by CKR
John McCain wants to build 45 nuclear plants by 2030. Barack Obama says nuclear is worth considering. Even James Lovelock, associated with the Gaia hypothesis that says the earth is one big living organism, says we need nuclear power.
Public perception of nuclear power has been unfavorable since some time after I got inspired by the idea of power too cheap to meter. Three Mile Island and Chernobyl had something to do with that, but anything that is associated with mushroom clouds and an element named for the god of the underworld via the outermost planet is going to face an uphill battle.
Several people have been urging me to write something in response to McCain’s proposal. The more I’ve thought about what to write, the more it has all seemed one big ball of wax, with strings and fuel rods embedded. So I can pull at whatever string or fuel rod and see what comes out.
Jane Harman provides a place to start (thanks, J.!). The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty is obsolete. That’s a lousy place to start, actually, but let’s consider that an editor at the Wall Street Journal provided that headline, which is consistent with the rightwing allergy to treaties, and move on to what Harman actually says.
The NPT guarantees the nuclear fuel cycle to its signatories, which are all the countries of the world but four, and those four developed the nuclear fuel cycle anyway. Having the nuclear fuel cycle allows a country to build nuclear weapons with the addition of only a few bells and whistles.
So we need to internationalize the fuel cycle, with heavy safeguards by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
A more promising approach might be to create an international consortium of fuel centers that provide enrichment and reprocessing of nuclear fuel, and end-to-end oversight of nuclear resources. Driven by market demand, private companies could operate facilities with IAEA oversight, and participating states would agree not to engage in independent enriching and reprocessing. Material would be purchased from the international market, thereby creating supply assurance for nations who fear being denied fuel.I can quibble with Harman’s exact wording, but overall she’s got it right.
A private company is building a uranium enrichment facility in Eunice, New Mexico. This could be a place to start internationalizing the fuel cycle. We’ve got to do more than just talk about it. Another private facility in one country, supplying that country’s needs alone, is business as usual. And if we’re serious about both proliferation and increasing energy sources, we’ve got to start now.
McCain, of course, is for business as usual. Harman doesn’t mention Eunice or Mohamed ElBaradei’s call for internationalizing the fuel cycle, which came before President Bush’s call for the GNEP, which she mentions and gets wrong. What is wrong with GNEP is not that Bush is “as a research and development initiative,” but rather that he put this US-centric initiative out as a competitor to ElBaradei’s initiative. And, yes, all us Amurricans know that our country is totally reliable and fair, but others might just have a different viewpoint.
That’s just one point relating to McCain’s 45 nuclear plants by 2030. Other questions abound. What about the waste? (I do think that Yucca Mountain is the answer to that one, but it’s the first question others come up with.) What about reactor safety? Is uranium available for fuel? Could a company break ground by 2030 if they applied today, given the permitting process? Will anyone want a reactor in their neighborhood? Does the construction capacity exist, or can it be developed, to build these plants?
And you can probably think of others. To be continued.