Nuclear Power Revival? Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

It will take 30 new nuclear plants to help curb dangerous climate change. Each year. Right now, the world builds about one a year. If it's "lucky."

That was the assessment of the executive director of the International Energy Agency, speaking at the Bali climate conference yesterday. Not too long ago a call for nuclear like that would have been anathema to many.

But the urgency to fight climate change has helped to overcome fears of a global nuclear renaissance. And yet, a new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) concluded that fear is still very much warranted. Nuclear power releases few global warming emissions, but it's no world savior. Not yet. In the US, it's still a catastrophe waiting to happen.

The US hasn't built a new nuclear plant in 30 years. Read the UCS report, and you'll be relieved. The US has tough standards, but its Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) cannot successfully enforce them at current plants, let alone at the new fleet of reactors that eager industrialists are dying to build. (Seventeen utility companies currently have plans to build 31 new reactors.)

True, the US hasn't had a major accident since Three Mile Island in 1979. But the lack of a disaster is providing a veneer of safety, when a closer look reveals severe slip-ups and defects at the NRC. From the report:

• Since 1979, there have been 35 instances in which reactors have shut down for safety violations and have been so extensive that a year or more has been needed to fix them.
• The Price-Anderson Act, just renewed for another 20 years, lessens incentives to improve safety.
• Federal security standards are inadequate to defend plants against real-world terrorist threats.
• Only one of 10 new reactor designs under consideration in the United
  States that is potentially safer and more secure than those operating
  today.

The good news is that we're seeing the NRC cracking down on existing plants by seriously challenging requests to renew licenses for the first time. (The Wall Street Journal has a story today, "Nuclear Power is Headed for a Fight.")

The troubling news is that if the US, which boasts some of the world's strongest nuclear power safety standards, isn't prepared for a revival, then how can the entire world possibly be ready? It can't.

The UCS even recommends that the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the international partnership announced in 2006 by the US to curb proliferation, be dumped because it would actually increase risks of proliferation and terrorism.

Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, states in a recent Huff Post article what may strike an alarmist chord but is impossible to refute:

There is simply no way to ensure that, in a world dependent on nuclear power, nuclear weapons will not proliferate -- it simply can't be done.

The key finding of the UCS is simple: The nuclear industry is not as safe as it must be to be a viable climate solution on the scale necessary. So until that day comes, plotting for a massive investment in nuclear is a distraction, especially when there are perfectly safe climate fixes waiting in the wings.

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