Questions and Answers on Nuclear Power

Posted: 26-May-2005; Updated: 09-Sep-2008

Serious questions of safety, security, waste and proliferation surround the issue of nuclear power. Until these questions are resolved satisfactorily, Environmental Defense cannot support an expansion of nuclear generating capacity. We need a rigorous federal research program to address these questions, so that our nation will have the information needed to make sound decisions in the future. The problem of global warming is so serious that we must thoroughly consider every low-carbon option for generating power.

Our chief scientist Dr. Bill Chameides explains:

Q.: Is nuclear power a potential remedy to global warming?

A.:  There are many technologies and processes for reducing and offsetting the carbon dioxide emissions that contribute to global warming, but no one of them alone can reduce these emissions enough to solve the problem. Instead, as Steve Pacala and Rob Socolow argued last year in Science magazine, we must use nine or ten of these "wedges" together.

Nuclear power is one possible wedge, but it carries with it significant concerns about safety, security, waste and proliferation. Fortunately, nuclear power is not the only wedge for addressing global warming. So, we don't need to panic and start building reactors in a hurry. If the unresolved concerns can be answered satisfactorily, however, nuclear power may one day have the potential to be a factor in slowing the emissions that contribute to global warming. For that reason, it is worth pursuing continued research.

But the single most important step our nation can take today is to create a carbon market, by enacting a mandatory cap on greenhouse gas emissions. A carbon market will spur investment in a whole range of low-carbon technologies, drive innovation and stimulate research to find better, cheaper, faster and safer ways to cut emissions.

Q: How safe and secure are nuclear power plants?

A: The safety record in the United States has been impressive. Nuclear power has been providing about 20% of our electricity for decades with no significant release of radiation, even during the accident at Three Mile Island. But current nuclear plants will reach the end of their useful lives over the next several decades, while demand for electricity continues to increase. Even if nuclear power maintained only its current share of our energy supply, that could mean perhaps a doubling of the number of plants. In that situation, current safety standards would not be adequate to protect the public.

The security of nuclear reactors and waste is less certain. Although the Department of Energy says the current generation of reactors can withstand a terrorist air strike, a recent National Academy of Sciences report concluded that further work is needed to secure the reactors' cooling pools. A Congressional agency investigation found that several nuclear facilities were unable to locate all their spent fuel, and traced the problem to inadequate federal oversight.

Q.: What about the problem of nuclear waste?

A.: Our nation needs to reexamine the transport and storage of nuclear waste. In the 1970s, when reactors first started coming online, we were told: "Don't worry, we'll figure out a solution to the waste issue." But 30 years later, our country still does not have a working plan in place for long-term storage or disposal of nuclear waste. Almost twenty years ago, the government and scientific community settled on long-term geological storage at Yucca Mountain. But today Yucca Mountain is still not operational, and instead has become even more controversial:  In March of this year, the Department of Energy revealed that documents relating to the safety of the proposed repository may have been falsified.

Therefore, America currently stores nuclear waste on an ad hoc basis at dispersed sites that are vulnerable to terrorist attack or theft. There is a lesson in this history: if private firms are going to start building reactors again in the United States, our nation should not just say, "We'll figure it out." America must have a waste solution that not only has been vetted by the scientific community, but also is actually in place and working, before any expansion of the country's nuclear power generating capacity.

Q.: Is there any alternative to the long-term storage of nuclear waste?

A.: There are a number of proposals. Long-term geological storage may not turn out to be the best solution. The National Academy of Sciences says any repository has to be stable for 100,000 years, and it is simply impossible to know what's going to happen over that time scale.

Some people argue that nuclear wastes instead should be stored at interim storage facilities, where radioactive waste is stored at a handful of centralized locations for 100 years or so. This approach has the advantage that, if something goes wrong with the storage containers, they are easily reached. It might also make it possible to use new technologies to devise better long-term solutions to the nuclear waste problem in the future. On the other hand, it means handing off the problem to the next generation.

Other experts propose techniques like transmutation, which bombards spent fuel with neutrons to reduce the years it will remain dangerously radioactive; these technologies are not fully developed, and often carry new risks. Others note that current U.S. reactors use only 1% of the energy in the uranium, and argue that valuable waste should be reprocessed and used again. The United States has been opposed to reprocessing fuel because one of the byproducts is plutonium, which can be used to make nuclear bombs. But the Europeans already do reprocessing.

Environmental Defense does not know which of these paths is the best one, so it is critical to assess all these options. America must settle on a safe, workable solution to the waste problem before committing to an expansion of its nuclear energy generating capacity.