nuclear power

A new era of nuclear power wouldn't be "up to the job" of shrinking America's greenhouse gas pollution fast enough to stop the most damaging consequences of global warming, according to a new report from Environment America.

Nuclear power advocates in the United States have championed the idea of constructing at least 100 new nuclear plants by 2030 as a strategy against climate change.

Not only would that timeframe be logistically nearly impossible to meet, but building a new generation of reactors would be far more expensive and far less effective at reducing emissions than other sources of carbon-free power, Environment America said in its report, "Generating Failure."

The up-front capital costs of 100 new nuclear reactors would be roughly $600 billion and could leap to $1 trillion.

If that same money were "invested in energy efficiency and clean, renewable energy instead," it "could prevent twice as much pollution over the next 20 years," the report said.

Nuclear power has long been controversial for its radioactive waste, history of dangerous meltdowns and potential to help spread nuclear weapons. With those arguments against it, and with a spotty record of construction and management in the 1970s and 1980s, the United States hasn’t welcomed a new nuclear power plant since 1996 – and that one had been in the works since 1973.

Now, however, fears about climate change, along with changes in the industry and in regulatory practices, are changing the nuclear energy calculus.

“Nuclear right now is at a crossroads. There are a lot of possibilities that nuclear can make a good contribution to solving the greenhouse problem, but those possibilities are just ifs,” says John Parsons, executive director of the Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research at MIT and an author of a widely cited report, The Future of Nuclear Power.

Nuclear power will almost certainly be part of climate legislation discussed in the U.S. Senate. Environment and Public Works Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who is writing the Senate's version of the climate bill, was clear about that last week, saying, “There will be a nuclear title in the bill.”

But a new study tallying the cost of nuclear power suggests that nuclear's many uncertainties could push it out of the realm of being cost-competitive.

New research out of Australia's Monash University claims that mining uranium for nuclear power is spewing more greenhouse gases than the world's been led to believe when you account for the entire nuclear energy chain -- and it's going to get worse.

How come?