Nuclear Power Not Clean Enough for Florida RPS (Miami Herald) (Energy Priorities)

Florida Power & Light, the state's largest utility, asked for renewable energy credits for its nuclear power. The state said No.

Denis Du Bois
August 11, 2007

Florida governor Charlie Crist has ordered utilities to get 20 percent of their energy from renewable sources ''with a strong focus on wind and solar energy'' and cut their power plants' greenhouse gas emissions in 10 years, according to a story in the Miami Herald.

But Florida Power & Light asked the state to count its nuclear power as renewable, to meet the governor's mandate. FPL is the state's largest utility.

"FPL wants renewable energy credits for nuclear power, Tom Hartman, FPL director of business management told the Public Service Commission.
"That won't cut it for Governor Crist, said Department of Environmental Protection Secretary Mike Sole. He said nuclear power will not be part of his agency's definition of renewable fuel."

The key word here is "renewable." Renewable energy is defined as energy derived from resources that are regenerative or for all practical purposes cannot be depleted. Mining uranium doesn't qualify as a regenerative resource -- mainstream estimates concur that the world supply will be depleted in 50-150 years.

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Comments

Thing is, Nuclear Fuel is RECYCLABLE, which means that it IS a renewable power source. You do not have to continue mining Uranium, because spent fuel rods contain plutonium, U235 and U238. PU239 has 20 times the energy of U235 so you are actually making more fuel than you are using.

This means that there is no practical limit on the supply of Nuclear Fuel, nuclear plants have no emissions so for all intents and purposes, Nuclear fuel is a Renewable Fuel and should recieve all the same benefits as wind or solar.

By the way, what do you think is going to happen to all that expensive wind and solar junk during a hurricane?

Posted by: Johnnyb | December 26, 2007 06:19 AM

I have read that only about 1% of the energy potential of all the uranium dug out of the earth so far in our history has been used. If this is true (and I have the reference somewhere but it would take too long now to find) then all this talk of running out of uranium is baloney.

Furthermore, the oceans are awash in low dilution of uranium. A scientist in Japan has captured 1 kg of uranium on some special kind of substrate, suspended in a 16 cubic feet container, immersed in freely moving sea-water. He got 1 kg after a 240 day period of time.

There is enough uranium and thorium to power civilization until the end of this planet's natural life, some 4 billion years down the road.

See Bernard Cohen online for much more professional detail.

Posted by: Caroline W | January 6, 2008 10:37 PM