Captain Ed and Nuclear Power

The influential blogger at Captain'’s Quarters, Ed Morrissey, posted a very strong endorsement for nuclear power as a way to reduce our reliance on foreign oil.

He called for consideration of making most or all of our electricity from nuclear power. The problem is that today, more nuclear power plants will NOT reduce importation of petroleum. We'’ve already displaced oil as a fuel for electricity with our first big nuclear build back in the 70’s and early 80’s. In 1970, almost 35% of US electricity was fueled by oil. Today, it's down to 3%.

The real problem lies with the prospective fuel for generators --– imported liquefied natural gas. As domestic demand increases and North American supplies decline, energy planners and marketers are looking more and more to new LNG terminals to provide the gas to run combined cycle combustion gas turbine plants. Are we adding a NEW addiction to our old bad habit? Nuclear power could and should prevent that.

Morrissey goes on to advocate hydrogen fuel cells for autos and other independent uses. He rightly identifies the problem as the source of hydrogen.

Ed thinks that an "Moon shot"” program can get us off foreign oil and "“make it happen within the next ten to fifteen years."”

Well, as a nuclear engineer, I can feel the love, but it ain't gonna happen. The FIRST new nuke to make electricity is scheduled to come on line in 2015. As some of the commenters note, production of hydrogen for fuel will require nuclear power. The current government plan is first commercial-scale nuclear hydrogen production in 2019. Lab-scale demonstration of the thermo-chemical reaction is not planned until 2008 and that'’s using non-nuclear heat.

Still, as a public discussion of energy policy issues, it is way above what passes for public discourse in the main stream media.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Electricity, Nuclear Power, Climate Change, Global Warming, GHG, Oil, Natural Gas, Hydrogen, LNG