Part Two of Two Parts: (Please read Part One first)
5. Proliferation: As more and more nuclear reactors are built, the odds that nuclear materials and nuclear expertise will spread to hostile groups and/or nations. There are global systems to monitor and account for weapons-grade nuclear materials but they would be overwhelmed by the production from fifteen thousand reactors.
6. Uranium abundance: It is estimated that at the current rate of burning uranium in existing reactors, the world supply of easily accessible uranium will be consumed in eighty years. In order to produce fifteen terawatts of power, the current reserves of economically viable uranium would last about five years. After that, the increasing difficulty of obtaining uranium from marginal ore deposits would send the price higher and higher.
7. Uranium extraction from seawater: Although currently uranium is mined from a variety of ore deposits worldwide, it is also possible to extract uranium from seawater. It is estimated that there are over two trillion pounds of uranium in the water of the world's oceans. If it could be economically extracted, it could supply fifteen terawatts generated by conventional reactors for over five thousand years. However, as uranium is extracted, the concentration drops in the remaining seawater so the cost would rise steadily. Abbott estimates that after about thirty years of extraction, it would become too expensive to be practical.
8. Exotic metals: A variety of exotic metals are used in the construction of a nuclear reactor containment vessel. Hafnium is use to absorb neutrons, beryllium is used to reflect neutrons, zirconium is used in the coating of nuclear fuel rods, and niobium is alloyed with steel to make it resistant to neutron embrittlement. Mining and refining these metals adds to nuclear construction costs and environmental damage. These metals also have other industrial uses that compete in the marketplace. Construction of a nuclear reactor every day would rapidly deplete these metals and lead to an exotic metal supply crisis.
Abbott points out that these problems will be present for the use of thorium as a fuel as well as uranium. He acknowledges that it is possible to use breeder reactors to increase the utility of uranium but he goes on to say that the technology for breeder reactors is more complex and difficult to develop and operate than conventional reactors. The use of breeder reactors would increase the cost and possibility of accidents.
Abbott says that many of these problems would be present for fusion reactors as well as fission reactors but he says that fusion reactors will not be developed in the near future. I will have to take exception to this particular remark by Abbott. There are at least half a dozen fusion projects that may be less than ten years away from producing small inexpensive fusion reactors that will not have many of the problems that he lists above for fission reactors.
No nuclear advocates today are calling for replacing all other energy sources like Abbott's analysis. There are calls for nuclear power to produce about one terawatt of energy. This might be possible to accomplish in the short run. However, even looking at the problems that seven percent of Abbot's fifteen thousand reactors would take shows that such a plan is unrealistic.
Abbott concludes that, "Due to the cost, complexity, resource requirements, and tremendous problems that hang over nuclear power, our investment dollars would be more wisely placed elsewhere,” Abbott said. “Every dollar that goes into nuclear power is dollar that has been diverted from assisting the rapid uptake of a safe and scalable solution such as solar thermal."
