The US Should Subsidize Nuclear Power

Urgency Pro says the government could speed up NP construction. That is very unlikely. Constructing NP involves so many variables, millions of moving parts, and is always susceptible to human error and unanticipated cost overruns. The US already does everything it can to speed construction, yet construction still takes much longer than projected. [20] Of 66 plants “under construction,” nine have been so for 20 years, four for 10 years, 45 have no start-up date, and 23 have experienced significant, protracted construction delays. [21] In fact, Pro's entire argument rests on outdated projections for the Vogtle and Virgil plants. The Vogtle expansion was originally to be completed in 2016 and 2017. But delays and cost overruns have pushed the schedule back to 2019 and 2020. [18] And “additional challenges in its fabrication, assembly, delivery, and installation of the shield building and structural modules” could lead to even more delays and added costs. The SCE&G plant has also been delayed until 2019 and 2020. [19] As such, construction time for these plants is closer to 13 or 14 years, and further delays may extend construction time beyond that. Pro's idea that we could speed up construction is simply absurd. And Pro's other idea, turning coal plants into NP, is also absurd. NP plants are far larger installations than coal, requiring complex infrastructure and millions of parts that coal plants lack. [20] Finally, there simply aren't enough engineers with the required expertise to build new NP plants; there aren't even enough to sustain current levels of NP let alone to build new plants. [21]WWS can replace coal much faster than NP. And as a result, WWS leads to cumulative greenhouse gas savings. Studies show that these cumulative savings make WWS seven times more effective at fighting climate change than NP. [3] [20] [26] That alone is reason to vote Con in this debate. Remember, Pro admits that global warming poses a threat to human survival. Pro also recognizes the urgency in solving this problem. Solving the problem of climate change as quickly as possible needs to be our #1 priority. The best solution is investing in WWS, not NP. Costs The market supports WWS. [21] It doesn't support NP. Even 100% construction subsidies offered to new US reactors since 2005, plus operating subsidies slightly greater than those formerly given to wind, have failed to attract private capital. [24] The market doesn't lie. To argue that NP is cheaper than WWS is absurd. Investing in NP over WWS will cost the US billions.Pro drops almost all my evidence. In particular, Pro drops that wind and water are significantly cheaper than NP. Pro drops that prices for WWS are decreasing (note: by 2017, solar prices will decrease another 40%, as cell efficiency increases and the cost of panels decreases). [25] Pro drops that the price of NP is increasing, as uranium ores are being depleted. Pro drops the fact that producing NP already costs double that of recent solar installations. And Pro drops the huge costs of waste storage, the costs of cleanup after a meltdown, and the costs of decommissioning NP plants, most of which isn't taken into account in any of Pro's sources.Instead, Pro focuses solely on upfront costs. Three problems with Pro's argument: First, investors don't care about upfront costs; they care about lifetime costs. All my evidence, which Pro drops, refers to lifetime costs, not upfront costs. This explains why investors are so interested in WWS while showing no interest in NP. Ironically, Pro says investors aren't interested in NP because of NP's high upfront costs; at the same time, Pro says NP is cheap based on an analysis of upfront costs.Second, Pro's only sources don't cite any studies, don't say where their numbers come from, what their methodology is, or anything that makes the source credible. In effect, Pro's sources are much like Pro's arguments: bare assertions without any substantiation.Third, Pro's numbers are wrong. [Pro's 8] says NP construction costs are $6500 per kW. But that number is low. FPL recently said its NP units were at least $8000 per kW. [20] And a study found that construction costs quoted by trade associations and industry suppliers are misleadingly incomplete because they exclude expenses related to procuring land, building cooling towers and switchyards, interest during construction, inflation, cost overruns, and contingency fees. [20] The study noted that costs typically double when these excluded items are included. Other sources show that NP construction costs have historically exceeded projections by up to 1200%. [22] Pro's own examples, the Vogtle and SCE&G plants, are good examples of cost overruns.[Pro's 8] says construction costs for solar are $2000 per kW, but are actually $8000 because it runs at 25% efficiency. How do we know the numbers are accurate? We don't because Pro's source simply asserts them without any empirical evidence. Every legitimate source shows actual construction costs of solar around $3000 per kW. [20] [27] Unsurprisingly, Pro misunderstands what the 25% number refers to: solar PV's efficiency at converting sunlight into energy. [20] and [27] already take this number into account. And as technology improves, efficiency will improve, lowering the cost even further. [25]Environment Pro says NP displaces more carbon per dollar than WWS. But Pro ignores carbon produced in mining, milling, and enriching uranium, unanticipated construction delays and cost overruns, waste storage construction, decommissioning, and millennia-long storage of waste. There is plenty of carbon in this footprint that isn't computed in [Pro's 14]. More specifically, [Pro's 14] fails to acknowledge the astronomic carbon footprint from storing waste for thousands of years. And [Pro's 14] fails to consider cumulative savings from WWS's faster deployment.Amory Lovins, an American physicist and one of the world's top energy experts, took into account all these factors and found that WWS "protects the climate sevenfold more than shifting a dollar of spending from coal to nuclear." [26] Lovins explains that "for a power source merely to emit no carbon isn't good enough; it must also produce the least carbon per dollar, and must do so sooner that its competitors." The keyword there is "sooner." [Pro's 14] simply ignores much of NP's carbon footprint, including waste storage and all the cumulative greenhouse gas savings from WWS's faster deployment. Other studies confirm these results. [3] [20] Plus, the cost of WWS is decreasing, while the cost of NP is increasing, so the amount of carbon WWS displaces per dollar will continue to increase. Meanwhile, as price of NP increases, NP will displace less carbon per dollar than it already does.NP plants also continuously emit cancer-causing strontium-90 radiation during regular operation. Multiple studies show that radioactive strontium-90 emissions during routine operations increase cancer rates among those who live near NP plants. [21]Security Pro admits that expanding NP also proliferates nuclear weapons. This poses a massive security risk, because it creates more opportunities for rogue states and terrorists to obtain radioactive materials and create their own weapons of mass destruction. Every ton of separated plutonium waste from NP has enough material for 110 nuclear weapons. [20] And there's no shortage of rogue states and terrorist groups eager to acquire this waste to make nuclear bombs. The risks are real. Authorities have documented over 917 incidents of nuclear smuggling, and those are only the incidents we know about. [20] Pro says a plane hijacking is unlikely, but we know the risk is real, since 9/11 happened. NP plants are prone to terrorist attack and sabotage. And if we expand NP, the risk of terrorist attack increases, as terrorists acquire more potential targets. In response, the US will need to invest in more security for NP plants, uranium mines, and waste storage sites, which would further increase the costs of NP. And even then, no amount of security can guarantee that NP plants won't be targeted by terrorists. WWS don't have any security risks. Reliability Pro says NP provides more energy than WWS. That's irrelevant. WWS can provide all our energy needs plus more by 2030. That's enough energy.WWS is "more reliable than current arrangements" if properly distributed. [26] And there's more than enough wind, water, and sunlight in the US to create a reliable WWS power grid. [3] [20] Pro's lack of sources on this point is telling. In contrast, NP often fails unexpectedly; 27% of US plants have failed. Yes, hydro is affected by extreme weather too, but it recovers much faster than NP (full NP recovery takes years). [26] And WWS still withstands extreme weather better because it's decentralized. MeltdownsThe risk of a meltdown in the US is even higher than it was at Fukushima. [23] Indeed, using the most advanced probabilistic risk assessment tools, a team at MIT estimated at least four serious accidents between now and 2055. [20] That is an unacceptable risk. And this analysis was done assuming no new NP plants. If we expand NP, the probabilistic risk increases. There's no way to design around these risks because they're caused by human errors made during small accidents that cascade to complete failure. And small accidents happen all the time. Between 1942 and 2007, there were 956 small accidents. [20] Fusion The fusion/thorium currently being produced is an experimental project and over 30 years from completion. Even if completed, it won't ever be commercialized because it'll never be economically feasible. [16] [17] [24] [18] http://tinyurl.com...[19] http://tinyurl.com...[20] http://tinyurl.com...[21] http://tinyurl.com...[22] http://tinyurl.com...[23] http://tinyurl.com...[24] http://tinyurl.com...[25] http://tinyurl.com...[26] http://tinyurl.com...[27] http://tinyurl.com...