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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Kum Dollison: “You’re further along than you realize.”
Fine, I can cherry pick a day when renewables are putting out virtually nothing. Now show me what it’s done on a lifetime capacity average.
John, all true except that it was not the cooling pumps that were damaged. It was the diesel tank farm for the backup diesel generators which were washed away.
More drivel from Roger Sowell: “…induced deaths will not be apparent for many years, perhaps decades),…”
The latency time for leukemia, the form of cancer most prone to generation by radiation is 10 years. There was NO leukemia spike in the mid 1990s from the Chernobyl releases.
“…it is so hazardous that private insurance is not available for the plants…”
Typical antinuke propaganda. You should know how the insurance industry works. There are all kinds of activities that private insurance cannot cover.
“…it consumes precious water resources for cooling its deadly radioactive reactors…”
Nuclear plants use water only for steam condensation. Virtually none is “consumed” except for a tiny loss from evaporation.
No, South Texas has been postponed because of a drop in electricity demand.
A little thing called a recession.
And drivel from HenryP:
“More that 300 people died at Chernobyl (sacrificially, for us) trying encapsulate the plant.”
The immediate fatalities were 31. A further 25 are presumed to have died as a result of radiation exposure as a consequence of receiving radiation doses over 2.5 Sv. All of these were at the plant the night of the accident. Your 300 number is fictional. Please tell me who fabricated it, because it is not found in UNSCEAR or any other scientific body’s report.
colin:
many years ago the greenies were screaming about San Onofre “overheating ” the discharge water. that is the water that runs through the condensers in the turbine hall (or in this case the turbine area as S’O’s turbines are out in the open) that condense the steam in the last couple of stages in the low pressure turbines. this particular water is discharged through extremely large pipes that carry it out into the ocean several miles.
they were correct it was heating the water (a total of about 4.5 degrees F).
there was a great hue and cry about killing off the local flora and fauna on the seabottom.
well after many years of operation they found that several fish species that liked cooler water moved north about 40 miles and others that liked the warmer water moved in from the south. no gross change in the critter population.
about the time they were going to make grand pronounciations the la ninya and ninyo currents/effects
were discovered or at least publicized and it threw the whole thing into confusion.
C
Yesterday, California produced 15.2% of its electricity from Renewables.
http://www.caiso.com/green/renewrpt/20110613_DailyRenewablesWatch.pdf
This does Not include Hydro, or Imported Wind, and Hydro.
Fossil fuels, imported plus domestic, probably don’t account for more than 1/3 of California’s electricity, now.
And, some very large solar projects are underway. Some (most? all?) of these will come online this year.
@Colin on June 14, 2011 at 12:09 pm
Colin, I don’t recall exchanging views with you until now. I cannot determine if you are serious, or simply mis-informed. I’ll take the latter for civility.
You wrote:
“More drivel from Roger Sowell: “…induced deaths will not be apparent for many years, perhaps decades),…””
The latency time for leukemia, the form of cancer most prone to generation by radiation is 10 years. There was NO leukemia spike in the mid 1990s from the Chernobyl releases.”
Actually, the fact is that ionizing radiation has, indeed, a range of latency periods before symptoms and death occur. A quick search will show you that some forms of ionizing radiation-caused cancer have a latency of 40 years. I suggest to you that that qualifies for “decades.”
““…it is so hazardous that private insurance is not available for the plants…”
Typical antinuke propaganda. You should know how the insurance industry works. There are all kinds of activities that private insurance cannot cover.”
Propaganda, you wrote. Hmmm…. so, if it is true, that makes it propaganda? Do you dispute the basic assertion, that private insurance is not available for nuclear power plants in the USA? If you do so dispute, please name one, or all the ones, that are privately insured. Furthermore, insurance is readily available for most activities – but not for ultrahazardous activities. Where an insurance company knows that the risks are non-negligible and the liability is catastrophically large, no underwriting occurs. Skydiving is an example. I suspect that javelin-catchers at the Olympic games also cannot purchase insurance.
Next, you take on the issue of water for nuclear power plants, writing ” “…it consumes precious water resources for cooling its deadly radioactive reactors…”
Nuclear plants use water only for steam condensation. Virtually none is “consumed” except for a tiny loss from evaporation.”
Your lack of knowledge is perhaps due to youth or inexperience, or perhaps a willful failure to learn the facts. Here is a link to a pretty good article on the water war over South Texas Nuclear Project. In the course of the writing there is also mention of other nuclear power plants and their adverse effect on rivers. Water is indeed consumed, as it is evaporated in the cooling pond that is used by STNP. Water is taken from the river almost continuously, and must go somewhere. Basic physics will tell you that "pounds in must equal pounds out." (for the knowledgeable who are reading this, that equality is based on zero change in inventory). The water is evaporated from the cooling pond, with heat for evaporation received from cooling the reactors and condensing the steam from the turbines.
http://nukefree.org/news/WaterhelpsfueldebateontheSTP%5BSouthTexasNuclearPlant%5D
Finally, you write ” No, South Texas has been postponed because of a drop in electricity demand.
A little thing called a recession.”
You may be interested to learn that Texas has actually added jobs during the late economic difficulties, and South Texas Nuclear Project is, surprisingly enough, in Texas. The facts are these: the South Texas Nuclear Project Expansion has been canceled by the proponents because 1) the cost is too high and keeps increasing each time a new estimate is performed, 2) the City of Austin declined to participate from the beginning, despite owning a share of the existing two reactors, 3) the City of San Antonio has reduced their willingness to participate to a pittance, 4) water is very precious in South Texas and the expansion is more and more unpopular now that it is widely known that farmers are going without water so that a nuclear plant can be cooled.
If this is what you define as “drivel,” you have a most interesting definition.
Roger, if leukemia does not appear, which is the most prone to radiation propagation, then the others do not appear.
Your comment on cooling ponds is irrelevant. Standing or flowing water evaporates naturally. All we are concerned about is the excess evaporation produced by the thermal heat. And that is small.
None of what you said re. South Texas is inconsistent with a loss of demand, which is the real reason that power projects of all kinds are falling away just now, particularly in the light of $3 gas.
@Colin, your most recent response shows me that you concede you have lost the argument. Facts are difficult to overcome. “small excess evaporation from the thermal heat?” Where do you think the heat from the condenser goes at STNP? This is not a once-through cooling system. It is an evaporative pond. You can see it on Google maps or Google Earth. How much heat do you think is released by those condensers? The plant itself produces roughly 2100 MW of power. The condenser rejects roughly 3 times that much energy as heat. Thus, you are claiming that 6000 MW of equivalent heat evaporates a negligible amount of water! That claim is truly absurd.
Regarding the supposed “loss of demand,” utilities do not worry much over temporary demand dips, even if one were to be happening in Texas at this time. As I said, Texas’ economy is growing. Demand is increasing. Aging generating plants must be replaced. San Antonio, Austin, and Houston all must replace aging plants and build new plants to meet future increases in demand. All utilities face this (except for Detroit, where population decline is the rule). Even Detroit must replace aging power plants. With a nuclear plant requiring a decade or more to begin producing power, the planning and design must occur at least 10 years ahead. The reason the STNP expansion was cancelled has nothing whatever to do with any existing demand changes.
My statement on radiation and latency stands. You can dance around it all you like, but the facts are the facts. Medical doctors have studied the effects of radiation and published those results.
I do hope you take some time and get up to speed on these matters.
The Germans say “Alles dreht sich um die Kohle” – Everything turns around the money. Kohle means bucks. It means coal too.
For further reference regarding Texas’ electrical generating needs in the next 20 years, the link from ERCOT below outlines their situation.
Note, ERCOT is: “The Electric Reliability Council of Texas, Inc., (ERCOT) manages the flow of electric power to approximately 23 million Texas customers – representing 85 percent of the state’s electric load and 75 percent of the Texas land area. As the Independent System Operator for the region, ERCOT schedules power on an electric grid that connects 40,500 miles of transmission lines and more than 550 generation units. ERCOT also manages financial settlement for the competitive wholesale bulk-power market and administers customer switching for 6.6 million Texans in competitive choice areas. ERCOT is a membership-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit corporation, governed by a board of directors and subject to oversight by the Public Utility Commission of Texas and the Texas Legislature.”
To summarize ERCOT’s projection of new power requirements, quote “Long-term projections in the annual assessment show three scenarios based on generation retirements at 30 years, 40 years and 50 years. The mid-range scenario of unit retirements at 40 years or older indicates a need for more than 62,000 MW of new generation capacity needed to meet the 2031 projected demand of approximately 99,900 MW (including a 13.75 percent reserve margin).” [emphasis added]
It would seem that a power plant expansion of 2200 MW would be quite desirable to help fill a portion of that 62,000 MW of new generation capacity that is required. However, the STNP expansion is not in the plan, for the reasons I stated above.
http://www.ercot.com/news/press_releases/2011/nr05-31-11
A bit more on the high cost of nuclear power plants, this from Powergenworldwide.com (see link below)
“Generally, in addition to environmental, safety, and security concerns, the high cost of nuclear power plant construction and maintenance relative to the cost of fossil fuels such as coal deters civilian nuclear energy development.”
and
“The 1998 WEO predicted that with the exception of OECD Europe, high costs would drive down nuclear power generation and encourage coal and oil use. The study attributed the decline in nuclear energy in OECD North America to an increase in coal-based electricity generation. Similarly, it noted that in China the higher cost of nuclear energy–three times that of coal per kilowatt–made a weak case for development of nuclear power plants.“ [emphasis added]
Since then (1998), the cost per MW of nuclear power plants has increased, especially in the USA, due to regulatory requirements that the reactor containment, spent fuel storage area, and cooling system all be able to withstand a direct impact from a large commercial aircraft.
http://www.powergenworldwide.com/index/display/wire-news-display/1437206685.html