Efforts to curb greenhouse gases that cause global warming have sparked interest in new technologies, rejuvenated pleas for energy conservation, and resulted in development of co-generation projects in which steam from one industrial facility is captured and used to generate electricity at another.But when it comes to replacing coal-fired power plants that are the country's biggest source of greenhouse gases, there are not many viable options.At least for now.Although wind power is the fastest-growing form of energy production, it commands less than 1 percent of the national market. At best, the goal is to someday to reach a 6 percent market share.Renewables diversify the energy mix and complement other sources of power by providing clean kilowatts.Some even offer added benefits beyond a megawatt or two of electrical power, such as those that make use of garbage and landfill methane gas.But they'll never replace baseload sources of power unless someone invents a way of capturing the electricity they produce and storing it for when it is needed later. Baseload is the minimum amount of power that a utility or distribution company must make available to its customers.But an inescapable obstacle is a supply of reliable, around the clock energy. A certain amount of power has to come from baseload sources that produce it. And, with today's technology, those continue to be mostly coal-fired power plants, nuclear plants, hydroelectric plants, and plants that operated off natural gas.The nuclear industry has promoted itself as a carbon-neutral panacea for climate change, hiring onetime Greenpeace activist Patrick Moore and former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Christine Todd Whitman as celebrity spokesmen. Both have touted nuclear as a way to generate more electricity without making global warming worse.Nuclear plants don't emit greenhouse gases if you look only at operations.But there's one huge caveat the industry's chief lobbyist group on Capitol Hill, the Nuclear Energy Institute, doesn't like to talk about:Tons of greenhouse gases are emitted in the mining of uranium and the subsequent milling and packing of it into reactor-core fuel rods. Tons of greenhouse gases are emitted in the construction phase of nuclear plants, which require more concrete and steel than almost any other structure.And tons of the gases will be emitted from future shipments of spent radioactive fuel to a long-term repository, whether that is Nevada's Yucca Mountain or someplace else. That's no small amount, either: There already is enough spent fuel stockpiled for interstate shipments to occur by rail or truck for 40 years.Even so, Barack Obama and John McCain both see a new fleet of advanced nuclear reactors as a key component of their energy plans. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is expecting to receive applications for as many as 45 new nuclear plants by 2030.There are now 104 operating nuclear power plants in the United States. Many are on the downside of their original 40-year licenses and are seeking 20-year extensions."I am convinced, first, that nuclear energy is essential to our nation's energy security and, second, that energy security is a keystone of our national security," retired Navy Adm. Frank L. "Skip" Bowman, the nuclear institute's president and chief executive officer, said this month at a meeting in Washington hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies.But Bowman also acknowledged the nuclear industry's greatest deterrent: costs. DTE Energy estimates the cost of building a new reactor on its Fermi complex north of Monroe, Mich. to be $10 billion today, more than three times the figure that accompanied the project's announcement in early 2007. And costs are likely to rise, given that those projects are expected to take four years of review and six years of construction.(E-mail Tom Henry at thenry(at)theblade.com)(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)
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