Levi Rybalov Science and Technology in New York City Professor Eugene Chudnovsky December 10th, 2014

Nuclear Energy and the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant The history and development of nuclear energy combines the beauty of discovering fundamental truths about the nature of the universe, and the practicality of being able to apply these laws to create something of use. The topic of nuclear energy spans the history of nuclear science, the development of nuclear power plants, economics, politics, and the environment. The purpose of this essay is to provide an outline of nuclear power for the layman, and to relate the experiences my class and I had when we visited the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. The essay is divided into the following sections: Atomic Theory History Development of Nuclear Weapons Development of Nuclear Power Nuclear Energy Today Nuclear Energy and the Economy Nuclear Energy and the Environment Safety of Nuclear Energy New Technologies and the Future of Nuclear Energy IT is easier to talk of nuclear energy having knowledge about the discovery of the atom – indeed, the word “nuclear” is the adjectival form of the word “nucleus,” which is the center of the atom. Democritus, a Greek philosopher, first proposed the concept of the atom. He believed that the atom (from “atomos,” which means “that which cannot be broken down into further pieces”) was the smallest form of matter, an indivisible particle that constituted everything. Not much came of this until the scientific revolution in the Western world.

In the early 19th century, the English chemist John Dalton proposed that the atom was a spherical mass. In the mid 19th century, the Russian scientist Dmitri Mendeleev grouped the known elements of similar properties into categories and noticed that there these elements were periodic – this eventually developed into the periodic tablet of the elements. The English physicist Joseph John Thompson, after conducting experiments with cathode rays, proposed the existence of a particle even smaller than the hydrogen atom (the smallest atom), the electron, and “plum pudding” model of the atom – that is, that the atom is a positively charged structure within which are embedded negatively charged particles (in order to explain the neutral charge of the atom). Other atomic models were also proposed, like the cubic model and Saturnian model. While these were advancements in atomic theory, they were proven incorrect by New-Zealand born British physicist Ernest Rutherford. In is famous 1911 gold foil experiment, Rutherford proved that the charge of an atom is concentrated in its center – later called the nucleus. Two years later, Danish physicist Niels Bohr improved upon the Rutherford model and proposed the Rutherford-Bohr, or just Bohr, model. This model proposed that negatively charged electrons orbit a positively charged nucleus in discretely spaced, circular orbits.

While this model also turned out to be inaccurate, it accounted for more of the natural phenomenon observed in the natural world. In 1932, the English physicist James Chadwick discovered the neutron, the third major component of the atom, present in the nucleus. Over the course of these several decades, dozens of scientists drew on the work of Bohr, Einstein, de Broglie, Heisenberg, Schrödinger, and others to finally create the quantum-mechanical model of the atom, which stipulated that observations of atoms are based on a mathematical function called the wave function.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, other work that described radioactivity – the process by which the nucleus of an unstable atom emits energy – was also being done. In 1896, the French physicist Henri Becquerel discovered radioactivity. Later partners of his, husband and wife Pierre and Marie Curie studied the spontaneous (naturally occurring – without external factors) decay of the elements uranium and thorium – a phenomenon they termed “radioactivity.” They also discovered the elements radioactive elements polonium and radium. Hans Geiger, a German physicist and colleague of Rutherford, invented a device that could detect alpha particles (a type of radioactive particle). Among these works was the discovery of half-lives; a half-life is defined as the time required for a quantity of radioactive material to decay so that only one half of the original amount remains.

One of the most significant discoveries in nuclear physics came in 1938-1939, when German chemists Otto Hahn and Fritz Strassman experimentally discovered nuclear fission. Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch gave confirmation of this by theoretically explaining, and then experimentally verifying, the products created and energy released by the bombardment of uranium with neutrons. Essentially, when the isotope Uranium-235 is bombarded with slow-moving neutrons, it splits, creating several other elements, lots of energy, and more neutrons. These neutrons then hit more uranium nuclei, thereby propagating a chain reaction. Thus knowledge of nuclear fission, and its potential for large energy creation, was introduced to the world of science.

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During World War II, both the Allies and the Axis attempted to exploit this knowledge for their war aims. Nuclear projects were considered top-secret, and involved many of the world’s top scientists, including Heisenberg in Germany and Enrico Fermi in the U.S. By the end of the war, only the United States had managed to successfully create the atomic bomb, which it detonated twice over civilian populations, once in Hiroshima, and a second time in Nagasaki, resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths and radiation poisoning. U.S. leadership had several reasons for doing this, including the aversion of a ground invasion (which was likely to result in the deaths of many, many more Allied and Japanese deaths), and the necessity of justifying the money spent on the project. Critics of the bombing claimed that the U.S. could have demonstrated to the Japanese the capability of their atomic arsenal on an isolated island, thereby saving many innocent lives, but still scaring the Japanese into surrender. The world’s first nuclear reactor was Chicago Pile-1, a “pile” of nuclear material of critical mass (the minimum amount needed to create a sustained nuclear chain reaction), graphite (for slowing down neutrons), and control rods. It was made as part of the Manhattan Project, the United States’ secret nuclear weapons development program,

at the University of Chicago under the supervision of Enrico Fermi. On December 2nd, 29142, the first man-made, self-propagating nuclear chain reaction was conducted. Of course, these nuclear reactor, and several more that were created during the war, were used to create nuclear weapons. However, after the war, this technology was put used for commercial/industrial purposes.

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While the details of how nuclear power plant are structured are much more complex than those of, say, coal-fueled power plants, the overall idea is rather similar. The energy generated by the power source is used to heat water, which at some point is converted into steam, which turns a turbine, which generates electricity by twisting a metal coil in a magnetic field. At the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, which our class visited, the generator was enormous (as it is in most reactors):

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In December 1951, Experimental Breeder Reactor-1 (in eastern Idaho) was a government-operated research reactor, and the first nuclear reactor to produce electricity, thus making it the first nuclear power plant as well. The purpose of the reactor was not actually to produce electricity, however. Its goal was to validate Fermi’s fuel breeding principle, that it is possible for a nuclear reactor to produce more fuel than it consumes, thus eventually using as efficiently as possible all the fissile material originally introduced (a hypothesis that was proven correct).

In 1954, the Soviet Union achieved criticality with its Obninsk Nuclear Power Station (southwest of Moscow), which became the first nuclear power plant to be connected to the grid and supply electricity for commercial use, generating 5MWe (Megawatt electrical, as opposed to Megawatt thermal, power which cannot be used for electricity). In 1955, the BORAX reactor, near the Experimental Breeder Reactor-I in Idaho, was the first reactor in the United States to supply power to the electrical grid, generating approximately 2000kW. In 1956, the Calder Hall nuclear power station in England became the first reactor in the world to provide electricity on an industrial scale, generating approximately 200MWe. Since then, there have been new, more efficient designs of nuclear power plants proposed and implemented, with more waiting in the wings.

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Basic Design of a Fission-Powered Nuclear Plant. http://science.howstuffworks.com/nuclear-power2.htm

In the picture above is the basic design of fission-powered nuclear power plants. As mentioned above, there are several different power-plant designs in use; the one described below is that of a pressurized-water reactor, the most popular design of nuclear reactors in the western world.

The reactor (C) is held inside a containment dome (A), on the left side of the picture. The reactor could actually operate safely without the containment dome, which is there only for protection. At the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant, which our class visited, the containment dome was eight feet thick and made out of steel and concrete. The fuel rods (K) are filled with uranium pellets, and are bombarded with neutrons, which initiates the nuclear reaction, and releases massive amounts of energy. In order to

stop or slow down the reaction, control rods (B) are dropped in between the fuel rods. Control rods are very neutron-absorbent, so they can stop the energy-producing reaction, and do so within seconds (although some nuclear reactions still occur because radioactive materials with short half-lives are still undergoing fission inside the fuel rods). Extremely purified water (parts per trillion) is contained inside the reactor. (The water must be extremely pure because the presence of other compounds in the water may corrode the inside of the reactor and the pump). This water absorbs the energy released by the nuclear reactions, and becomes very hot (well above the boiling point of water), but does not become steam, because the water is under high pressure.

This hot water is pumped (F – inside the containment dome) into the steam generator (D). Inside the steam generator, the heat of the extremely hot water, which is still inside the pump, is transferred to the water inside the steam generator. The water drops significantly in temperature (since it loses energy), and continues traveling through the pump, back into the reactor, and the cycle repeats. The water inside the steam generator (which is also very pure) is converted to steam (since it absorbs heat from the very hot water), and travels through the steam line (E) to the turbine (H), which it turns because it is at a very high pressure. The turbine in turn twists a huge piece of metal in the generator (G), which is present in a strong magnetic field. This process generates an electric current in the piece of metal (electromagnetic induction), which is sent through a transformer (L) and produces electricity for commercial uses. The hot steam then travels into the cooling water condenser (I). Here, it transfers its heat to water (which is usually obtained from a large water source, such as a river or lake) in a pump (F) on the right side of the picture, thus condensing into water and repeating the cycle. This water is also turned into steam, since it absorbs energy from the steam in the other pump, and is sent into a cooling tower (J), where it is condensed into water, and sent back into its original source, the river or lake, at a slightly higher temperature than before. At Indian Point, the cooling system is a topic of controversy. Critics say that the mechanism of the cooling system is such that many animals and fish eggs get caught and die, an ecological issue that can be resolved by installing the archetypal cooling towers:

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Indian Point advocates a significantly cheaper and almost-as-effective method for cooling the water. The difference is about 94% vs. 89% saving of wildlife, the former figure from the cooling towers and the latter from Indian Point’s preferred option. Of course, this process produces radioactive waste. This waste can be dealt with in two main ways. One is reprocessing, and the other is direct disposal. Nuclear “waste” actually contains radioactive materials that can be reused in nuclear reactors, and other materials than can be used for medical and industrial purposes. It also significantly reduces the amount of radioactive waste that needs to be stored in a repository. The useful radioactive materials can be chemically separated from the unusable ones and then reused. In fact, this reprocessing is done in many countries outside the United States. In the U.S., however, nuclear waste reprocessing was banned under the Carter administration in order to prevent proliferation of nuclear materials. Although President Reagan lifted this ban in 1981, no subsidy that would have kick-started the project was given. As of 2011, a planned plant in South Carolina, eleven years after a contract was signed, is uncompleted, and still has no customers1. Not only that, but as of 2005 uranium prices, (single-cycle) reprocessing is much more expensive than simply depositing the spent fuel directly into a repository. Currently, the United States is seeing a massive nuclear waste storage problem – the planned repository at Yucca Mountain was canceled, and nuclear power plants are being forces to store their waste on site. At Indian Point, there was so much spent fuel that the plant has begun to store the spent fuel in multi-ton, practically impenetrable, cylindrical concrete containers on site, which is where they will stay unless something about the issue is done.

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As of November 2014, there were 438 operational nuclear power plants in 31 countries. In 2011, nuclear power produced 13% of the world’s electricity consumption. There are 71 reactors under construction in 16 countries. There are 149 permanently shut-down reactors in 19 countries. In the United States, in 2013, there were 104 operational nuclear reactors producing 19.4% of the country’s electricity.

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Percentage share Electricity Supplied TWh Argentina 5 5.9 Armenia 33.2 2.4 Belgium 54 45.9 Brazil 3.2 14.8 Bulgaria 32.6 15.3 Canada 15.3 88.3 China Mainland 1.8 82.6 Czech Rep 33 26.7 Finland 31.6 31.6 France 77.7 423.5 Germany 17.8 102.3 Hungary 43.2 14.7 India 3.7 28.9 Japan 18.1 156.2 Mexico 3.6 9.3 Netherlands 3.6 3.9 Pakistan 3.8 3.8 Romania 19 10.8 Russia 17.6 162.0 Slovakia 54 14.3 Slovenia 41.7 5.9 South Africa 5.2 12.9 South Korea 34.6 147.8 Spain 19.5 55.1 Sweden 39.6 58.1 Switzerland 40.8 25.7 Taiwan 19 40.4 UK 17.8 62.7 Ukraine 47.2 84.9 USA 19.2 790.4

The future of nuclear energy depends on two main factors that the informed public should keep in mind: economic costs and benefits, and environmental considerations.

- Nuclear power plants are extremely expensive to build, but comparatively cheap to run. According to our tour guide, Indian Point provides the cheapest electricity in New York State. The economics of nuclear energy are the topic of much debate. Thus, it should be noted that this section is by no means exhaustive. The information available on this topic is so vast that what is below is a mere summary. Different sources tell different stories, and all use a huge variety of difficult to verify sources, such that the true picture is hidden in such a quagmire as to be potentially unknown except to experts in the field. The Union of Concerned Scientists published a critical review10 of the nuclear energy industry, parts of which are reproduced below (bold added): “The most important subsidies to the industry do not involve cash payments. Rather, they shift construction-cost and operating risks from investors to taxpayers and ratepayers, burdening taxpayers with an array of risks ranging from cost overruns and defaults to accidents and nuclear waste management. This approach, which has remained remarkably consistent throughout the industry’s history, distorts market choices that would otherwise favor less risky investments. Although it may not involve direct cash payments, such favored treatment is nevertheless a subsidy, with a profound effect on the bottom line for the industry and taxpayers alike. Reactor owners, therefore, have never been economically responsible for the full costs and risks of their operations. Instead, the public faces the prospect of severe losses in the event of any number of potential adverse scenarios, while private investors reap the rewards if nuclear plants are economically successful. For all practical purposes, nuclear power’s economic gains are privatized, while its risks are socialized. Recent experiences in the housing and financial markets amply demonstrate the folly of arrangements that separate investor risk from reward. Indeed, massive new subsidies to nuclear power could encourage utilities to make similarly speculative expensive investments in nuclear plants – investments that would never be tolerated if the actual risks were properly accounted for and allocated. While the purpose of this report is to quantify the extent of past and existing subsidies, we are not blind to the context: the industry is calling for even more support from Congress. Though the value of these new subsidies is not quantified in this report, it is clear that they would only further increase the taxpayers’ tab for nuclear power while shifting even more of the risks onto the public.” The report was organized into five subcategories of subsidies: factors of production, intermediate inputs, output-linked support, security and risk management, and decommissioning and waste management. After examining many different sources, the report said, in its concluding chapter, that “In total, we estimate the value of legacy subsidies to nuclear power were at least 7.5¢/kWh – equivalent to nearly 140 percent or more of the value of the power produced from 1960 to 2008. In other words, the value of government subsidies to the first

generation of nuclear reactors actually exceeded the value of the power produced by those plants. Ongoing subsidies to existing reactors show a much broader range. However, even at the low end, these subsidies are important. The low-end estimate for subsidies to investor-owned reactors (0.7¢/kWh) may seem relatively small at 13 percent of the current value of power produced, but it is more than 35 percent of nuclear production costs (O&M [operation and maintenance] plus fuel costs, without capital recovery), which are often cited by the main industry association as a core indicator of the resource’s competitiveness (NEI 2010b). In fact, including even the lower estimate for ongoing subsidies in today’s power prices would erode nearly 80 percent of the production cost advantage of nuclear relative to coal. The estimated low-end benefit to publicly owned power is double this among (1.5/kWh, or 26 percent of the value of power produced). This represents 75 percent of reported nuclear production costs – enough to render them higher than those for coal. Ongoing subsidies to POUs [publicly owned utilities] exceed those to IOUs [investor owned utilities] because of ongoing tax subsidies to public power and an artificially low required return on assets. In contrast, the subsidies most important to IOUs for reducing the cost of capital, including investment tax credits and accelerated depreciation, have diminished in important as these decades-old investments have been written off. High-end estimates illustrate the same general trends, but in an even more striking way. Ongoing subsidies to existing reactors of roughly 4 to 6 ¢/kWh are large – 70 to nearly 100 percent of the value of power produced. Given that these values exclude the massive legacy subsidies to the plants, their magnitude is impressive. The source of variance between the low and high estimates for existing reactors comes from widely differing estimates in five main areas…” which the report goes on to explain.

The following (three tables) have been reproduced from the World Nuclear Association’s website5: The 2010 OECD study Projected Costs of generating Electricity compared 2009 data for generating base-load electricity by 2015 as well as costs of power from renewables, and showed that nuclear power was very competitive at $30 per tonne CO2 cost and low discount rate. The study comprised data for 190 power plants from 17 OECD countries as well as some data from Brazil, China, Russia and South Africa. It used levelised lifetime costs with carbon price internalised (OECD only) and discounted cash flow at 5% and 10%, as previously. The precise competitiveness of different base-load technologies depended very much on local circumstances and the costs of financing and fuels. OECD electricity generating cost projections for year 2010 on - 5% discount

rate, c/kWh country nuclear coal coal with CCS Gas CCGT Onshore wind Belgium 6.1 8.2 - 9.0 9.6 Czech R 7.0 8.5-9.4 8.8-9.3 9.2 14.6 France 5.6 - - - 9.0 Germany 5.0 7.0-7.9 6.8-8.5 8.5 10.6 Hungary 8.2 - - - - Japan 5.0 8.8 - 10.5 - Korea 2.9-3.3 6.6-6.8 - 9.1 - Netherlands 6.3 8.2 - 7.8 8.6 Slovakia 6.3 12.0 - - - Switzerland 5.5-7.8 - - 9.4 16.3 USA 4.9 7.2-7.5 6.8 7.7 4.8 China* 3.0-3.6 5.5 - 4.9 5.1-8.9 Russia* 4.3 7.5 8.7 7.1 6.3 EPRI (USA) 4.8 7.2 - 7.9 6.2 Eurelectric 6.0 6.3-7.4 7.5 8.6 11.3

* For China and Russia: 2.5c is added to coal and 1.3c to gas as carbon emission cost to enable sensible comparison with other data in those fuel/technology categories, though within those countries coal and gas will in fact be cheaper than the Table above suggests. Source: OECD/IEA NEA 2010, table 4.1

A 2010 OECD study Projected Costs of generating Electricity set out some actual costs of electricity generation, from which the following figures are taken:

Actual Costs of Electricity (US cents/kWh)

Technology region or country

At 10% discount rate

At 5% discount rate

Nuclear OECD Europe 8.3-13.7 5.0-8.2 China 4.4-5.5 3.0-3.6

Black coal with CCS OECD Europe 11.0 8.5

Brown coal with CCS OECD Europe 9.5-14.3 6.8-9.3

CCGT with CCS OECD Europe 11.8 9.8 Large hydro-electric OECD Europe 14.0-45.9 7.4-23.1

China: 3 Gorges 5.2 2.9 China: other 2.3-3.3 1.2-1.7

Onshore wind OECD Europe 12.2-23.0 9.0-14.6 China 7.2-12.6 5.1-8.9

Offshore wind OECD Europe 18.7-26.1 13.8-18.8 Solar photovoltaic OECD Europe 38.8-61.6 28.7-41.0

China 18.7-28.3 12.3-18.6 Source: OECD/IEA-NEA, 2010, Projected Costs of Generating Electricity, Tables 3.7 This shows the levelised cost, which is the average cost of producing electricity including capital, finance, owner's costs on site, fuel and operation over a plant's lifetime.

In 2013 the Nuclear Energy Institute announced the results of its financial modelling of comparative costs in the USA, based on figures from the US Energy Information Administration’s 2013 Annual Energy Outlook. NEI assumed 5% cost of debt, 15% return on equity and a 70/30 debt equity capital structure. The figures are tabulated below. The report went on to show that with nuclear plant licence renewal beyond 60 years, power costs would be $53-60/MWh.

NEI 2013 Financial Modelling

EPC cost capacity Electricity cost

Gas combined cycle, gas @ $3.70/GJ $1000/kW 90% $44.00/MWh Gas combined cycle, gas @ $5.28/GJ $1000/kW 90% $54.70/MWh Gas combined cycle, gas @ $6.70/GJ $1000/kW 90% $61.70/MWh Gas combined cycle, gas @ $6.70/GJ, 50-50 debt-equity $1000/kW 90% c $70/MWh

Supercritical pulverised coal, 1300 MWe $3000/kW 85% $75.70/MWh

Integrated gasification combined cycle coal, 1200 MWe $3800/kW 85% $94.30/MWh

Nuclear, 1400 MWe (EIA's EPC figure) $5500/kW 90% $121.90/MWh Nuclear, 1400 MWe (NEI suggested EPC figure)

$4500-5000/kW 90% $85-90/MWh

Wind farm, 100 MWe $1000/kW 30% 112.90/MWh 5% cost of debt, 15% return on equity and a 70-30 debt equity capital structure.

The USA is the only country which has offered any subsidy to nuclear power: a production tax credit of 1.9 c/kWh from the first 6000 MWe of new-generation nuclear plants in their first 8 years of operation (same as for wind power on unlimited basis). (In 2007 the USA subsidised renewables by $724 million and recorded $199 billion subsidy for nuclear power. The latter was entirely due to a change in tax rules related to decommissioning, under the 2005 Energy Policy Act.)7 The Brookings Institute, a think tank often cited by politicians and media, had this to say about low and no-carbon technologies8: Abstract: This paper examines five different low and no-carbon electricity technologies and presents the net benefits of each under a range of assumptions. It estimates the costs per megawatt per year for wind, solar, hydroelectric, nuclear, and gas combined cycle electricity plants. To calculate these estimates, the paper uses a methodology based on

avoided emissions and avoided costs, rather than comparing the more prevalent “levelized” costs. Three key findings result: First—assuming reductions in carbon emissions are valued at $50 per metric ton and the price of natural gas is $16 per million Btu or less—nuclear, hydro, and natural gas combined cycle have far more net benefits than either wind or solar. This is the case because solar and wind facilities suffer from a very high capacity cost per megawatt, very low capacity factors and low reliability, which result in low avoided emissions and low avoided energy cost per dollar invested. Second, low and no-carbon energy projects are most effective in avoiding emissions if a price for carbon is levied on fossil fuel energy suppliers. In the absence of an appropriate price for carbon, new no-carbon plants will tend to displace low-carbon gas combined cycle plants rather than high-carbon coal plants and achieve only a fraction of the potential reduction in carbon emissions. The price of carbon should be high enough to make production from gas-fired plants preferable to production from coal-fired plants, both in the short term, based on relative short-term energy costs, and the longer term, based on relative energy and capacity costs combined. Third, direct regulation of carbon dioxide emissions of new and existing coal-fired plants, as proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, can have some of the same effects as a carbon price in reducing coal plant emissions both in the short term and in the longer term as old, inefficient coal plants are retired. However, a price levied on carbon dioxide emissions is likely to be a less costly way to achieve a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions. A Forbes article11 describing the assessment of Morningstar, an investment research and management firm: Nuclear reactors are not a viable source of new power in the West, Morningstar analysts conclude in a report this month to institutional investors. Nuclear’s “enormous costs, political and popular opposition, and regulatory uncertainty” render new reactors infeasible even in regions where they make economic sense, according to Morningstar’s Utilities Observer report for November.

- As could be expected, nuclear power has both positive and negative impacts on the environment. As far as air pollution goes, nuclear power is completely clean. Barring any accidents, the only thing that nuclear energy sends into the air is water vapor. This applies to carbon emissions as well – there are zero greenhouse gas emissions. For this reason, there are prominent environmentalists (in the minority) who support a widespread

transition to nuclear energy as the most optimal way to combat global warming/anthropogenic climate change. There are those who challenge these claims. Critics say that due to the long construction times and high costs of building nuclear power plants, not enough nuclear power plants can be built to mitigate carbon emissions to a sufficient extent in the near future. Furthermore, abandoned uranium mines present environmental challenges, since they are notable cases of them not being accounted for properly. Critics also bring up the issue of nuclear waste, which was discussed earlier in this essay.

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Environmental impacts aside, nuclear energy has two main safety issues: meltdowns and potential attacks. A nuclear accident on the scale of Chernobyl or Fukushima Daichi can wreak massive environmental damage, including radiation poisoning, contamination of food and water supplies, and inhabitability of the affected area. These types of disasters can have environmental consequences spanning many decades, not including the toll on humans, which can last their entire lives. According to a 2003 MIT study3, a Probabilistic Risk Assessment of future accidents, “The expected number of core damage accidents during the scenario with current technology would be 4.” Their scenario is a “three-fold increase in the world nuclear fleet capacity by 2050,” a prospect which as of right now seems unrealistic.

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There are many new fission-powered nuclear reactor designs being drafted, which are very interesting but beyond the scope of this essay.

However, the future of nuclear energy, if there is one, is in nuclear fusion. Uranium supplies will be depleted within the next one hundred years. Reprocessing can carry humanity along for a few hundred years after that. Fusion power however, promises practically unlimited energy. Fusion, which is the reaction that powers the sun, on earth uses materials that can last millions of years, produces no air pollution or carbon emissions, produces far less radioactive waste than current fission reactors, and is far safer in the event of an accident since the material used is only enough for a reaction on the scale of seconds (compared with fission reactors, which usually contain several years worth of nuclear fuel in them).12 Although, as an editorial9 in Nature notes, “The reality is much messier. Fusion power demands heating certain isotopes of hydrogen or other light elements to hundreds of millions of kelvin until they form ionized plasma. The plasma is contained by magnetic fields in a toroidal (doughnut-shaped) chamber until the nuclei fuse and convert mass into energy.” The international effort to construct a fusion reactor, ITER, “has been under construction since 2010 on a site next to the Cadarache nuclear-research facility north of Marseilles, France, but building costs have soared to roughly US$50 billion — 10 times the original figure — and the schedule has slipped by 11 years. Instead of 2016, ITER is expected to start its first burning-plasma experiments in 2027— but only if the ITER team can solve technical challenges.” Opponents also claim that funding for ITER could go to more promising possibilities for nuclear fusion. Only time will tell.

Works Cited

1. Becker, Jo, and William J. Broad. "New Doubts About Turning Plutonium Into a Fuel." The

New York Times. The New York Times, 10 Apr. 2011. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.

2. Brain, Marshall, and Robert Lamb. "How Nuclear Power Works." HowStuffWorks.

HowStuffWorks.com, 2011. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.

3. "Chapter 6 - Safety." The Future of Nuclear Power: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study. Boston

MA: MIT, 2003. 47-51. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003. Web. 25 Nov.

2014.

4. "Cooling Tower." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 12 Nov. 2014. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.

5. "The Economics of Nuclear Power." World Nuclear Association. Web. 15 Nov. 2014.

6. "Electricity Supplied by Nuclear Energy." World Nuclear Association. Web. 19 Nov. 2014.

7. "Energy Subsidies and External Costs." World Nuclear Association. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.

8. Frank, Charles R., Jr. "The Net Benefits of Low and No-Carbon Electricity Technologies."

Brookings Insitute, May 2014. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.

9. "Fusion furore." Nature Publishing Group, 23 July 2014. Web. 28 Nov. 2014.

10. Koplow, Doug. "Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable without Subsidies." Union of Concerned

Scientists, Feb. 2011. Web. 21 Nov. 2014.

11. McMahon, Jeff. "New-Build Nuclear Is Dead: Morningstar." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 10

Nov. 2013. Web. 22 Nov. 2014.

12. Ongena* And G. Van Oost, J., and G. V. Oost. Energy For Future Centuries: Will Fusion

Be An Inexhaustible, Safe And Clean Energy Source? Aspen Global Change Institute.

Web. 28 Nov. 2014.

13. "Start and Finish Every Task SafelY." Path Foundation, 11 Oct. 2012. Web. 11 Dec. 2014.