Wind power blows other sources away
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7/19/2008 - 7/19/08
I was disappointed to read "What the politicians aren't telling us about wind power," by Richard Allison, in which this State Transportation Department employee makes the case for "old" nuclear power over such "new" energy sources as wind power.
Mr. Allison's version of what nuclear power costs doesn't come close to telling the whole story. The truth is that nuclear power is neither cheap nor clean. Over the course of five disappointing decades, the nuclear fuel cycle in the U.S. has proven itself to be a costly, technically demanding, proliferation-prone, and environmentally damaging way to supply steam to turbines that generate electricity.
Here are just some of the facts that Mr. Allison failed to mention: Nuclear power is the only energy technology that requires an international safeguards regime to discourage countries from diverting fuel-cycle facilities and materials to make weapons. It is the only energy technology for which government must assume the ultimate liability for catastrophic accidents. And nuclear power is the only one in which the waste is so dangerous and enduring that government must assume responsibility for its long-term isolation from the biosphere. And from a New Mexican's perspective, the astronomical amount of water needed to run a nuclear reactor (billions of gallons per day by any measure) makes the technology virtually a non-starter in our beautiful, but arid West.
Despite more than $150 billion in direct and indirect U.S. federal support, nuclear still supplies only 19 percent of our nation's electricity production. In fact, without federal assumption of excess liability for a major nuclear accident, the commercial nuclear industry likely would not have developed in the U.S. In our region, you can read about the Palo Verde nuclear power plant mess at www.ucsusa.org/assets/documents/clean_energy/20061122-pv-ucs-brief-naughty-list.pdf. Does that really sound like a power source we want to depend on?
New Mexico is a national leader in finding clean new energy solutions by championing wind and other important alternatives to dirty "old" power sources. And that's a smart move for the state and for power consumers in it. The truth is that wind power costs have declined so much in recent years that the tab for a new wind power plant is comparable to new conventional coal plant in cost. More importantly, for every million dollars spent new wind power plants create about twice as many jobs as coal plants. The investment is in building and installing the turbines, and not directed to pay big coal companies for fuel. The cost of new wind power compared to new nuclear power is even more attractive ... and at only a fraction of the cost to taxpayers in terms of subsidies!
No one ever said wind power was going to be the whole solution for New Mexico, but then you can't say that about nuclear either. When it comes right down to a head-to-head comparison there's no escaping the truth: Wind power blows away nuclear power.
Santa Fean Beatríz Rivera is a member New Mexico Renewable Transmission Authority.