A nuclear solution to global warming?

["Kent, Michael D" <Michael.D.Kent@nspco.com>]

[Kent, Michael  D]  CONTACT: Mark Shwartz, News Service (650) 723-9296;
                 e-mail mshwartz@stanford.edu

COMMENT: William C. Sailor (650) 724-5698;
                 e-mail sailor@leland.stanford.edu

                 Bob Van der Zwaan (650) 725-6948;
                 e-mail zwaan@stanford.edu

                 Center for International Security and Cooperation



EDITORS: Sailor and Van der Zwaan`s article, ``A Nuclear Solution to
                 Climate Change?`` appears in the May 19 issue of Science.


EMBARGOED until Thursday, May 18, at 11 a.m. PDT



  A nuclear solution to global warming?


Nuclear power can play a significant role in preventing catastrophic
global warming, according to a controversial article published this
week in Science magazine.

William C. Sailor and Bob van der Zwaan, visiting Science Fellows at
Stanford`s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC),
co-authored the report, which appears in the May 19 issue of Science.

They are among seven researchers affiliated with ``Nuclear Power
Issues and Choices for the 21st Century`` - a CISAC project
investigating whether nuclear energy has a legitimate role in
preventing global warming.

  ``Mankind is facing a tremendous challenge with global climate
change,`` says physicist van der Zwaan. ``In the coming two decades
we have to consider new energy sources, including nuclear.``

But van der Zwaan, on leave from the Free University (Vrij
Universiteit) of the Netherlands, admits that widespread public
concern has led several countries to halt development of nuclear
energy.

``Eighty-five percent of all Dutch people are opposed to it,`` he
notes, and the numbers are similar in other European countries.

Clean-burning fuel

Most of the world`s energy is derived from fossil fuels like coal,
oil and natural gas. Only about 6 percent comes from nuclear power
plants.

But burning fossil fuels emits large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO2)
and other gases that trap infrared radiation from the sun.

As a result, say many climatologists, our atmosphere is heating up
like the inside of a greenhouse, and unless we reduce the rate of CO2
gas emissions, the temperature of the Earth will increase by as much
as 6 F in the next century.

Such global warming, according to worst-case scenarios, will cause
disastrous floods, droughts and erratic changes in ocean currents,
and even will spread tropical diseases and parasites throughout the
planet.

Advocates say that nuclear power will help prevent global warming
because nuclear reactors produce virtually no greenhouse gases. They
point to France, where about 60 pollution-free power plants provide
three-fourths of the country`s electricity.

But critics argue that nuclear power is inherently dangerous and
prohibitively expensive. They point out that accidents like the 1986
Chernobyl power plant disaster in the former Soviet Union can result
in radiation poisoning that lasts many generations.

Opponents also maintain that safely storing radioactive waste is
difficult, and that newly designed breeder reactors could make it
easier for plutonium fuel to get into the hands of terrorists and
others eager to build small-scale nuclear weapons.

Nuclear solution?

Van der Zwaan and Sailor address these arguments in the Science article.

``Nuclear power can play a significant role in mitigating climate
change,`` they write.

The authors point to recent studies showing that, to prevent
dangerous climate change from occurring in the next 50 years, CO2-gas
emissions must remain at their current levels - despite a projected
50 percent population increase by the year 2050 that could double or
triple world demand for energy.

``Lacking a crystal ball that tells us the future,`` write Van der
Zwaan and Sailor, ``we simply select one possible scenario that
achieves the emissions target.``

Their scenario envisions a world in which one-third of all energy
comes from fossil fuels; one-third from renewable resources, like
solar and wind power; and one-third from nuclear power.

To achieve that ambitious goal, all the nations of the world would
have to consume less oil, coal and natural gas than they do today,
while increasing renewable and nuclear energy sources at least
tenfold.

To accomplish that will require increasing the number of nuclear
reactors on Earth from about 430 to roughly 4,000, which means that
more than one nuclear reactor would have to be built every week for
the next 50 years.

``That would require a massive industrial effort,`` van der Zwaan
concedes, costing trillions of dollars, but he believes that
developed nations like the United States can achieve this objective
if there is strong popular support.

According to the Department of Energy, the United States has 104
nuclear reactors in operation today. Twenty-eight have been shut down
permanently since 1953, and there are no plans to build new ones.

``The first thing that has to happen is a general acceptance by the
public that fossil fuels create a threat to our future,`` notes
Sailor, who holds a doctorate in nuclear engineering. ``Once that`s
generally recognized, then all alternatives to nuclear power must be
thoroughly investigated.``

But he argues that renewable forms of energy such as hydro, wind and
solar power are fraught with technical or environmental problems that
make them unlikely substitutes.

``Once it`s realized that we cannot make ends meet without nuclear
energy, there is a chance that public opinion will turn greatly so
that nuclear power will once again be acceptable,`` he notes.

Before that can happen, he says, the issues of safety, cost, waste
and proliferation must be addressed.



Exaggerated risks?



``The risks of radioactivity from nuclear reactors are sometimes
overstated, so the feeling of many people is just biased,`` according
to van der Zwaan.

He and Sailor write that, with the exception of Chernobyl-type
reactors, the present generation of nuclear power plants has a good
safety record, experiencing only one accidental meltdown at the Three
Mile Island (TMI) plant in Pennsylvania in 1979.

``However, changes in equipment and operating procedures since TMI
suggest considerably improved safety,`` they note. ``There are also
well-developed designs for a next generation of reactors, which
promise still greater safety.``

The authors maintain that the risk of contamination from stored
nuclear wastes is also exaggerated, noting that the U.S. government
has outlined a rigorous standard of protection for people living near
the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain, Nev.

``If the U.S. repository is found to meet the standard and is
opened,`` they write, ``it will be able to handle all the U.S. wastes
expected through the next few decades. However, a large expansion of
nuclear power may require using alternative disposal approaches.

``Any nuclear waste project will have to fight legal challenges,
which will be political in nature. For instance, the State of Nevada
has already spent considerable effort fighting the Yucca Mountain
Project, which the state claims has been forced upon it.

``Public support for these claims could decrease if nuclear energy
were seen as a necessary part of a solution for climatic problems
and, overall, as environmentally beneficial. Nevadans might then be
more willing to accept the minuscule risks resulting from having a
repository in their state.``

The authors conclude, ``There are no insurmountable technical
barriers to nuclear expansion, but the expansion must be performed
under very high safety standards.``



  Unresolved issues



A greater challenge for advocates of nuclear power, say van der Zwaan
and Sailor, are the unresolved concerns over the spread of nuclear
weapons and the high cost of nuclear energy.

``There must be international confidence that nuclear power can be
used throughout the world without increasing weapons proliferation,``
they write.

  ``To date, commercial nuclear power has played little, if any, role
as a bridge to national entry into the nuclear arms race, nor are
there any known cases in which individuals or sub-national groups
have stolen materials from nuclear power facilities for use in
weapons.

``However, development of nuclear weapons has been aided in at least
three countries (India, Iraq and Israel) by use of research reactors
obtained under the cover of peaceful research programs. Absent
effective safeguards, nuclear power could provide a similar cover to
future weapons efforts.

``Additional fears are raised by the possibility that with a major
nuclear expansion, plutonium-fueled breeder reactors will be widely
used to stretch uranium resources, creating risks of plutonium
diversion for weapons purposes.``

The authors conclude that ``all fuel cycles pose some proliferation
risk, and even the elimination of nuclear power would not eliminate
the possibility of a country embarking on a nuclear weapons program.

``Thus, improved international safeguards institutions are needed,
with strength and responsibility at an entirely new level of
capability, even in the absence of a major expansion of nuclear
power.``

Economics is another major obstacle to the development of nuclear
power. The average nuclear power plant costs about $1.5 billion and
takes four years to build, according to the authors. But natural gas
power plants are cheaper and faster to build, so the authors
recommend gradually phasing in a ``carbon tax`` of about 30 cents per
gallon on petroleum to make nuclear power more competitive.

``In the meantime,`` they suggest, ``the Department of Energy and
other agencies worldwide should increase reactor research efforts
aimed at simplified designs and economies of scale in construction.``


Open dialogue

Sailor, who is currently on a one-year sabbatical from the Los Alamos
National Laboratory in New Mexico, says that the mission of CISAC`s
``Nuclear Power Issues and Choices`` project is to publish a neutral,
unbiased study next year analyzing the future prospects for nuclear
energy.

Study participants include three other co-authors of the May 19
Science article: David Bodansky, University of Washington professor
emeritus of physics; Chiam Braun, senior vice president of Altos
Management Partners, Inc., in Los Altos, Calif.; and Steve Fetter,
associate professor at the University of Maryland`s School of Public
Affairs.

The project also will conduct a one-day workshop at CISAC on June 23
that will include panelists representing a broad spectrum of opinion
on nuclear energy issues.

``No technology, including nuclear, can be a panacea,`` notes van der
Zwaan, but he maintains that it is important for the public to set
aside fears and prejudices and reconsider nuclear energy as part of
the solution to global warming.

``I have a feeling we are at a crossroads as far as public opinion,`` he
adds.



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