Clean Coal and the Price of Eggs in Japan
By D. R. Welch
As many environmentalist dance around the grave of nuclear power, Japanese farmers are busy trying to allay fears of radioactive produce. Ok, maybe not the fear of eggs but, the fear of radioactive spinach and milk. As all six reactors have had power reestablished, workers, engineers and scientists will begin trying to restart the cooling pumps. The damage from multiple hydrogen and steam explosions is not known but, over the next days and weeks each life-protecting cooling pump will be tested and possibly engaged. Radiation levels at the plant continue spike unpredictably as uncooled spent uranium fuel rods melt. Their unspent cousins are melting inside un and under cooled reactors. Since many of the problems of this subsidiary crisis stem from the lack pumped cooling water, engineers are hopeful electric service will cure many of the issues at the plant.
As we sort out procedures like the storage of spent nuclear fuel in such close proximity to active reactors and locating plants in tsunami prone areas, many anti-nuclear environmentalists are actively trying to spin lessons learned into catastrophic failures. As they build the case against a nuclear renaissance in this country, I believe the anti-nuke environmentalists may want to rethink their position on nuclear power.
The position of the anti-nuke crowd becomes questionable when you look at the 2010 statistics for power generation in the United States. Almost half of our power is generated from coal (44%). All renewables including hydroelectric come in a distant fourth (14%) behind natural gas (24%) and nuclear (20%). Clean coal, an oxymoron, should make environmentalist beg for nuclear. From cradle to grave, coal is a troublemaker with its only redeeming quality being cost. Mountaintop mining discharges silt and heavy metals rendering rivers useless. Coal mining in general has killed 369 people since 2000. After it is burned, we learned in the Kingston Tennessee disaster, coal ash can ruin both the groundwater and surface water of a community. Although natural gas burns cleaner, the practice of fracking has recently come under fire. With no good choices for environmentalist, they seem to run to renewables and away from nuclear.
The run toward renewables and away from nuclear seems on its face to be irrational until you consider emotions surrounding any nuclear power. Radiation is the gift that keeps on giving. The fission of atoms is one the few human endeavors which can not be reversed. In the scale of human time, nuclear boo boos last FOREVER. When life returns to normal (or as normal as normal gets with 10,000 dead) for the victims of the earthquake and tsunami, there will continue to be uninhabitable areas around the Fukushima Daiichi. This permanence and the fear of the unknown is the key to the controversy which surrounds nuclear power. It is why many environmentalists genuinely emotional about this subject.
Emotions in this argument however, are a luxury we are no longer able to afford. We need to have the “adult conversation”, to which Republicans are so fond, about energy too. Don’t get me wrong, I like cheap power bills as much as the next guy. Coal however, has hidden costs. If you leave the global warming argument for another article, environmental costs are still too high. With mountain top removal and other strip mining methods, mining coal has become too expensive. It is worse in the second and third world. Highways fail under the onslaught of transporting coal and we are leaving the bill to our children. Without discussing carbon, the greenhouse gasses produced by burning coal are still too high. Storing coal ash renders groundwater and surface water undrinkable. Leaving the ash for our kids is wrong. Finally, the human costs are also too high. To get cheap coal we sacrifice too many workers through “accidents” and sickness.
Nuclear power has its issues. Environmentalists however, would do well to look at the alternatives. Since many renewables are years from being viable, they should consider taking a hard look at nuclear. The do-nothing alternative leaves coal as the king of our power producing fuels. Environmentalist should focus instead on making nuclear, our only real alternative today, safer and more environmentally friendly.
D. R. Welch is a civil engineer working for a southern state who lives with his wife and daughter. He has practiced engineering as an owner of a civil engineering firm and now in the public sector. He understands both the perils of owning a small business and delivering the best transportation system possible to the taxpayer.