Back when I was in college, if you had told someone that you were studying nuclear engineering, you might as well have said that you were a puppy-eating necrophiliac who was interning for Josef Mengele. The movie The China Syndrome was released and generated (no pun intended) a tsunami of negative feelings about nuclear power. Then, two weeks after the movie came out, Three Mile Island happened.
A series of mechanical failures and human errors led to a LOCA (loss of coolant accident) and a partial meltdown of one of the reactor units at the Pennsylvania nuclear plant. It was worse that it should have been but not nearly as bad as it could have been. It permanently scarred the perception of nuclear power in the United States.
It was probably best that the vast majority of students at the UA didn’t know that there was a functioning nuclear reactor in the basement of the Engineering Building. It had been installed in the late 1950s and remained functional even after the school’s nuclear engineering program was disbanded in 1996. The reactor was finally shut down in 2010.
Three Mile Island was the universal bogeyman term for just a few years until it was forever supplanted by the much-worse Chernobyl. The Three Mile Island facility was poorly designed and had one of the dumbest flaws of all time—alarms for totally different mishaps all sounded the same.
Chernobyl, on the other hand, was a catastrophic failure on a huge number of levels. I highly recommend the book Midnight in Chernobyl by Adam Higginbotham, which deftly chronicles the corruption and shortcuts that went into the design and construction of the facility, the mismanagement and incompetence with which the plant was run, and the bludgeoning exercise of raw political might that, at first, tried to keep it a secret before quickly pivoting to singling out and punishing scapegoats. It’s a great book.
Still, despite all that, a third of a century later, nuclear power has not gone away. In fact, 20% of all electricity generated in the United States comes from nuclear power. There hasn’t been a major accident in the U.S. in 40 years and a new generation of nuclear reactors promises to be even safer and more efficient. Plus, and this is the thing that is going to spark some furious debates in coming years, nuclear power is one of the cleanest energy sources of all time. (Completely carbon-free, a nuclear plant is basically a giant steam engine that generates electricity by using super-heated water to turn giant turbines.)
It’s going to be an interesting debate because even the most cockeyed optimist must admit that we’re not going to meet any carbon-free goals using just wind, solar and geothermal. Nuclear is going to have to be part of that equation, at least in the short term. And right now, that (and ever-present politics) are leading to an issue that some see as even more pressing.
Just as the United States has a Strategic Oil Reserve, there is now a movement to establish a Strategic Uranium Reserve. As it happens, Russia has close to a monopoly on the enriched uranium needed to operate the reactors. That is why, when President Biden and his EU compatriots rattle their collective swords to shut off the flow of Russian oil and gas because of Ukraine, not a word has been said about the flow of enriched uranium.
Places like Hungary desperately need the fuel, as that country’s four reactors provide half of all of their electricity. In the Czech Republic, one-third of the electricity comes from nuclear energy. And it’s a good bet that the United States will need a large supply, as well.
Back during the Manhattan Project in World War II, almost all of the uranium that was being refined in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and Hanford, Washington, came from uranium mines on or near the Navajo Reservation. Those mines continued to be dredged for another half-century until they were mostly played out.
Nowadays, the U.S. isn’t even in the Top 10 in terms of uranium deposits, but not to worry. Australia is number one and Canada is third. They’ve got the glowing rock and we’ve got the skrilla; it should be a no-brainer.
However, the Strategic Uranium Reserve concept, begun under the Trump Administration and currently being studied by the Department of Energy, has “America First” nonsense running through it. While it calls for a common-sense increase in uranium enrichment and stockpiling of uranium ore, it then veers into MAGA territory by insisting that the deferral government will be required to buy uranium “newly produced in the U.S. from deposits at an existing site.”
That means re-opening places like Pinyon Plain, a mine that sits about a half-hour drive from the Grand Canyon Village. It had been producing some of the highest-grade ore in the world until it was shut down when the worldwide uranium market crashed in the 1990s.
Now it’s getting ready to re-open and a coalition of Navajos, environmentalists, and hydrologists are gearing up to fight it. Knowing the patchwork make-up of the federal courts these days, it could go either way.
It’s a necessary mineral at a necessary time, but they want it to come from a completely unnecessary source. We’ll keep an eye on it.
This article appears in May 19-25, 2022.
Carbon emission requirements were not established goals to be reached. They are simply a way to enslave the public to give more power to politicians and enrich the likes of Al Gore. Most thinking people know that.
We will never lower the temperature of the planet even if we bulldoze every building. Ever notice how they never provide progress updates? That’s because it’s 90% BS with a little science sprinkled on top.
Lawyer=politician=science expert??????????????
Doesn’t happen
We can now see the unintended consequences of try to jam clean energy down the throats of Americans. Recession could be driven to depression. Time for a real President again. This guy is worthless.
Bravo Tom. I am thrilled to see a well researched article in Tucson that lays out the requirement for nuclear power to lower greenhouse gas emissions. Sincerely this approach is not what I have come to expect from you and I am thoroughly delighted. I worked in the nuclear business for many years and know of which I speak. My last nuclear project was for four control systems for nuclear plants in China.
I can’t speak to the selection of appropriate mining sites, but I am opposed to the government picking winner and losers. Energy is a national priority and we must proceed with a well thought out plan for development that includes all stakeholders.
Tom,
I actually met one guy who studied nuclear engineering at the U during my undergrad days. I was singularly impressed. Since he never mentioned the existence of a reactor in the basement of the Engineering building, I wonder in retrospect whether there existed a gag order of sorts for these students.
That said, but for the permanent, semi-eternal storage of lethal, spent nuclear rods and other seriously radioactive detritus, nukes would present an utopian solution…
I ain’t buying or biting till the storage problem gets licked. Till then nuclear plants remain a no-sale.
Be well.
We’ve gone from economical energy independence under President Trump to astronomically priced imported energy under the diaper-wearing doddering old fool Biden in under two years. Yet Tom just can’t help himself when writing about a Trump initiated plan to insure our nuclear power capability, labeling it as having “America First nonsense” running through it.
The only nonsense in this piece is Tom’s gibberish, as when he poo-poos using a local source of high grade Uranium instead of shipping it from Australia, with attended risk.
I suppose local greenies would be shocked to know that Hughes Aircraft produced nuclear warhead GAR-11/AIM-26A Falcon missiles right here in the old pueblo.
France generates 70+ percent of its electricity with nuclear power plants and they are the world’s biggest net exporter of electricity. They also recycle their nuclear fuel.
socrates2 wrote: I wonder in retrospect whether there existed a gag order of sorts for these students.
Not really. I was in the Boy Scouts with Jim Seale, his father, Dr. Robert Seale, professor of Nuclear Engineering at the U of A for 35 years, took us on a tour of the Nuclear Engineering department, through all of the labs, and also included a stop to show us the reactor and talk about it. This was mid to late 70s. It was never a secret.
socrates2 wrote: I ain’t buying or biting till the storage problem gets licked. Till then nuclear plants remain a no-sale.
There is no problem with the storage of spent nuclear fuel. The world has been generating power from nuclear reactors for over 65 years and there has never been any contamination, or people dying from spent nuclear fuel as far as I know. Spent nuclear fuel has been crossing the U.S. on our highways/roads since the late 1950s without an accident. That spent nuclear fuel storage is a problem is a long running fake shibboleth of the No Nukes idiots to oppose the use of nuclear power.
Think about the lunacy of a No Nukes position. The U.S. would have to convert all of its submarines and aircraft carriers to internal combustion engines. I guess they could use solar power, wind turbines, or maybe they could get Elon Musk to create electric motors to power the ships. How many electric recharging stations would it take to get across the Pacific?
The biggest issue is that currently the U.S. stores spent nuclear fuel in many different locations, over 70 locations in over 30 states. . We should build one place deep inside a big rock mountain, not on a fault line, to store all of the fuel. It shouldnt be too hard. The total amount of spent nuclear fuel in the U.S. since 1958 would fit on a football field about 10 yards deep.
Also, unlike cartoons and the public imagination where spent nuclear fuel is stored in rusty leaking 55 gallon oil drums, spent nuclear fuel is a solid which means it can go into dry storage which makes leakage a non-issue.
Another thing the U.S. should do is recycle the fuel. Other countries recycle the fuel which cuts down on the volume of the spent fuel by 30%. I dont know why we dont as well.
The reason nuclear power is not our major source of electrical power like other countries is because of Democratic environmental wackos.
tctw writes among other good stuff: “The reason nuclear power is not our major source of electrical power like other countries is because of Democratic environmental wackos. “
Bingo, we have a winner.
The Palo Verde Nuclear power plant is sited on just 4,000 acres yet generates 35% of all of the power generated in AZ. Hollywood greenies would be “shocked” to know that LA Water and Power owns part of the plant.
I once did an analysis of how much of Tucson would have to be shaded with PV panels to generate the same amount of energy. It was considerable and will be left to the reader to calculate.
tctw, not to turn this into a pissing contest, but…
You write, “We should build one place deep inside a big rock mountain, not on a fault line, to store all of the fuel. It shouldnt be too hard.”
Easier written than done. Two words, “Yucca Mountain.” As for contaminated individuals. Please read what’s happened at Chernobyl these past 10 weeks. Young men in uniform “just following orders,” you understand.
Contact anyone in the Nevada state legislature regarding Nevada as the nuclear dump of America. The entire state went NIMBY some years back…
BTW, man has been on Earth give or take a million years. While we’ve had no accidental exposure so far (and if we did, would the feds invoke “national security” and cover it up, say as a “bio-weapon leak” or an “outbreak of Ebola?”). Who guarantees the future? See what I mean?
Please read “The Atomic Priesthood and Nuclear waste management” by Sebastian Muscha.
Nuclear waste storage is not just an inter-generational problem. It can extend a million years into the future. Too bad the scouts never handed out Nuclear Dynamics ribbons.
I am surprised that as a scout one can behave so cavalierly toward _our_ environment. Allow me to drag my late 60’s Eagle Scout creds. But there exists no “Planet B.”
We’ve made a Faustian bargain with the nuclear genie. You and I will be dead if and when nuclear waste becomes a real watershed problem. Posterity gets to pay the bill. Let’s not diss Mother Earth any more than we have to.
Be well.
Thorium will power a reactor does not need to be enriched little to process abundant all over the US.
Question is how much the Civil service pensions funds will be guaranteed before we start to entertain this Idea