Up and atom: The comeback of nuclear power

It's climate-friendly and creates jobs, but as the U.S. reconsiders atom smashing, old worries about nuclear waste, meltdowns and price tags persist.

By Russell McLendonWed, Feb 17 2010 at 10:30 AM EST 23 Comments

The United States is on the brink of a nuclear revival, fueled by fear of climate change, demand for electricity and distrust of renewable power. Combined with a festering recession, these modern woes are suddenly drowning out many of the older worries — such as meltdowns and radioactive waste — that plagued nuclear power's past.

After a nearly 30-year lull in building new nuclear reactors, due largely to the 1979 Three Mile Island accident, U.S. energy companies have applied to build more than two dozen in the last three years, and some advocates are calling for much more. President Obama touted the benefits of nuclear power during last month's State of the Union address, and in his 2011 federal budget, he proposed tripling government loan guarantees for new nuclear projects, raising the total to more than $54 billion.

This nuclear boom has been coming for several years, but as the urgency of climate change grows and Congress struggles to cut CO2 emissions, nuclear power has never been hotter. A record-high 59 percent of Americans now support it, according to a 2009 Gallup poll, and a survey by consulting giant Accenture found more than two-thirds of people worldwide want their countries to invest in it more heavily.

This is a far cry from the 1980s and '90s, when Three Mile Island, the Chernobyl disaster and the specter of radioactive waste scared many away from nuclear power. That's not to say those issues are resolved — nuclear energy still presents some serious environmental dangers, and unlike wind and solar power, it's not cheap or renewable. But with climate change encroaching, and logistical and political hurdles hobbling renewable energy, those well-worn concerns are increasingly taking a back seat to more immediate ones. As the United States prepares to boost its standing as the world's No. 1 producer of nuclear power, here's a look at some positives and negatives of splitting atoms for electricity.

How nuclear power works

The nucleus of an atom is held together with a huge amount of energy, which scientists gradually learned how to release during the early 20th century. There are two ways to do this: fusing atoms together (nuclear fusion) or blasting them apart (nuclear fission). Nuclear fusion is how the sun and other stars make energy, and offers an almost limitless power source — assuming you can make it work. Humans have yet to master nuclear fusion, but the United States and other countries have invested millions in researching it.

Nuclear fission, on the other hand, was mastered nearly 70 years ago by scientists working on the atomic bomb. The group included some of the 20th century's most famous minds — including Albert Einstein, Enrico Fermi and J. Robert Oppenheimer — who produced a world-changing weapon that also found a more peaceful postwar purpose: making electricity.

The trick to nuclear fission is firing a neutron at the right kind of atom at the right speed, hopefully blasting it to pieces, and having enough similar atoms around to catch the shrapnel and start a chain reaction. The exploding atom — usually a heavy, radioactive metal like uranium or plutonium — releases two smaller atoms called "fission fragments," two or three extra neutrons, and about 200 million electron volts of energy (by comparison, the heat energy at room temperature is 0.04 electron volts). If there are enough other uranium or plutonium atoms nearby, those freed neutrons can fly out and split them, too, potentially starting a chain reaction. (Check out the video above to see a 3-D animation of how this happens.)

Most nuclear plants use either boiling-water or pressurized-water reactors, both of which rely on splitting uranium atoms to heat up water, which spins a turbine that generates electricity. To keep up that fission, though, newly mined uranium ore must first undergo a major transformation — only a certain variant of uranium known as U-235 can sustain nuclear fission, and it makes up less than 1 percent of all uranium on Earth. The less useful U-238 accounts for about 99 percent, so to make nuclear fuel, enrichment plants must process the ore to increase its concentration of U-235 atoms. They do this by vaporizing the natural uranium and blasting it through porous membranes that separate the U-235 from the U-238, a technique called "gaseous diffusion." The gases can then be remixed and solidified, with U-235 making up 3 to 5 percent of the final material, a small metal pellet.

These enriched uranium pellets are no bigger than a person's fingertip, but each one produces as much energy as 150 gallons of oil. To coax out their energy, they're stacked end-to-end in 12-foot metal fuel rods, bundled together in large fuel assemblies, and submerged in water or some other coolant in the reactor's core. The coolant then absorbs heat from the uranium as its atoms are split, and converts that heat energy into electricity by spinning a turbine.

The bright side of nuclear power

Two of the most often cited benefits of nuclear power are that it emits almost no greenhouse gases or other air pollution (that's just steam coming out of cooling towers), and that it produces electricity much more reliably than renewable sources like wind or sunlight, whose output depends on the weather. U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have been rising alongside electricity demand for decades, and although that growth has slowed lately due to improved efficiency as well as the financial crisis — the country's carbon dioxide emissions are forecast to rise 9 percent over the next 25 years, while energy use rises 14 percent — Americans' interest in nuclear power has nonetheless been quickly rekindled.

Many Republicans in Congress favor expanding the U.S. nuclear industry, and President Obama has increasingly used that to attract more GOP support for a bill aimed at reducing CO2 emissions. During his State of the Union speech in January, Obama mentioned "building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country," before urging the Senate to pass a "comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America." Less than a week later, he unveiled his 2011 federal budget, which slashes subsidies for fossil-fuel companies and triples loan guarantees for building new nuclear reactors, raising the total available from $18 billion to $54.5 billion. And on Feb. 16, he announced the first $8.3 billion in loan guarantees, awarding it to a plant in Georgia that's adding two new reactors.

Aside from their smaller carbon footprint, nuclear power plants offer consistent "base-load energy," meaning they're less fickle than wind- and solar-power plants. A cloudy day can render solar panels powerless, and wind turbines are only as powerful as the wind gusts that spin their blades. Nuclear reactors, on the other hand, leave much less up to chance — as long as they have a steady supply of water and enriched uranium, they can keep churning out electricity regardless of the weather.

That electricity is not only reliable, it's also more potent than the energy produced by most other fuels. Nuclear reactors are notoriously expensive to build, but pound-for-pound, the fuel itself is actually cheaper than fossil sources — nuclear fuel costs about 0.5 cents per kilowatt hour, while fossil fuels cost roughly 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. One ton of natural uranium can produce more than 40 million kilowatt hours of electricity, equivalent to burning 16,000 tons of coal or 80,000 barrels of oil.

Uranium mining can also offer some environmental benefits over fossil-fuel development, at least in the form of "in-situ leach mining," which involves pumping a slightly caustic solution into a uranium deposit, letting it dissolve the uranium, and then pumping the "pregnant" solution back to the surface. This is less invasive and releases fewer toxins than open-pit mining, and has become the preferred method for mining uranium in the United States. But while uranium is plentiful around the world, it's not a renewable resource, and many critics point out the United States imports 86 percent of its uranium — mainly from Australia, Canada, Russia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan — meaning nuclear power isn't an entirely domestic energy source.

The dark side of nuclear power

Nuclear reactors may not pollute the atmosphere, but they do have their own unfortunate byproduct: radioactive waste. Low-level nuclear waste can include clothing, shoe covers, wiping rags, mops and any other materials that have been contaminated by radiation, while high-level waste mainly refers to the enriched uranium itself after it's been used, known as "spent nuclear fuel." Low-level waste can often be safely stored until the radiation fades and the items are thrown away. High-level waste, on the other hand, presents a much larger problem.

All radioactive materials have a "half-life," or a certain time until half their atoms decay. The half-life of uranium-235 is about 704 million years, but spent nuclear fuel doesn't last quite as long; different elements in it can stay radioactive anywhere from a few minutes to a few millennia. Small fission fragments emit most of the short-term radiation — the half-lives of cesium-137 and strontium-90, for example, are about 30 years — but heavier elements take much longer to decay — plutonium-239 has a half-life of 24,000 years, and neptunium-237's is 2.1 million.

Ten years after being removed from a reactor, spent nuclear fuel emits more than 10,000 rem (a measure of radiation exposure) per hour, whereas 550 rem at once can kill an adult. Even low doses may cause problems over time, especially if the radiation hits a stream, river, lake or aquifer. Yet aside from reprocessing, about the only thing to do with nuclear waste is hide it somewhere that won't leak. After years with no national plan, U.S. lawmakers opted for underground storage with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, selecting Nevada's Yucca Mountain for its geology and dry climate. The Department of Energy agreed to pay utilities to hold their waste until the site opened.

Yucca Mountain still hasn't opened, however, due at least partly to opposition from Nevada elected officials, and U.S. power plants are still holding their spent fuel. The Obama administration has now essentially killed the Yucca Mountain repository by removing it from the federal budget, and Energy Secretary Steven Chu has already begun looking into other burial sites and disposal methods, namely reprocessing — possibly even at a proposed Yucca Mountain facility.

France is still the only country that reprocesses its own radioactive waste (although Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Japan have all sent waste to France at some point for reprocessing), largely because it's also the planet's most nuclear-powered nation. Nearly 80 percent of France's electricity comes from its 59 fission reactors, which then transport their nuclear waste hundreds of miles across the French countryside to reprocessing facilities (pictured at right).

That need for transportation is one of the main reasons why reprocessing has been slow to catch on outside France. Moving and storing spent or reprocessed fuel requires a high degree of security, since plutonium and other radioactive elements could be used by terrorists to make a so-called "dirty bomb." Still, the allure of recyclable nuclear power and high-tech jobs has drawn the interest of several U.S companies and lawmakers, and the French utility Areva reportedly has designs on helping create an American reprocessing market.

The greatest threat to U.S nuclear power may not be waste disposal or even terrorism, though — along with fears of another Three Mile Island, a major reason the industry stopped growing in the '80s and '90s was its reputation for cost overruns. Power plants were taking longer and costing more to build than originally projected, and often struggled to wean themselves off federal aid. Energy utilities say they've streamlined and cut costs, but economic forces have also been conspiring against them lately. The credit crisis and high costs for materials and labor have burdened some of the early reactors being built this century, with one Florida plant's cost already doubling past its original $7 billion estimate.

Out with the old, in with the nuclear

In 1957, the Shippingport Atomic Power Station near Pittsburgh became "the world's first full-scale atomic electric power plant devoted exclusively to peacetime uses," according to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The industry grew gradually during the '60s, then took off after the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo, which inspired U.S. utilities to order a record 41 new nuclear power plants in a single year.

Today there are 66 nuclear plants around the country, with 104 individual reactors that supply nearly 20 percent of U.S. electricity. If all the proposed projects are approved, the U.S. reactor fleet would grow by 25 percent, possibly letting the country cut back on coal without worrying about gaps in production. That may raise energy prices and displace demand for renewable power — not to mention worsening the problem of nuclear waste — but it could also create jobs in poor parts of the country, proponents often point out. As President Obama said in his State of the Union address, "the nation that leads the clean-energy economy will be the nation that leads the global economy, and America must be that nation."

Energy Secretary Chu has taken some heat for his pace in awarding the existing $18 billion in nuclear loan guarantees, but while the Energy Department hasn't set a timetable for announcing which proposed projects will be given loans, many see Obama's Feb. 16 announcement of $8.3 billion for two reactors near Burke, Ga., as a sign the wheels are in motion. And with that $54 billion in loan guarantees now on the table — as well as nuclear power's emerging role as a bargaining chip in climate talks — old worries about nuclear waste, high prices and meltdowns have largely melted away. Whether the problems have too, however, remains to be seen.

For updates on proposed nuclear reactors, visit the Energy Information Administration and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission websites. And for more about nuclear power, check out these links on MNN:

Editor's Note: This article has been updated from its original version, which first appeared on Feb. 10, 2010.

Image credits

Nuclear plant during daylight: U.S. Department of Energy

Cooling towers and moon: David Wasserman/Jupiter Images

Nuclear reprocessing plant: Steve Allen/Jupiter Images

Construction workers at a nuclear site in China's Zhejiang Province: ZUMA Press

MNN homepage photo: ba4hire/iStockphoto

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Meltdowns are for M&Ms in your pocket

Posted By SSN guy - Tue, Aug 10 2010 at 3:29 PM EST

You use the term 'meltdown' as though it were some sort of real, unavoidable phenomenon of nuclear power. It isn't even a recognized term by the U.S. NRC or the International Atomic Energy Agency, so you might want to come up with a better (actual) descriptor of what you're trying to talk about, and add to the discussion by way of getting real when it comes to modern nuclear technology and the literal inability of some designs to suffer from a severe nuclear accident/"meltdown."

While.... More

map inaccuracy

Posted By Jack Vermicelli - Fri, May 28 2010 at 8:03 PM EST

Your map is wrong. The Fermi power plant is in Newport, Michigan (near Monroe, MI), not Toledo Ohio.

clean?

Posted By Gabriel - Mon, May 17 2010 at 8:45 AM EST

http://www.physorg.com/news192527592.html

Fusion is Good but its not REAL

Posted By Erik Shoes - Thu, Mar 11 2010 at 3:54 AM EST

In response to above comment...

Hey, Fusion is great! I'm would be all for it!

But it's not real, not yet. It is still a work in progress and the non-lethality of it have yet to be proven.

If Obama really wants to do something beneficial he should put more money into Fusion Research in the hopes that someday they will figure out how to actually do it for real. But last I heard we are still years away from a working system.

Meanwhile, the other kind of nuclear.... More

idiot

Posted By Shane - Sat, Apr 03 2010 at 1:18 PM EST

you are an idiot, sir.

Fraud Economics - Taxes Pay for Huge Cost of Waste

Posted By Erik Shoes - Thu, Mar 11 2010 at 3:39 AM EST

You heard the man, the US Government - meaning tax debt money is paying for the cost of waste disposal. Therefore the cost of waste disposal is not and never has been included in these supposed estimates of "energy too cheap to meter". We are being sold a bill of goods and it is a suicidal bill.

I don't know about the author's numbers saying the half-life is only in the millions of years. Most discussions I've read say that it is billions of years.

And I have read estimates that put.... More

4th Federal district NYState US Congress

Posted By Sir Daniel Tobin - Fri, Feb 19 2010 at 1:00 PM EST

Hello: I am intrigued by nuclear power being "green", but am concerned with the waste disposal. I am the Nassau County Executive Committee Chairman of The Constitution Party and a candidate for the Congress this year, and I would like contributions and advice on these matters, especially if I win and have a say in a nuclear power plant in the district I plan to represent. I promise not to use contributions for personal purposes just political ones in accordance with applicable FEC Laws. My.... More

No radioactive wastes.

Posted By Johnson - Sun, Feb 14 2010 at 8:48 AM EST

There is no need of radioactive toxic wastes for production of electric power, the aneutronic reactor can produce a huge amount of electricity without tritium and neutron emission.

Nuclear Lobbyists Quick Response Team

Posted By TD - Fri, Feb 12 2010 at 11:52 AM EST

Note that the first few respondents to this MNN article were in-depth and pro-nuclear. Please be aware that teams of nuclear lobbyists are paid to respond to articles like these. General Electric one of the world's largest companies, is also one of the biggest builders of nuclear facilities and these companies have plenty of money to spend on lobbying.
The economics of nukes is not so good. When California built Diablo Canyon plant it artificially raised the state's electric bill for.... More

I could get paid for this?

Posted By Nukemann - Fri, Feb 12 2010 at 4:39 PM EST

I hope I was one of the first respondents you were refering to, thank you. I'm glad you think it was in depth! I am not on a team of lobbyists paid to respond- please let me know where I can go to join one of these teams, I can use the money!

What Lovely Fear Mongering

Posted By Carletes - Fri, Feb 12 2010 at 3:18 PM EST

Who are we to believe that you aren't paid to say that? Don't answer, because frankly it doesn't matter.

The truth of one's statements stand alone whether or not they are paid to say them.

It is the truth that Civilian Nuclear Power is by far the safest form of large scale electrical generation ever created. It is reliable and emission free. The only decent argument against it is mere economics which is a barrier that capitalism tends to overcome.

Nuclear Waste

Posted By Anonymous - Thu, Feb 11 2010 at 12:48 PM EST

How is something that produces waste so toxic there's no place to safely dispose of it get called "clean"?

Incomplete

Posted By Anonymous - Thu, Feb 11 2010 at 10:37 AM EST

We always here about 'how' nuclear power works and the benifits and problems, but we never hear about the future of nuclear power either. Almost all articles completely ignore the work that is going on for gen IV reactors and alternate nuclear fuels such as thorium (v.s uranium and plutonium) a much more plentiful and cleaner burning fuel;
Even today; the reactors that are being proposed are Westinghouse AP1000's which are considered Gen3.5 plants; completely different from the ones.... More

Very Good Article

Posted By Joshua Payne - Thu, Feb 11 2010 at 8:35 AM EST

Very good, very balanced article. As a nuclear engineering student I am very impressed.

I would just like to clarify that the majority of issues associated with nuclear power are political not technical in nature. As evident by projects in France and Japan, nuclear plants can be built for a reasonable cost and in a reasonable time frame given the labor availability and a more efficient regulatory organization. ($5 billion, 5 years construction time)

Nature shows us that nuclear.... More

Go Nuclear NOW

Posted By Anonymous - Thu, Feb 11 2010 at 8:08 AM EST

It will create jobs and create the foundation of a next generation electrical grid.

Nuclear is Green!

Posted By Nukemann - Thu, Feb 11 2010 at 5:30 AM EST

Nuclear Pros and Cons
PROS
1. Fission is the more energy for less fuel than any fossil technology.
2. Less fuel means less waste, and the waste is all accounted for, not released into the atmosphere to become someone else's problem.
3. Uranium is readily available, very common in the earth's crust (about the same as tin)
4. Economical - operating cost about the same as coal, fuel cost is a much smaller percentage of the total, therefore less susceptible to price.... More

No Tritium

Posted By Pat - Wed, Feb 10 2010 at 10:18 PM EST

Why no discussion of Thorium based reactors? Was shelved because we couldn't make weapons from it.
Why no mention?

Sloppy.

Posted By Aubrey - Wed, Feb 10 2010 at 8:08 PM EST

"nuclear fuel costs about 50 cents per kilowatt hour, while fossil fuels cost roughly $2.40 per kilowatt hour, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration."

This is incorrect. It is 0.5 cents, not 50 cents, and 2.40 cents not 2.40 dollars (see http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/energyexplained/?page=nuclear_home#tab2). If power currently cost 2.40 dollars per kwh, the average power bill for a house would be in the thousands of.... More

Re: Sloppy.

Posted By Russell McLendon - Wed, Feb 10 2010 at 9:35 PM EST

My mistake, thank you for pointing that out. The text is now corrected.

Three reasons not to expand nuclear power

Posted By Chris Eaton - Wed, Feb 10 2010 at 6:29 PM EST

To begin, here's a great interview with Armory Lovins, of the Rocky Mtn. Institute on why expanding nuclear will make climate change worse:

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/7/16/amory_lovins_expanding_nuclear_pow...

The basic answer: wind and solar are cheaper and take less time to

More nuclear power, please. The waste is safely stored, and takes up a lot less space than the waste McDonalds creates each year.

Up and atom: The comeback of nuclear power

Comments

Meltdowns are for M&Ms in your pocket

map inaccuracy

clean?

Fusion is Good but its not REAL

idiot

Fraud Economics - Taxes Pay for Huge Cost of Waste

4th Federal district NYState US Congress

No radioactive wastes.

Nuclear Lobbyists Quick Response Team

I could get paid for this?

What Lovely Fear Mongering

Nuclear Waste

Incomplete

Very Good Article

Go Nuclear NOW

Nuclear is Green!

No Tritium

Sloppy.

Re: Sloppy.

Three reasons not to expand nuclear power

Ever heard of Base load?

Initial costs

More Nukes Please

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