like Georgia Power is holding their waste crap.
Like wind turbines, that nobody wants around them. They generate a horrific amount of noise and vibration and makes the surrounding land unusable. As for ocean energy, take a look at the California coastline and take a look at Georgia's. And salt water is extremely corrosive and has terrible maintenance costs. Solar energy sounds great but just isn't practical for long-term use, because it doesn't work on rainy and cloudy days, and it doesn't generate enough electricity in the winter months to meet the high demands. Everyone would like to see clean renewable sources, but it's not as simple as it seems. The 33% standard is a target and isn't doable, No money was allocated for it, and any time you try to do anything in California you run into existing laws dealing with the land and oceanfront property and environmental laws. If it were doable, it would be done by now. There is no form of generating energy that doesn't create other problems. The problem with using nature is that it's unpredictable and constantly changes.
corgimom - I'll have to disagree with you in parts. 33 % is doable or near so for California. Wind has less potential in Georgia but not out of the question for the coast and off shore. Advances are fast moving for solar and even in the news recently, Australia is bragging and excited about a new method to produce crystals useful in solar collection. The state of Georgia has thousands of miles of highways and right of ways for mounting solar collectors. Even an upper deck frame can be placed above the interstate highways and potentially hold hundreds of miles of solar collectors. Georgia has 380 square miles of lake surface in the states' six reservoirs currently used for power generation. It an't rocket science to drive pilings down and build a frame above the lake's surface. How may hundred square miles of solar collectors could you mount above the lake's surface. Use the sunlight above and the water below to generate electricity. Continued in next post
corgimom - Storing daylight electricity ain't rocket science either. Build a sea reservoir on the coast. Pump sea water into the reservoir while the sun shines and release the water through turbines to generate electricity at night or on days the sun don't shine. The turbines are reversible and hydro electric dams have always worked this way. To recap - we have a lot of potential in Georgia but there's no WILL as long as GP can fatten their bottom line with more nukes and keep their dirty coal burners running.