The Case for Expanded Nuclear Power

Current proposals in Congress to create jobs and foster short-term and long-lasting economic growth for the nation have stalled. Various debates over the effectiveness of certain policies (unemployment benefits, payroll tax cuts, small business tax cuts infrastructure investment, and so on) continue to hamper policy proposals that would either grow our economy or answer other pressing issues the nation faces: environmental degradation, industrial and energy security, deficit and debt reduction, and other issues.

Many legislators, conservative and liberal alike, have pushed for opening our domestic reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas to extraction to promote growth in these industries, but if we are to seriously debate a long-term approach to energy that also addresses environmental concerns, and produces a more sustainable (from an environmental and economic basis) growth strategy, I believe we are overlooking a key component of our future: nuclear energy.

I believe we must engage in updating our aging and environmentally dangerous energy infrastructure to produce more energy from nuclear power plants while reducing the high externality costs of carbon-heavy energy generation techniques such as natural gas and coal. As the United States grows in population and economically, our energy costs will only rise, and nuclear offers a sustainable path to mitigating this sudden spike in costs.

Some opponents of nuclear energy point out that the environmental benefits of reducing carbon footprints of coal and natural gas could be offset by nuclear waste and the mining of nuclear material, and above all possible nuclear meltdowns. To this, the first point I make is that nuclear waste can be more safely disposed of than we currently provide, and that storage facilities for waste can and should be built in remote regions for the safe breaking down of remaining waste. Research is currently being conducted into the use of biological or other means of speeding up the process by which nuclear waste can be broken down and turned into more manageable material. Re-initiating funding for the Integral Fast Reactor project by the Dept. of Energy would be an enormous first step toward this goal of mitigating waste.

Furthermore, new research indicates that fission reactors can be built more efficiently and safely using thorium as the primary fuel. Due to unique properties, thorium is all but incapable of "melting down" as uranium is, is less usable as a covert or overt weapons-grade material, making proliferation and radiation poisoning extremely less likely than current designs utilizing uranium.

The benefits of a thorium-based expansion in nuclear energy do not stop there. The International Atomic Energy Agency estimates that of the world's thorium deposits, the United States holds approximately 15%, while American allies Australia, India, Norway, Denmark, and Canada hold an additional 40%, putting safely acquired reserves at 55% of the world total. This is in stark contrast to petroleum, where much of our imports come from less stable regions, less trustworthy nations, and often embroil us in regional conflicts to secure our economic interests where we otherwise might not be involved.

This is more important than a cursory glance would indicate. The fact that the United States and our allies hold so much Thorium means that instead of funneling American dollars to imports of foreign coal, natural gas, and other carbon energy, America's workers could be mining for thorium deposits relatively safely (though mining is never a risk-free industry) and producing for our economy while fueling a domestic energy economy. And should a need or cost-effective desire for importing thorium arise, our partners could be long-established stable nations with positive reputations, rather than unstable hot spots where our military needs to spend so much time securing our interests.

The approximate cost of a new nuclear reactor (not accounting for adjustments to using Thorium as a safer alternative fuel) are $2.5 billion per reactor. The United States currently operates 106 reactors at 65 sites for a total of 20% of power generation. Doubling our nuclear production with another 100 reactors would cost approximately $250 billion. For relative purposes, the cost of 100 new reactors can be compared to the following:

• One-third the size of the federal stimulus($789 billion, FY2009-2011)
• About the same as one year's interest payments on the national debt($230 billion FY2011)
  
• About 2 years' occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan(FY2011 cost of $159 billion)

In some ways these comparisons are unfair, in particular because say, military spending or stimulus packages only truly produce short-term boosts to economic growth, if at all. Nuclear reactors have an estimated lifespan of 60 years, and produce a tangible resource for economic growth over that same period, largely paying for themselves. I propose spreading the cost of such construction through a decade, for a mitigated cost of $25 billion per year.

Of course, few proposals if any are taken seriously in government if they are not packaged in job creation numbers, so here's a few from a 2004 Dept. of Energy study into what economic effects would result from building 40 more reactors:

• The new reactors would produce 50,000 MWe of electric energy capacity, approximately 50% more than in 2009
• Move back 38,000 jobs in manufacturing
• Add 79,000 new construction jobs simply building the sites
• Add up to 250,000 new jobs in the nuclear power industry itself
  
• Support 240,000 new jobs in the peripheral industries tied to supporting nuclear power
• The total net job creation for producing 40 new reactors is approximately 610,000 jobs.

More accurately, my plan of $25 billion in spending per year on new nuclear power plants to build 100 new reactors would expand on these numbers, using the same rough projections:

• Expand production by 125,000 MWe of electric capacity, nearly doubling current generation.
• Move back 95,000 manufacturing jobs
• Add 195,000 construction jobs
• Add up to 625,000 new jobs in the nuclear power industry
  
• Add up to 600,000 new jobs in the industries supporting nuclear power
• Total net job creation over ten years: 1.5 million new jobs

Even accounting for a spread over 10 years' time, the jobs created account for about 1 total year's worth of new jobs in a decade, a 7% leap in per-month employment increases, at a per-job cost of $160,000. For comparison, the America Recovery and Reinvestment Act created or "saved"--being generous--2.4 million jobs at a cost of $288,000 per job. Given the higher efficiency of the program, not to mention its numerous environmental, security, and energy production benefits that aren't even counted in the jobs numbers, I believe this investment in the American economy, and our energy base's future, is well worth it. I hope members of Congress will eventually see the same.