nuclear-news

The limits of nuclear power
Internationmal Herald Tribune Daniel Botkin 20 Oct 08  – “…………………….to what extent can nuclear power really help achieve energy independence?

There’s a problem about nuclear energy that gets little attention. At present, fossil fuels provide 87 percent of the world’s total energy while nuclear power plants provide just 4.8 percent. (All nuclear power plants currently generate electricity, accounting for about 15 percent of world electricity generation, while fossil fuels produce almost 67 percent of the electricity.)…………………………

Suppose it were possible to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear power. Suppose that we could use nuclear energy to make liquid and gas fuels to power vehicles, and could do this quickly using conventional nuclear power plants.

We would have to build enough plants to increase energy production by 17.4 times, which means using 1.2 million tons of uranium ore each year. At that rate of use, the reserves of uranium would be used up in less than five years…………….Considering the enormous costs of building the large number of nuclear power plants that are contemplated to replace fossil fuels, the United States would be courting disaster if it chose this route with nothing but blind faith that there may be a lot more uranium out there if we only look for it………………………The bottom line: From what is known about resources of uranium and the present and future state of nuclear power plants, there is no way that nuclear power can play a dominant role in the world’s energy supply.

Nuclear costs pressure industry
TheStar.com Tyler Hamilton 20 Oct 08 “………………..

Resource, labour and regulatory constraints continue to draw attention to the risks and uncertainties of building new nuclear reactors, and as North American utilities start digging into the details they’re finding expansion of their nuclear fleets are likely to cost much more than originally thought.

And that’s ignoring any impacts the current credit crunch could have on financing these massive projects……………………………..

Over in Finland, energy group Teollisuuden Voima is now saying a next-generation reactor being built by France’s Areva SA could be delayed until 2012, three years behind schedule. Already, the Olkiluoto 3 plant is reportedly $2 billion over budget since construction began in 2005…………………

Credit-rating agency Standard & Poor’s released a report last Wednesday  – “We expect that capital costs for nuclear projects will be significantly higher than what we have seen in the power industry thus far,” said the agency, referring to the unique labour and material costs associated with nuclear development. “The nuclear construction industry will be particularly prone to price spurts from transportation bottlenecks and fuel-price swings because nuclear units require a significantly higher amount of material than do other types of power assets.”

Complicating the risks even more, it said, was a “scanty construction track record for the new technologies and an untested regulatory process.” The nuclear industry knows it. At a World Nuclear Association conference in London last month, executives said costs have jumped so quickly they no longer wanted to publicly commit to estimates.