The Nuclear Power Option - Expensive, Ineffective and Unnecessary  

I tend to think governments traditionally subsidize nuclear power so heavily because they in fact want the side effect of plutonium (for their bombs.)

EROEI never even enters it.

True. But you only need so many bombs and so many reactors to produce the plutonium - after a while that isn't a valid reason for building more reactors.

But maybe I should give the government a break and support building one reactor - if everyone else has bombs why shouldn't we...

That's the spirit!

When India did their first nuke test, an Indian fellow who worked with my friend was observed dancing and singing in the halls,

"We have the bomb! We Have the bomb!"

True story.

The argument that nuclear power does not reduce greenhouse emissions is, to put it mildly, bunk.

Production of raw uranium:  The price of uranium is currently around $20/kg; extraction from seawater is thought to cost as much as $200/kg.  Suppose that this $200 is the cost of the crude oil or equivalent required to refine it to yellowcake; at today's prices, this would be about 4 barrels of crude at roughly 310 pounds each, or 1240 pounds of petroleum.  After enrichment from 0.7% U-235 to 3.5%, each kg of raw uranium yields 200 g of fuel; burnup in an LWR at 50,000 megawatt-days per (metric) ton means each 200 grams yields 10 megawatt-days of heat, or 82 million BTU.  The heating value of #2 diesel is about 19,110 BTU/lb, or 2.4 million BTU for the 1240 pounds.  The heat produced by the uranium is around 35 times as much as its cost in fuel oil, assuming the entire cost goes for fuel oil (which is silly).  At current prices the energy from the uranium would be more like 350 times the yield from the same price of crude.

Next, consider enrichment.  According to this reference, a year's fuel for a 1000 MWe LWR requires between 100,000 and 120,000 separation work units (SWU) to produce.  One SWU requires about 2500 kWh in a gaseous diffusion plant, but as little as 50 kWh in a gas centrifuge plant.  If the LWR runs at 80% capacity factor, it would produce 7.01 billion KWH per year, while its fuel would require as much as 300 million kWh (120,000 SWU via gaseous diffusion) or as little as 5 million kWh (100,000 SWU via centrifuge).  This overhead runs from 4.3% down to 0.071% of its output.

All told the overhead of uranium mining and enrichment accounts for considerably less than 10% of the energy output of a light-water reactor, and we haven't even considered the possibilities of natural-uranium burners (no enrichment) or plutonium and thorium breeders (ditto after the first fuel load).

An extended analysis including the energy required to make concrete is here.

MG - like the story - it would have been better if there was a pakistani working in the same office as him though :-)

EP - thanks for the update - I admit that a lot of the figures bandied around about the EROEI of nuclear power seem a bit dubious and it no doubt does have significantly less greenhouse emissions than coal fired power (but with other side effects to worry about instead and cleanup costs that aren't readily quantifiable).

As the nuclear industry is sending plenty of slanted propaganda out as well I figure its good to air both sides of the argument. It would have been better if he had provided a reference for his EROEI claims, as its hard to argue on his behalf as it stands.

Also note that the says "nuclear power is not, as suggested, such a great performer in terms of greenhouse gas reduction" - which I'm sure is true if you compare it to wind or solar or any other form of renewable power - its all relative - I don't think they are claiming it has no greenhouse gas reductions...

I've also left some comments at the Ergosphere to discuss EP's - this comment here on one of Jerome a Paris' posts on nuclear power looks like quite a good source of data - it claims an EROEI of 16 for nuclear vs 80 for wind...

http://www.moonofalabama.org/2005/04/eroei_pr_1.html#c5023508