Beginner's Tournament, Nuclear Power Plants

My respected opponent, thank you for continuing this debateRebuttal Renewables: It is true that power is not generated if there no sun or wind, but let's be real here. No one is going to die in a hospital when it rains or is calm because of no solar/wind power being generated at that moment. Both technologies have energy storage capacity. Again, I need not provide alternative sources for energy, only to prove nuclear is costly, and dangerous. Looking at the article you cited #7, the author calculates death rates from start to finish of all types of energy sources; i.e. mining, construction, installation and particulate dispersion. Yes, coal has the highest death rates. Death rates for wind and solar power were attributed to installation and maintenance; falling off roof tops and wind towers. I find that lack of construction safety is not a direct factor to be considered, especially in light of long term affects of a radiation cloud contaminating everything in its path for decades. Chernobyl 1,004 square miles of inhabitable land that will remain so between 180 to 320 years [3], Fukushima 3,500 square miles of contamination [2]. Furthermore, there are no mining deaths associated with solar or wind. Also, the article states that coal emissions can be reduced to 99.5% efficiency with electrostatic precipitators if plant retrofits were done. China has 650 GWe and US 315 GWe coal fired output. It would cost 20 billion and 16 billion respectively for ALL these countries plants. In light of cost for a single 1 GW Nuclear power being $17 billion, where would you put your money? The 0.04 figure you ascribe for nuclear power deaths is very misleading due to IAEA reporting of deaths are direct causal, i.e. calculated only during and shortly after a nuclear disaster, as well as data collected only in highly contaminated zones, excluding lesser contaminated areas. They do not report or add the latent death tolls accrued over the long term, decades [4, 5]. Rebuttal Safe & Stable: To repeat when a nuclear power plant accident does occur it very much does pollute the surrounding area for many decades. On top of the uninhabitable zone, the Chernobyl disaster cast its radioactive plumage over Eastern Europe, Finland and Sweden [6]. Upon review of your citation #8 [7] regarding radioactive fly ash from coal, this contamination is limited to one half mile to a mile of a coal stacks along with disposal sites, a relatively contained area in comparison to nuclear accident fallout. There is a serious issue on what to do with Fukushima’s decommissioning and what to do with the radioactive wastes; they still have not found the melted nuclear cores. There are no plans to remove the radioactive fuel until 2020 because the technology to do it safely does not yet exist. There seems to be a lot of placing carts before horses when it comes to Nuclear Power. Former Prime Minister Naoto Kan and Prime Minister Noda both were against nuclear power expansion, with Noda planning to phase out nuclear power within 20 years [8].Rebuttal 1. Cost: Using again your citation #1 [9], under Key Observations “Government incentives can change the relative costs of the generating technologies. For example, federal loan guarantees can turn nuclear power from a high cost technology to a relatively low cost option.” Please note can change and high cost technology. On p.17 “the costs of building a new nuclear plant in the United States will apparently be very high” and goes on to state later not only loan guarantees but, tax credits are needed. Continuing “If the plant is expensive, adding the return into rates as a single big adjustment can inflict “rate shock” on customers.” Also on p.77 “ Because it was not possible to extract the escalation costs from the project estimates, as a rough correction the financial model assumed no cost escalation to avoid a double count.” Cost overruns are persistent [10] and not included in this report. Then, let’s factor in those additional subsidies that go out every year, remember that 3.3 billion mentioned last round? Rebuttal 2. Dangers: I have addressed the issue of disparity in reported death tolls. And yes, this type of reactor has been decommissioned, but what happened just in 2011 with Fukushima, a newer technology. Another such accident is pending due to sea level rise and storm surges with nuclear plants located near water for cooling purposes [11, 12] 2011 & 2015 data. Then there is the ever-present issue of nuclear waste storage [13]. Your citation #1 also states that no permanent solution for wastes has been determined. As well as now there are additional risks associated with now non-nuclear countries obtaining this technology; North Korea and Iran for example [14]. If a country can build a power plant they can also build a bomb. 16000 reactor-years of safety is brought to insignificance when just one accident occurs. Sweden, Austria, Germany, Denmark Greece Italy and a dozen additional countries are phasing out nuclear power as a result of past nuclear accidents. Rebuttal 3 Clean: See rebuttal renewables & safe and stable In summary: Without heavy government subsidies, production tax credits and loan guarantees from a government, nuclear power is far too costly against other power generating options. The lack of end result on what to do with radioactive wastes is and outstanding issue of concern. Despite the few number of accidents that have occurred, deaths and land contamination over long term has been devastating, more so than other energy sources. The issue of safety and fear of future accidents has resulted in more than a dozen countries choosing to discontinue their nuclear power programs. Proliferation of nuclear power extends to the issue of nuclear aggression. Citations in comments