The following is a newspaper account about uranium mining.  The groups opposed to mining say all they need or want is a scientific study to prove that uranium mining is safe; that’s what they say.  The truth is a little different here and in Virginia.

Virginia Is Sitting on the Energy Mother Lode

By MAX SCHULZ

July 26, 2008

Chatham, Va.

Amid the rolling hills and verdant pastures of south central Virginia an unlikely new front in the battle over nuclear energy is opening up. How it is decided will tell us a lot about whether this country is willing to get serious about addressing its energy needs.

In Pittsylvania County, just north of the North Carolina border, the largest undeveloped uranium deposit in the United States -- and the seventh largest in the world, according to industry monitor UX Consulting -- sits on land owned by neighbors Henry Bowen and Walter Coles. Large uranium deposits close to the surface are virtually unknown in the U.S. east of the Mississippi River. And that may be the problem.

Virginia is one of just four states that ban uranium mining. The ban was put in place in 1984, to calm fears that had been sparked by the partial meltdown of a nuclear reactor on Three Mile Island outside of Harrisburg, Pa. in 1979.

Messrs. Bowen and Coles, who last year formed a company called Virginia Uranium, are asking the state to determine whether mining uranium really is a hazard and, if not, to lift the ban. But they've run into a brick wall of environmental activists who raise the specter of nuclear contamination and who are determined to prevent scientific studies of the issue.

The Piedmont Environmental Council is one of the leading opponents. It warns of the "enormous quantities of radioactive waste" produced by uranium mining.

Jack Dunavant, head of the Southside Concerned Citizens in nearby Halifax County, is another outspoken critic. He paints a picture of environmental apocalypse. "There will be a dead zone within a 30 mile radius of the mine," he says with a courtly drawl. "Nothing will grow. Animals will die. The radiation genetically alters tissue. Animals will not be able to reproduce. We'll see malformed fetuses."

Yet it is not as if we have no experience with uranium mining, which is in fact relatively harmless. Handled properly, the yellowcake that is extracted is no more hazardous than regular household chemicals (and unlike coal, it won't smolder and combust).

James Kelly, who directed the nuclear engineering program at the University of Virginia for many years, says that fears about uranium mining are wildly overblown. "It's an aesthetic nightmare, but otherwise safe in terms of releasing any significant radioactivity or pollution," he told me. "It would be ugly to look at, but from the perspective of any hazard I wouldn't mind if they mined across the street from me."

The situation is rich with irony as well as uranium. While you can't mine yellowcake, it is perfectly legal in Virginia to process enriched uranium into usable nuclear fuel, which is somewhat dangerous to handle. A subsidiary of the French nuclear giant Areva operates a fuel fabrication facility in Lynchburg 50 miles from Chatham. It has been praised by Gov. Tim Kaine, a Democrat, as a good corporate citizen. The state is also home to four commercial nuclear reactors, which provide Virginians with 35% of their electricity. And, of course, the U.S. Navy operates nuclear ships out of Norfolk, Va.

Across the country, there are 104 commercial nuclear reactors. They consume 67 million pounds of uranium annually, the vast majority of which is imported from Australia, Canada and former Soviet republics. The 200-acre Coles Hill deposit (Mr. Coles's family has lived on the spot since 1785) is thought to contain nearly twice that amount. For Messrs. Bowen and Coles, with the long-term price of uranium near $80 per pound, that means they are sitting on about $10 billion worth of ore. But for the rest of us, it means they are sitting on an opportunity to make the U.S. more energy self-sufficient.

Since Virginia is already a nuclear-friendly state that properly manages the risks of nuclear power, what sense does it make for the state to ban the safest step in the nuclear fuel cycle?

Gov. Kaine supports allowing the National Academy of Sciences to determine whether mining could be done safely. So does virtually every elected official in heavily Republican Pittsylvania County. Earlier this year the narrowly Democratic state Senate voted 34-6 to authorize the study. But the measure was killed in committee in the House under pressure from environmental groups. If it was allowed to come up for a vote in the full House, which is controlled by Republicans, opponents concede it would have passed.

The governor's chief energy adviser, Steve Walz, says the Kaine administration has taken no position on whether reversing the ban makes sense. "That's why we wanted to see the results of the study, to help us make a determination."

Mr. Dunavant doesn't believe the governor has an open mind on the issue. He calls Mr. Kaine, "our 'supposed green' governor" and says that the "only thing green about him is his love of money." Coles Hill "is all about greed," he says. "It's criminal activity as far as I'm concerned."

For his part, Mr. Coles can't understand the hostility. "I tell these groups that my concerns are your concerns. I have been protecting the environment here for decades, long before any of them became interested in this land." He's received offers to buy his land for sums that would make him incredibly wealthy, but has turned them down. "We love the land. My family has lived here for over 200 years. We're going to continue to live here. That's the reason we decided to keep it, as opposed to selling out." He says Virginia Uranium will continue to push for the independent study.

If the U.S. is to expand nuclear power's role in a time of energy insecurity and climate change worries, we will have to confront the hysterical antinuclear pronouncements that have been the currency of environmentalists for nearly 30 years. The Old Dominion could be a good place for a new start.

Mr. Schulz is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute.

The Exelon nuclear power plant will be 3,000 megawatts.  The plant will use about 75,000 acre feet of water per year, about 25,000 per reactor.  The question has been raised about the demand and supply of water.  The water required will be about 104 cubic feet per second (cfs).  Currently the Guadalupe is flowing over 500 cfs.  Will there be enough water?  That’s what is being studied by Exelon.  It appears they are going to establish a reservoir to store water.  This reservoir will probably hold about 50,000 acre feet of water.  That would allow the plant to run through a dry spell.  Evaporation losses would be more than balanced by the average annual rainfall.  I doubt if Exelon would invest 10 billion dollars in a nuclear power plant if they thought there would not be enough water.  Everyone knows that corporations are corrupt, evil and greedy, but they are not stupid.  You can’t stay in business if you are stupid. No, the only way to do that is with the help of Congress.

Exelon is going to build this power plant because Texas needs the power.  There are other alternatives to nuclear such as coal, wind, solar.

A 3000 megawatt coal plant would burn a staggering three train loads of coal every day.  It would be the largest disappearing act ever.  Every day three train loads would vanish into thin air...cough!  The value of this coal at $60 per ton would be about $2,250,000 per day.  The coal plant would require less water about 60,000 acre feet per year.  The nuclear plant would consume about 385 pounds of reactor fuel, equivalent to 3,850 pounds of yellow cake worth about $231,000 at $60 per pound.  The spent reactor fuel would have lost only about 2 percent of its potential.  However to fully use it a new type of reactor would be required.  If we used this type of reactor there is enough uranium to supply our needs for a million years, assuming we last that long. 

To produce 3,000 megawatts using wind would require installing wind turbines that generate about 9,000 megawatts.  This is because wind is erratic and the capacity utilization is only about 33 percent.  According to cost data from the EIA these wind turbines would cost about 14 billion dollars and this does not include the cost of the transmissions lines to handle the extra 6,000 megawatts.  And finally there is one more issue that has not really been addressed.  Nuclear power plants have a life of about 40 to 50 years.  I seriously doubt that wind turbines have that long a life, I doubt they last ten years...but that’s my guess.

Solar energy is a good laugh.  According to the EIA solar energy in the USA as of 2007 is actually decreasing not increasing as the media seems to indicate.  Solar energy produces about 1.88 watts per square foot.  To produce 3,000 megawatts would require about 36,600 acres of solar panels or about 57 square miles.  The solar panels are expensive and they have a short life and like the wind turbines they require a lot of maintenance.  And like wind turbines they require extra transmission lines because of their low capacity utilization.  Another problem, it was assumed that the panels were always perpendicular to the Sun’s rays...in other words they automatically tilt and followed the sun. I’m still laughing.

T. Boone Pickens is not stupid; I mean we should be so smart.  So when he says he wants to replace all the natural gas (NG) used to produce electricity with wind energy, there must be money to be made, in both wind and NG.  But before we all go running out to build wind turbines we should first take a look at the facts and ask a few questions, with Mr. T. Bone’s permission of course.

First let’s look at the size and extent of what is being proposed.  The table shows the installed capacity for generating electricity and the amount of that capacity that is actually utilized; this information is from the Department of Energy.

2006 U.S. Electrical Generation Capacity, Market Share and Utilization

Three things stand out, the low capacity utilization for NG and wind, and the high utilization for nuclear energy.  This high utilization is for all our domestic nuclear reactors (104 of them), this belies the myth they require a lot of maintenance.  The low utilization for NG is intentional.  NG is expensive; these generators can rapidly come on line and provide surge capacity when there are power failures or sudden load increases.  This capacity is therefore intentionally held in reserve.  The low utilization for wind generation is not intentional, Mother Nature did that and there’s not much to be done about it, although they are trying.

The average NG electrical generating capacity that Mr. T. Bone wants to displace is about 94,450 megawatts (MW).  To replace this generating capacity with wind will require about 144,000 wind turbines, each rated at two MW.  This is about the biggest turbine they use on land.  Bigger turbines are installed off shore because it is easier to get large construction equipment in place.  To replace NG with nuclear energy would require about 110 reactors each rated at 1000 MW.

Some questions: 

First of all we should be trying to get rid of coal as soon as possible.  The NG used for electrical generation would only be enough to displace about 40% of the current gasoline consumption. We are already importing NG.  So either we will have to find a lot more NG or there will be a shortage and rising prices just like we have for gasoline or there will be see-saw price swings between NG and gasoline.  Having two fuel sources will make buying a car interesting.

Also there is no infrastructure for supplying NG to automobiles.  This would require a considerable investment.  In addition I have this mental image of parking my leaking NG car at night in the garage and waking up later about a quarter mile away in someone’s yard.  This will be an issue.  Using NG for cars would compete with using “plug in hybrid” cars, that require little if any new infrastructure.  But they may require further development in battery technology.

The proposed wind turbines will cover an area of 22,500 square miles. Actually they will be clustered in many wind farms from North Dakota to the panhandle.  How will all these wind turbines be maintained?  Probably with a small army, because each turbine requires routine maintenance in addition they will be located in “tornado alley” where extreme weather often occurs – see video. 

Then there is the problem with “penetration” by wind energy.  Penetration is the percent of the total generating load attributable to wind energy.  The maximum penetration is about 10 percent.  Denmark claims they are about 20 percent but they are really tied in with Norway’s grid, so overall they are really only about 10 percent.  The energy produced by a wind turbine is proportional to the wind speed to the third power.  So given that wind is erratic, the energy produced is an order of magnitude more erratic.  This is reflected in their low capacity factors. 

At higher penetrations the supply of power to the grid cannot be controlled.  In fact to get to 10 percent penetration NG backup generation is required to help steady the system.  Mr. T. Bone is removing this NG backup.  He is gambling that spreading all the wind turbines out over the country will steady the generation.  If one area has low wind speed then another area will have high, etc.  But for this to be possible there will have to be a huge investment in new transmission lines.  The transmission lines will have to be about three times bigger than they would ordinarily need to be.

The overall investment required for Mr. T. Bone’s idea will take trillions of dollars.  He would like to get most of this money from the government and the consumer.  I am not against wind energy, if someone wants to invest their money in them, that’s fine.  But I don’t…and I object to using my tax dollars for this foolishness.  This is a prime example why we don’t want politicians, lobbyists and goofy activists deciding our energy future.  Wasting time and money on wind energy will insure the continued and expanded use of coal. 

An easier and more direct approach would be to remove all subsidies, tax breaks and loan guarantees…tax carbon directly at the mine, well and terminal and let the free market figure it out.  Allowing politicians to get more involved in this business will make a difficult situation almost impossible to resolve.  They will do to energy what they are now doing to our currency, financial institutions, home mortgages, social security, medical care, public education, deficit spending, domestic energy supply, and almost everything else they touch…it should give us pause.