Read Contesting The Future Of Nuclear Power A Critical Global Assessment Of Atomic Energy Benjamin K Sovacool 9789813224810 Books

Download As PDF : Contesting The Future Of Nuclear Power A Critical Global Assessment Of Atomic Energy Benjamin K Sovacool 9789813224810 Books

This book provides a concise but rigorous appraisal about the future of nuclear power and the presumed nuclear renaissance. It does so by assessing the technical, economic, environmental, political, and social risks related to all aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle, from uranium mills and mines to nuclear reactors and spent fuel storage facilities. In each case, the book argues that the costs of nuclear power significantly outweigh its benefits. It concludes by calling for investments in renewable energy and energy efficiency as a better path towards an affordable, secure, and socially acceptable future.

The prospect of a global nuclear renaissance could change the way that energy is produced and used the world over. Sovacool takes a hard look at who would benefit — mostly energy companies and manufacturers — and who would suffer — mostly taxpayers, those living near nuclear facilities, and electricity customers. This book is a must-read for anyone even remotely concerned about a sustainable energy future, and also for those with a specific interest in modern nuclear power plants.

Read Contesting The Future Of Nuclear Power A Critical Global Assessment Of Atomic Energy Benjamin K Sovacool 9789813224810 Books

"RECENTLY DOWNRATED: SEE REASON AT END OF REVIEW

In the process of researching current issues in nuclear power, I found Sovacool's treatment of the subject well worth the very substantial price of a hard-cover copy. There is plenty of detail for here for proponents and opponents of nuclear power to kick around in a serious debate, though I think very few will give it the scrutiny it deserves.

Sovacool makes some persuasive points here. One I found convincing is that, whereas nuclear proponents will tell you that the quantity of fuel needed for nuclear plants is vastly, incomparably smaller than the coal needed to make a similar amount of electricity, in fact, if you consider the amount of tailings left behind in uranium mining, the difference is not nearly so dramatic. Likewise, on the back end, by the time you factor in the waste created in handling nuclear waste, the large quantities of shielding needed to build the plant, the amount of water needed to cool the plant, the disposal of plant materials of decommissioning, and so on, nuclear no longer looks like such a neat and tidy solution. (In fairness, though, he should point out that the tailings don't require the expense of precisely machining them into rods and trucking them to the power plant, as the much smaller amount of fuel does.)

Obviously, in general a lot of care was taken in creating this lengthy treatment of the subject. Still, I can't help pointing out some places where I truly cringed:

p 154 (and Table 5, p 159): "...with lower-grade uranium ore, the emissions profile [for CO2]...almost doubles.
---I don't see that at all. The quality of ore presumably only affects the first step (mining and milling), and possibly the last (land reclamation of uranium mine). These entries come nowhere near to doubling the figures. Everything between seems independent of the quality of the original ore, involving as it does the derived yellowcake and then the metal, which presumably is the same regardless. Worse, some readers, if not entirely clear on the subject, may think this has to do with isotopic enrichment, which of course is another matter totally,and unrelated to the quality of the ore.

p 154: "A secondary impact is that, by producing large amounts of heat, nuclear power plants contribute directly to global warming by increasing the temperature of water bodies and micro-climates around each facility."
--Surely Sovacool realizes that no type of power plant is ever going to produce enough heat to affect the global temperature this planet to a measureable degree by direct production of heat. At worst, there will be localized heating, such as bodies of water used for cooling. That's a serious matter, but it's not "global warming" by any reasonable logic.

p 159: "Plutonium is so dangerous that one pound evenly distributed could cause cancer in every person on earth..."
--Oh please, just STOP IT already! This has been said so many times that it borders on urban legend-hood. If you consider the cancer risk from blowing one hundredth of a microgram into the lungs of one person, then blow that up by 50 billion to get a pound in a population of 50 billion, then you might get 7 billion cancers--which you could call "everybody on Earth." But that's not at all like saying that if you dispersed the plutonium evenly over the Earth, every single person would get cancer from it, which is what this seems to say. Obviously that's not possible. If nothing else, many people would die of other causes before they could develop such cancers. Not only that, but if plutonium were dispersed all over the Earth, all but a tiny percentage would probably decay before it ever came into contact with human bodies; we are talking about extreme dilution here. This nonsense needs to be laid to rest ASAP.

p 182: "Moreover, the manufacturing of nuclear weapons from spent fuel is not the only risk: 1 kg of plutonium is equivalent to about 22 million kWh of heat energy. A dirty bomb laced with 1 kg of plutonium can therefore produce an explosion equal to about 20,000 tons of chemical explosives."
--I can't even figure out what he's saying here. That much energy must be from a fission weapon, which is by definition not just a "dirty bomb," but a very neat and clean assembly of precise parts (i.e., a real nuke). Either that, or it's about the total energy of decay of the plutonium over eons of time, which is irrelevant to any comparison to chemical explosives.

Sovacool has some really excellent material here, but there are parts that need careful review before any subsequent editions. IAC I highly recommend reading it; see if you don't see the same strengths and weaknesses that I do. Then join the nuclear debate; it's reaching criticality.

UPDATE: This review was originally posted a couple of years ago. At that time, I gave it four stars. I am removing a star because of mounting concerns that have arisen as I've continued to research the subject, ,occasionally referring back to this book.

Much of the trouble is best illustrated on page 90, which discusses the cost of uranium and various grades of ore. In particular, there are these sentences: "Researchers at the Oxford Research Group suggest that declining ore grades will eventually yield a negative net energy loss before the end of this century. They posit that the energy required to enrich ores of less than 0.02% U3O8 exceeds the total energy the uranium they produce." Here, Sovacool seems to confuse uranium refinement, where the metal is extracted from ore, and uranium enrichment, in which the portion of the fissile U-235 isotope in increased so that the mix will sustain a chain reaction. More dilute ores do not make isotopic enrichment more expensive! Isotopic enrichment starts with pure uranium metal (or a simple compound, such as UF6), so it does not matter what the grade of the ore was originally.

Also, on page 135, it is said that 25 tons of uranium are needed per year for a typical reactor—a figure roughly in line with other estimates I've seen (generally in the 20–28 range). But on page 123, Sovacool says: "200 metric tons are required annually for every 1000 MW reactor." This caused me some confusion, but I think I know the reason for the discrepancy. Enriching uranium results in an enriched mix, and a much larger depleted remnant, as you might expect. Based on what I've seen elsewhere, I think the ratio is about ten to one, or maybe a little less. That would explain the discrepancy. But I know of nowhere that Sovacool clarifies this at all.

Also on page 90, he says that nuclear power plants generate 16% of global electricity but only 6.3% of energy production and 2.6% of final consumption. The 16:6.3 ratio seems about right, since thermal energy in a reactor generally converts to electricity with about 30% efficiency. But how do we get from 6.3% down to 2.6%? How does consumption only amount to 41% of production? I have no confidence in this figure.

These point have citations. I suppose I should track them down, to see if the original source has the same problems, or if they are being misquoted. That might give a better idea of whether this confusion is due to carelessness or a lack of intellectual honesty.

If this were a rare, isolated case, my view would be somewhat different. But combined with the other errors cited previously, I'm having serious second thoughts about this book as a whole."

Product details Paperback 306 pages Publisher Wspc; Reprint edition (May 5, 2011) Language English ISBN-10 9813224819

Tags : Contesting The Future Of Nuclear Power A Critical Global Assessment Of Atomic Energy [Benjamin K Sovacool] on . This book provides a concise but rigorous appraisal about the future of nuclear power and the presumed nuclear renaissance. It does so by assessing the technical,Benjamin K Sovacool,Contesting The Future Of Nuclear Power A Critical Global Assessment Of Atomic Energy,Wspc,9813224819,Energy,Environmental Science,Physics - Astrophysics,Business Economics Industries - Energy,Business Economics/Environmental Economics,Business Economics/Industries - Energy,Non-Fiction,Nuclear Power; Nuclear Renaissance; Energy; Environment; Renewable Energy; Energy Efficiency; Fuel Cycle,Nuclear issues,SCI/TECH,SCIENCE / Energy,SCIENCE / Environmental Science (see also Chemistry / Environmental),SCIENCE / Physics / Astrophysics,Science,Science/Energy,Science/Math,Science/Mathematics,Science/Physics - Astrophysics,TECHNOLOGY ENGINEERING / Power Resources / Nuclear,Technology Engineering Power Resources - Alternative Renewable,Technology Engineering/Power Resources - Alternative Renewable,Technology Engineering/Power Resources - Nuclear,SCI005000,SCI024000,SCIENCE / Environmental Science

Contesting The Future Of Nuclear Power A Critical Global Assessment Of Atomic Energy Benjamin K Sovacool 9789813224810 Books Reviews :

Contesting The Future Of Nuclear Power A Critical Global Assessment Of Atomic Energy Benjamin K Sovacool 9789813224810 Books Reviews

• RECENTLY DOWNRATED SEE REASON AT END OF REVIEW
  
  In the process of researching current issues in nuclear power, I found Sovacool's treatment of the subject well worth the very substantial price of a hard-cover copy. There is plenty of detail for here for proponents and opponents of nuclear power to kick around in a serious debate, though I think very few will give it the scrutiny it deserves.
  
  Sovacool makes some persuasive points here. One I found convincing is that, whereas nuclear proponents will tell you that the quantity of fuel needed for nuclear plants is vastly, incomparably smaller than the coal needed to make a similar amount of electricity, in fact, if you consider the amount of tailings left behind in uranium mining, the difference is not nearly so dramatic. Likewise, on the back end, by the time you factor in the waste created in handling nuclear waste, the large quantities of shielding needed to build the plant, the amount of water needed to cool the plant, the disposal of plant materials of decommissioning, and so on, nuclear no longer looks like such a neat and tidy solution. (In fairness, though, he should point out that the tailings don't require the expense of precisely machining them into rods and trucking them to the power plant, as the much smaller amount of fuel does.)
  
  Obviously, in general a lot of care was taken in creating this lengthy treatment of the subject. Still, I can't help pointing out some places where I truly cringed
  
  p 154 (and Table 5, p 159) "...with lower-grade uranium ore, the emissions profile [for CO2]...almost doubles.
  ---I don't see that at all. The quality of ore presumably only affects the first step (mining and milling), and possibly the last (land reclamation of uranium mine). These entries come nowhere near to doubling the figures. Everything between seems independent of the quality of the original ore, involving as it does the derived yellowcake and then the metal, which presumably is the same regardless. Worse, some readers, if not entirely clear on the subject, may think this has to do with isotopic enrichment, which of course is another matter totally,and unrelated to the quality of the ore.
  
  p 154 "A secondary impact is that, by producing large amounts of heat, nuclear power plants contribute directly to global warming by increasing the temperature of water bodies and micro-climates around each facility."
  --Surely Sovacool realizes that no type of power plant is ever going to produce enough heat to affect the global temperature this planet to a measureable degree by direct production of heat. At worst, there will be localized heating, such as bodies of water used for cooling. That's a serious matter, but it's not "global warming" by any reasonable logic.
  
  p 159 "Plutonium is so dangerous that one pound evenly distributed could cause cancer in every person on earth..."
  --Oh please, just STOP IT already! This has been said so many times that it borders on urban legend-hood. If you consider the cancer risk from blowing one hundredth of a microgram into the lungs of one person, then blow that up by 50 billion to get a pound in a population of 50 billion, then you might get 7 billion cancers--which you could call "everybody on Earth." But that's not at all like saying that if you dispersed the plutonium evenly over the Earth, every single person would get cancer from it, which is what this seems to say. Obviously that's not possible. If nothing else, many people would die of other causes before they could develop such cancers. Not only that, but if plutonium were dispersed all over the Earth, all but a tiny percentage would probably decay before it ever came into contact with human bodies; we are talking about extreme dilution here. This nonsense needs to be laid to rest ASAP.
  
  p 182 "Moreover, the manufacturing of nuclear weapons from spent fuel is not the only risk 1 kg of plutonium is equivalent to about 22 million kWh of heat energy. A dirty bomb laced with 1 kg of plutonium can therefore produce an explosion equal to about 20,000 tons of chemical explosives."
  --I can't even figure out what he's saying here. That much energy must be from a fission weapon, which is by definition not just a "dirty bomb," but a very neat and clean assembly of precise parts (i.e., a real nuke). Either that, or it's about the total energy of decay of the plutonium over eons of time, which is irrelevant to any comparison to chemical explosives.
  
  Sovacool has some really excellent material here, but there are parts that need careful review before any subsequent editions. IAC I highly recommend reading it; see if you don't see the same strengths and weaknesses that I do. Then join the nuclear debate; it's reaching criticality.
  
  UPDATE This review was originally posted a couple of years ago. At that time, I gave it four stars. I am removing a star because of mounting concerns that have arisen as I've continued to research the subject, ,occasionally referring back to this book.
  
  Much of the trouble is best illustrated on page 90, which discusses the cost of uranium and various grades of ore. In particular, there are these sentences "Researchers at the Oxford Research Group suggest that declining ore grades will eventually yield a negative net energy loss before the end of this century. They posit that the energy required to enrich ores of less than 0.02% U3O8 exceeds the total energy the uranium they produce." Here, Sovacool seems to confuse uranium refinement, where the metal is extracted from ore, and uranium enrichment, in which the portion of the fissile U-235 isotope in increased so that the mix will sustain a chain reaction. More dilute ores do not make isotopic enrichment more expensive! Isotopic enrichment starts with pure uranium metal (or a simple compound, such as UF6), so it does not matter what the grade of the ore was originally.
  
  Also, on page 135, it is said that 25 tons of uranium are needed per year for a typical reactor—a figure roughly in line with other estimates I've seen (generally in the 20–28 range). But on page 123, Sovacool says "200 metric tons are required annually for every 1000 MW reactor." This caused me some confusion, but I think I know the reason for the discrepancy. Enriching uranium results in an enriched mix, and a much larger depleted remnant, as you might expect. Based on what I've seen elsewhere, I think the ratio is about ten to one, or maybe a little less. That would explain the discrepancy. But I know of nowhere that Sovacool clarifies this at all.
  
  Also on page 90, he says that nuclear power plants generate 16% of global electricity but only 6.3% of energy production and 2.6% of final consumption. The 166.3 ratio seems about right, since thermal energy in a reactor generally converts to electricity with about 30% efficiency. But how do we get from 6.3% down to 2.6%? How does consumption only amount to 41% of production? I have no confidence in this figure.
  
  These point have citations. I suppose I should track them down, to see if the original source has the same problems, or if they are being misquoted. That might give a better idea of whether this confusion is due to carelessness or a lack of intellectual honesty.
  
  If this were a rare, isolated case, my view would be somewhat different. But combined with the other errors cited previously, I'm having serious second thoughts about this book as a whole.
• This is a very broad and fact-based survey of problems with nuclear power. It's extensively sourced, and its polemics are rational, rather than emotional, in tone. I didn't buy all the arguments made in it, but anyway that would have been overkill there are enough good ones that unless you're a do-or-die nuke fan I think the odds are you'll find the book persuasive.
  
  The author (BKS) details more than 20 different disadvantages of nuclear power, roughly broken down under the headings technical, economic, environmental and sociopolitical (the last bunch comprising mainly, but not exclusively, terrorism/security issues). After a chapter contrasting nukes with various forms of renewable energy, he concludes on the theme that governments like nukes because they symbolize a vision for the future -- and because they're handy disguises for bomb-making --, not because their benefits outweigh their costs when used as energy sources. Nice evidence of the latter is that despite huge incentives offered to encourage the use of nukes under the Energy Policy Acts of 1992 and 2005, not a single new nuclear plant has been built in the US in a quarter-century. Long lists of accidents (some caused by things like a cat creating a short circuit, or maintenance staff accidentally dropping a light bulb into a reactor), terrorist attacks and government subsidies were among the tables I found most interesting. There's a short epilogue about the March 2011 Fukushima accident, but since he finished writing as of May 2011, BKS couldn't yet know the whole rotten truth.
  
  Just so you can calibrate where I'm coming from I wasn't anti-nuke before the Fukushima meltdown -- or even for a few weeks after it. I'd been agnostic or mildly favorable about nukes (though the waste issue bothered me), and for a while I continued to believe that they were at least a necessary transitional technology for Japan, where I live. My mind changed once it started to become clear to what extent the Japanese government and the nuclear power industry had been intentionally misleading the public, as well as the extent to which they were incompetent in their handling of spent fuel and many other matters. Human error and deception of course make their appearance as themes in this book, too.
  
  But it was the rest of the book that made me realize I should have abandoned my agnosticism much sooner. One point BKS makes that's easy to overlook, but obvious in retrospect, is that it isn't just the reactors that are dangerous. Mining, enrichment, reprocessing and transport of fuel, as well as decommissioning of reactors, each present environmental and security hazards, too -- and accidents have actually occurred at each of those stages. Another interesting point had to do with the quality of uranium ore. Thanks to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, reprocessing fuel doesn't eliminate the need for fresh uranium supplies. But reserves of high-quality uranium ore are low, and it takes progressively more energy to extract the stuff from the ore that will be available -- in processes that release greenhouse gases. A group at Oxford has projected that by 2050 the nuclear fuel cycle will contribute as many CO2 equivalents as comparable gas-fired power stations. Even if this estimate is off by a couple of decades (and BTW it assumes that the percentage of energy supplied from nukes *doesn't increase* from now, so it's a conservative estimate in this respect), it puts a big dent in the argument that nukes are a solution to climate change. The time-scale and expense of decommissioning, and the hefty list of government energy subsidies received by the nuke industry (amounting to 67.2% of all energy subsidies in Japan between 1998 and 2007) also elevated my eyebrows.
  
  As for the less persuasive things in the book BKS's contention that Generation IV reactors will necessarily be even more dangerous wasn't entirely convincing. He attributes this to operators being less familiar with them, their higher operating temperatures and the larger quantities of fuel involved. I'm not sure how one can confidently quantify those danger factors, after they get convolved with allegedly improved "passive" safety features. An argument based on the precautionary principle might have been appropriate here in light of the uncertainties (though BKS might have wanted to forego the derisive dismissals that principle often provokes in the US from such quarters as the legal academy and the current Administration). In any case, I found his argument that Gen IVs won't come online anytime soon because of still-unsolved materials issues, like finding a substitute for zircalloy, more plausible. Also dubious were BKS's calculations of "renewable power potential" for various countries. For one thing, they're squeezed into a discussion of renewable energy that should really be given book-length, not chapter-length, treatment. For another, if Japan actually took advantage of all the potential for wind power BKS ascribes to it, the countryside would become an unsightly, noisy dystopia. So even if BKS's numbers are accurate, I'm not sure they're useful. I also was disappointed at some of the sourcing at times a footnote for statistics or a table points to an earlier article by BKS, rather than to the source he used. I realize this might be expedient for a busy author, but self-citation in these circumstances doesn't enhance the reader's trust of the data. Because of the abundance of other, more sensible arguments, though, none of these problems was a show-stopper for me. I hope the publisher will come up with a much more reasonable price for the paperback edition, so that the book might get more of the audience it deserves.
• Interesting that both reviewers so far live in Tokyo. For us, this is personal!
  This book shows clearly and methodically that, when all costs, from mining, enrichment, transport,security,costs of building nuclear power stations, CO2 emmisions during building, costs of decommisioning the plants, costs of storage (if a secure site to store said waste could be found), AND if all subsidies to nuclear were removed, nuclear is a very expensive, dangerous and non cost-competitive source of energy. Sovacool's book is solid, well-written, well-researched and convincing.This is book you should read a few times, then pass it on to friends and family. This is one of those rare books I give highest recommendations to.