There has been a long-running debate over nuclear power for many years - many years before the current crisis in Japan introduced a whole new generation of people to the dangers of nuclear power generation, and many years before the myopic focus on carbon emission levels made nuclear trendy again. Here, in this article in Solutions magazine, authors push for the merits of nuclear to be analyzed objectively, through a complete cost analysis and by eliminating subsidies that make the energy seem cheaper than it is.
"How would nuclear power fare if the subsidies were removed and the full costs internalized? It is hard to predict, but the answer to whether nuclear power can be part of the energy solution lies in how the full costs of nuclear compare with the full costs of fossil fuel, hydro, and renewable energy. For example, most people believe that nuclear energy is either completely free of greenhouse gases or contributes negligible amounts. However, this is not true when one considers the entire life cycle of the nuclear power complex. A 2008 study showed that if the price of nuclear energy included the cost of greenhouse gases, nuclear power would cost more than not only fossil fuel technologies but also wind energy.7 Including the cost of the risk of accidents and waste disposal, as discussed above, would raise the price significantly further."
Amen to that!
Yet, for as much sense as this makes, the truth is that full cost analysis and internalizing real costs require a complete re-thinking of how business is done. The real difficulty here is not how much work it would take to actually re-think business, but how much resistance to the very idea exists. There is an entrenched and influential group of people who are very much opposed to changing how the system works, the same group of people who benefit from the system.
Don't get me started on how all of this ties back together with our on-going national debt issues and financial woes. Because, like it or not, the increasing inequality in wealth, grossly distorted wage gaps, and wild generation of false wealth - these things are all tied together in what is becoming increasingly apparent as an economic system and society gone wrong.
Ooops, sorry, a little Paul Ryan-inspired rant there. :)
"How would nuclear power fare if the subsidies were removed and the full costs internalized? It is hard to predict, but the answer to whether nuclear power can be part of the energy solution lies in how the full costs of nuclear compare with the full costs of fossil fuel, hydro, and renewable energy. For example, most people believe that nuclear energy is either completely free of greenhouse gases or contributes negligible amounts. However, this is not true when one considers the entire life cycle of the nuclear power complex. A 2008 study showed that if the price of nuclear energy included the cost of greenhouse gases, nuclear power would cost more than not only fossil fuel technologies but also wind energy.7 Including the cost of the risk of accidents and waste disposal, as discussed above, would raise the price significantly further."
Amen to that!
Yet, for as much sense as this makes, the truth is that full cost analysis and internalizing real costs require a complete re-thinking of how business is done. The real difficulty here is not how much work it would take to actually re-think business, but how much resistance to the very idea exists. There is an entrenched and influential group of people who are very much opposed to changing how the system works, the same group of people who benefit from the system.
Don't get me started on how all of this ties back together with our on-going national debt issues and financial woes. Because, like it or not, the increasing inequality in wealth, grossly distorted wage gaps, and wild generation of false wealth - these things are all tied together in what is becoming increasingly apparent as an economic system and society gone wrong.
Ooops, sorry, a little Paul Ryan-inspired rant there. :)
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