Nuclear Power: Has its Time Come (Again)?
Posted by becker
Becker Posner blog
Ever since the meltdown at Three Mile Island in 1979, no new nuclear plants have been licensed by the United States. However, it is now recognized that the safety measures at this plant worked, so that only a very small amount of radiation was released into the atmosphere, and this had no apparent harmful effects on health. The excellent safety record at American nuclear plants, growing imports of oil, natural gas, and other fossil fuels at high prices, and increased concern over the pollution and global warming caused by fossil fuels, has convinced me that the case for licensing new American nuclear power plants is compelling.
Even though no American nuclear plants have been started for 25 years, old plants have raised their output much closer to their capacity. As a result, nuclear power currently supplies about 20 per cent of all the electricity generated in the United States. Yet this pales beside the situation in France, where nuclear power supplies more than 70 per cent of their electricity.
As operating and construction costs of nuclear power plants have come down greatly since 1980, these plants have become competitive in costs with plants fueled by oil or natural gas, even at prices for these fuels of five years ago. If their presently high prices continue, nuclear power would be cheaper even than coal-fired power plants.
In addition, several countries are building nuclear plants with new technologies, such as pebble-bed reactors that use helium rather than water to cool nuclear fuels. They appear to be much cheaper, and safer. In any case, the market place, along with due allowance for pollution effects and safety concerns, should be allowed to determine whether nuclear power is competitive with other methods of generating electricity.
In fact, many countries have already decided in favor of nuclear power. China plans to add 20 or so new nuclear plants during the next 15 years, as it tries to curb its imports of oil and natural gas, and its use of coal. India, Japan, and South Africa are two of many other nations that are moving toward greater reliance on nuclear power.
Nuclear power has several other advantages over plants powered by fossil fuels. Uranium is abundant, easily transported, and efficient in producing energy. One kilogram of natural uranium will yield about 20,000 times as much energy as the same quantity of coal. Nuclear plants would reduce American dependence on imports of natural gas and oil. To the extent there is concern about running out of fossil fuels- a concern that I believe is greatly exaggerated- nuclear generation of electricity becomes even more attractive.
Whereas coal, oil, and even natural gas power plants emit substantial quantities of CO2, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and other pollutants per megawatt of electricity generated, nuclear power plants release negligible levels of harmful pollutants. Growing concern about pollution helps propel the expanding interest in nuclear power. The advantage of nuclear power has become more concrete as a result of the Kyoto Agreement that requires signatories to cut back substantially on their emissions of CO2. The EU and Japan are already enforcing such cutbacks, and the United States is under continual pressure also to reduce CO2 emissions, even though it did not sign this Agreement.
The case against nuclear power plants is mainly based on three considerations. Fear of a serious nuclear accident, even worse than at Chernobyl, the risks in disposing and storing radioactive nuclear waste, and terrorist attacks on nuclear plants that might release large amounts of radioactive materials.
The chances of a serious accident at an American-approved nuclear plant is extremely low, given modern safety methods that are much better than even those at Three Mile Island, and new types of reactors that are safer still. The safety record is outstanding: there have been a few accidents at nuclear plants, but none have been yet implicated in many deaths or injuries in the United States, or in France, Japan, Scandinavia, and other developed nations that rely more extensively than America does on nuclear power to generate electricity. I am much more worried about safety at nuclear power plants in less developed and non-democratic nations.
The second issue is the disposal of used fuel or waste from reactors since that waste is extremely radioactive. The options are either storage or reuse. The United States relies entirely on storage, and imposes a tax on nuclear power producers to pay for the storage of nuclear waste. The Department of Energy has concluded that a facility could be built in the Yucca Mountains of Nevada that would be both safe and large enough to house an immense quantity of nuclear waste. Politics, not safety, is holding up the construction of this and equally safe alternatives.
France and some other nations recycle and reuse nuclear waste, so they do not have important waste storage problems. Given the general emphasis on recycling other wastes, it is surprising that America forbids recycling of nuclear waste. The answer seems to be that the United States has shied away from recycling because it produces plutonium, the ingredient for nuclear bombs. That seems less important now with the proliferation of nations with nuclear weapons.
The newest concern about nuclear power plants stems from the sharp growth in terrorist attacks, especially the 9/11 attack. This is an important development, but it is being met partly through greatly beefed-up security at American plants with additional guards, traffic barriers, and other security protections. Some studies indicate that the enormous safety protections within American nuclear plants makes it very unlikely that bombs set off near these plants, airplanes crashing into them, or other terrorist activities would cause significant radiation leaks. Terrorist attacks on nuclear power plants that would release sizeable amounts of radiation are much more likely in less developed and less democratic nations that have looser safety standards than at American plants.
The risk of a serious radiation leak from one of these sources is not zero, but such risks have to be balanced against geopolitical concerns and risks to the environment from relying on fossil fuels to generate electricity. My weighing of these considerations leads me to conclude that the time has come for America to follow the example set by Europe, Japan, China, and increasing numbers of other nations, and remove its ban on building additional nuclear power plants.
Posted by becker at 09:43 PM
Nuclear Power—Posner Comment
Posted by posner
Becker Posner blog
If externalities are excluded, but fossil-fuel prices are assumed to remain high, nuclear generation of electricity is only marginally economical. (For helpful background, see The Future of Nuclear Power: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study [2003].) The question whether to permit or encourage the construction of additional nuclear electrical generating plants therefore turns on the weight given the various externalities that such plants produce, both positive and negative.
On the positive side, emphasized by Becker, nuclear power is “clean”; unlike electrical generating plants that run on fossil fuels (coal, oil, or natural gas), nuclear plants do not produce any carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gas and therefore do not contribute to global warming. In contrast, electrical plants powered by fossil fuels are significant contributors to the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide and thus to global warming. However, even a marked expansion in the share of electricity produced by nuclear plants (currently about 20 percent of the world’s total) would have only a slight effect on global warming; for it would probably be decades before nuclear power substituted for fossil-fuel-burning plants on a large scale, and in any event reducing emissions of carbon dioxide merely slows—it does not reverse—the growth in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, because the effect of emissions on that concentration is cumulative (except in the very long run): they would have to be reduced to zero, or even below zero, for the growth in atmospheric concentration to cease.
A second positive externality, also stressed by Becker, relates to our dependence on foreign oil (and natural gas), a dependence that would be somewhat lessened by substituting nuclear fuel for fossil fuels in the generation of electricity. Of course dependence on foreign countries for essential inputs is not problematic in itself; it is a condition of international trade. But there is concern that our dependence on oil supplied by countries that are unstable, potentially hostile to the United States, or susceptible to intimidation by terrorists ties our hands in dealing with such countries. This is a legitimate concern, but will not be significantly alleviated by building a few more nuclear power plants.
On the negative side, the traditional concern about nuclear power was the risk of a meltdown, such as occurred at Chernobyl. The danger created by nuclear plants built according to the latest designs is apparently quite trivial—provided that due care is used in construction, operation, and maintenance. That would not be a problem with nuclear plants built in the United States and other wealthy countries, but could be a serious problem with nuclear plants built in the Third World, perhaps including rapidly modernizing nations such as China, India, and Brazil.
There are other negative externalities of nuclear power generation, however. One relates to the disposal of the spent nuclear fuel. There are two methods of disposal. The one used in the United States is storage. Because of local objections to nuclear waste, spent nuclear fuel is currently stored at the site of the nuclear plant itself. This is worrisome partly because of limited on-site storage space but more so because the danger of theft by terrorists is greater the greater the dispersion of the material. Many other countries avoid the storage problem by reprocessing the spent nuclear fuel. But reprocessing produces as a byproduct plutonium, which is readily convertible to nuclear bomb material.
So the problem of disposal assumes truly serious form because of the threat of terrorism, and of proliferation of nuclear weaponry more broadly. Al Qaeda is known to have expressed interest in acquiring nuclear bombs; and the “dirty bomb” (a conventional explosive coated with radioactive material) seems an especially attractive terrorist device. The more nuclear power plants there are, the more weaponizable nuclear material there is, and so the greater is the threat of nuclear terrorism and proliferation. How much greater is difficult, probably impossible, to say.
The negative externalities of nuclear power plants built only in the United States and other wealthy countries are small (with a qualification noted below), for these countries have the resources and the political will and capacity to secure nuclear power generation against both accidents and attacks. But if the U.S. were to commit itself to expanding its own nuclear generating capacity, it would be difficult to limit such expansion in Third World countries, where safety, terrorism, and proliferation risks are all much greater. Notice also that if only the U.S. expanded its nuclear power production, the impact on global warming would be even slighter than I have assumed.
But I have ignored a factor that seems particularly significant in the United States. Distinct from the “real” negative externalities of nuclear power is the widespread exaggeration of what might be called the “normal” hazards of nuclear energy. The risk of a nuclear accident is one of those “dread” risks that people attach greater weight to than the actual expected cost created by the risk justifies. From an economic standpoint, however, stubborn fears, even when irrational, count as real costs, because they impose disutility; in any event, democratic politics give weight to public opinion whatever its rationality. The excessive fear of nuclear accidents seems related to the psychological association of nuclear energy with weaponry of unprecedented lethality and with to insidious operation of radioactivity (invisible, odorless, but deadly), producing monstrous offspring, etc. Americans’ general ignorance of science is no doubt a factor in exaggerating what I am calling the normal risks of nuclear energy.
I conclude that the case for actually subsidizing nuclear electrical generation has not been made. However, there is a stronger case for relaxing arbitrary regulatory barriers to the construction of new nuclear plants in the United States, provided that the widespread public fears of nuclear power can be overcome.
Posted by posner at 09:33 PM | Comments (14) | TrackBack (6)
Posner's Response to Comments on His Plagiarism Posting
Many excellent comments, as usual. A number suggest that I am "soft" on plagiarism, especially when it is committed by professors and other "grown-up" writers, as distinct from students. I adhere to my heretical view that student plagiarism is a more serious offense. For one thing, the student who plagiarizes not only advances his career at the expense of his honest fellow students, but he doesn't learn a thing, whereas a professor who "steals" ideas or even phrases and incorporates them into his own work not only produces a better product to the benefit of his readership but may well improve his own skills. Itis one thing to copy blindly, another thing to use copied materials to create something new. Of course the author should acknowledge the copying; it is the failure to do so that is the wrong; my point is only that the plagiarizing work may have extra value by virtue of the plagiarism. Because faculty copying is more likely to be detected (the copy will be contained in a published work) and because exposure of a professor or other professional writer as a plagiarist is in itself a powerful shame sanction, and because as several comments point out computer search engines make detection of plagiarism ever easier, I continue to believe that the sanction of expulsion should probably be reserved for students.
One commenter asked delicately whether Becker and I compose our blog "with external assistance." The answer is no, but the question underscores a particular concern that I expressed in my posting, and that is the fuzzy boundary of the concept of plagiarism. I do not think Becker and I would be guilty of plagiarism as currently understood if we used a research assistant to gather material for our blog. I am not even certain we would be thought guilty of plagiarism if we incorporated phrases or other material from a research memo prepared for us by a research assistant--I don't know enough about the conventions of blogging to have a view on this. (Clearly, however, if we lifted without acknowledgment material from another blog or some published work, we would be plagiarizing.) With novel media and novel expressive forms (such as the "managed book"), society needs new norms so that writers will know what they can and cannot do with or without acknowledgment.
The conventions differ greatly across fields. I was reminded of this recently reading a very long law review article that contains a breathtaking array of citations to previous work. Nevertheless the author does not indicate which ideas in his article are original with him and which can be found in the literature that he cites. In fact many of his ideas are found in that literature. But I don't think he isguilty of plagiarism, because originality of ideas is not highly valued in law. Yet if he had copied actual passages (without acknowledgment) from a previous work, he would clearly have been guilty of plagiarism. Does this distinction make any sense? A little, I think, because one who copies ideas has at least to put them into his own words, and that requires some effort, whereas literal copying is effortless. But it is apparent that the meaning of plagiarism is highly field-bound and time-bound--that it is a culturally variable concept that requires careful mapping to avoid reckless accusations.
One comment pointed out usefully that plagiarism can be a fraud on the public in a sense distinct from any I discussed--the comment gives the example of Margaret Truman, President Truman's daughter. A number of successful mystery novels were published under her name. Apparently none had been written by her--she had sold the use of her name to a pair of professional mystery writers.
Finally, several commenters asked me how I use my law clerks, since I do write all my own opinions myself. I use the law clerks to study the cases before argument and give me their views as to how I should vote, what questions I should ask, etc.; to criticize my draft opinions and check them for accuracy; and, above all, to conduct research on the many factual and legal questions not adequately dealt with in the briefs of the parties or the other documents in the case. The contribution of the law clerks to my opinions is immense, though it does not include drafting; and likewise the contribution of my colleagues and, of course, of the lawyers and the lower-court judges. Consistent with the conventions of the judiciary, I do not acknowledge in my opinions the provenance of ideas contributed by colleagues, predecessors, law clerks, etc. Anyone seeking to evaluate a judge's creativity would do well to bear in mind the collective nature of the judicial product even when the judge does all his own writing.
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