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« Back to Do We Need Nuclear Power? main page    Transcript for: Do We Need Nuclear Power?nuclear power ANNOUNCER: Brought to you in part by ADM,feeding the world is the biggest challenge of the new century, because bythe time this baby is old enough to vote, the world will have nearly twobillion new mouths to feed. ADM, supermarket to the world. Additional funding is provided by the JohnM. Olin Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, the Lynde and Harry BradleyFoundation, the United States-Japan Foundation, and the Donner CanadianFoundation. (Musical break.) MR. WATTENBERG: Hello, I'm BenWattenberg. This week on Think Tank, we look at nuclear power and political power. Theyare powerfully linked. In the early days when visionaries were talking ofenergy too cheap to meter, the government was a big player in developingpeace time uses for nuclear energy. Later, when the fission hit the fan atThree Mile Island, environmentalists fueled a major argument about the safety ofnuclear power, and a variety of federal, state and local governments, andthe courts and regulatory agencies started pulling the plug. Now, with theargument about global warming heating up, and planners looking for cleaner power,we ask, is nuclear power too clean to fail? Joining us to sort through the conflictand the consensus are Dale Klein, a professor of engineering at the Universityof Texas, and energy advisor to the federal government and the government ofthe State of Texas; Arjun Makhijani, President of the Institute for Energy andEnvironmental Research; and Victor Gilinsky, a former commissioner of theNuclear Regulatory Commission, and now a consultant in the energy field. The topic before the house, nuclear powerto the people? (Musical break.) MR. WATTENBERG: An offspring of theatomic bomb, nuclear power was hailed as a cleaner source of power. And it iscompared to other major sources of energy, it gives off virtually nopollutants, including those infamous greenhouse gases that allegedly willdangerously warm the Earth. The United States now has 110 nuclear power plants,which provide 18 percent of American energy consumption with the rest providedprincipally by coal and natural gas. But accidents such as the non-fatal one atThree Mile Island in 1979, and the massive and very fatal Chernobyl disasterof 1986 have led many to question the safety of the industry. The incidentat Three Mile Island caused an intense outcry against nuclear power coming frommany environmental groups, and such national figures as Jane Fonda, JerryBrown, and Ralph Nader. MR. NADER (From video): If thecorporations' government here does not become the people's government, and stop atomicpower, are you coming back in greater numbers again, again, again, until we stopnuclear power, again? MR. WATTENBERG: Costs of nuclear powerwere, in part, driven up by safety concerns, and new regulations to deal withlegitimate concerns. Since Three Mile Island, no new nuclear plants havebeen built in America. But as nuclear energy use declined in the United States,it boomed abroad. In 1980, I traveled to France to document theirblossoming nuclear industry for a PBS special on nuclear energy. MR. WATTENBERG (From video): This maylook like the poor man's version of the set of the China Syndrome. Actually,it is a key part of the French reprocessing plant at LaHague. MR. WATTENBERG: Since 1980, the use ofnuclear power has grown throughout Europe and Asia. Environmentallyconscientious countries such as Sweden and Switzerland get about half of their powerfrom nuclear sources. The figure in France is near 80 percent. In the UnitedStates, with nuclear expansion on hold, the industry has focused on exportsand safety. Billions have been spent on the safetransportation of nuclear waste, and for permanent storage sites for spent nuclearfuel such as the massive and controversial Yucca Mountain Storage Depot. Can nuclear power come back in the United States? Concerns about globalwarming have brought the nuclear debate to the forefront again. MR. FERTEL: We actually see a prettybright future for nuclear energy as we go forward in this country, and there's tworeal primary reasons for that. First of all, as we deregulate electricityin this country, people are realizing the important role that nuclearplays in our electricity supply. It's our second largest source ofelectricity, and as you look forward, it's probably our most stable, most costcompetitive long-term supply of electricity. The second of the issues we've beentalking about, the environmental issues, not only to satisfy any global climatechange commitments we make will we need nuclear, but to satisfy our current CleanAir Act requirements, which put constraints on our emissions of sulfurdioxide and nitrogen oxides. Nuclear plays a major role in our country insatisfying those. MR. WATTENBERG: America's chiefnegotiator of the Kyoto Treaty Undersecretaryof State Stuart Eisenstatrecently said, I believe very firmly that nuclear has to be a significant partof our energy future, and a large part of the Western world if we're going tomeet these Kyotoemission reduction targets. Those who think we can accomplishthese goals without a significant nuclear industry, I think, are simplymistaken. Environmental groups such as Greenpeaceand Friends of the Earth went ballistic at Eisenstat's comment. Theydemanded that President Clinton issue an immediate retraction. Their letterstated that it would be morally irresponsible to trade reduced greenhousegas emissions today for an increased legacy of risk and radioactive waste thatwill plague generations to come. And we have talked to the White House, andthey said, they don't have any comment. We've talked to Eisenstat'soffice, they don't have any comment. Let's put that fact on the table. Here's avery serious guy, been in government a long time, basically the pointman on the American negotiating position, and he is saying, you can't meetthese targets without a big dose of nuclear energy. Let's just go around the room quickly fora fast comment on that, and then we'll pick it up. Arjun MR. MAKHIJANI: It is not a question aboutretractions. I think it's a question about facts and analysis. I'vedone the analysis, and I think if you start with a premise that the dollars arelimited, that government and private corporations and people are going to haveto put some money into preventing rise in temperatures or reducingaccumulations of greenhouse gases what should be done? That's the question. And in thatcontext, is nuclear power useful or is it not useful? And the veryclear conclusion is, if you look at the dollars and cents, nuclear power is notuseful because it's very expensive, and this is not even taking in account any ofthe proliferation problems, or accidents, or government supplied insurance, or anythinglike that. MR. WATTENBERG: Victor? MR. GILINSKY: Well, it can't be excludedis not a very strong statement. The fact is, we rely on nuclear power to apretty significant extent around the world for electricity. I mean, about 15percent of the world's electricity, and in the United States over 20 comes fromnuclear power plants, and we're going to be doing that for some time. Andit obviously forms an important component of our electricity supply. I don't know the details about whether ornot that's actually required to meet the targets or not, but it's somethingwe have. It's an important part of our energy supply. MR. KLEIN: Nuclear power is safe, it'seconomical, and if we are to meet our global reductions in CO2, nuclear powerwill have to play a significant role. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. We are going tostipulate for a while that there is global warming, and it's real, and it'sscientifically backed up. I'm not sure I believe that, and maybe we'll comeback to that. But, for the moment, let's stipulate that this global warming is areal problem. Now, you two gentlemen, Victor is sort ofin the middle, appropriately so, but you two gentlemen are saying,diametrically opposite things. Is that correct? MR. KLEIN: It sounds like it. MR. WATTENBERG: It sounds like it. MR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. We are. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Now, you have comeout, Arjun, and said that we should phase out nuclear powerentirely? MR. MAKHIJANI: Yes. MR. WATTENBERG: Now, nuclear power doesnot emit greenhouse gases? MR. MAKHIJANI: As a first approximation,you can say that. I think there are two separate problems involved, whichare getting confused. Nuclear power can't be switched off overnight, and Ithink this is where some environmentalists get confused about theirown stand. And I think the environmental side should beclearer. MR. WATTENBERG: But if it is greenhousefree, greenhouse gas free, why should we phase it out at all? I mean,that is MR. MAKHIJANI: The question is, electricpower plants do come to the end of their lives, and the question is, whatshould the new money be put into? If you look at where the market is, the marketis not ordering new nuclear power plants, and hasn't since 1978. MR. KLEIN: When you look at thegreenhouse gas emissions, I agree with you, Ben, is that it is not clear whether globalwarming is real or not real, but there has been a policy decision madeworldwide, and in the United States, that we will reduce CO2 emissions. Whenyou look at all the Western countries, the United States, any country that has reducedtheir CO2 emissions have done it through the use of nuclear power. When you look at our economy, we aremoving towards more and more of an electro-economy, just the mention ofhigh-tech means electricity, computers. So, as our economy grows, as the youth oftoday need to get future jobs, and we need to keep ours, then we willbecome more and more electrified worldwide, as our countries grow. Nuclear power willplay a role in that, it has to play a role in it. MR. WATTENBERG: But you want it to playan increased role? MR. KLEIN: Absolutely. MR. MAKHIJANI: Are you going to ask forgovernment money to build nuclear power plants or not? MR. KLEIN: If you look at the reductionsin global warming that we've had, we've had, for example, since 1973, we'vereduced over two billion metric tons of CO2 emissions in the United States bythe use of nuclear power. There are a lot of things that we have done tomake nuclear power more cost competitive. We've enhanced safety. The capacityfactors have gone up. And so I think there's a good story to tell about nuclearpower, and the reason for it, it provides something that we need, and thatis electricity. MR. GILINSKY: Well, I mean, Dale isright. People have learned how to use this stuff better, and it runs better, andso on, and we could undoubtedly make better ones if we built them todaythan the ones we have. But they're still far more expensive than anything else, andthey just don't make it in the commercial marketplace, and they're notgoing to for quite a long time. I don't think anyone in the business of doingelectricity is taking that seriously, at least not in the UnitedStates. The places in the world where it's acloser call are where natural gas is unavailable. Pipeline gas is unavailable. And that turns out to be Asia, Japan, Korea, China, and so on. MR. MAKHIJANI: If we talk about othercountries, for the vast majority of countries, nuclear power is completelyirrelevant, because they're small countries. MR. WATTENBERG: France has 75 percent ofits electricity. MR. MAKHIJANI: France is a large countrywith a large economy. Most countries have populations of a few millionthat don't have very big electricity grids. In all of thosecountries, in almost all of Africa, for example, in much of Latin America, in muchof Asia, even, and in much of Europe, new nuclear power plants are notsuitable for their grids because their grids are too small and you stick a1,000 megawatt or a 500 megawatt plant on it, a big coal-fired plant isn't very goodfor them either. For the best reliability, and many of these countrieshave electric reliability problems, you should have smaller unit sizes. The thing that is in short supply in allthese countries is foreign exchange and capital, and new nuclear power plantsare very intensive on both these things. MR. WATTENBERG: Aren't the nuclearengineers now doing just what Arjun suggested, building smaller nuclearplants? MR. GILINSKY: Yes. If you look, forexample, at Westinghouse, it's come out with the standard 600-megawatt standardizedplant, and I think when you look, for example, in the global economy, ascountries in South America, and certainly China, as their economies grow,and they need more and more electricity, nuclear needs to play a rolein that, if we are concerned about global warming. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Nextquestion. MR. MAKHIJANI: The natural gasactually,let me just address what Mr. Gilinsky said. Natural gas is actuallybetter than nuclear, even though it sounds counter-intuitive if you have a fixedamount of dollars. If, because nuclear so expensive, natural gasif you use naturalgas to displace coal-fired power plants as they retire, and if you comparethat to using nuclear to displaced coal-fired power plants, even thoughnuclear has zero emissions and natural gas has some emissions for a fixed amountof dollars, natural gas power plants will reduce CO2 emissions by 40 percentmore than nuclear. MR. GILINSKY: Well, on the economic side,Ben, I think if you look at the facts, you will find out that right now onthe production costs that nuclear power generates electricity at about 1.9cents per kilowatt hour, coal at about 1.8, and natural gas at 2.8 cents perkilowatt hour. So, on economics, on the operation and maintenance of the plant, youknow, once the plants are built, they are very competitive. And, forexample, I don't believe that Japan, France, and other countries build thosekind of plants because they like to throw away money. They do it because theyneed diverse energy sources. I don't believe we want all of our energyeggs in any one basket. We don't want to have only coal, only natural gas, onlynuclear. We need an energy mix. MR. WATTENBERG: Is it safe? MR. KLEIN: Nuclear power is absolutelysafe, it is no risk free, but it is safe and the record speaks for that. Forexample MR. GILINSKY: You know, there's a certainamount of mumbo jumbo about this. MR. MAKHIJANI: Absolutely safe and notrisk free. Absolutely safe and not risk free is a contradiction in onesentence. No nuclear power plant design that exists today has a zero probability ofa Chernobyl scale accident. What is at issue is how probable is it. Unsafeplants, where there's less regulation, as for instance in Russia, it'smore probable. Here it is less probable, but it can happen here. MR. WATTENBERG: In the United States whatis the probability of a Chernobyl style accident, given our currentplants? MR. MAKHIJANI: We don't know how to put afigure on that probability, because nuclear power plants are socomplex, and all of the accidents have been quite big accidents have been quite different. So it's very hard to project. But, Commissioner Asselstein, of the NuclearRegulatory Commission, after the Chernobyl accident said, if we maintain therecord of safety that we have now, that is as of 1986, we should expect anuclear accident of the Chernobyl scale every 20 years. Now, maybe he's wrong,that's his opinion, it's not mine. MR. GILINSKY: Look at the different waywe talk about nuclear power than, say, about airplanes. Say, are airplanessafe? And you'd immediately say, it depends how you fly them, and if you've gotcompetent pilots and good procedures and so on, then they're safe. And the same way with nuclear energy. I think it's a little worrisomethat people feel like there's a sort of mantra, you have to say, you know, it'ssafe. So people will go along with it. I think safety first of all, we onlytalk about things being safe if they're intrinsically dangerous, which bothairplanes and nuclear power is. Ifwe stick to the rules, if we're careful,it's safe. And the whole thing that's important here is thediscipline. MR. WATTENBERG: Has any American everbeen killed in an accident concerning nuclear energy production? MR. GILINSKY: Well, nuclear energyproduction, I think the answer is no. Although there have been some workerskilled. MR. KLEIN: They have not. And Arjun isnot being quite honest when he says, Chernobyl accidents. The Chernobyl reactoris a unique type of reactor, no containment, it has an inherentinstability. And so to sort of give a broad sweep of nuclear power and Chernobyl isacademically dishonest, because our reactors have containments. And as Victorsays, that you do have to operate them safely, you have to maintain them. That's why the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has programs to enhance and toencourage safe operation. MR. MAKHIJANI: I don't know aboutacademia, I'm not in academia. But, I will defend my honesty. MR. WATTENBERG: Yes, sir. MR. MAKHIJANI: What I did say is we'llleave academia aside for now, that's a different show. The Chernobylscale accidents, accidents of the scale of radioactivity release of Chernobyl arepossible with light water reactors. They are different designs, but similarscale releases of radioactivity are possible. And I was not quoting my ownopinion, I didn't give my own opinion of probabilities, because I don't know. Idon't know how to calculate it, because I think we can't make a reasonablecalculation. I was quoting Commissioner Asselstein'sopinion ofChernobyl scale accidents. MR. WATTENBERG: Right, but thatwas anopinion issued a dozen years ago, and it did not necessarily refer to the UnitedStates. MR. MAKHIJANI: It referred to the UnitedStates. MR. GILINSKY: The really important thingis that we don't become complacent about these things. We're doing very well. We're doing better. Most of the almost all the plants are doing muchbetter. People know the equipment much better, understand the problems muchbetter. But, I think it's important to keep it up. And the reason I make thispoint MR. WATTENBERG: Is it safer than anyother technology, because there have been deaths in other energy technologies? As you see MR. GILINSKY: You're comparing sort of acertain level of accidents in other technologies, with the possibility that youmight get sort of a terrible accident, although you haven't had one inthis country. The reason I make the point about it's important not to getcomplacent is, you know, we're moving into sort of restructuring of the wholeelectricity system, and going to a much more competitive basis. And financesare going to play a much more important role in decisions at these plants. Sothere will be a lot of financial pressure. And just at a time when it'sreally important that the regulators watch more closely, there's a lot ofpressure on them to kind of back off, which is coming, unfortunately, from theindustry. I think it's rather unwise. And there have been somecongressional hearings, and they're going to be back up there. I think the importantthing is that we maintain this level of oversight. MR. WATTENBERG: Could anyone heredescribe what the energy the nuclear energy policy of the Clinton-Goreadministration is? MR. GILINSKY: Or any policy. MR. KLEIN: I don't think they have one. I don't think they have an energy policy. MR. MAKHIJANI: Actually, during the firstterm of President Clinton when Secretary Hazel O'Leary was Secretary ofEnergy, they did change the nuclear energy policy considerably. In previoustimes there had been much MR. WATTENBERG: In whichdirection? MR. MAKHIJANI: In the direction ofdowngrading nuclear research. In the previous administration there had been muchmore research on nuclear reactors, much more money going into thesealternative, new designs of nuclear reactors, quite a bit of money in the integral fastreactor, which is a MR. WATTENBERG: And what happened MR. MAKHIJANI: In the first Clinton term,this research was definitely downgraded, and research in renewables,wind energy, solar energy and so on, fuel cells, which is now bearing fruit, wasupgraded. So it had a reasonably good program. MR. WATTENBERG: What about in the secondterm? MR. MAKHIJANI: In the second term, Ithink things have been a little more confused, because they've had a lot ofchanges in the department, and there have been big changes from the first term. I don't think there's any policy in relation to global warming that'sbeen adopted, that I can see. MR. WATTENBERG: Dale, what do you make ofthis administration? MR. KLEIN: I think the Clintonadministration has given mixed signals on an energy policy. On the one hand they'll saythat global warming is a concern, but on the other hand, they will not admitthe values that nuclear power plays in global warming. And so I think thesignals that this administration has given on an energy policy has been mixedand confusing. I would like, Ben, for a minute to get back to your issue onsafety and risk. We basically have five ways that we generate electricity, on asignificant scale. Three are fossil fuels, we have oil, natural gas and coal,and we have our non-fossils, which are nuclear and hydro. All of those formsof electrical generation have some risk to them, but for that risk we get thebenefit of electricity. So no way, or none of the ways that we generateelectricity is totally risk-free. But, I think when you look at the safety aspectsof the nuclear industry that has been it's been quite good, as youindicated. There have been no deaths. And part of that has to do, I think, with Victor'sformer life when he was with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. You know,there is MR. WATTENBERG: Government is good foryou. MR. KLEIN: There is an agency MR. WATTENBERG: No, government he's rightabout that. MR. KLEIN: There is an agency that doesenhance to make sure that there are safe practices. So I think when you lookas a consumer, and you look at us needing additional electricity, thatnuclear power is a viable, safe, economic way to generate electricity. MR. WATTENBERG: Okay. Let's just we'reout of time. I want to just go quickly around the room. I'm going to putyou in a time machine, to 2025, where are we going to be on this issue ofnuclear power? MR. MAKHIJANI: Well, I think nuclearpower is clearly on the decline. The rate of its decline is in question. It'sbeen going out in the United States, it's being phased out in countries inEurope. I think we need to make an investment in renewables, and inefficiency. Our use of energy is miserably inefficient, even in the technologicallyadvanced countries. And we need to create a direction where we're not tradingoff global warming on the one side, and proliferation and terrible accidentrisks on the other side. Those are not comparable things. MR. GILINSKY: Well, I think it depends alot on this issue that you started off with, the global warming issue. It's abig if now. If it turns out that this is really serious, and we really areworried about it, we may be turning to nuclear power in a big way. If not, asthings are going along now, it likely will get, at least in this country,phased out by 2025. MR. KLEIN: By 2025 there will not be alot of changes, because our infrastructure for electrical generationare massive systems, and you don't change those even in 25 years. So I thinkworldwide in 25 years we'll have about 400 nuclear plants like we havetoday. We'll have some that will be built, some that will be shut down. But,in general, in 25 years we will not see much difference. Being in the researcharea, I'm optimistic that we will have breakthroughs on solar photocells,where we can generate electricity from the sun for peaking. But, I think for ourbasic electrical structure, by 2025 we will not see much change from where weare today. MR. WATTENBERG: Thank you, ArjunMakhijani, Dale Klein, and Victor Gilinsky. And thank you. For Think Tank, I'm BenWattenberg. ANNOUNCER: We at Think Tank depend onyour views to make our show better. Please, send your questions and comments toNew River Media, 1150 Seventeenth Street, Northwest, Washington, D.C. 20036,or email us at thinktank@pbs.org. To learn more about Think Tank, visit PBSOnline at www.pbs.org. And please let us know where you watch ThinkTank. (Musical break.) ANNOUNCER: This has been a production ofBJW Incorporated, in association with New River Media, which are solelyresponsible for its content. Brought to you in part by ADM, feeding theworld is the biggest challenge of the new century, because by the time thisbaby is old enough to vote the world will have nearly 2 billion new mouths tofeed. ADM, supermarket to the world. Additional funding is provided by the JohnM. Olin Foundation, the Lilly Endowment, the Lynde and Harry BradleyFoundation, the United States-Japan Foundation, and the Donner CanadianFoundation. (End of program.) 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