Spring 2010
Letters
The Hidden Costs of Nuclear Power
| In this issue of Catalyst:
> Securing the Skies |
The article "Nuclear Economics 101" did not mention nuclear fuel production or waste storage costs. What is the present state of those issues?
Thomas McCabe, Culver City, CA
Your article "Nuclear Economics 101" misses two huge points about costs: the government's subsidies for nuclear fuel production and accident insurance. Don't these factors also affect the economic viability of nuclear power?
James Eisenstein, Boalsburg, PA
The author responds:
Fuel costs constitute about 25 percent of the total operating and maintenance costs for U.S. reactors—about $40 million a year for a typical 1,000-megawatt plant. Ratepayers pay about $8 million a year through their utility bills to fund nuclear waste disposal, while the nuclear industry pays about $2 million per reactor annually to store waste on-site. The costs incurred by taxpayers as a result of the Price-Anderson Act, which limits the industry's liability in the event of an accident, are difficult to quantify.
These costs pale in comparison with the more than $100 billion in federal loan guarantees sought by the industry to underwrite a new generation of reactors. This would further mask the true cost of nuclear power as a potential climate solution compared with safer, more affordable renewable alternatives.
Elliott Negin, media director
Biotech beyond Our Borders
Can you explain why "Failure to Yield" [Summer 2009, p. 11] ignores international data showing [some] genetically modified crops have significantly higher yields? For example, the use of Bt cotton in India? This is particularly puzzling since you mention that farmers in developing countries have the greatest need to improve crop yields.
Thomas L. Noland, Sault Sainte Marie, Ontario
The author responds:
Our report was motivated by the global food crisis and the biotechnology industry's response to it, so we did not include cotton in our analysis. More generally, we relied on U.S. studies because of their greater number and, importantly, because they include research that allows us to distinguish between the contribution of the engineered gene to crop yield and the contribution of the crop variety overall. Crops contain many yield genes, and yield varies considerably between crop varieties, so only certain experiments pinpoint the contribution of the engineered gene.
Engineered crops have sometimes provided higher yields in developing countries, but many methods can improve yields for poor farmers. U.S. data give us a better sense of how engineered traits stack up against other agricultural technologies that may be transferred to developing countries. For example, corn yields here rose about 28 percent over the past 13 years, but engineered traits contributed only about 3 to 4 percent.
Doug Gurian-Sherman, senior scientist
Food and Environment Program
