5 Reasons Why Nuclear Energy is Even Worse than Clean Coal

President Barack Obama announced that he is giving $8.3 Billion dollars in loan guarantees to build the first U.S. nuclear power plant in almost three decades.

Washington is full of underhanded deals, and when you have a Democratic President in office with Republicans who’s standard answer to any type of new legislation is “NO”, then the will of the Democratic party must bend. Or so we are told.

According to a Reauters article, it appears that President Obama is caving to Republican demand for nuclear energy in exchange for climate legislation. But at what cost?

We’ve talked a lot about supposed “Clean Coal”, but we havent spent much time on nuclear energy. Mainly because it has been a non issue, until recently.

Here are our 5 reasons whey nuclear energy is even worse than clean coal.

Time: It takes almost 15 years to build a nuclear power plant. The last plant that was built in the U.S. started construction in 1977 and didn’t go operational until the early 1990’s.  So much for a “Bridge” to a renewable energy future.

Cost: It costs an average of $10,000,000,000.00 (10 Billion) dollars to build one plant. The 8.3 Billion that President Obama is lending out, will do just that. Build one plant.

Availability: The president and CEO of Cameco Corporation, Gerald Grandey, told reporters at a 2007 press conference that “he expects demand uranium to grow at 3 percent annually for the next decade, but doesn’t see uranium mining being able to keep pace with demand. ” Hmm. Do I hear the sound of Uranium lobbyists, traders and profiteers knocking at the door. Will uranium be traded by the barrel or the box?

Dependence: The US is 8th in the world for uranium resources. We are already dependent on the Middle East for Oil, Do we want to trade dependency from foreign oil to foreign uranium? What are we willing to give to Kazakhstan in exchange for a good flow of radioactive ore? 

Storage: Yucca Mountain Repository is where most of the radio active waste is to be stored in the US.  It turns out that the Yucca Mountain repository would cost $96.2 billion (in 2007 dollars), with 80%t of that cost falling on the ratepayers. (The people paying the Nuke power utility bills) Now, President Obama says he may scrap the depository as too expensive. But what does that mean? The lowest bidder gets to store it all?

Bonus Bad Reason:

Safety: Radioactive tritium, a carcinogen discovered in potentially dangerous levels in groundwater at the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant, now taints at least 27 of the nation’s 104 nuclear reactors.

We all know that there is no such thing as Clean Coal, and that Clean Coal is a technology and process of sequestering CO2 underground. Clean Coal is not a product. (Regardless of what Big Coal would like us to think) It would also take about 30% more coal to power the clean coal process. This means 30% more strip mining, mountain top removal, mercury in our streams, black lung disease, and on and on.

You tell me, which is worse… Coal or Uranium?

photo credit: Bistrosavage

Related posts:

1. President Obama on the Clean Energy and Security Act (Video)
2. Clean Coal Makes For Dirty Politics
3. Poll Suggests that 71 Percent of Americans Want a Clean Energy Bill