From Rutgers University press room: The Energy Debate: Coal vs. Nuclear
Rutgers researcher finds factors other than global warming and potential for plant accidents figure into Americans’ preferences
As America struggles down the road toward a coherent energy policy that focuses on a higher degree of self-reliance, policymakers face numerous issues and realities. These include: the finite supply and environmental impact of fossil fuels, the feasibility and costs to implement a widespread switch to renewable energy sources, and the variables that lead to consumers’ preferences for particular types of power generation. They also need to find and employ tools to effectively communicate such a policy to a range of constituencies.
When it comes to traditional energy sources, coal, with its attendant air pollution and link to global warming, and nuclear power, with the potential for radiation-spewing accidents, such as befell Japan’s Fukushima’s Nuclear Power Plant, remain two of the most controversial.
Professor Michael Greenberg, who studies environmental health at Rutgers’ Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, and Heather Barnes Truelove, a postdoctoral fellow at the Vanderbilt Institute for Energy and Environment have researched consumers’ attitudes toward these two energy sources. Both are members of the Consortium for Risk, Evaluation with Stakeholder Participation (CRESP). Their recent article in the journal Risk Analysis examines Americans’ risk beliefs and preferences for coal and nuclear energy, and finds factors other than global warming and the potential for nuclear power plant accidents figure into their choices.
Energy production from coal has been linked to air pollution and global warming.
The U.S. Department of Energy funded the 2009 landline telephone survey of 3,200 U.S. residents – 800 selected randomly and 2,400 who lived within six, 100-mile-radius regions containing many nuclear and coal-fueled electricity generating and waste management facilities. The study was to learn the association, if any, between some common risk beliefs about coal and nuclear energy and consumer preferences; if global warning and serious nuclear power plant accidents were the strongest risk beliefs associated with preferences; and the characteristics of “acknowledged risk-takers” who were aware of the sources’ shortcomings yet wanted to increase reliance on them. The response rate to the survey was 23.4 percent.The research followed an earlier survey by Greenberg that measured public preferences for various energy choices and their associations with respondent demographics and also trust, among other correlates. Due to widespread media coverage (and dramatized accounts) of global warming and the accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, it was expected these two factors would be the “signature risk beliefs” about coal and nuclear power, respectively.
In the second study, the researchers investigated five sets of characteristics for respondents: age; the role of cultural, social and political identity; the effects of values about the environment and trust; respondent location; and risk beliefs about coal and nuclear energy.
Results from the total sample showed that about 25 percent of participants wanted to increase reliance on coal and 66 percent preferred to decrease dependence on it. The analogous proportions were 48 percent and 46 percent, respectively, for nuclear. Belief that coal use causes global warming, as expected, was related to preferences for coal, but, for example, ecological degradation was a slightly stronger correlate of coal-related preferences than global warming. With regard to preference for use of nuclear energy, there was a strong correlation with the possibility of a nuclear plant accident, but other risk beliefs, such as about nuclear waste management, nuclear material transport and uranium mining had just as strong or stronger relationships with preference for increased reliance on nuclear energy.
About 30 percent of respondents favored increased reliance on nuclear energy, despite admitting the possibility of a serious accident. About 10 percent favored greater reliance on coal, while acknowledging the fossil fuel’s role in global warming. The strongest correlates of the two groups were socioeconomic status and race/ethnicity. The acknowledged nuclear risk-taker group was affluent, educated white males, and the coal group was relatively poor, less educated African-American and Latino females. The three consistent factors across both groups were older age, trust in those who manage energy facilities and the belief that energy facilities help the local economy.
The authors conclude their findings have a role to play in the formulation of a national energy policy because they show “one or two simple messages that attempt to persuade the public to change its preferences for or against specific energy sources are unlikely to succeed, especially if the public has a negative image of the source.” More important, regardless of the existence of subpopulations with specific views about energy sources, “The United States needs a clear and comprehensive energy strategy that addresses the energy life cycle, beginning with securing the energy and transporting it, then to producing and transmitting the energy, and managing the wastes.”
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The Energy Debate: Coal vs. Nuclear?
What debate . . . in America it’s both plus a whole lot more . . . gee, I thought that was why we have anti trust laws???? Or am I missing some broader point here . . . .
On the other hand, what really is going on.
http://tinyurl.com/3kakmtm
We can’t do without coal and we can’t do without nuclear.
Everything else is bla, bla, bla, bla…
“global warning”? I’ve been hearing a lot of that.
Without seeing the wording of the questions posed in the survey it’s difficult to know the importance of the results they claim. How many questions had no ‘correct’ answer?
Again, they are only worried about concensus. This was a thermometer check of their propoganda. Do enought people believe global warming? If so, they can push their cap and trade agenda again.
Nuclear power just could be about to get safer, hopefully…
Beryllium-uranium fuel research shows promise
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ENF-Beryllium-uranium_fuel_research_shows_promise-0402118.html
Big Power (coal/nuclear) is messy.
Little Power (solar/biomass/hydro/wind) is too limited in scope.
Trapped like rats. What’s a civilization to do?
I note that Japan is now officially admitting that nuclear energy is not safe. It never was safe in the first place, because of the waste problem. Germany has stopped using nuclear energy. The world is currently still sitting with two enormous problems in Chernobyl and Fukushima.
Obviously, nobody of those still singing the praises of nuclear energy is prepared to volunteer to clean up the mess that we still have there.
I therefore would like to add my voice to those opposed to nuclear energy. I would not ask you to stop all nuclear energy if I had not carefully studied the possible alternatives>
1) There have been proposals to use “renewables” like wind. However, I found several report backs from those using wind, that wind power is very unreliable.
(you could ask report from Denmark or USA about this)
2) In the case of using solar power for generating electricity, it was found that this was very, very un-economical. Subsidies in Spain have recently been withdrawn.
They cannot afford it anymore. (perhaps you could ask report from Spain about this)
3) I don’t have a problem using coal, as, contrary to popular opinion, I found that your carbon footprint is actually good for life.
The pattern of global warming that I observed on earth, prove that it (i.e. the global warming) is a natural process and has nothing to do with the increase in carbon dioxide.
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/henrys-pool-table-on-global-warming
http://www.letterdash.com/HenryP/more-carbon-dioxide-is-ok-ok
This may become relevant as time moves on. People will have to get used to the idea that our carbon footprint (carbon dioxide) is good for life.
However, when using coal, you still sit with the heavy metals, sulphurous gases and carbon monoxide.
These are poisons that have to be removed from the exhaust.
This may prove a bit expensive.
4) I believe some discussion is currently going in about fracking and using gas for generating energy.
It has been proved all over the world that using gas is the most economical way to generate electricity.
It will also generate many new jobs, which the country needs badly.
5) Obviously, where possible, hydro power is probably the cheapest, cleanest and most reliable option for generating electricity.
We should investigate if there are not more possibilities to pursue this option.
From the article: “They also need to find and employ tools to effectively communicate such a policy to a range of constituencies”
constituency (from wiki): “a distinct territorial subdivision for holding a separate election for one or more seats in a legislative body.”
I think the politicians need to do exactly the opposite of what Rutgers is saying. In stead of trying to find better ways to tell the public what to do, they need to become better listeners and start doing what the people say. That’s what the tea party is all about. The dolts over at Rutgers need to be shipped off to Cambodia, and they can see what effective one-way communication from the Government is really like. I hope they have a nice stay.
Energy from Thorium is an excellent site to investigate the potential of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors.
ThorEA is a British org. which is looking at ‘small’ particle accelerators to supply neutrons for thorium fission rather than U233 which is used in LFTR.
A full post by an expert on thorium reactors would be most welcome.
It’s amazing the country with the largest sources of fossil fuels needs to struggle with energy policy.
How about we try some Pebble Bed Modular Reactor, or coal gasification or just drilling in sacred lands and seas.
It seems to me that these people need the threat of “plant accident” in order to maintain their agenda. By preventing the construction of new plants that are orders of magnitude less likely to experience a major accident and by keeping older, more accident prone plants in service longer, they actually increase the likelihood of such accidents. In other words, by building new plants and removing the old 1960’s and 1970’s plants from service, the incidence of accidents would decline to nearly impossible levels. But having these accidents such as Fukushima enables them to further their agenda.
Current generation uranium/plutonium reactors (all reactors burn plutonium, even if that isn’t the fuel you actually load it with. U238 in the fuel rods is converted to P239 and by the time the fuel is spent, most of the energy is coming from plutonium) are extremely safe.
These people *need* nuclear accidents and so are dead set on preventing the building of new modern plants that won’t experience them.
Once again, fusion seems to be an “unmentionable”
potential power source.
With less radioactive byproducts in both the fuel processing and
spent fuel after use, and zero CO2 emissions, and NO ripping up
of the landscape common to both, why is fusion not part of the
dialogue ?
More funding for fusion research, please.
Actually, we can do without coal, but not right away. Coal contains vast amounts of Hg, U, Th and SO2 that converts to H2SO4 (acid rain). Oak Ridge National Laboratory esitmates that 5 tons of U and 13 tons of Th are released in burning coal. 5 % of ash is fly-ash, with a mean diameter of 6 to 10 µm. This is exactly the size that goes into the lungs and sticks. All the while these little glass spherules are making their way out of the lungs, they are bombarding the eplithelium with highly ionizing alpha particles. When alpha particles pass near DNA, double strand breaks and radical adducts are inevitable. The cancer risk may be much higher than for radon.
Economics dictate that we keep coal for now. It produces 50% of US power today. Costs are about $0.05 / kWh, much less than the $0.09 to $0.15 for natural gas. You can extract actual prices by fuel type if you look at the fuel mix of various states starting here: http://www.eia.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/epm_sum.html. It is difficult to figure the price because 1) fuel types are usually mixed in a state, and 2) retail prices can be driven by expensive and inefficient peak power generators. Levelized cost analyses are generally manipulated to serve the needs of the presenter. Here is an example: http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2009/05/12/levelized-cost-of-new-generating-technologies/
For example, the advanced nuclear cost based on the U. Chicago / MIT analysis is flawed because it assumes a 40 year useful life of the unit. 60 to 80 years would be more accurate, and thus, the levelized cost should be much lower. Wind power in all of its flavors does not take into consideration the 30% capacity factor, and seems to assume an unreasonably low O&M cost. At least offshore wind estimates indicate far higher costs than land-based. For California, only offshore wind generation can practically dent our energy needs. 10% of our power from wind would require 1250 square miles of area (80 acres per 1.5 MW turbine). There is not enough area on land, therefore they have to be constructed at sea.
Modular nuclear power plant designs offer far greater safety and lower cost than current 1000 MW reactors. Modular plants do not need emergency coolant. Some are air cooled. Molten salt reactors cannot melt down, and can burn the actinides and nearly all the fuel load. Current nuclear loads are finished after burning 3% of the fuel. Should the rest go to waste? Areva recycles fuel; we don’t. An MSR fast reactor could have fuel replenished and waste removed in a constant process. The Pebble Bed design to burn thorium recreates the need for costly recycling of solid fuel. Solid fuel recycling is not trivial. Solid fuel is needed by the industry to secure higher profits. It’s the old printer / ink cartridge model. The money is in the consumables.
It all boils down to what we are going to do for power100 years from now. We have enough U and Th to last for centuries if we burn it all in fast reactors. We all know that fusion is always 50 years in the future. Maybe we really will have fusion some day. If we do, then our energy problems are over.
Then the question is whether we have time to develop fusion. Will we still have a civilization after the greens have destroyed our economies and put everyone under socialist control? How many people will still be alive? We can’t all dig in the mud for potatoes. Who really wants to live that way? I’m not willing to happily march forward to the next Cultural Revolution Obama-style, bowing to our Great Leader.
China would kill to have our coal reserves,,,,
,,,is anyone stupid enough to think they would ask first
R. de Haan says:
June 13, 2011 at 11:18 am
We can’t do without coal and we can’t do without nuclear.
Everything else is bla, bla, bla, bla…
That pretty much sums it up pretty nicely. One thing though…at some time in the future we will have to do without coal and the single serious choice we’ll have to replace it is nuclear. Everything else is bla, bla, bla…
MikeEE
What kills more people?
1) Living next to a nuke plant in Japan
2) Eating bean sprouts in Germany
Correction: S in coal goes to SO2 in burning. Ozone/UV/H2O convert SO2 to H2SO4.
By the way, ORNL estimates that there is more energy in the U and Th contained in the coal (if we extracted them for use in fission reactors) than from burning the coal.
R.S.Brown Because no one has a working fusion reactor? Yet. The Tokamak based designs are a long way from break even, and are terribly expensive, I’m hoping for success from Polywell or Dense Plasma Focus.
MSR looks like the best way to go in fission arena, it can use uranium as well as thorium, can’t suffer a runaway, can be used to “burn up” spent nuclear fuel, and will produce 0.6% as much waste as gen 3 reactors.
The problem with nuclear waste, isn’t a problem. Especially in Japan. That waste can be and is reprocessed to remove the short lived contaminants from the fuel. The contaminants can be stored for a few years to decades while they decay away to harmlessness, and the vast bulk, the fuel, returned to service.
As to hydro, in the US, almost all of the good sites are already being utilized. The biggest problem with expanding the use of hydro, is that the enviro’s are dead set against it.
The only problem with fusion is that it’s the power source of the future, and has been for 60 years.
Were there any questions regarding the reliability and consumer cost of electricity? I want my electricity to be reliable and cheap. I would prefer that it be produced as cleanly as possible, but reliable and cheap trumps everything else. I’ve lived in third world countries, and I don’t want to live like that here. So as far as I’m concerned, any survey that doesn’t address the impact on this country of costly, unreliable alternative energy (i.e. solar and wind) is completely invalid.
HenryP says:
June 13, 2011 at 11:56 am
I note that Japan is now officially admitting that nuclear energy is not safe.
_________________________
Ridiculous. Japan is not that stupid. The TEPCO Dai-ni plants at Fukushima are all fine. They shut down after the earthquake without any problems at all. The Dai-ichi plants 1-4 needed to be replaced anyway. Currently, only 17 of 54 nuclear power plants are on line. Two other reactors were shut down by government request. The public is slightly divided on whether nuclear power should be increased or decreased. However, only a small minority in Japan favor abolishing nuclear power.
See: http://www.jaif.or.jp/english/news_images/pdf/ENGNEWS02_1305683936P.pdf
ShrNfr says:
June 13, 2011 at 12:53 pm
The earthquake and tsunami killed people in Japan. The reactors did not. Workers died from physical injury, not radiation. Two died from the tsunami, and 4 died when a truck hit them in a construction accident.