Today, we’re experiencing what has been termed the “Nuclear Renaissance.” There are two aspects to this. One is domestic. The other is international, but related to the first because U.S. politics affects the ability of American companies to export nuclear technologies and products…

There is no energy shortage. The world abounds with easily accessible nuclear fuels. What we have is a shortage of common sense. If not for the anti-nuclear movement, we would be several generations ahead in the technology. Energy would be abundant and far cheaper.

“The nuclear renaissance is dead,” writes Agora Financial managing editor Chris Mayer in his Capital & Crisis newsletter.

“Long live the nuclear renaissance!” insists your Whiskey editor.

“…Eventually…” he sheepishly adds, “and just not with uranium…”

Or as Patrick Cox Patrick Cox recently put it:

The biggest long-term impact from the tsunami, beyond the incredible personal losses experienced by so many Japanese, will probably be on the nuclear power debate. In the short term, we’ll see opposition to nuclear grow. In the long term, however, I think it is going to be very good for thorium nuclear power.

Sadly things are not going nuclear’s way just now. Like a man photographed walking out of a brothel, nuclear will require some fast-talking to save its reputation.

Chris Mayer counters Patrick’s optimism:

No one can say what the effects of the Japan disaster will have on the nuclear industry. It’s too early. But we can guess. My guess is that the nuclear industry has just been dealt another major setback akin to Three Mile Island. Japan alone makes up 11% of the world’s demand for uranium. I suspect it will use less in the future.

I suspect many of the plants in Europe, both planned and existing, are in jeopardy. I think some of the reactors on the drawing board will die on the drawing board. The whole process of developing nuclear energy will slow. The industry will feel the chill from Japan for years. That’s my guess.

The facts won’t matter. Look at what happened in the Gulf after BP’s oil spill. All drilling ceased. It didn’t matter what your safety record was. And even now, drilling permits are incredibly difficult to come by.

Of course Chris likely has the right of it for now. The near-term outlook for uranium stocks may indeed be very dim (but Chris has a wealth of other investing options set to make more gains).

But nuclear itself remains the most promising source of clean, abundant (read: “cheap”) energy. We’re going to have to use it if we want to be able to afford to keep the lights, the air conditioning, heating, laborsaving appliances and computers on.

The nuclear you knew and love — the one based on uranium — may be down and out…but there’s another nuclear on its way. And it looks to be unstoppable. If you’re wondering what how this new nuclear will be different, Patrick Cox has the answer:

The answer is the clearly superior fuel, thorium.

Thorium is far more abundant than usable uranium. Thorium reactors produce far less waste products that are much less hazardous…Thorium nuclear power generation is inevitable. The problems demonstrated with Japanese water reactors will, I believe, hasten the transition.

The biggest problem with nuclear energy isn’t safety, according to a recent Washington Post article; it’s the cost.

“Concerns about safety lead to extensive regulatory approval processes and add uncertainty to plant developers’ calculations — both of which boost the price of financing new nuclear plants.”

Far be it from us to bash costly and ultimately useless regulation. Let’s instead look at the bright side…

“It’s not clear how much these construction costs would fall if safety fears subsided and the financing became cheaper — and after the Fukushima catastrophe, we’re unlikely to find out.”

It seems the article writer has little appreciation for the demand for cheap energy or for thorium’s ability to eliminate the dangers inherent in uranium use.

A lot of people will change their tune about nuclear when they see just how expensive other energy sources can get…and when they realize how needless their fear of nuclear really is, especially when it comes to thorium power.

Regards,
Gary Gibson
Managing Editor, Whiskey & Gunpowder

March 23, 2011

Why Thorium Nuclear Power Is Inevitable was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.

A new area emerged from the update Rep. Carter sent me, one to be expected:  lo and behold, those poverty-stricken families who make no more than $42,000/year are going to receive “energy stamps” so that only the middle class–which Mr. Obama defined as those making up to a quarter of a million dollars a year–are going to bear the brunt of increased prices.  Fancy that.  What a nifty little dividend for core Democrat voters, new entitlements that tap the public till for gas money and utility bills.  That isn’t going to seem quite as great when they find out that everything goes up when energy does.  Shoes, lollipops, dog food, basketball tickets…

“The debate over this bill is over how much it will raise prices for consumers,” House Republican Conference Secretary Carter said. “Democrats contend the effect will be minimal, so they should have no problem adding these two amendments just to make sure. A vote against either will therefore be a recorded vote to raise energy prices on consumers.”  I would have had a twinkle in my eye if I had uttered those words on the floor of the House because twitting Democrats is always good fun.

Polls from all political angles (Gallup, WSJ, Rasmussen, Fox, CNN, NBC, The Los Angeles Times, USA Today, ABC, Planet Green, Stanford University, and Quinnipiac Universities, among others) are turning against “hope and change” and being force fed socialism like a Strasbourg goose.  They show clearly how many of us want what, and here it is, courtesy of Rep. John Carter:

1. Expanded wind and solar power – 81% public approval
2. No new energy taxes – 74% public approval
3. Lower energy prices – 72% public approval
4. Continue existing oil and gas support – 65% public approval
5. Expanded offshore and Alaska oil drilling – 63% public approval
6. Expand nuclear power – 60% public approval

If the bill that comes out of the Conference Committee is no worse than what has been proposed thus far–and this year all such bills do–what we’re going to get is at least an additional dollar a gallon for gas, and much higher electrical, propane, and fuel oil bills for our homes, in addition to raising prices across the board.  Offshore drilling and that in Alaska will be blocked, and existing drilling taxed.   Expanding nuclear power will be prevented by denying the storage of nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, Nevada, while Congress and the White House carol that our electrical needs will be met by new nuclear power plants and vast fields to harvest solar and wind energy.  Those last two require enormous capital outlays and have their own hurdles, including protests about sullying the sacred desert habitat and the cost of erecting vast windmills that turn only when the wind is at sufficient strength and have to be shut off when there is no “storage capacity” for the electricity generated.  I couldn’t say “demand” because there is always a need for electricity; the problem is the electricity has to have somewhere to go or the mill has to be stilled.  As a technical explanation that leaves much to be desired, but it gets the point across:  this isn’t like a kindergarten class holding pinwheels on a breezy day.  Those multi-million dollar towers are stilled by lack of wind and lack of demand (draw.)  With hydroelectric plants “excess” electricity can be used to pump water back up to the lake or reservoir; obviously, it isn’t feasible to send the wind back whence it came.

Drive by the enormous wind farm outside El Paso and see how many of the massive monoliths stand motionless while others spin on any given day.  We aren’t able to use the capacity available now, and Texas has the only independent power grid in America.

The stage is set to destroy the coal industry which provides fifty per cent. of our power; that diminished capacity is not going to be restored by nuclear power plants which will not be allowed to be built and would require between ten and twenty years between obstructionists, greed, theft, and Cape Cod millionaires who block wind generators because they would block the view from their mansions.  Solar panels are costly and fragile, do not work at night, and have eco-opponents…Tidal and volcanic/thermal proposals look good on paper but they are far from “shovel ready.”

“Renewable” resources are a pretty dream but they are nothing to stake our energy supply on at present levels of technology and political forces.  In my book they aren’t anything suitable for private investors unless we throw a little money in one and see if it returns a profit in about twice the time it takes to cultivate a new truffle field.

Regards,
Linda Brady Traynham

July 1, 2009

The Fate of Representative John Carter’s Proposed Amendments to Cap and Trade was originally featured on Whiskey and Gunpowder. Visit Laissez Faire Books for the best selection of libertarian book titles.