Nuclear Power -The John McCain Energy Plan Fallacy

In June 2008, John McCain proposed his "Lexington Project", a position statement outlining his ideas for a comprehensive energy independence plan.

Along with the over reported talking points on expanded domestic oil and natural gas production on the OCS and lesser proposals for alternative fuels and technology incentives, McCain goes further and makes a major proposal for nuclear energy. What is amazing to me is why his ideas about nuclear energy are not being talked about and critically examined in the press, or by Obama.

Under the heading of "Investing in Clean Alternative Sources of Energy", McCain proposes building 45 new nuclear power plants by 2030, with an ultimate goal of building 100 new plants. He notes that it critical that they be built using components designed and built domestically.

This key element of his plan is also referenced in his Economic plan, attributing 700,000 new jobs to the nuclear power plant initiative alone.

It all sounds great if you just listen to the sound bites and browse the web site. After all, McCain claims, he served on a nuclear powered ship, and it was perfectly safe. So of course he immediately extrapolates to nuclear power generation, creating a false analogy.

If you look even a little deeper, it quickly becomes apparent that none of this makes any sense; to say it's highly speculative would be giving it too much credit. Of course, these days, candidates can publish pretty much anything they want to without any supporting facts. They just hire operatives to spin it into 'truth'. Republicans must think the public at large is just 'stupid, stupid, stupid' (thank you Forrest Gump). Of course, they take pride in being 'ignorant', so it's no surprise. It seems that the press gets sucked right up into the Republican populist movement; finding 'facts' too boring to give more than a passing glance; focusing more on cheap gimmicks, one-liner political jabs and low blows.

But before I digress further, let me get back to the subject of this article and just give you some 'facts' to consider about Nuclear Power.

How can anyone with some common sense and a little bit of knowledge about nuclear power issues in this country possibly list it under the heading of "Clean Alternative Source of Energy"? Sure, it's Zero-Emission; it had better be! The production of nuclear power, is one of the most ecologically dangerous and 'dirty' methods of generating electricity imaginable. Air pollution and carbon emissions are not the only measures of "clean".

It starts with the mining of raw Uranium ore. The ore must then be processed, or milled, to extract the Uranium. What's left over, Uranium mill tailings, contain radioactive material. They cannot be disposed of, but must be collected, impounded, stored and then monitored in perpetuity. By itself, this is an ecological nightmare, a low level radioactive superfund site that can never be cleaned; only contained. As you can imagine, there is almost no commercial Uranium mining in this country.

Worse yet are the waste products from the nuclear reactor in the form of spent fuel rods. The spent fuel rods remain highly radioactive for many millennia (that's right.. 1,000's of years). They are extremely dangerous to manage and store, emitting about 20 times the human lethal dose of radiation each HOUR. There is currently NO permanent storage facility in the US for the storage of High Level Nuclear Waste. In 1982, Congress acted to create a national storage facility. In the 26 years since that time, progress towards creating this facility has dwindled down to one site 'Yucca Mountain, Nevada'. Highly controversial, the NRC has not yet received a license application from the DOE, the agency responsible for constructing and operating the site.

While debate goes on about the viability of this site over the clear objections of the people and government of the state of Nevada, nuclear waste continues to be collected and stored at or near the existing nuclear power plants, creating local risks and security issues.

McCain, in a speech at the end of May in Las Vegas, states "We may not need Yucca". In what appears to be a clear pandering effort to get votes in Nevada, he proposes some vague idea of an "International Repository", which even based on statements by his own staff, is clearly a pipe dream. By their own admission, the only place in the world this could be built would be Siberia! How he could be so presumptuous as to suggest that some other country would want or be willing to store our nuclear waste is beyond comprehension. It is incongruous to propose doubling the number of nuclear power plants in this country while at the same time suggesting that we don't need a permanent storage facility to handle the waste. Clearly, these are creative fantasies and platitudes, none based on any reasonable set of facts.

Storing nuclear waste is dangerous enough, but transporting it is a disaster waiting to happen. Even the smallest accident would create an ecological catastrophe. A major debate that has been sidelined by the lack of a centralized storage facility; transportation of nuclear waste will be a major impediment to any expansion of nuclear power generating facilities. There are no safe methods of transporting the highly radioactive spent fuel rods. To find a way to transport it to Yucca Mountain will be a huge challenge. No one wants to be along the route, and the route must be highly secure. For McCain to suggest that waste be transported through our highly populated port cities, and then half way around the world to Siberia or some other foreign destination, paid for, and secured by the lowest bidder to a government contract is beyond belief. Yet, he is on the record as suggesting this plan.

This month, in a speech at a nuclear power plant, McCain suggested reprocessing the waste. Another platitude, which flies in the face of his previous suggestion about storing the waste. Reprocessing nuclear fuel rods extracts the remaining Uranium and also extracts Plutonium; which can be used for weapons. It still leaves the problem of storing the remaining waste, and creates the new problem of storing and securing the Plutonium. Nuclear power reactors don't currently use Plutonium, and making new weapons would violate numerous international treaties.

Now, after reading this far, if you are still thinking that those issues could be worked out, consider these additional facts:

There hasn't been a single license application filed for a nuclear power plant in this country in over 2 Decades; primarily due to the problems outlined above. The last plant was completed in the early 80's.

The license process takes 4 years, after which construction could easily take an additional 4 years. It's a 10 year proposition for power to actually be generated. If there was any economic sense to building a nuclear power plant, someone would have at least applied over the last 20 years. Now McCain expects 45 licenses over the next 20 years? Not likely; and if the DOE were to do it, even less likely!

The latest technology is in Europe. Building a plant here with strictly domestic engineering and construction isn't realistic. The industry simply doesn't exist here anymore. Not only does McCain expect to build these plants at lightning speed, he expects to re-create an industry overnight.

There is almost no commercial uranium mining in this country. Basically, all of the uranium used to generate power in this country is IMPORTED, so we would be trading dependence on foreign oil to dependence on foreign uranium. The price of Uranium has gone up by a factor of 10 between 2002 and 2007 (from the $9 /lb range to the $90 range). The environmental issues with mining Uranium in the US make it impractical, especially if you expect to double the demand.

There are NO commercial reprocessing facilities in the US. Government operated reprocessing facilities are used for research and the production of plutonium. Considering 'reprocessing' of spent fuel rods, would increase the number of nuclear sites, and create only more issues and increased costs. There is no practical value for energy production purposes.

Where would you put 45 new plants? No one wants them in their backyard, even if they are 'safe'. Even if there hasn't been a 'leak', plants have been shut down due to failures. Finding acceptable locations to build conventional power plants is hard enough. With the transportation, security, and potential ecological and safety issues, nuclear plants are orders of magnitude more problematic.

The public deserves to have McCain's proposals and policy positions brought into the realm of public debate and critical review. This is what you can expect from a McCain administration. These statements and proposals speak to the credibility of the candidate that proposes them. The issue is not whether the proposed nuclear power plants would be built; it's clear they would not. What is at issue is whether a candidate that proposes such unrealistic campaign fodder deserves your vote.