Nuclear Energy

See also: E05-04, Micropower Database: How Distributed Renewables and Cogeneration are Beating Nuclear Power Stations.

E08-01, The Nuclear Illusion (PDF)

This technical paper is in editing and peer-review and will be posted shortly. (April 2008).

C07-09, Nuclear Power and Climate Change (PDF-650k)

This 2007 Web exchange between Prof. Steve Berry (University of Chicago), Peter Bradford (former U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commissioner and senior utility regulator), and Amory Lovins (Chairman and Chief Scientist of RMI) elucidates the case for and against nuclear power to help protect the earth's climate. Originally posted at http://thebulletin.org/roundtable/nuclear-
power-climate- change, with entries in reverse chronological order (27 August 2007).

E06-04, Nuclear Power: Competitive Economics and Climate-Protection Potential (PDF-3.6 MB)

In this influential lecture to Britain's Royal Academy of Engineering on 13 May 2006, RMI's CEO Amory Lovins shows that nuclear power has been eclipsed in the global marketplace by cheaper, faster, bigger alternatives-thus accelerating, not retarding, profitable climate protection (10 April 2006).

E05-15, Mighty Mice (PDF-680k)

The most powerful force resisting new nuclear may be a legion of small, fast and simple microgeneration and efficiency projects. In this guest article in the UK-published Nuclear Engineering International, Amory Lovins explains to the industry who its most formidable competitors are: not central coal- or gas-fired power plants, but micropower and efficient use. These are already adding more than ten times as much global capacity per year, and, being much cheaper, provide more climate solution per dollar and per year (29 December 2005).

E05-10, Pebble Bed Modular Reactors–Status and Prospects (PDF-150k)

Economist and nuclear expert Jim Harding, former Director of Power Planning and Forecasting for Seattle's municipal utility, has updated his February 2004 paper on modular gas-cooled nuclear reactors. So few independent commentaries are available on this widely touted proposal by developers in South Africa (and, with variations, in China) that RMI is pleased to post his paper here by kind permission. Harding's economic analysis now looks prescient in light of a dismal economic assessment leaking out of South Africa (www.neimagazine.com/story.asp?storyCode=2030985) (06 September 2005).

E05-09, Nuclear Power: Economic Fundamentals and Potential Role in Climate Change Mitigation (PDF-2.0 MB)

The PowerPoint slides from Amory Lovins's 16 August 2005 invited testimony to the California Energy Commission (in PDF format) outline why nuclear power's inherently high cost and slow deployment make it a counterproductive answer to climate change. The world market is instead buying end-use efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled cogeneration faster and on a larger scale, and those superior investments will save more carbon sooner per dollar. For a documented narrative version, please see E05-08, Nuclear Power: Economics and Climate-Protection Potential (05 September 2005).

E05-14, Nuclear Power: Economics and Climate-Protection Potential — 06 January 2006 (PDF-475k)
E05-08, Nuclear Power: Economics and Climate-Protection Potential — 11 September 2005 (PDF-535k)

Amory Lovins documents a dramatic and little-known development: worldwide, efficient use of electricity plus decentralized low- or no-carbon electric generation are already at least twice as big as nuclear power and growing an order of magnitude faster, simply because they cost far less. New nuclear plants not only can't compete with central coal and gas plants, but also can't compete by hopelessly wide margins with these cheaper decentralized alternatives. Nuclear investments would only reduce and retard the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions, because they'd save far less carbon per dollar and provide less new electricity per year. These differences, once hypothetical, are now richly confirmed by actual market behavior. See also E05-08b, Post printing corrections (PDF-80k) and E05-09, Nuclear Power: Economic Fundamentals and Potential Role in Climate Change Mitigation, from which this paper is adapted and reorganized (05 September 2005).

E04-22, Comment on MIT study "The Future of Nuclear Power" (PDF-44k)

On 29 July 2003, MIT released an extensive interdisciplinary study, "The Future of Nuclear Power," which usefully analyzed this option's economics but compared it only with other obsolete competitors. The consequent logical weakness of the study's conclusions went unreported. Amory Lovins sought to remedy the resulting misunderstandings with the distinguished authors, and then in Sept.-Oct. 2003 letters that MIT's Technology Review and the American Nuclear Society's Nuclear News declined to publish. This similar letter corrects the public record (10 November 2004).

E01-19, The Nuclear Option Revisited (PDF-11k)

Too expensive and unacceptably risky, nuclear power was declared dead long ago. So why would we resurrect it? Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins revisit the nuclear option. This article appeared in The Los Angeles Times (08 July 2001).

E01-15, Nuclear Energy Debate: Nuclear Power Earns Fresh Look, Despite Past Woes (PDF-15k)

Debate between the editors of USA Today and Amory Lovins and Hunter Lovins. USA Today: Because VP Cheney says so, we should presume that nuclear power is becoming safer and more reliable, and deserves a second look. Lovinses: Nuclear power is grossly uncompetitive and getting more so, so it's a waste of time to reconsider, even if it were safe and didn't worsen global warming. This article appeared in the USA Today (17 April 2001).

E01-05, Can Nuclear Power Solve the Energy Crisis? (PDF-12k)

Given the current mania about a supposed energy crisis, it's worth understanding why nuclear power, won't float. Nuclear plants can't solve the immediate problems facing us (they're slow to build, and recent blackouts in the West were not caused by a lack of generating capacity). A lightly edited version of this article appeared in the "Symposium" section of Insight on the News on 27 August 2001 (27 August 2001).

E00-19, Profiting from a Nuclear-Free Third Millennium (PDF-13k)

Op-ed by Amory Lovins in the British journal Power Economics (November 1999).