Date: Wed, 01 Jul 2009 09:43:17 -0600

Subject: Paul Sheldon, )Hunter Lovins' brother) - a business case against nuclear
From: John Steiner & Margo King <steiner_king@...>

To: John Steiner & Margo King <steiner_king@...>

From: Paul Sheldon <psheldon@...>

What's significant regarding the possible interest of having nuclear power be part of the new energy/climate change mix regarding the current legislation in DC is not the science or the related arguments (remember how the tobacco industry stalled for 40 years by arguing over science?).  Rather, it's the business case that matters most.  

We're leaving money on the table, or throwing it down a sink-hole, if we start by investing in worst buys first.  Efficiency investments provide a return of 160% within 2-3 years.  You tell me which stock I can invest in with that kind of return, and we can go into business together. 

Meanwhile, speculative, fancy, glamorous, risky nuclear investments require that the taxpayers (that's you and me) provide unlimited insurance coverage, and that investors pay sink huge chunks of capital for 20-30 years, to get maybe a 6% or 9% return, while freezing capital for decades that could otherwise be invested in smart strategies like caulking, attic insulation, new windows, and efficient lighting.  And with efficiency, the capital revolves in the local economy in zero to 3 years, rather than decades, creating jobs and economic multipliers along the way.  France?  Why is nationally socialized nuclear power okay, when national healthcare isn't?  Baseload? With smart metering and smart grids, the baseload needs can be met by hydro, regional wind, wave energy, pump-storage and a few other clever things we'll think of along the way.  Read anything either Lovins has published, together or apart, in the last 35 years.

Forgive my flippant response, but after 35 years, I'm startled that so many people are missing the two major problems with advocating nuclear:

1) When we include the nuclear fuel cycle (ignoring that no one has yet come up with a safe way to deal with the waste or the bombs), the carbon emissions of the fuel cycle--mining and refining all that uranium--emit enough carbon dioxide to make nuclear worse than other transitional strategies like gas.  And all that enriched uranium shuffling around the planet will mean that India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran are not the only unstable powers that have bombs.  Sooner or later, one of them will get a device into New York or Tokyo or Mumbai in a U-haul truck.  And if you think OPEC has caused problems, wait until the world uranium cartel kicks in.

2) But if you choose to ignore the above, If we're serious about solving climate change, we should invest in everything we know how to do, including nuclear, BEST BUYS FIRST.  With efficiency improvements ranging from negative cost to about $.03/kWh, that's what we should invest in first -- things like caulking, insulation, efficient windows, and smart lighting; then things like combined heat and power and district heating and cooling, at $.04 - $.08/kWh; then wind at $.05 - $.06/kWh; then concentrating solar at $.06 - $.10/kWh; then solar PhotoVoltaics at $.08 - $.12/kWh; and tidal/wave energy at $.15.  The specific order isn't that important, but if we first do the efficiency right, the above will meet all world needs for energy-related services, because existing, cost-effective technologies make it possible for us to provide all the current energy-related services with 10 - 20% of the current consumption.  I'm ignoring transport, because walkable neighborhoods and plug-in hybrids are coming anyway.  But if there are folks who insist on being stupidly wasteful, we could still invest in new natural gas plants at $10/kWh; new coal at $.16/kWh; and last of all, nuclear at $.20/kWh.   Oh, and while we're investing in fancy, expensive, dangerous systems, why not throw in space-based solar with lasers beaming energy down through the atmosphere in between the commercial airliners?  

Before you go making yourself look naive by advocating glamorous, sci-fi solutions like nuclear reactors, please, please, please, go back and re-read Amory, 1976, or anything he's written since.  And it wouldn't hurt to watch the YouTube video of Hunter's Business Case for Climate Solutions 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXxw4yjma0k 
or search for "Business Case for Climate Protection."

Very best,
  Paul