In 16th century Japan, the national aristocracy, a coterie of priests and samurai warriors, decided that guns, which had been introduced a century earlier, were a threat to the established order and should not proliferate.Instead the weapon of choice would be the samurai sword, a somewhat outmoded instrument that nevertheless had an archaic panache free of the leveling implications of gunpowder. As Noel Perrin chronicled in Giving up the Gun, the priests succeeded in erasing all record of guns from artwork and historical documents so that the Samurai ruled in splendid isolation - until Admiral Perry showed up in 1853 with a few gunboats and the medieval era was over.
Today parts of America seem to want to take a similar approach to nuclear power. The Obama Administration, in conjunction with a druid-like caste of environmentalists urging everyone to “go green,” has decided to exile nuclear power to from the public square. It’s not that the technology will be weighed against the medieval alternative of trying to run an industrial nation on windmills. Instead, we will simply pretend that nuclear doesn’t exist, either here or abroad.
Nowhere was this more on display than in March when Steven Chu, the Secretary of Energy and a Nobel Prize Winner no less, announced the 20-year effort to open a repository at Yucca Mountain would be abandoned. What was revealing was not the Yucca decision - that was almost a foregone conclusion - but the simultaneous announcement that neither will we pursue nuclear reprocessing in the manner of the French and Japanese. The reason, Secretary Chu said, is because reprocessing “might lead to the proliferation of nuclear weapons.”
It is hard to express the fatuousness of this head-in-the-sand, know-nothing, make-the-world-disappear approach. To the proverbial visitor form Mars in 2009, it is almost comic that the United States thinks that by abjuring nuclear reprocessing in this country we are somehow saving the world from nuclear weapons. Look around you. Is North Korea plotting to steal plutonium from American nuclear reactors in order to build a bomb? Is Iran purloining enriched uranium from American facilities? Did Dr. A.G. Kahn of Pakistan run an international swat team plotting to raid French reprocessing plants?
Wake up America! We no longer control this technology. The world has moved past us. The French are now twenty years ahead in constructing a nuclear fuel cycle. The British, Canadians and Japanese have all continued reprocessing. The Russians are selling nuclear technology to South America. Even the Chinese obtained all the specs to their new Westinghouse reactors so they can reverse-engineer it and will probably be marketing their own reactors soon. A boatload of mixed oxide fuel just sailed from France to Japan, where it will be burned in a new MOX reactor. No pirates attacked.
Of course environmentalists and anti-nuclear crusaders are cheering Chu’s decision. “What do you do with the waste?” has long been their trump card. Many states such as California passing laws saying no more reactors can be built until the waste problem is solved. For now, the administration’s decision will assure we maintain our splendid isolation.
Like 19th century Japan, however, we won’t be able to ignore the world forever. Areva, the French nuclear giant, has signed contracts to revive the Barnwell reprocessing facility. Areva also is taking enriched uranium from the former Soviet weapons program, “blending it down” to reactor level and selling it to us. Half our nuclear fuel now comes from a former Soviet weapon - a swords-into-plowshares triumph that has somehow eluded public recognition.
The truly sad thing is to see America falling behind on a technology we once pioneered. The discovery of nuclear energy was the greatest scientific achievement of the 20th century and will almost certainly come to dominate 21st century energy generation. We are now being left behind.
May 4th, 2009 at 11:50 am
William Tucker’s “Ignoring Nuclear” is so good - it begs circulation! Would like to e-mail it to interested parties. Provisions for this?
July 29th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
The Luddites are back in charge. However, this is temporary. The reason it is temporary is because the people who espouse this “turn back the clock” mentality, have not fully disclosed the impact. They have raised the banner of “green jobs” and green-fired growth, but the reality is that the net growth of the economy will be negative and the resulting unemployment will provide a response that is not just hostile to the greenies, but unfortunately agressively attacks anyone focused on good solid analysis of our energy needs. The last time we had this type of response was in the 50s when build it now and everywhere created cracker-box houses, tilt-up buildings, and glass skyscrapers.
Neither approach is good for us. On the one hand we build stuff that is unsustainable and ultimately costs more than it is worth. On the other hand, we halt progress that has resulted in constantly improving efficiency, reliability, and lowered costs. we need divine intervention to pull us out of this one.
July 31st, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Alan Gartner hit the nail on the head when he says, “The Luddites are back in charge.” I’m in San Antonio, which is the largest (percentage wise) owner of nuclear power in Texas. About 20% of San Antonio’s power comes from nuclear. It’s the single best energy decision we’ve made in the last 50 years. Now we have an opportunity to go into an expansion project with the city of Houston (NRG Energy) and the local “green” advocates are trying their level best to shut down the project before it gets started and go for wind and solar instead. Wind and solar!
If we want to be serious about CO2 emissions, nuclear is THE option. Other renewables will surely come down in price; but they’re nowhere near competitive now.
December 3rd, 2009 at 6:33 am
The Administration, in conjunction with its druid-like caste of leftists, do not WANT the U.S. to be an industrial nation. Hence the export of jobs to China and elsewhere. They are no more concerned with the environment (lack of nuclear power) than they are about health care (lack of tort reform).
December 3rd, 2009 at 8:57 am
Bottom line we need nukes. We can meet the needs of the green folks and drive the economy back to new highs but it needs to be based on low cost, no emission nuclear energy - just like all the countries with whom we are competing. The real question becomes, how do we really get this back on the table for discussion? What do we need to do to get this to the forefront of a national conversation and how do we drive that conversation to action. There are responsible answers to the waste question - but how do we get that into the public conversation so they can be an informed public?
You know there is a future to be had in nuclear energy when one of former founders of Greenpeace admits that it was a mistake to derail the efforts of the nuclear/utility industry. Let’s get back to the promise of nuclear energy, you may recall that it would be “too cheap to meter”!
August 21st, 2010 at 12:22 pm
I am urprised by the statement that Canada is reprocessing.
As you know, CANDU reactors use natural Uranium. So, in terms of enricment, Uranium enters with 0.7% 235 end exits with 0.5% totalling a 0.2 burnup.
In standard PWR Uranium enters with 3% 235 end exits with 0.7%(like natural Uranium), i.e. a 2.3% burnup.
So, first, the burned CANDU fuel is not suited for reprocessing as PWR fuel is. There is no use for the Plutonium in spent CANDU fuel.
Secondly, the spent CANDU fuel takes ten times (10X) more space to store, a barrier in convincing people to buy CANDU.
I heard India, in the frame of its nuclear programme reprocessed all CANDU fuel for plutonium, but I don’t have a primary information on this.