Issue: Energy: Would Ron Paul allow nuclear energy plants to be built?

[Thatguyuknow]

Now, as far as I know, no new nuclear power plants have been built since three-mile island.. And this is truly a tragedy, for the capacity of nuclear energy to produce energy is mind boggling.. and recent technological advances have led to an increased safety standard among international factories. Environmentally wise, nuclear energy produces no carbon emissions or green house gasses.

However of course, congress has virtually taken over the market, and not allowed any manufacturer to build a new plant, thus taking away vital energy levels from our citizens.

 

[RonPaulCult]

I saw an hour long video of Ron Paul answering questions for a New Hampshire television station. In it he was asked a question on energy (or maybe it was the environment and global warming). He brought up the solution of using this kind of engery. So to answer your question yes he would allow for nuclear energy plants to be built.

 

[Kandilynn]

Yeah, he would. And that's awesome because my husband is a nuclear mechanic in the Navy and he has planned not to go into nuclear power when he gets out because there isn't really any nuclear power to work in.

 

[MozoVote]

Since Ron Paul is not in favor of protecting oil resources with the military, I think he would look favorable on any other solutions the free market can create.

 

[Bradley in DC]

Not only would he allow it, but one of the main problems with nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, etc., is the high startup cost. These industries need a low long-term interest rate environment to be cost-effective. Dr. Paul's tax, spending and monetary policies are the best prescription!

 

[Ponce]

As you all know the nuclear power plants in the US are getting old and pretty soon they will have to be replaced ......... and guess who is going to do it, China.

No kidding folks, that's what was in the new? or I read? somewhere??? anyone else saw it or read about it like I did?

 

[tonyr1988]

Deleted.

 

[constituent]

Ron Paul is advocating nuclear technology, I think largely because of the two proposed nuclear facilities in Matagorda county. It is quite unfortunate, because that county is one of the last worth visiting as it has not yet been completely overrun by retirees from new york and ohio.

Personally I am in opposition to the expansion of nuclear power and see the mere existence of a power grid as a clear and rather unfortunate symptom of the welfare society. In the very near future most electricity will be generated at or near where it is to be consumed.

I imagine a future of neighborhood solar cooperatives and community based projects to harness the lost entropy in everyday, large scale movements of water. I feel like nuclear is really best left to antiquity. Not that I fear it, but that I view it as yet another futile attempt to maintain a stranglehold on mankind's ability to provide for their own basic human necessities.

 

[TeeJay]

Nuclear Plants will not be built if Ron Paul Elected

The Reasons are:

1. Nuclear plants are not being built now because they are poor investments for private capital.
2. Without the substantial federal subsidies they now enjoy, they will be worse investments.
3. Only state dominated economies (think socialist) are willing to subsidize nuclear power.

This is a good thing because:

1. After 50 years the US still has no repository for dangerous nuclear waste.
2. Nuclear power in the world is the cover for nuclear proliferation.
3. The effects of a possible nuclear accident are so horrific they can't be insured by the free market requiring government subsidy of insurance.
4. Nuclear plants require large amounts of fresh water and generate considerable thermal pollution in the rivers they use for cooling.

I really wish Ron Paul was better educated on this subject, as well as other environmental issues. If he was, he would appeal to a very large segment of the Al Gore crowd.

 

[Meistro1]

TeeJay :

What about the opportunity costs? How great is coal for the environment? Sometimes there are no perfect options.

 

[Mesogen]

Here's an interesting article about regulation and the cost of building nuclear power plants.
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n1/reg15n1-rothwell.html

 

[TeeJay]

Thank you Mesogen for this excellent link from Cato, a conservative think tank: http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n1/reg15n1-rothwell.html

Some quotes:

"Commercial nuclear power is the world's most regulated industry. The early reason for heavy central government control was to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons technology "

"The nuclear industry has been floundering for fifteen years. The industry has thrived with federal research and development subsidies, accident liability limits, and guarantees to dispose of radioactive waste."

"Nuclear power is competitive with coal only under the "best" case, where the ratio of coal and nuclear costs is almost one."

 

[TeeJay]

The Facts on Nuclear Power, subsidies and investment potential

The impact of competition on power generation
The introduction of competition has had two important impacts on nuclear economics. The first being that consumers are no longer captive to a franchise supplier therefore it can no longer be assumed that build and operational costs incurred can be passed on to consumers. These additional costs now tend to fall on shareholders as lost profits instead of consumers as in a monopoly markets; making new build of any type a huge investment risk in a liberalized electricity market. To reflect this risk, the required rate of return on capital is much higher and the period over which construction costs are recovered is much shorter in a competitive market. The shorter accounting life is based on how long it can reasonably be assumed that operating the plant will be profitable, not on the engineering life of its components.

The second factor is that existing nuclear power plants often cannot make the rate of return expected when built because the wholesale price of electricity is forced down by competition. Assets that cannot achieve the expected rate of return are characterized as 'stranded'. Owners of 'stranded' plants argue that the plants were built in good faith and were approved by regulators therefore they should be entitled to the income expected when the plant was built. If the market will not provide it, it should be raised with a surcharge on consumers. The taxpayers forced to pay for these poor investments are then surcharged as customers so that plant owners can retain expected profits. (2)

Prospects for new nuclear plants in western countries
The nuclear industry continuously claims that the prospects for new nuclear orders have improved and that new reactor designs will solve problems of inadequate safety and poor economics. That there is now one western country, Finland, about to order a new reactor, has fuelled the bluster.

In reality the only orders, apart form Finland, have been placed by Pacific Rim countries, mainly China, Korea and Taiwan, where utilities remain protected from the consequences of poor investment decisions by monopoly privileges. Even in these markets, ordering rates are much slower than projected.

The United States
In 2000, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) published a study commissioned by Westinghouse, which illustrates the lack of competitiveness of reactors in the U.S. The report states unambiguously that the so-called third generation nuclear power plants are not able to compete in the deregulated market. "Therefore if nuclear power is to be commercially attractive in the U.S. in the next 5-7 years, a dramatic decrease in the capital cost of a Generation III plant is necessary." (3)

There have been no new completed orders for nuclear power plants since 1973 yet comprehensive energy legislation currently debated in the U.S. Senate attempts to promote building of new nuclear reactors with heavy subsidies. (See also WISE/NIRS Nuclear Monitor 599.5557: "Energy Bill stalls in U.S. Senate") In practice this equates to a 10-year infusion of billions of dollars in research and development and tax breaks.

Despite the will at government level, Wall Street analysts and investment bankers are reportedly unconvinced. Edward Tirello, managing director and senior power analyst at Berenson & Co., told participants at the American Nuclear Society's winter meeting that Wall Street no longer considered nuclear a good investment. He said that Wall Street was wary of investing because of real and/or perceived risks associated with nuclear. Tirello then went on to say that the task of re-educating financial communities would be "the biggest job of your life" and that if unsuccessful, the industry "is finished" (not all bad news then…). Financing is made more difficult by hedge funds that have been investing in utilities since the 1970s. Hedge funds make money by betting that stock prices drop - bad news for the industry is great news for the funds.

Entergy Corp. president, Donald Hunt commented that some nuclear companies were already involved in 're-educating' the financial community but admitted that the key to new build is whether the Energy Bill passes. He said that financial incentives would be required and suggested that this could range from emission or tax credits to those already proposed in the Energy Bill. (4)

Sources:
(1) The economics of new nuclear power plants and electricity liberalization: Lessons for Finland from British experience, Thomas S., 2002
(2) See (1)
(3) Study of Cost Effective Large Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor that Employs Passive Safety Features, U.S. Department of Energy, J.W. Winters, 2000
(4) Nucleonics Week, 20 November 2003

 

[TrueGenius]

The Reasons are:

1. Nuclear plants are not being built now because they are poor investments for private capital.
2. Without the substantial federal subsidies they now enjoy, they will be worse investments.
3. Only state dominated economies (think socialist) are willing to subsidize nuclear power.

This is a good thing because:

1. After 50 years the US still has no repository for dangerous nuclear waste.
2. Nuclear power in the world is the cover for nuclear proliferation.
3. The effects of a possible nuclear accident are so horrific they can't be insured by the free market requiring government subsidy of insurance.
4. Nuclear plants require large amounts of fresh water and generate considerable thermal pollution in the rivers they use for cooling.

I really wish Ron Paul was better educated on this subject, as well as other environmental issues. If he was, he would appeal to a very large segment of the Al Gore crowd.

Amen to that. I'm against expansion of nuclear power. I'm still voting for Ron Paul, however.

 

[drinkbleach]

Even if R.P. allows for the construction would the citizens? I think a lot of the problem comes from the fact that people don't want them in their communities and people don't know what to do with the waste. BTW, what are the French and German people doing with their nuclear waste?

 

[Kuldebar]

Ron Paul answered questions about the subject in the interview linked below:

PolicyWatch: Ron Paul June 5 2007 Part-I

PolicyWatch: Ron Paul June 5 2007 Part-2

(don't get confused, each part has the same intro segment)

2nd Part is about Nuke Power...13 minutes and 30 second mark...the whole interview is very worthwhile if you haven't seen it...great discussion.

 

[BenIsForRon]

I'll say it here again, you guys can look at the site in my signature to see the facts that support why I say this. There is no source (or combination of sources) of energy that will come even close to replacing oil in our current energy consumption, even if we weren't increasing consumption on a yearly basis. Society is going to crumble because we won't have a way to support the economy without cheap energy to ship goods, especially food, across the country. This isn't going to happen thirty years from now, peak oil is probably going to crash our economy within the next five years. And I'm talking about a crash worse than the great depression.

This is the primary reason I'm voting for Ron Paul. The only way we can survive this is if we decentralize government and allow local governments and economies to take responsibility for their own fate. A big and powerful central government would just take everybody down with it.

 

[tonyr1988]

1. After 50 years the US still has no repository for dangerous nuclear waste.
2. Nuclear power in the world is the cover for nuclear proliferation.
3. The effects of a possible nuclear accident are so horrific they can't be insured by the free market requiring government subsidy of insurance.
4. Nuclear plants require large amounts of fresh water and generate considerable thermal pollution in the rivers they use for cooling.

1) The issue of nuclear waste is something that needs to be solved - I fully agree. However, it produces relatively small amounts of waste, and it's definately not dangerous like you claim it to be.

When we transport the waste for storage, we don't do it haphazardly. They are carried in caskets layered with multiple walls of concrete, only penetrable by anti-tank artillery. Plus, it's cooled for years, so that the decay heat and radioactivity are considerably reduced. It's not flammable - it cannot explode - even if the casket was broken by a terrorist attack, the waste would fall onto the ground and spread harmless amounts of radioactivity.

2) Nuclear power requires around 3-4% enrichment of U235. Nuclear weapons require much more enrichment (I believe it's in the 90%s) to be effective. HUGE difference.

3) You do realize we're talking about nuclear reactors in the U.S. right, not the types used elsewhere (like Chernobyl). I would like to know your reasoning for how a terrible disaster could occur in the U.S.

In the RBMK reactors (like Chernobyl), they use water to cool their process down by removing some of the slow neutrons. This prevents the reactions from growing exponentially. Of course, there's the risk of not having enough water (or letting too much evaporate) and having terrible consequences. Also, once air entered the core, it reacted with the graphite (which they used as a moderator - we use water), forming carbon monoxide and catching fire.

The LWRs, on the other hand, require water to be used as a moderator, meaning that it is fairly self-stabilizing. If the core overheats, the water disappears, and the fission reactions stop occuring. Of course, you can still have problems (3 Mile Island), but not nearly as bad as what happened in Chernobyl.

Oh yes, and there weren't any long-term radiation effects, either. And Chernobyl had less containment for their reactors than we do in America (because they wanted the plutonium byproduct for military purposes). Also, you have to look at it in comparison with other forms of energy:

Fuel        | Fatalities (1970-1992) | Deaths per tW/y of electricity
------------+------------------------+--------------------------------
Coal        | 6400                   | 342
Natural Gas | 1200                   |  85
Hydro       | 4000                   | 883
Nuclear     |   31                   |   8

(Source: Stefan Hirschberg, et al. Severe Accidents in the Energy Sector. International Atomic Energy Association Report, 2001)

4) I'd love to see some numbers and evidence on how bad this problem really is.

It looks like nuclear power is getting support from some surprising places, too. And it may have some hope yet.

Oh yeah, and all of the information I've learned is simply from private research, so I could easily be wrong on some (many) things. Like always, double-check everything.

 

[tonyr1988]

Also, TeeJay (or anyone else, for that matter), I must ask:

1) What other source(s) of energy would be better than nuclear energy? I think it's another instance of "the worst possible choice, except for all the others."

2) Do you think the government should determine which energy plants are built? If so, how big?

 

[Nefertiti]

While it will not solve all our problems-the only completely safe and completely renewable form of power is solar power, which is seriously underutilized.

Wind power kills birds by the millions. Hydroelectric power is bad because dams can really screw up the environment that they change. I live in the number one nuclear state of Illinois. If an accident were to happen at one of them, we would have no way to escape from the fallout coming from the west as to our east all we have is Lake Michigan. Not very reassuring.

The form of energy that is scaring me right now is biofuels. They are causing the price of food to go up. Biofuels are good for the rich and the car owners. For the poor of the world, biofuels are bad because they spend a large portion of their income on food. I have seen a number of articles recently talking about how biofuels are already causing the poor to go hungry around the globe. I'm not going hungry but as a non car owner I am pretty annoyed that I am having to subsidize drivers every time I buy a gallon of milk (which I polish off in four days).

By increasing dependence on biofuels we are causing the price of corn to go up, which in turn causes the price of tortillas in Mexico to go up, and pushes more illegal aliens to come to this country.