I sometimes have to wonder about the editorial staff of The Economist. In the space of a few pages the Economist talks about how nuclear energy will be needed to supply electricity in an increasingly carbon fearful world and then follows it up with articles on biomimetic buildings that have the capacity to make all their own energy and super efficient lightbulbs.
The situation is analogous to calling for higher ladders while walls are falling down. It is left to the reader to ponder what the rather obvious contradictions mean. How can one be authoritative about the need for more power and equally authoritative that we are entering an era when power is being taken out of the equation. When you consider that hydrogen is on the verge of being produced by nothing more exotic than titanium alloys and ethanol from cellulose is another close contender you have to think that private investment in nuclear now will leave a lot of people out of pocket in the very near future.
Personally I don’t think the market can be trusted with the atom. The market is like Mr. Magoo with a flamethrower. For those of you who didn’t grow up with American cartoons Mr. Magoo was an incredibly short sighted old man who caused chaos and destruction wherever he went thanks to his extreme myopia; none of which ever came back to bite him on the ass. Corporations and the like have their lawyers and political donations to look out for them. You and I are rather less fortunate.
So why this push for nuclear generation? Here’s why? A nuclear plant in the US operated at 102% efficiency for a period of 18 months. They were selling electricity on the deregulated Magoo (read market) for 7.3 cents per Kwh but the cost of production was a mere 0.98 cents per kwH. The generator was rated at 1500MW. So 1500 * 1000 * 24 hours / day is about 227 million dollars a day (before taxes). Now keep in mind that neither you nor I can construct one of these monsters, and that they are likely to be run by such icons of industry as Enron and you have I think a number of compelling reasons why the math doesn’t add up for the ordinary man in the street.
Additionally, it also doesn’t really make sense for The Economist to be blowing the trumpet of nuclear power, or should that be warning siren? I am reliably informed that markets work best when there are many suppliers and many customers; exactly the kind of thing that you would get from people making their own power in their homes and gardens. While the monster reactors in the Economist Article would make fine additions to the Monster Machines appearing ever more regularly on The Discovery Channel it is just a tad monopolizing, isn’t it? Ever played Monopoly when someone else owns the board? How did it feel to be on the shitty end of that stick?
Better design can reduce our power consumption by around 90% with improved quality of life both as a result of changes in our immediate environment and in the global environment as a whole. Why then can’t we makes these monsters go the way of the Dinosaurs? Well it’s likely because the nuclear industry is too expensive to let die. They’ve got so much crap lying around from their old reactors and materials that really the only thing to do from an economic standpoint is to keep the whole system ticking over with new construction. This is a potato that’s hot for centuries and no-one wants to get left holding it.
Nuclear power shall continue so that power built by the few, run by the few, for the enrichment of the few, shall not perish from this earth.
