Support for nuclear power growing

Wind! Solar! Renewable!

The demographics of those supporting and opposing nuclear power reported in the Gallop poll are fascinating and leads to a number of interesting questions. Why would a lower income person be less inclined to favor nuclear power? Could it be that lower income people just distrust the large companies that would build a capital intensive power plant which employ highly trained (and higher paid) staffs? Might this also explain the lower level of support voiced by those supporting the Democratic Party which tends to draw more support from the lower income? Another possibility is our educational system failing to teach science and leading to a group that doesn't understand the technology and, hence, fears it. Without implying any sexist belief, can one attribute the male/female support gap to a woman's nurturing instincts which usually leads to a rejection of any possible risk to her children and maybe a distrust of a larger company.

Nuclear power is not an answer to global warming. It is expensive and dangerous, and it is a distraction from the real solutions we need to solve the climate crisis - solutions like renewable energy and increased energy efficiency.

To even make a dent in global carbon emissions, the nuclear industry would have to build 1,000 to 2,000 nuclear power plants globally, costing hundreds of billions of dollars. By contrast, every dollar spent on energy efficiency goes up to ten times further in reducing global warming pollution than a dollar spent on nuclear power. The federal government should not be subsidizing this moribund industry.

df

Nuclear power results in highly dangerous waste for which we do not possess the technology to properly and safely manage, especially over the long term. Yucca Mountain was proven unsafe. Why is there less support for nuclear among lower income brackets? Maybe because they've been continually and disproportionately forced to host this stuff in their back yards. To expand nuclear is to prioritize our own convenience over the right to a safe, certain and equitable future.

The U.S has poorly managed its civilian nuclear program to an extraordinary degree. What is not widely understood is that, as the U.S. currently manage our nuclear fuel, we utilize only 2-3% of the fuel's capability, and thus need to safely store the remaining 97-98% of the fuel as useless radioactive material. Every other western country (except for Canada) re-processes its nuclear fuel. In doing so, the quantity of waste ultimately requiring disposal is a very small fraction of what is required without reprocessing. Our policy was created out of fear of proliferation of bomb-grade nuclear material, but there are enormous technical differences between reprocessed fuel and weapons-grade material. Further, the process can be properly managed, just as France, Japan, England and other countries do to negate all chances of proliferation and ensure public safety.

Efficiency and renewables are critical tools to reduce our carbon output and increase our energy independence. But even when combined, these resources cannot come close to meeting all our electricity needs. If we are serious about meeting these goals, we must look close at nuclear and our arcane policy thwarting the use of fuel reprocessing. We need a national policy to reprocess our nuclear fuel so that we can grealty minimize the nuclear waste that requires long-term storage, better utilize the uranium that is mined from the ground, greatly reduce our carbon footprint, and improve our energy independence. Biomass currently has no net benefit to the carbon cycle nor energy security. Coal with carbon sequestration is highly energy intensive and dangerous and likely cannot be accomplished with our current fleet of pulverized coal facilities. Exciting things are happening in geothermal but the promise is far off and has its own cost and security issues. Thus, we should not ignore nuclear power as a critical asset to meeting a low carbon future - if we do, we will never reach that lofty goal. We need to keep an open mind and use all the tools in our toolbox because the reality is we will probably need every one of them.

I like this a lot. It's fun and I used it for science class.

If you are willing to have your children mine uranium and live within 10 miles of a nuclear reactor, then we can talk.

Claims of nuclear power being "expensive and dangerous" ignore the real data. Nuclear power offers a safe and reliable power source with costs comparable to coal generation without the release of greenhouse gases, mercury and oxides of sulfur and nitrogen. Compare the costs per kilowatt-hour for solar and wind to nuclear power. The generating costs for solar and wind energy are much higher. The safety record of the commercial nuclear industry here in the U.S. has been tremendous - one would be hard pressed to find an industry with a better safety record than commercial nuclear power.

Nuclea

"It is expensive and dangerous"

I think there are plenty of folks mining coal around the world who would tell you that is no less dangerous. And for those who helped the Valdez clean-up, petroleum looks pretty unsafe too.

"the nuclear industry would have to build 1,000 to 2,000 nuclear power plants globally, costing hundreds of billions of dollars"

Considering the government is shelling out $1 trillion dollars to buy up bad debt, it seems we may have some money available for capital improvements.

There is no single solution to our energy needs, however nuclear power has a part to play in the mix. We do need to build more nuclear power plants, and probably a lot more.

In terms of lower income people "forced to host this stuff in their backyards," the Pilgrim plant in Plymouth comes to mind. In fact, nuclear power requires waterfront property.

Seems to me higher income folks would be more effected almost by definition.

David Pomerantz, Greenpeace New England

Be careful - you slipped and signed your posting df... you ouldn't wnat your true identity figured out, right? Be glad I caught on and discreetly mentioned it to you.

When saying that nuclear is expensive, you would not be comparing it with the even more expensive renewables, right? you are comparing with coal, probably, which is only cheap because nobody accounts for the indirect costs of its pollution.

Dangerous ? Based on what ? The safety record of the 70's or the safety record of the Soviets? Compared with the guaranteed health cost of coal/gas/oil plants, nuclear is a great deal safer overall (kind of like airplanes vs. cars - everybody drives cars even thought they are way more dangerous than airplanes, because everybody pays attention to the one big airplane crash a decade while ignoring the thousands of people dying every year due to car accidents).

I stopped supported Greenpeace because of their irrational attitude towards nuclear energy - thank you for reminding of it once more...

Ask the French how do they feel about the oil/gas price volatility - they have the largest nuclear power industry out there, and they seem to be fine with the price, safety, placing those plants in residential areas... (just kidding, but wait.... there come Ron and John)

Ron, (and to a lesser degree John)

Got to love your chutzpah in making this a NIMBY issue. I'd buy you a beer if I could, but I can only congratulate you on your shameless attempt to scare people... kudos, my man.

Please keep spreading the word... who cares if it's not true, as long as you are true believers.

Nuclear power is not expensive, it is not dangerous, and storage of waste is not difficult. It IS limitless and in fact the answer.

Maybe the reason why Obama opposes Yucca mountain is because he envisions Generation IV Fast Reactors being used to burn up our nation's nuclear waste, which could power the entire country for 100 years. Our nuclear waste and depleted uranium contains more energy than all the oil Saudi Arabia will produce this century. If you want to join the educated elite who support nuclear power, check out the new Tom Blees book "prescription for the planet," available at Amazon. You won't be disappointed.

Great idea. Being a resident of Duxbury and having looked across the Bay at Pilgrim Nuclear Power Plant for nearly 30 years, I have no problem with expanded nuclear power. In fact, I remember seeing plans from the 1970's to build Pilgrim 2 on the same site, adding a PWR to the BWR already running on the site. I think those plans should be dusted off and considered. Wind and solar are good options to supplement nuclear, but they are not viable options alone.

For all the people that say nukes are " dangerous and expensive" have no clue as to the building and operation of a nuclear power plant. They are the safest and most economical source of energy man will ever divse. Not in my life time, but someday this country will elect a president smart enough to deal with the oil problem, instead of finding ways to give away all the money the we ,as taxpayer, have paid into this country.....Someday..... an EX-Nuke

HBX, you are right on all issues. I could not have said it better myself.

Only countries that recognize the benefits of nuclear power will survive to compete economically.

By 2050:....USA
Nuclear..50%...including hydrogen
Clean Coal..20%
Dirty Coal..5%
Oil..14...and natural gas
Renewables..10%
Efficiency..1%...essentially all wrung out

People that still try to scare others by calling the construction and operation of nuclear plants dangerous are dangerous in their own right since it is tough to figure out if they believe what they say or are still in their 70's mantra.
The largest wind turbine, just installed in Germany had to be installed over water since it was to large to install on land. It has an electrical output ot 6 MW and the smaller nuke plants operating safely today are ~600 MW and the larger sites around 1200 MW. Do the math for the number of wind turbines! The solar farm near Sacramento is 12.5 square miles for an output of ~800 MW

The Greenpeace input is a hoax! The US invented most of the technology for fuel enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactor operation and reprocessing so we can do it
safely. President Carter the only nuclear trained president could have allowed reprocessing of fuel and also put the TMI issue to bed with some well thought out fireside chats. Who knows why he didn't let the American people know that there really wasn't any public safety issues with TMI! But the industry did take action which has helped safety and capacity margins by 30-40% over the last 21/2 decades.

I think your conclusion that "Yucca Mountain is dead" is both premature and advisarial. Yucca Mountain has been funded by the Nuclear Power Industry thru a tax on all Nuclear power generated electricity. It is not being funded by the taxpayer as part of the federal budget as the Obama Adminstration would have you believe, simply because he states that he has reduced the budget for the waste repository.
At least you were not as eroneous as other reporters who refer to Yucca Mountain a dump. The majority are in favor of Nuclear power because they have been educated, not because of their earnings. Citizens do not vote against it because of thier income level.

I think your conclusion that "Yucca Mountain is dead" is both premature and advisarial. Yucca Mountain has been funded by the Nuclear Power Industry thru a tax on all Nuclear power generated electricity. It is not being funded by the taxpayer as part of the federal budget as the Obama Adminstration would have you believe, simply because he states that he has reduced the budget for the waste repository.
At least you were not as eroneous as other reporters who refer to Yucca Mountain a dump. The majority are in favor of Nuclear power because they have been educated, not because of their earnings. Citizens do not vote against it because of thier income level.

Nuclear power is the most envoirmently friendly and cost effective of all energy source we have. I would recommend the book “Power to Save the World, The Truth about Nuclear Energy” by Gwyneth Cravens for the reasons why this is true.

As a former native son of the Late, they think that they are Great Commonwealth of Massachusetts Iit never fails to amaze me how naive and close-minded the residents are.

The state has NO natural resources and uses imported heating oil for heat in the winter. Nuclear power makes perfect sense, but the clowns that you keep on electing like Ed 'Listen to Me - I know it All" Markey and Ted 'I want wind power but as long as I can't see it from Hyannisport' Kennedy the state is doomed to failure. The only thing saving the state is the very real and simple fact that the state is loosing population because there are no jobs and the cost of energy is high.

Maybe because of the population losses the state will loose some Representative seats and then the clowns like Markey, Frank, et al won't be around to stop real progress in the state. Believe other states have it right - Massachusetts has it wrong with the holier than though attitude.

Wake up Massachusetts - you need nuclear power, not solar, not wind, not biomass, etc.

"As a former native son of the Late, they think that they are Great Commonwealth of Massachusetts Iit never fails to amaze me how naive and close-minded the residents are."

Not sure what you're talking about. The vast majority of comments support the expansion of nuclear energy. In terms of who we elect, I can't argue with you. But everyone thinks their own representative is great, it's the other guy who's the problem. That is not unique to Massachusetts.

CNC, I agree that nuclear power is the most envoirmently friendly and cost effective of all energy sources we have. Why don't the industry speakers such as NEI spell this out in plain english for the public? I would also recommend the book “Power to Save the World, The Truth about Nuclear Energy” by Gwyneth Cravens. I do wish she had spent more time on how plants are operated, by whom and the increase in error free performance over the last 25 years. I have spent some time talking to different people and groups about overall operation and the major comment I get is " why didn't we know that before".

Steve L,

The numbers are even worse than that. When comparing solar or wind capacity to traditional sources like nuclear, you have to remember to divide the solar/wind rated capacities by a factor of 3 or 4, to account for the fact that they only generate power ~25% to 33% of the time. Nuclear is over 90%.

Thus, it takes 1800 (as opposed to 600) typical, 2 MW wind turbines to provide the same annual kW-hr output as a 1200 MW nuclear plant. The fact that those total kW-hrs are generated sporadically as opposed to steadily is another problem..... As for solar, it would take five or six of those 12.5 sq mile solar farms to equal the annual output of one 1200 MW nuke.

Nuclear power plants are not really dangerous.
Do some research on reactor grade (3% U-238) and weapons grade (100% U-235) and you will learn alot about nuclear fission. Only one is explosive. France is 100% nuclear power. This country is so behind the times and uneducated when it comes to nuclear power. There is nowway 3-mile island or chernobly could happen with todays technology

Luddites and core Democratic extreme environmentalists shut down nuclear development 40 years ago. In the interem we have exported trillions of dollars of our wealth to obtain energy essential to our economy. They have shut down drilling and development of our own resources which could have retained anohter trillion or so in our own economy. The core reason for our failing economy is we have both exported and squandered way too much of our wealth. Our ever increasing balance of trade deficits share some of the responsibility and to find the culpret for that just look into a mirroe. Enjoy!

Gunut

I have mixed feelings about this. I would really like to see the U.S. move aggressively towards 'green' energy and seek to reduce the cost of renewable energy. However, nuclear power is something we already know how to do well. Perhaps it would not cost as much as one commentor has said. It is so important to reduce drastically our dependence on foreign countries which support those who hate us and want to do us harm. The politics of energy is very important to our country's independence.

I have no problem with properly controlled nuke pwr. We use so many other type poisions, in other ways of life that I think nuclear pwr, might have to get in line to make our lives seem any more dangerous. Thanks

Steve L, you said "Why don't the industry speakers such as NEI spell this out in plain english for the public?" and you are absolute right. I have never seen anywhere were the Nuclear story is clearly spelled out. It is amazing the Greenpeace does a much better job communicating misinformation then groups like the NEI does with facts. This is something that needs to change.

I actually live in a area with nuclear power as an energy source, and my electricity bills are way low compare to where I used to live.

Anti-nuclear people are just simply crazy. Wind and solar are expensive, take up a lot of space, and generate little power. Good for a home or a small town? Sure. Can it power a city of 50,000+? Not with out wasting a lot of space.

It's been 30 YEARS since a nuclear disaster has happened on American soil, and guess what? No one died. It was contained in the redundant casing. ALL American nuke plants are built this way. Chernobyl? Unfortunate, but it was a first generation plant! It was supposed to be shut down. This was at the end of the Soviet Union no less. Now we've had 3 decades to build safer nuclear technology, look at France's program! And the byproducts, as has been stated, are most definitely reusable. This is the best solution for the next 100 years, until fusion is made practical.

Now, look at coal ash spills, how that affecting the water table and the environment, now and later. Another Chernobyl will not happen here. But coal is having worse affects here right now, wind and solar require a lot of materials and space. NUCLEAR POWER NOW! End the Dark Ages of power..

We need the NUCLEAR POWER. It is safe unless we get careless like the Soviets did. Our ships have Nuclear power, and they do fine. The wind generated power is another safe one. We drove through miles of these wind generators, back in 1989, and they looked so nice. Never having seen them before, we really liked the idea. We found out later that it was wind powered generated electricity. Farmers have them and generate enough electric to be able to sell back to towns that needed electricity. Go nuclear and wind power. Forget the EPA. Stop letting them run our country with their bogus global warming and take our country back. God bless

If you want to reduce the costs of building nuclear power plants consider settling on one design. If you can standardize across the industry the new nuclear power plants (like France) you can greatly reduce the costs for operations and construction. Obviously this is not realistic for every location but overall most nuclear power plants are very similar in design. Comparing Nuclear to wind and solar is impossible since nuclear is a base load power source (90 percent capacity factor) and with something around 35 percent capacity factor on wind (as demonstrated by my companies wind farm) it would be very hard to make sure that your TV worked so you could watch your save the whales program. Plus wind farms are kind of ugly to look at and you need a lot lot lot of them covering a large area to make the same power output. Just some of my thoughts. BS degree in Nuclear Engineering and current Nuclear Plant worker. Go Nuclear for Clean Air.

If people do not want Nuclear Power they should stop burning millions of barrels of oil annually to generate ELECTRICITY.

I am not a francophile but but I cannot help but notice France's successful conversion to nuclear power. Almost 80 percent of France's energy is nuclear. They have figured out what to do with their waste. They reprocess it and use it again to produce more energy. What is it about a successful nuclear power program that American's do not understand. The irony of it all is that France is using technology that was invented in America. The nutty environmentalists will be the death of us all if we do not ignore their frightful fanasies.

Chairman Bo has no place for coal or nuclear energy in his energy policy. If he's bowing in submission to the king of Saudi Arabia, do you really think he wants to get away from oil?

IF WE LET N.KOREA,AFGANISTAN, INDIA AND NOW IRAN HAVE NUCLEAR CAPACITY WHY NOT USED FOR FOR GIVE US MORE CLEAN ENERGY LIKE POWER ELECTRIC PLANTS AND GO AND PULL OUT OUR PETROLEUM?

I think if the cap and trade, global warming crisis crew wanted to make money on nuclear power, or were vested in it , then media, Gore and adverts would sell this type of power or allay fears, as fast as they have created the globabl warming fears and crisis.
Follow the money, and I figure the time it takes to build a Nuclear Reactor and obtain all the funding and permits, will about equal the time it takes to create and spend on a new solar, wind and electric car bubble. Sadly we have legislated away both supply and demand and the need for innovation in basic natural resources, like wather

It never ceases to amze me that liberals venerate the French for everything except their conversion from fossil fuels to nuclear energy. With the French getting 80+% of their energy from CLEAN nuclear energy without even one single incident seems to be a huge disconnect between what they say and what they are willing to do. As far as the gender, educational and socio-economic differences the answer is crystal clear ... they are willfully blind about the issue and choose to remain so. Let's utilize the evidence based facts rather than the politics blowing in the wind -- If you want to save the planet -- SUPPORT NUCLEAR ENERGY!!!

I still marvel that almost no one is talking about the real green solution, hydrogen fusion. We have all sorts of calls for renewable power from folks that clearly don't understand how to operate a power grid, but I only saw one note that mentioned anything about hydrogen in this blog. 38 years ago I did a problem set at MIT for the material requirements of a confinement vessel for a fusion reactor. We expected to see that going into operating reactors by the late 80's. Since then the government has funded fusion projects at several sites, always at a level to guarantee nothing but doctoral theses and lots of papers were produced. The experiments were designed to be durable and last for decades, which made their construction very expensive and very difficult to modify. This meant only a few alternative ideas could be finded at a time, which would drag things out as long as possible. This is the way academics and government bureaucrats think, not businessmen,

It is not safe. It may be clean running and efficient, but accidents Do happen and then total destruction of land and health that would far outweigh any of the good benefits. And the waste would pile up and be more than the earth could take.
People who are for it and think it is so safe might think twice if they had to burry the waste in their back yard. If it is so guaranteed safe then there should be no problem putting the waste in Hollywood CA, Capital Hill, or any of the top pricey places to live in the US. No body wants to live with the waste that would become overwelming. We would be very sorry. I think Wind and Solar are good renewable choices for now.

YES to nuclear energy , why not launce the waste into a free flight to the sun?

i support Nucular power

Nuclear Energy is one of the few investments the federal government should make. I don't believe President Barack has any intention of pursuing the development of nuclear power.

all obama wants to say are things that he thinks people want to hear so he can get reelected as far as im concered he is nothing more than a mouthpiece for nancy.and barney ,after all that is what he went to school for .He is nothing more than very exspensive attorney and couldn,t run a lemonaid stand

Obama iam happy because of what you are doing thankyou

When gas prices go to 5 dollars everybody is going to say, " Why aren't we drilling? " I believe its going to happen because the econnomic recovery is not happening with all the money spent there are still over 640,000 people unemployed and they are not going to be able to pay their new mortgages and the money spent is being used for fraudulent purposes. There are always going to be thieves and our governmrnt is still putting it in their hands the politicians want to stay elected and they don't really care about the commoner. They forget about where they come from until election time. America would be a rich country w/o country without

take the example of france don"t let impress for ideas can be cost we can efoort

Will private providers insure the meww nuclear plants yet? Otherwise, no deal!

No source of energy should be taken off the table especially one that is carbon neutral. France has proven that a country can use nuclear energy safely. President Carter stopped the US Nuclear energy producers from useing reuseable nuclear spent rods. This has caused us to have a very large nuclear waste problem a problem that is unnecessary. 3 mile island happened 2 decades ago, no one was injured then and no one has been injured since due to the production of electricity from nuclesr energy. Lets leave politics out of the equation and get on with useing nuclear along with other sources of energy.

We MUST have safe nuclear power.

I've worked for both the military and commercial nuclear industry. The Navy has proven that you can make it safe.

I'm concerned that the commercial plants may never be safe when private companies have to compete with each other on price to sell nuclear reactors.

I am really opposed to nationalization of industries in the USA, but it just may be that the nuclear industry is the place we have to make an exception if our nuclear power is to be safe.

The real problem will then become waste disposal, and we need an aggessive program to turn US scientists loose to solve that problem.

We better get started.

Supporters of renewable energy seem unable to recognize the math and systems design problems with this technology
In a nutshell..
The effectiveness of any potential energy source is energy density. Nuclear has even far greater energy density than fossil fuel.

I am actually a big supporter of nuclear power. It's cost-effective and safe (enough) to be worth the energy savings.

Still, I don't believe it is a long-term solution. This year, the cradle to grave cost of thin-film solar will drop below the cradle to grave cost of nuclear. Yes, solar takes up a lot more space. But the difference is that you can't put a nuclear reactor on your roof or paint it on the side of your house. By the time we get dozens of nuclear rectors built (that's at least 10 years away), there's a good chance solar will have surpassed nuclear. Why not invest all that money into solar research and production instead, and bypass all the icky issues with waste and terrorist nukes?

I think Obama is merely talking to both sides; I think he realizes that we need to be mostly sustainable, and that it will be a combination of renewable and nuclear resources. Nuclear resources will at least partially reduce the need for foreign oil. he is thinking in the right direction...

Trouble is - there is a finite amount of uranium out there. Yes, there are no carbon emissions, but we'll eventually run out of uranium just as we'll run out of coal and oil...

the president seems set on making the USA more like France. this is the one thing that they do correctly. why can't a country as great as the USA figure out a way to make nuclear power a safe resource for energy like the country we are set on becoming?

Why don't we send all our nuclear wastes to the sun with one big rocket? Nuclear Energy is the most preferred source of energy for the future.

We need to look at a variety of solutions. The economics of solar are starting to make more sense for homeowners in the Boston area. A third party company purchases the actual hardware of the system and the homeowner purchases the electricity generated from the system, making solar CHEAPER than grid electricity (includes nuclear!).
There are a few seminars coming up where people can learn about affordable solar (saw this in WickedLocal.com):
This Saturday in Natick at the Crowne Plaza Hotel this Saturday from 9:30-11:30.
Next Tuesday in Newton at the Marriott Newton from 7-9pm.

Both are hosted by a local renewable energy company: www.alterisinc.com.

#58. There is a finite amount of uranium out there, yes. Less than 1% of the uranium that we have can be directly used for our current reactors. But, if we switch to using breeder reactors, we can create new fuel from old. In particular, there's one design, called the Integral Fast Reactor that uses very little uranium and wrings every bit of energy out of it, breeding it, reprocessing it, and making it completely unusable for nuclear weapons. After startup, it requires 1 milk crate of uranium metal a year, and emits 1 milk crate of waste per year; the waste decays to safe levels in a few hundred years. It is physically impossible to make it melt down, too.

As for the issue raised by #8, yes, I would be willing to have my kids be uranium miners (at a safe mine), if that's what they want, and live not just 10 miles, but 1 mile from a nuclear power plant. They're very safe. What isn't safe is global warming: it's the real meltdown that's coming; and for that there are no safety systems, no containment, and we're all downwind. Would you be willing to live, say, on Cape Cod, when the floods start due to global warming? I thought not.

To save us from catastrophic global warming, we need nuclear power. We need lots of it. We need it now. 500-1000 reactors will do for the US. And as for the NIMBYs - well, that's why we have the bulldozers.

If the Romans had used nuclear power, their radioactive waste would still be lethal today.

If there really is growing public support for nuclear power, then the Greenpeace's of the world need to educate the public - pronto!

It's a matter of balance, good management and less special interest pandering. With proper oil exploration, clean coal, nuclear and a complement of renewable resources measured in, as a country we would be very stable. In California we have water rationing in certain municipalities, yet where I live the San Gabriel Mountains provide constant run off which enters our storm water system and heads directly into the Pacific Ocean, This occues 1/2 mile from my home, yet we are on a quota. Now we can reclaim and recyle sewer water, but apparently harnessing this water source is too expensive. Keep in mine this state recently voted in a hundred billion dollar high speed train project, at the same time we have three fully functioning north south routes through the state. Classic case of environmental special interest pressure and agendas. This week we sent a message to legislators to manage properly, stop the ill advise spending or pay the price. We did this at the ballot box, you should send the message also.