defending-pandoras-promise.html

---
layout: default
title: "Pandora's Revenge: Defending Pandora's Promise"
category: blog
description: A pro-nuclear documentary called Pandora’s Promise is out, and the backlash has predictably started. This page attempts to go through the criticism from a pro-nuclear standpoint, correcting inaccuracies while conceding the good points.
author: nick
byline: true
date: 2013-05-18
---
<div class="col-md-8">
  <img
    class="float-end w-50 rounded"
    alt="Pandoras Promise poster"
    title="Pandoras Promise poster"
    src="/img/pandoras_promise.jpg"
  >
  <p>
    On Januray 18, 2013, Robert Stone&rsquo;s
    <a href="http://pandoraspromise.com"
      >Pandora&rsquo;s Promise [pandoraspromise.com]</a
    >
    was released at the 2013 Sundance film festival in Park City, UT. This
    feature-length documentary attempts to convince mainstream society that
    nuclear energy is a good idea, and to make us rethink our many assumptions.
    It features interviews with environmentalist Stewart Brand (who surprised
    some of his followers by going pro-nuclear in his latest book &quot;Whole
    Earth Discipline&quot;), New York Times editor Gwyneth Cravens (of
    &quot;Power to Save the World&quot; fame), and others. It explains even the
    more subtle advantages of nuclear energy extremely well. I watched a
    pre-release about a month ago and was very impressed. &quot;What now,
    anti-nukes?,&quot; I wondered. <br>
    <br>

    On May 13th, anti-nuclear group BeyondNuclear published a 38-page pdf
    written by Linda Pentz Gunter called
    <a href="https://archive.beyondnuclear.org/pandoras-false-promises/"
      >&quot;Pandora&rsquo;s False Promises&quot; [beyondnuclear.org]</a
    >
    which has been picked up by every anti-nuclear person on Earth and waved
    around as gospel. But, alas, rather than making some good, productive
    counter-points, it swings way the other way with unsubstantiated, inaccurate
    opinion. Granted, I&rsquo;m a nuclear engineer but take a peek and see if it
    doesn&rsquo;t sound a little out-there to you too. This is a very natural
    place for whatisnuclear.com to jump in and deal.
  </p>

  <h1 id="summary">
    Rebuttal against &quot;Pandora&rsquo;s False Promises&quot;
  </h1>
  <p>
    To keep it short, we&rsquo;ll just go point-for-point with the executive
    summary here. But the details covered deal with the entirety of the report.
  </p>

  <h2>
    Point number one: the scale of change needed for climate change is big
  </h2>
  <p>
    <i
      >&quot;Nuclear power, no matter the reactor design, cannot address climate
      change in time. In order to displace a significant amount of
      carbon-emitting fossil fuel generation, another 1,000 to 1,500 new 1,000+
      Megawatt reactors would need to come on line worldwide by 2050, a
      completely prohibitive proposition.&quot;
    </i>
  </p>

  <p>
    Ok, let&rsquo;s see here. The premise is that we need up to 1,500 gigawatts
    (electric) of new capacity from somewhere (based on an MIT report). That
    would be 1,500 regular sized nuclear power plants, or about triple current
    capacity (a fact the body of the report balks at). From another perspective
    though, the 2011 wind production average was 52.4 GW with 200,000 turbines
    worldwide [1]. So to get our 1,500 GWe, we would need 5.7 million new wind
    turbines, a factor of 28. Solar capacity has increased from 1.5 GW to 65 GW
    from 2000 to 2011 [2], but production is at best 0.5 of capacity for now
    (day vs. night) so we&rsquo;d have to increase worldwide solar by a factor
    of 45 to get the required power. By the way, maximum solar incidence is
    about 1 kW per square meter and good (expensive) solar panels are about 20%
    efficient with 50% capacity (optimistic!), so 1500 GWe requires...15 billion
    square meters of land (5800 square miles, just 2% of Texas). Now look at the
    rare-earth elements required to build efficient wind turbines, and the
    chemicals used to build solar panels, and the water required to constantly
    clean them. Which option is better? Certainly wind and solar are ideal for
    certain locations and applications, but they are not yet practical large
    scale solutions. All this primary point proves is that the climate problem
    is a big one. Yes nuclear plants take 4-5 years to build but when they are
    done they produce insane amounts of energy.
  </p>

  <p>
    BeyondNuclear targets advanced reactors like the IFR in the body with their
    20 year development time. Right, so build conventional plants now and
    replace them with advanced technologies as they become available. As if
    options that can&rsquo;t immediately solve the problem should not even be
    developed at all. How defeatist. Next please.
  </p>

  <h2>Point number two: Innovations are futile, nuclear is DOA due to cost</h2>
  <p>
    <i
      >&quot;So-called &lsquo;Generation IV&rsquo; reactor designs, including
      &lsquo;fast&rsquo; or &lsquo;small modular reactors,&rsquo; are the last
      gasp of a failing industry. Earlier versions of the fast breeder reactor
      were commercial failures and safety disasters. The ever soaring costs make
      nuclear power a financial quagmire for investors, and expensive new
      prototypes commercially unattractive. &quot;
    </i>
  </p>

  <p>
    Dramatic! First of all, nuclear being capital intensive is certainly a
    disadvantage that slows down the pace of innovation in advanced nuclear
    designs. It requires a lot of time and money to go through the processes
    required to prove that a new design is safe enough, and this kind of lag
    does not mesh well with typical venture capitalist ways of quick return. To
    deal with this, things like National Laboratories exist to invest public
    money in high-risk, high-payoff projects that are deemed by experts to be
    beneficial to society. The US
    <a href="{% link fast-reactor.md %}">fast breeder program</a> (see Clinch
    River Breeder Reactor Plant) was one of these, and did indeed get canceled
    in part due to cost overruns. But first-of-a-kind technologies are
    expensive. This doesn&rsquo;t mean the costs can&rsquo;t come down with
    development. It was politically unpopular and so its government funding got
    cut. Now, the lure of such high-payoffs is manifesting in big private
    investors like Bill Gates working on advanced designs like the Gen-IV
    <a href="{% link twr.md %}">Traveling Wave Reactor</a> (see
    <a href="http://www.terrapower.com">TerraPower [terrapower.com]</a>). Fast
    breeders have a lot of great advantages in resource utilization, passive
    safety, and waste reduction that certainly don&rsquo;t belong with such a
    dismal characterization. By the way, putting &quot;quotation marks&quot;
    around technical names of things doesn&rsquo;t make them sound bad as much
    as they make the author appear to be hearing about these concepts for the
    first time.
  </p>

  <p>
    In the pdf, BeyondNuclear hilariously quotes the price of pyro-processing as
    $88,000/kg based on the fact that INL has spent that much managing EBR-II
    fuel over eight years. Yeah, BeyondNuclear, because that&rsquo;s a really
    realistic assumption to make. If the cost of a lab scale experiment was used
    as the commercial cost estimate for everything, nothing would be
    economically feasible.
  </p>

  <p>
    They say Thorium reactors are nowhere near a reality, just keep in mind that
    a fully operational
    <a
      href="
        {% link
        msr.md %}
      "
      >molten salt reactor</a
    >
    was operated in the 60s and it performed very well. Not so distant, I would
    say.
  </p>

  <h2>Point number three: One conceptual reactor design is pointless</h2>
  <p>
    <i
      >&quot;Proponents of the Integral Fast Reactor, overlook the exorbitant
      costs; proliferation risks; that it theoretically
      &lsquo;transmutes,&rsquo; rather than eliminates, radioactive waste; that
      it is decades away from deployment; and that its use of sodium as a
      coolant can lead to fires and explosions. &quot;
    </i>
  </p>

  <p>
    The IFR is an evolution that came out of the US fast reactor program.
    It&rsquo;s a small
    <a href="{% link fast-reactor.md %}">fast breeder reactor</a> that has a
    fuel cycle facility on-site that can
    <a href="{% link recycling.md %}">reprocess the fuel</a>, enabling very high
    fuel utilization and very good waste treatment over typical reactors. The
    <a href="{% link non-proliferation.md %}">proliferation</a> concern
    mentioned is that people could break into the fuel facility and pull out
    weapons-usable plutonium from the processes that would be ongoing within and
    then run off and make nuclear weapons. This particular concern affects all
    reprocessing facilities. It is typically thought that first-world countries
    could protect their plutonium inventories from such invasions, but building
    these facilities in non-weapons states is definitely a concern for those of
    us who want to keep nuclear weapons at a minimum. There have been various
    international programs proposed (AFCI, GNEP, etc.) where weapons-states
    would have IFRs and they would sell fuel to user nations who would then give
    their waste back to the weapon states for recycling. These never got too
    popular because no country wants to rely on powerful neighbors for their
    fuel (understandable). Twists on this policy (with mechanisms to guarantee
    fuel supply) may be possible.
  </p>

  <p>
    As for this theoretical transmutation, I study this all the time personally.
    The idea is that the long-lived components of nuclear waste can be split
    (fissioned) with fast neutrons. If you recycle aggressively enough, you can
    reduce the radiotoxicity of nuclear waste from something that takes 100,000
    years to reach the level of the dirt it was mined from to something that
    decays in about 500 years [3] (note: this reference is fantastic. Check out
    figure 1 if interested). This is an excellent answer to the important
    question of nuclear waste. Storing a small amount of radioactive things for
    500 years is a tractable problem, where storing it for 100,000 is more
    questionable. Also, again with the quotation marks!
  </p>

  <p>
    The cost of developing advanced nuclear reactors is definitely high.
    Granted. But the pay-off might be huge, e.g. solving the energy problem.
    There are a lot of young nuclear engineers out there right now trying to
    figure out how to bring costs down. Will they fail? Maybe. But also, maybe
    not.
  </p>

  <p>
    Sodium fires have happened in many past and operating fast reactors and will
    continue to break out. Sodium fires will be minimized through modern
    procedures and design. Even when a sodium fire happens by accident, it will
    simply be an operational cleanup problem, not a safety hazard to the public.
    A comprehensive review of sodium fires and their implications can be found
    [4]. The benefit of using sodium (besides enabling the fast neutrons of fast
    reactors) is that it is such a good coolant that it can passively remove
    decay heat, meaning these reactors can withstand Fukushima-like
    loss-of-power accidents indefinitely with no active systems or human
    intervention, without melting. Because of this, sodium cooled reactors are
    thought to be about 2 orders of magnitude safer than current reactors by
    nuclear safety experts.
  </p>

  <p>
    Fun fact: The largest sodium leak ever happened at the Alermia Solar Power
    Plant in Spain, 1986. Sodium is such a good coolant that solar folks like it
    too
  </p>

  <h2>
    Point number four: nuclear reactors emit radiation that can mutate you
  </h2>
  <p>
    <i
      >&quot;The continued daily use of nuclear power means continued risk of
      radiation exposure to surrounding populations, especially children who are
      vulnerable to leukemia when living close to reactors. Ionizing radiation
      released by nuclear power plants, either routinely or in large amounts,
      causes cellular damage and mutations in DNA, which in turn can lead to
      cancers and other illnesses.&quot;
    </i>
  </p>

  <p>
    This has been studied at length in the peer reviewed journals where wide
    surveys of hundreds of nuclear plants were done [5,6]. &quot;For childhood
    leukemia mortality, the relative risk comparing the study counties with
    their controls before plant start-up was 1.08, while after start-up it was
    1.03&quot; [6]. So the science shows no increase, but rather a decrease in
    cancer after nuclear plants started up (likely due to some other factor).
    This is being looked at again by the US National Academy of Science. Expect
    an update soon.
  </p>

  <p>
    Nuclear accidents are catastrophic, but the worst one in the modern world
    (Fukushima) hasn&rsquo;t damaged anyone&rsquo;s DNA or health (that we know
    of) yet. Here&rsquo;s a quote from a 2012 UN report on the health effects of
    Fukushima: &quot;To date, there have been no health effects attributed to
    radiation exposure observed among workers, the people with the highest
    radiation exposures. To date, no health effects attributable to radiation
    exposure have been observed among children or any other member of the
    population;&quot; [7]. Further discussion of this report is found in [8].
  </p>

  <p>
    Fun fact: 100-200x more radiation comes out of coal plant stacks than out of
    a typical nuclear power plant. Why? Because natural uranium and thorium
    minerals and their decay products exist in coal. Throwing them up in the air
    to be inhaled causes much more dose than a nuclear plant [9]. Crazy!
  </p>

  <p>
    And here&rsquo;s my favorite part. Just a few months ago, James Hansen (the
    climate scientist from NASA who initiated the uproar about climate change
    decades ago) published a peer-reviewed journal paper [see 14] concluding
    that nuclear energy has saved a net of 1.8 million lives that would have
    been lost if fossil plants had been built instead.
  </p>

  <h2>
    Point number five: The UN and World Health Organization reports on Chernobyl
    are completely and utterly wrong
  </h2>
  <p>
    <i
      >&quot;Low-ball health predictions after nuclear accidents are not
      reliable. The 2005 IAEA/WHO Chernobyl health report has been discredited
      for suppressing key data to justify low death predictions that do not
      stand up to scientific scrutiny. Furthermore, the IAEA has a mandate to
      promote nuclear technology. Given the long latency period of cancers
      caused by radiation exposure, it is too soon to accurately predict the
      ultimate health impacts from the Fukushima nuclear disaster, although some
      health effects are already being observed. &quot;
    </i>
  </p>

  <p>
    That&rsquo;s a bold statement considering the number of WHO, UN, and IAEA
    studies that say to the contrary. You have to run a pretty serious
    conspiracy theory to maintain this belief. For Chernobyl specifically, there
    has been a huge amount of study on the radiation effects. A
    even-more-recent-than-cited United Nations study (2008) says that 68 people
    died from radiation from Chernobyl [12], and that &quot;the vast majority of
    the population need not live in fear of serious health consequences from the
    Chernobyl accident&quot;. The controversy on Chernobyl death tolls is also
    discussed at length [13]. For instance, Greenpeace claims 93,000 fatalities
    from the radiation. The Chernobyl reactor did not have a containment
    structure, so much more radiation was emitted than from Fukushima.
    Regardless, these accidents unquestionably have major psychological effects
    and it is the responsibility of reactor designers, owners, operators, and
    regulators to prevent such horrible events from happening in the future. The
    personal terror that was brought by Chernobyl is featured on our exclusive
    <a href="{% link chernobyl-memories.html %}">Chernobyl memories</a> page.
  </p>

  <h2>Point number six: Nuclear can be phased out by renewables</h2>
  <p>
    <i
      >&quot;The example of Germany — and numerous studies — demonstrates that
      both coal and nuclear can be phased out in favor of renewable energy. Jobs
      are more plentiful and enduring in the renewable sector. In Germany,
      renewable energy already employs 380,000 people compared to 30,000 in the
      nuclear sector.&quot;
    </i>
  </p>

  <p>
    This may be true. But how quickly? And to what sacrifice? Someday we may be
    totally solar powered with environmentally friendly collectors and energy
    storage systems. But it is not this day. This day we need to use all the
    tools we have, including nuclear. The fact that renewables can employ more
    people is not necessarily a good thing. For instance, in the 16th century,
    75% of people worked in agriculture. So should we go back to that? Since
    nuclear is so energy dense, you can get lots of energy with a small
    footprint, leaving more people to solve other problems of the world. In
    2011, renewables and nuclear generated the same amount of electricity in
    Germany [10], so apparently 30,000 people accomplished the same things as
    380,000. I understand jobs are a big deal in this economy, but this
    isn&rsquo;t really a very good point.
  </p>

  <p>
    And, about Germany; it might be wise to read
    <a
      href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323716304578482663491426312.html"
      >this article [wsj.com]</a
    >. tl;dr is that the solar panels in Germany will make power at 32 cents/kwh
    while the behind-schedule and over-budget nuclear power plant being built in
    Finland will produce power at 7 cents/kwh.
  </p>

  <h2>Point number seven: geothermal and offshore wind are good ideas</h2>
  <p>
    <i
      >&quot;The argument that only nuclear provides &lsquo;carbon-free,&rsquo;
      base load energy is out of date. Geothermal and offshore wind energy are
      capable of delivering reliable base load power with a smaller carbon
      footprint than nuclear energy. Energy efficiency is also an essential
      component in displacing nuclear and coal.&quot;
    </i>
  </p>

  <p>
    Hydro is also fantastic carbon-free base load, but I guess it&rsquo;s not
    mentioned because it is very hard to expand these days since most good
    waterways are already dammed and river ecology is not renewable [11].
    Geothermal and offshore wind are totally cool, but they only work in certain
    areas. So I guess nuclear is the only expandable carbon-free proven flexible
    base load generation technology. And efficiency is great. But India and
    China are the big energy gainers, and while efficiency can help keep their
    growth lower, it will not prevent their growth. Mark my words. Hey! A proper
    use of quotation marks this time. Love it.
  </p>

  <h2>Well, that was fun.</h2>
  <p>
    If you want to join the discussion or point out errors,
    <a href="{% link contact.md %}">contact us</a> or hit us up on our
    <a href="https://www.facebook.com/pages/Whatisnuclearcom/209141202434177"
      >Facebook page</a
    >. Later y&rsquo;all.
  </p>
  <img
    alt="Nick Touran snowshoeing"
    title="Nick Touran snowshoeing"
    style="width: 100px"
    src="/img/snowshoeing_nick_sm.JPG"
  >
  <p>
    <i
      >Nick Touran has a Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of
      Michigan. He works as a reactor physicist at a nuclear-power startup
      company in Seattle, WA that is developing advanced nuclear reactors to
      help with the world&rsquo;s energy problems. whatisnuclear.com was started
      by him and classmates years ago back in school and neither this page nor
      the site are affiliated with his workplace in any way.
    </i>
  </p>

  <h1 id="refs">References</h1>
  <ul>
    <li>
      [1] The Global Wind Energy Council Annual Market Update 2012
      <a
        href="http://www.gwec.net/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/Annual_report_2012_LowRes.pdf"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [2] IEA Solar Capacity<a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/solar-pv"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [3] Implications of Partitioning and Transmutation in Radioactive Waste
      Management, IAEA Technical Report Series 435, (2004).<a
        href="http://www-pub.iaea.org/books/iaeabooks/7112/Implications-of-Partitioning-and-Transmutation-in-Radioactive-Waste-Management"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [4] Metal Fire Implications for Advanced Reactors, Part 1: Literature
      Review, SAND2007-6332, (2007).
      <a
        href="http://prod.sandia.gov/techlib/access-control.cgi/2007/076332.pdf"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [5] National Cancer Institute Nuclear Accident FactSheet
      <a
        href="http://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/radiation/nuclear-accidents-fact-sheet"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [6] S. Jablon, et.al, &quot;Cancer in Populations Living Near Nuclear
      Facilities&quot;, Journal of the American Medical Association, 265, 11,
      (1991).
      <a href="http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=385351"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [7] Report of the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of
      Atomic Radiation, A/67/46 (2012).
      <a href="http://www.unscear.org/">[link]</a>
    </li>
    <li>
      [8] Conca, &quot;Like We&rsquo;ve Been Saying -- Radiation Is Not A Big
      Deal&quot;, Forbes, January (2013).
      <a
        href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/01/11/like-weve-been-saying-radiation-is-not-a-big-deal/"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [9] Hvistendahl, &quot;Coal Ash Is More Radioactive than Nuclear Waste
      &quot;, Scientific American, December 13, (2007).<a
        href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=coal-ash-is-more-radioactive-than-nuclear-waste"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [10] EIA international electricity generation
      <a
        href="http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/international/electricitygeneration.html"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [11] Hydropower, Natural Resources Defense Council,
      <a href="http://www.nrdc.org/energy/renewables/hydropower.asp">[link]</a>
    </li>
    <li>
      [12] &quot;Sources and Effects of Ionizing Radiation&quot;, United Nations
      Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, (2008).<a
        href="http://www.unscear.org/docs/reports/2008/11-80076_Report_2008_Annex_D.pdf"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [13] &quot;Chernobyl disaster effects,&quot; Wikipedia
      <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster_effects"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
    <li>
      [14] Jogalekar, &quot;Nuclear power may have saved 1.8 million lives
      otherwise lost to fossil fuels, may save up to 7 million more.&quot;,
      Scientific American, April (2013).<a
        href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/the-curious-wavefunction/2013/04/02/nuclear-power-may-have-saved-1-8-million-lives-otherwise-lost-to-fossil-fuels-may-save-up-to-7-million-more/"
        >[link]</a
      >
    </li>
  </ul>
</div>