G
Gandalf Grey
Guest
No-Nukers Sing a New Green Tune
By Harvey Wasserman
Created Nov 10 2007 - 11:05am
Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash are again singing the praises
of solar energy. But it's a hard song for reactor backers now desperately
seeking more than $50 billion in federal loan guarantees.
The nuclear energy industry is selling "new generation" reactors as a cheap
fix for global warming. But a booming renewable energy industry now makes
the atomic option sound even more nonsensical than it did when the musicians
first sang "No Nukes" three decades ago.
At an October 23 press conference in Washington, Raitt, Browne and Nash
delivered 120,000 signatures demanding that Congress strip reactor loan
guarantees from this year's energy bill. The industry wants $25 billion in
2008, $25 billion more in 2009 and a blank check for the future. But the
rockers' rapid-fire Internet-based campaign--complete with a music
video--may have put a serious crimp in their plans.
Joined by Democratic Representatives Ed Markey and John Hall (a fellow
musician), backed by a wide range of environmental organizations and
gathering support through their NukeFree.org website, the three musicians
followed their press conference with a series of visits to Congressional
leadership and an intriguing new message.
In 1979, when Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) staged a legendary
series of five concerts in Madison Square Garden (90,000 attended) and a
rally at Battery Park City (which drew 200,000), their argument was that
nuclear power was dangerous (Three Mile Island had just melted) and that
renewable energy would be cost-effective "someday soon."
Today, the musicians and their environmental cohorts can still say that
nuclear power has failed. But what's different is that the renewable energy
industry has come of age. "Wind power is booming," says Brian Parsons of the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
No new reactors are currently under construction in the United States. But
Parsons says about $6 billion worth of wind farms are in "various stages of
development," representing "between one and 1.5 years' worth at the current
pace," a number that towers over what was happening thirty years ago.
Worldwide, the industry is in the $15 billion range annually, according to
the American Wind Energy Association. With turbines costing less than $2
million a megawatt, and with fuel perpetually free (operation and
maintenance costs run about 5 percent per year), wind energy can leave
nuclear reactors in the radioactive dust.
The same can now be said for photovoltaic (PV) cells. Major breakthroughs in
amorphous (flexible) applications have allowed American factories to pour
out ever-cheaper roofing laminates that can power the buildings on which
they sit. Assembly lines longer than football fields now produce them by the
mile, at production costs that continue to plummet.
The Michigan-based United Solar Ovonic claims to have doubled its annualized
production capacity in the past year to fifty-eight megawatts and will have
another threefold expansion by the end of next year. Company officials
predict the capital cost of machines to be $150 million, for an annual
capacity of 100 megawatts. Industry experts predict an annual market of more
than ten gigawatts in 2012, the equivalent of ten nukes per year. The cost
of solar electricity is coming down rapidly, according to Ovonic, and with
"suitable infusion of money to build new plants," industry experts and
Energy Department officials predict "grid parity" by 2015, the very earliest
new reactors could come on line under optimum conditions.
Part of the new economic advantage of PV cells comes from the fact that they
can be installed on the rooftops and south-facing walls of buildings that
use their energy, thus avoiding transmission costs from central power
stations, which can be extremely high.
Other solar technologies, such as desert-based "power towers" and concave
"trough mirror" farms, have proved themselves over the past two decades to
the point that investors are lining up to build new ones. These long lines
of mirror arrays focus sunlight on multiple tubes of heat-exchanging liquid,
have run successfully at nine large farms since the 1980s.
Millions of new investment dollars are also pouring into biofuels,
ocean-wave generators, geothermal devices and more. Each has technical,
financial and even ecological problems. But the message is clear: the
renewable energy industry is in the process of achieving liftoff.
By contrast, say the nuke-free organizers and their green cohorts, the
atomic reactor business is mired in hype. Some things about it have not
changed since 1979. Most important, there is no solution to the radioactive
waste problem. Nevada's Yucca Mountain dump is as unlicensed now as it was
during the MUSE concerts. What's different is that Harry Reid, an adamant
Yucca foe, is now Senate majority leader.
Also new is the legacy of September 11. The prospect of terror attacks was
always high on the list of reasons to oppose atomic energy. But the first
jet that flew into the World Trade Center passed over the three reactors
(two active, one retired) at Indian Point, forty-five miles north of
Manhattan.
The nuclear industry vehemently denies Indian Point's containment domes
could have been penetrated. But the aging, rickety complex remains supremely
vulnerable in myriad ways, as do dozens of other reactors around the globe.
Despite claims of "inherent safety," no private insurer will take the
liability risk for a major reactor disaster, past or future, with old
reactors or new. After fifty years, responsibility still reverts to the
taxpayer, now and for the foreseeable future.
The industry needs federal loan guarantees because it can't get private
investors any more easily than it can find private insurers.
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the industry's PR front group, says
atomic energy is cheaper than renewables, but it can only do so by
downplaying the "intangible" costs of radioactive fuel production and waste
disposal, human error and terror attacks, heat and radioactive emissions and
much more. The NEI also claims net gains in fighting global warming, but it
would posit hundreds of reactors to do so even under optimal circumstances.
Amory Lovins's Rocky Mountain Institute has shown that a dollar spent on
increased conservation can save seven times more energy than a dollar spent
on nuclear power can produce.
The NEI also says new reactors can be built for $4 billion to $5 billion, in
five years or less. But atomic energy's history is defined by massive delays
and overruns. The cost of New Hampshire's Seabrook nuclear power plant went
from $250 million for two reactors in the 1960s to $7 billion for one that
opened in 1989. Scores of other "first generation" plants came on line
horrifically late and wildly over budget.
The industry likes to blame all that on protesters. And the wide range of
environmental groups and the tens of thousands still signing Raitt, Browne
and Nash's NukeFree.org petition make it clear that even after all these
years, they are not going away.
But the industry is also building its first "new generation" plant in
Finland. Barely two years since ground was broken, it is nearly two years
behind schedule and $2 billion over budget. Small wonder a green power
industry that was barely an embryo in 1979 now sings a song that sounds a
lot like success.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
By Harvey Wasserman
Created Nov 10 2007 - 11:05am
Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne and Graham Nash are again singing the praises
of solar energy. But it's a hard song for reactor backers now desperately
seeking more than $50 billion in federal loan guarantees.
The nuclear energy industry is selling "new generation" reactors as a cheap
fix for global warming. But a booming renewable energy industry now makes
the atomic option sound even more nonsensical than it did when the musicians
first sang "No Nukes" three decades ago.
At an October 23 press conference in Washington, Raitt, Browne and Nash
delivered 120,000 signatures demanding that Congress strip reactor loan
guarantees from this year's energy bill. The industry wants $25 billion in
2008, $25 billion more in 2009 and a blank check for the future. But the
rockers' rapid-fire Internet-based campaign--complete with a music
video--may have put a serious crimp in their plans.
Joined by Democratic Representatives Ed Markey and John Hall (a fellow
musician), backed by a wide range of environmental organizations and
gathering support through their NukeFree.org website, the three musicians
followed their press conference with a series of visits to Congressional
leadership and an intriguing new message.
In 1979, when Musicians United for Safe Energy (MUSE) staged a legendary
series of five concerts in Madison Square Garden (90,000 attended) and a
rally at Battery Park City (which drew 200,000), their argument was that
nuclear power was dangerous (Three Mile Island had just melted) and that
renewable energy would be cost-effective "someday soon."
Today, the musicians and their environmental cohorts can still say that
nuclear power has failed. But what's different is that the renewable energy
industry has come of age. "Wind power is booming," says Brian Parsons of the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
No new reactors are currently under construction in the United States. But
Parsons says about $6 billion worth of wind farms are in "various stages of
development," representing "between one and 1.5 years' worth at the current
pace," a number that towers over what was happening thirty years ago.
Worldwide, the industry is in the $15 billion range annually, according to
the American Wind Energy Association. With turbines costing less than $2
million a megawatt, and with fuel perpetually free (operation and
maintenance costs run about 5 percent per year), wind energy can leave
nuclear reactors in the radioactive dust.
The same can now be said for photovoltaic (PV) cells. Major breakthroughs in
amorphous (flexible) applications have allowed American factories to pour
out ever-cheaper roofing laminates that can power the buildings on which
they sit. Assembly lines longer than football fields now produce them by the
mile, at production costs that continue to plummet.
The Michigan-based United Solar Ovonic claims to have doubled its annualized
production capacity in the past year to fifty-eight megawatts and will have
another threefold expansion by the end of next year. Company officials
predict the capital cost of machines to be $150 million, for an annual
capacity of 100 megawatts. Industry experts predict an annual market of more
than ten gigawatts in 2012, the equivalent of ten nukes per year. The cost
of solar electricity is coming down rapidly, according to Ovonic, and with
"suitable infusion of money to build new plants," industry experts and
Energy Department officials predict "grid parity" by 2015, the very earliest
new reactors could come on line under optimum conditions.
Part of the new economic advantage of PV cells comes from the fact that they
can be installed on the rooftops and south-facing walls of buildings that
use their energy, thus avoiding transmission costs from central power
stations, which can be extremely high.
Other solar technologies, such as desert-based "power towers" and concave
"trough mirror" farms, have proved themselves over the past two decades to
the point that investors are lining up to build new ones. These long lines
of mirror arrays focus sunlight on multiple tubes of heat-exchanging liquid,
have run successfully at nine large farms since the 1980s.
Millions of new investment dollars are also pouring into biofuels,
ocean-wave generators, geothermal devices and more. Each has technical,
financial and even ecological problems. But the message is clear: the
renewable energy industry is in the process of achieving liftoff.
By contrast, say the nuke-free organizers and their green cohorts, the
atomic reactor business is mired in hype. Some things about it have not
changed since 1979. Most important, there is no solution to the radioactive
waste problem. Nevada's Yucca Mountain dump is as unlicensed now as it was
during the MUSE concerts. What's different is that Harry Reid, an adamant
Yucca foe, is now Senate majority leader.
Also new is the legacy of September 11. The prospect of terror attacks was
always high on the list of reasons to oppose atomic energy. But the first
jet that flew into the World Trade Center passed over the three reactors
(two active, one retired) at Indian Point, forty-five miles north of
Manhattan.
The nuclear industry vehemently denies Indian Point's containment domes
could have been penetrated. But the aging, rickety complex remains supremely
vulnerable in myriad ways, as do dozens of other reactors around the globe.
Despite claims of "inherent safety," no private insurer will take the
liability risk for a major reactor disaster, past or future, with old
reactors or new. After fifty years, responsibility still reverts to the
taxpayer, now and for the foreseeable future.
The industry needs federal loan guarantees because it can't get private
investors any more easily than it can find private insurers.
The Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the industry's PR front group, says
atomic energy is cheaper than renewables, but it can only do so by
downplaying the "intangible" costs of radioactive fuel production and waste
disposal, human error and terror attacks, heat and radioactive emissions and
much more. The NEI also claims net gains in fighting global warming, but it
would posit hundreds of reactors to do so even under optimal circumstances.
Amory Lovins's Rocky Mountain Institute has shown that a dollar spent on
increased conservation can save seven times more energy than a dollar spent
on nuclear power can produce.
The NEI also says new reactors can be built for $4 billion to $5 billion, in
five years or less. But atomic energy's history is defined by massive delays
and overruns. The cost of New Hampshire's Seabrook nuclear power plant went
from $250 million for two reactors in the 1960s to $7 billion for one that
opened in 1989. Scores of other "first generation" plants came on line
horrifically late and wildly over budget.
The industry likes to blame all that on protesters. And the wide range of
environmental groups and the tens of thousands still signing Raitt, Browne
and Nash's NukeFree.org petition make it clear that even after all these
years, they are not going away.
But the industry is also building its first "new generation" plant in
Finland. Barely two years since ground was broken, it is nearly two years
behind schedule and $2 billion over budget. Small wonder a green power
industry that was barely an embryo in 1979 now sings a song that sounds a
lot like success.
_______
--
NOTICE: This post contains copyrighted material the use of which has not
always been authorized by the copyright owner. I am making such material
available to advance understanding of
political, human rights, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues. I
believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of such copyrighted material as
provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright
Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107
"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
