Coal and nuclear power provide the vast majority of our electricity. Coal brings environmental and health hazards with it every step of the way, from mine to smoke stack. Nuclear energy, with all of its benefits, comes with its own risks (as ill-perceived as they may be). So which is the least bad solution? Seed magazine asked a panel of experts and came up with this interesting quorum. [%comments]
Lesser of Two Evils?
TAGS: nuclear energy
and 
. You can also watch it on 
Per Gary (#1), I agree that Sovacool’s focus on demand-side management to improve efficicient use of energy as the most cost-effective approach is not given enough attention.
@ paulwesterberg (#5): Two choices seem to be what humans are most comfortable with. We divide the problems in our world into black and white, mutually exclusive options, where the “truth” is somewhere between the two extreme positions.
@ Logan’s (#6) point 2: Nuclear power plants are remarkably expensive for two main reasons: (1) they were designed to use isotopes produced as byproducts of nuclear weapon fissile material manufacturing, and (2) due to public ignorance and paranoia surrounding radioactivity, they were built to be operated with zero measurable risk of radiation exposure to the surrounding population.
Designing a nuclear power plant for zero risk of radiation exposure is at least an order of magnitude more expensive than designing the same plant to be no more of a health hazard to the surrounding public than the sun or something considerably less dangerous, a coal-fired power plant.
But people are just more frightened of radiation than of asthma, lung cancer, and global warming.
As is typical when energy is discussed, none of the experts appears to have ever worked in the private sector producing power on an industrial scale. As a longtime worker in nuclear power, I can tell you it’s different than book-learnin’, research, and the occasional plant tour. Few in the public or among the chattering classes have any sense of how its really done. I think we’ll make better decisions about our energy future if we first genuinely understand our energy present.
{{ If you’d care for an insider’s picture of nuclear power, my novel “Rad Decision” will show you the good and bad, and it is available free online – with no adverts or sponsors – at http://RadDecision.blogspot.com . There’s a paperback too. (I get no $$ from any of it.) }}
Radiation is not something you can avoid by burning coal. In fact there is far more radioactivity released into the environment from coal and its fly ash than any properly-functioning nuclear plant.
Cinderblock made from fly ash is the most radioactive thing you can build your house with. (Granite countertops can excite a radiation detector, too.) See:
http://pubs.usgs.gov/fs/1997/fs163-97/FS-163-97.html
It is revealing that the only two “experts” they could find in favor of coal are researchers whose jobs depend on the continued preeminence of the coal industry. All the others think coal plants are dangerous, toxic, deadly – regardless whether they are for or against nuclear power as well…
Nuclear, all the way. If clean coal were proven and didn’t kill so many people (all coal is dangerous), then maybe. But think of it this way – Utilizing the nucleous of the atom is always going to be more efficient than trying to squeeze all the potential energy out of the electrons. Electrons are the fuel of wind, solar, hyrdo. etc.
We are taking huge risks by NOT using more nuclear. Its really sad when coal which is far more dangerous is more prevalent than nuclear.
Its strange: Roughly 100 nuclear reactors power 20% of this country. Extrapolating that, we could be nearly emission free if we built 400 nuclear power plants. At ~ $5 billion per power plant that is only $ 2 trillion dollars. Not bad to be nearly emission free…solves a hell of a lot of problems.
I am in favor of removing the perks for the energy plants. wind, which produces cheaper energy than either coal or nuclear costs consumers more because of some of the kickbacks other energy types get. That said rather than flattening Appalatchia for coal, we could put 30% effiecent wind plants there and produce more, cheaper energy than the coal gained from mountain removal.
http://peswiki.com/index.php/Directory:Cents_Per_Kilowatt-Hour
I’ll vote for nuclear power beacuse its cleaner. But only issue is with the intention of hands that are using it.
If cautiously used it can prove far better….
I’d really like to see people speaking about this issue stop misleading the public and obfuscating the issues.
1. Bio-ethanol/bio mass is a red herring, it won’t ever be practical because it has a huge food production opportunity cost. Not to mention corn ethanol actually release MORE carbon into the environment than equivalent quantities of petroleum. The only bio-mass fuel that is AT ALL practical is if we can breed a strain of algae to produce bio fuel, using corn for bio-fuel is a stupid idea when parts of the world are starving.
2. Stop talking about how photo voltaic sucks, yes we know it sucks, it’s an undeveloped technology that has very poor efficiency right now, but it’s getting better and more efficient every year. Lets talk about the REAL power maker with regards to solar: SOLAR-THERMAL power plants which are field ready now and produce power with much less land use than photo-voltaic cells do.
3. Clean coal is also a red herring, it will never be practical because it poisons the soil and ground water if you actually succeed at sequestering coal. It’s just more industry propaganda to try and hold onto their stranglehold on power through fossil fuel scarcity.
4. The type of nuclear reactors that produce weaponized nuclear material are different from the type typically employed in civilian power production. It is possible to produce nuclear fission power without also producing weaponized/enriched uranium. Also most of the threat to nuclear power plants from a terrorist attack is overstated, even if you blow up the plant in most cases the reactor immediately shuts down by dropping the control rods into the reactor core via gravity (it releases them and they fall into the core shutting the reaction down).
The best approach to power generation is, as others have already stated, a blended approach based on local conditions and advantages. Solar thermal for desert regions, nuclear for cold, northern regions with ample water supply, wind for the plains states, wave turbine for coastal regions, etc…