The “Nuclear Renaissance” may not be the resolution to foreign dependence of oil

“Nuclear energy is not just another way to boil water,” said Charles
Ferguson, Phillip D. Reed senior fellow for science and technology at
the Council on Foreign Relations. Ferguson was part of a panel at the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace discussion addressing
concerns about the “Nuclear Renaissance” being “glamorized” in the
next administration.

Sharon Squassoni, a senior associate in the Nonproliferation Program,
said, “to reduce dependency on foreign oil, nuclear power is not the
way… Nuclear energy only produces electricity, for now. This
inherently limits its ability to substitute for oil. In the U.S., oil
is only used for about 1.6 percent of electricity generation. When you
look at oil producing nations in the Middle East, a lot more of their
electricity generation comes from oil—it’s about in the 30 percent
range.”

Squassoni argued that in order to pursue nuclear energy, we’ll have to
live with foreign dependence. Squassoni said this is due to “the
location of uranium and the structure of nuclear fuel supply. It’s not
just uranium mining and milling. Its conversion, fuel fabrication, and
enrichment, so the structure of the nuclear supply industry is very
much concentrated in a hand full of suppliers. ”

Dr. Alan Hanson, Executive Vice President of Technologies and Used
Fuel Management of AREVA NC Inc., believes we need to diversify our
fuel supply between countries around the world. When we build nuclear
plants in foreign countries, Hanson said we should “B.O.O.: Build,
Own, Operate,” meaning until we can train their workers adequately and
with environmentally friendly culture, we should maintain operation.
This cooperation would require global interdependence on nuclear
energy.

Hanson said since a large portion of the funding for nuclear energy
comes from financing, our economy might make it hard to accomplish
such measures. He said we won’t really know the cost, competitive or
not, until after they’re built. This requires a lot of confidence in
the next administration, whose leading candidates have somewhat
similar policies on the matter.

Ferguson explained that while Obama and McCain have rather similar
policies on the need for constructing and renewing more nuclear
reactors in the next couple of decades, McCain has more specific goals
of how many reactors and where. Ferguson said the main factor they
differ on is finding nuclear waste repositories. While McCain supports
the nuclear waste repository in the Yucca Mountain ridge, Obama does
not. Ferguson also said McCain supports a market based decision on
fuel supply, while Obama wants to put funding into diversifying fuel
sources.