Energy in Transition, 1985-2010 Final Report of the Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems (1980) / Chapter Skim
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. In the same period, energy consumption rose by 9 percent (Figure 1-2)
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These production trends might be arrested by higher prices and favorable public policies, but any increase above current production levels is likely to be small and to decline after the year 2000. The only readily available large-scale domestic energy sources that could even in principle reverse the decline in domestic energy production over the next three decades coal and nuclear fission'—face a variety of technical, political, and environmental obstacles, and will be difficult (though not impossible)
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al l nergy c Consumption 1 948 1 953 1958 1963 1968 1973 1978 YEAR FIGURE 1-2 Energy consumption in the United States from 1948 to 1978, by energy source (quads) ..Bource U S
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While these measures are being taken, the research and development necessary to bring truly sustainable energy sources—nuclear fission, solar energy, geothermal energy in places, and perhaps fusion—into place for the long term must receive continued attention. The relative merits of the principal long-term choices, and the timing of their execution, are discussed in subsequent sections of this chapter and in the body of the report.
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A major conclusion from this analysis is that technical efficiency measures alone could reduce the ratio of energy consumption to gross national product (for convenience, the energy/GNP ratio) to as little as half.
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(A scenario is a kind of "what if' statement, giving the expected results of more or less plausible assumptions about future events, according to some self-consistent model.) The Demand and Conservation Panel's scenarios are intended to project— given certain unvaried assumptions about population growth and income growth, labor productivity, and the like—the effects on energy demand between 1975 and 2010 of various price schedules for delivered energy.
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These are denoted "business as usual," "enhanced supply," and "national commitment." This exercise provided the committee with an idea of the problems and potentials of the nation's major energy supply alternatives. Table 1-3 lists, as an example, the supplies of energy that might be made available if all energy sources could be accorded the incentives implied by the panel's enhanced-supply assumptions.
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. 20 _ 10 _ ENERGY IN TRANSITION, 1985-2010 — Historic growth of energy consumption / __— Projected energy consumption / based on continuation of 1950- / 1973 growth rate 13 Sub per year)
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. Energy demand projections for different assumptions about GNP or population growth can be roughly estimated by scalrag the seenr.rio projections.
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Scenario B' is a variant of B projecting the effect on energy consumption of a higher annual average rate of growth in GNP (3 percent)
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The temptation to take this kind of projection too literally should be resisted, but as means of illustrating certain gross features of the nation's energy system and its possible evolution, this study's scenarios have value. THE ECONOMIC EFFECTS OF MODERATING ENERGY CONSUMPTION According to the analyses of the Demand and Conservation Panel, the kinds of energy conservation that offer the greatest promise of substantialIy moderating in the growth of energy consumption involve replacing equipment and structures with those that are more energy efficient.
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This group sought, among other aims, a first approximation of the cost of limiting the energy available from specific technologies, the cost being measured as the size of the resulting effect on cumulative GNP. The group also assessed the feedback effect on GNr of imposing a blanket tax on all primary sources of energy to reduce energy consumption to specific levels below a base case.
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, with assumed (e) 2 percent GNP growth and (b)
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Domestic production of oil and natural gas has already peaked and begun to decline, and U.S. demand for imports already imposes rather serious strains on the world oil market.
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A balanced combination of coal- and nuclear-generated electricity is preferable, on environmental and economic grounds, to the predominance of either. The principal points that favor nuclear electricity in its present form (light water reactors (LWR's)
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. Coal-generated electricity has a much larger resource base than light water reactors operated on a once-through fuel cycle, which will be important if fuel reprocessing and the development of more resourceefficient reactor systems and fuel cycles are further delayed.
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Oil production in this country peaked in 1970 at 3.5 billion barrels, and by 1978 had fallen to 3.2 billion barrels. Domestic natural gas production shows a similar pattern; production peaked in 1973 at 21.7 trillion ft3, and by 1978 stood at 18.9 trillion.
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However, even sustaining current domestic natural gas consumption will probably require imports larger than the current I quad/yr. Most of these imports are likely to come by pipeline from Canada and possibly from Mexico, but the remainder may have to be in the form of liquefied natural gas (I~NG)
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Every reasonable effort must be made to conserve both oil and natural gas by using them more efficiently, by substituting alternative domestic energy forms OnitiaDy coal and conventional nuclear power for the most part, and later synthetic liquids and gases, solar energy, breeder reactors, and other long-term energy sources) ,l and by reducing growth in overall energy demand.
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Even at its substantial price advantage, Btu for Btu, it cannot compete with oil and natural gas in many applications, because of the expense of handling and storing it, disposing of ash and other solid wastes, and controlling emissions to the air. Only in very large installations, such as utility power plants and large industrial boilers, is coal today generally economic and environmentally suitable as a fuel.
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Department of Energy regulations under the Powerplant and industrial Fuel Use Act of 1978 (Public Law 95-620) , when implemented and enforced, will further improve the outlook for coal by banning oil and natural gas use in most new power plants and large industrial heating units.
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R fueled by natural gas; coal system still experimental Second-generation technologies now being tested in pilot plants Third-generation technologies in desugn stage 1990s for secondgeneration processes
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5 Develop a long-range plan, recognizing that coal presents some serious environmental and occupational health and safety problems, and that it does not relieve the nation of its need to develop truly sustainable energy sources for the long term. By 1985, given reasonably coherent policy and successful research and development, domestic demand for coal should approach I billion tons/yr (about 20 25 quads)
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The light water reactors now in use in the United States, with their associated fuel cycle, make very inefficient use of uranium resources, and could exhaust the domestic supply of high-grade uranium in several decades. By contrast, if breeder reactors were to be developed and used, the domestic nuclear fuel supply could last for hundreds of thousands of years.
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Among the most important public concerns are the potential connection of commercial nuclear power with international proliferation of nuclear weapons, the safety of the nuclear fuel cycle (a concern heightened by the recent nuclear reactor accident near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania) , and the question of nuclear waste treatment and disposal.
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Alternative Fuel Cycles and Advanced Reactors Light water reactors with the current once-through fuel cycle use only 0.6 percent of the energy potential in uranium as mined. By contrast, breeder reactors are capable of converting the abundant "fertile" isotope 333U to fissile plutonium-239 (339Pu)
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(However, there are several advanced converter designs that could realize substantial, though not the greatest possible, resource savings over improved light water reactors even with a once-through fuel cycle.)
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(Nations that operate their light water reactors with fuel enriched in the United States are legally entitled to enrichment tails; these tails are worthless unless they can be used in breeder reactors or stripped for their remaining fissile content by laser isotope separation or another technique.) Because the LMFBR generates almost 20 percent more fissile isotopes than it consumes, it can be used as the basis for a growing nuclear capacity without requiring the mining of new ore.*
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Advanced converters produce almost as much as they consume. If their spent fuel is reprocessed and reloaded into the reactors, they can be run with much less fresh fissile material than is needed to run light water reactors or CANDU'S.
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it can be estimated that it would take about an additional IS years after introduction to have significant capacity in place hindicated fuel cycles demand reprocessing. 'Thorium-uranium fuel repr cessing is less developed than uranium-plutonium reprocess ing.
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These arguments underscore the importance of energy demand considerations in planning energy supply systems for the United States.t The Demand for Electricity It is obvious from the foregoing that the rate of growth in electricity use will largely determine how much nuclear power is needed and will govern the strategy of nuclear developments Some pertinent quantities are set out in Table 1-6, which uses the CONAES study scenarios (described in detail in chapter 11) to indicate the trade-offs between nuclear power and other sources of electricity.
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One view holds that plutonium reprocessing would be a major step toward proliferation, and advocates that the United States forgo for a considerable period the benefits of reprocessing and the breeder to demonstrate how seriously this nation regards the proliferation problem. This view acknowledges that proliferation can thus be only delayed, not prevented, but asserts that deferral of reprocessing and breeder deployment could provide time to develop international institutions and procedures to safeguard the nuclear fuel cycle.
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The contrary view holds that the breeder has been demonstrated to be the most promising option for the long-term future, with favorable economics and minimal ecological effects, and that therefore a national commitment to large-scale development should be made now, so that LMFBR'S can be available before the twenty-first century. It is argued that the commercial nuclear fuel cycle is the least likely and most expensive of several possible paths to proliferation, and that inexpensive means for producing weapons-grade material by isotope separation are likely to be widely available by the time commercial reprocessing of plutonium becomes widespread.
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Moreover, this argument asserts, world conflict over limited petroleum supplies appears more likely to lead to nuclear war than weapons proliferation resulting from reasonably safeguarded commercialization of plutonium. Management of Radioactive Wastes The current plans for managing nuclear wastes involve underground burial.
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Elevated CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere, once established, will persist for many hundreds of years, and over this extended period could have devastating effects, if the hypothesis of climatic changes due to CO2 accumulation proves correct. The following specific conclusions and recommendations represent the consensus view of CONAES.
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These recommendations agree substantially with those of the American Physical Society's "Report to the American Physical Society by the Study Group on Nuclear Fuel Cycles and Waste Management."Z9 Putting these recommendations into effect may involve serious political difficulty.* Most states and communities would like nuclear wastes to be disposed of elsewhere, and some have imposed virtual bans on waste treatment and other fuel cycle operations.
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To a great extent, therefore, technical questions as well as social and institutional ones will be decided by political processes.t § INDEFINITELY SUSTAINABLE ENERGY SOURCES Four energy sources—nuclear fission with breeding, solar energy in various forms, controlled thermonuclear fusion, and geothermal energy— offer the potential for indefinitely sustainable energy supply. That is, each could supply up to 10 times our present energy requirements for thousands of years (or much more)
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This will probably not take place first in the United States because this country has more energy options than most other countries, but it is not technically impossible. However, there are technical uncertainties related to reactor safety, capital costs, and fuel cycle safeguards that could still seriously delay the program.
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A major issue for national solar energy policy is the balance of research and development effort among the variety of solar technologies. The federal solar energy program emphasizes technologies for producing electricity, but the most important use of solar energy in the long-term future may in fact be the synthesis of fluid fuels, which could solve the problem of energy storage and make good use of the existing distribution system developed for gas and oil.
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; solar thermal conversion, which involves concentrating sunshine to achieve high-temperature heat; wind power; and ocean thermal energy conversion, which would use floating power stations to exploit the temperature difference between the ocean's surface and subsurface waters to run heat engines. Photovoltaic Conversion Photovoltaic conversion is a commercial technology used in space and in remote installations where performance, rather than cost, is the principal concern.
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Economic uses might be found in utility districts that have a high proportion of hydroelectric generating capacity, or extensive pumped hydroelectric storage, either of which could accommodate the variations in wind power output. Sites for wind generation are limited by wind conditions and scenic considerations.
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Fluid Fuels In the long term, whatever mix of sustainable energy sources is used will have to provide a large supply of fluid fuels for applications (such as transportation) that are most easily served today by oil and natural gas.
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An important institutional issue is the degree to which regulation, taxation, and subsidies should be designed to encourage market penetration of solar technologies that are uneconomic under existing circumstances. An argument in favor of this is that the social costs of solar energy are sufficiently less than those of other energy forms so that its higher economic costs should either be offset by taxes on other energy forms that are potentially more damaging to the environment, or borne in part by special government subsidies or tax benefits.*
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In particular, the government should stimulate the integration of solar heating into energy-conserving architectural design in both residential and commercial construction through support and incentives for passive solar design. Since all solar energy technologies are capital intensive, uses that are distributed throughout the year, such as domestic water heating and low-temperature industrial process heating, are likely to be economically competitive earlier than uses for which there are large seasonal variations in demand.
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For example, cheap energy storage systems would benefit the economics of all systems containing capital-intensive generating technologies. Large-scale government demonstrations of long-term solar technologies, such as the planned demonstration of a solar thermal central station power plant, could be counterproductive if undertaken prematurely.
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, and provision of economic incentives that favor solar alternatives. GEOTHERMAL ENERGY Sources of geothermal energy include crustal rocks, sediments, volcanic deposits, water, and steam and other gases at usably high temperatures that are accessible from the earth's surface.
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Although fusion has some of the same problems as fission, the problem of radioactive waste management is probably less severe. (The radioactive tritium fuel can pose an occupational health problem but not a waste disposal problem.)
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4. A small effort should be directed to fuel cycles other than deuteriumtritium.
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2. Cross comparisons have been made among alternative energy technologies, systems, or strategies with respect to similar kinds of risks; for example, comparison of the relative risks to ecosystems from coal combustion and hydropower.
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In this regard, coal is the most dangerous of major energy sources: About 10 times as many accidental deaths occur in the coal energy cycle, from mine to power plant, as in the production of an equivalent amount of power 'See statement 1-49, by L
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EMISSIONS A great variety of pollutants that may affect human health as well as plant and animal life are released from the combustion of fossil fuels, especially coal. These include sulfur and nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, hydrocarbons, particulates, and heavy metals (in trace amounts)
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Second, it is known that cancer deaths can be caused by ionizing radiation and also by emissions from certain coal-fueled industrial operations. One year's routine operation of a l-GWe nuclear reactor (including its associated fuel supply operations)
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LARGE-SCALE ACCIDENTS AND SABOTAGE Risks of low-probability, high-consequence accidents are associated chiefly with nuclear reactors, hydroelectric dams, and transportation and storage of liquefied natural gas (LNG)
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* t Catastrophic accidents can also occur in the case of other energy sources, especially large hydroelectric facilities.
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This may be partly because the long-range human consequences of the loss of ecological diversity are less well understood and much less widely appreciated than the more immediate consequences of energy development, such as direct damage to health. By the particular criteria of damage to ecosystems, the Risk and impact Panel judged that the energy source most destructive, per unit of energy output, is hydroelectric power.
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Nevertheless, if the number of light water reactors built and operated begins to exhaust supplies of high-grade uranium ore, the environmental effects of mining very low grade ores could become comparable to those of coal mining. This problem would not, of course, develop with breeder reactors.
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If the hypothesis of a "greenhouse effect" is correct, the climatic effects would almost certainly be catastrophic.34 The largest uncertainties connected with the CO2 problem pertain to the timing rather than to the existence of the problem. If the worldwide combustion of fossil fuels, particularly coal, continues to increase, the problem could begin to be perceptible as early as the first few decades of the twenty-first century, or it might not become significant until the latter part of the twenty-first century if world energy growth slows or shifts to nonfossil energy sources.
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Should considerations of diversion and proliferation lead to the deployment of breeder reactors and reprocessing facilities in "energy parks" of more than 30 GWe total capacity, however, these might alter local or regional atmospheric circulation patterns, and even generate severe artificial convective storms in particular regions, under certain meteorological conditions. SOCIOPOLITICAL ISSUES The sociopolitical aspects of energy planning need to be much more thoroughly explored.
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A conclusion reached in many parts of the study is that noneconomic factors will play an important, often dominant, role in influencing future energy demand and supply. Life-style, value, and welfare implications may strongly influence energy consumption patterns, and political acceptability will affect both the availability of energy resources and the conservation of energy.
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These risks are very small in comparison to the overall incidence of cancer and genetic effects in the general population, and they could be significantly smaller yet if the most important source of radiation in the nuclear energy cycle uranium mill tailings—were generally better protected. There are also risks of severe accidents, whose probabilities have been estimated with a great deal of uncertainty, but whose severities could be comparable to those of large dam failures and liquefied natural gas storage system fires.
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Solar Energy Several solar energy technologies appear very promising from the standpoint of health and environmental risk. Hydroelectric power (classed by convention with solar energy)
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In lieu of a formal presentation of alternative global projections, we confine ourselves to a few general remarks on global energy perspectives.36 1. The growth of world energy consumption will slow from the 5.1 percent per year recorded in 1960-1973.
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4. The Middle East and Africa will become large exporters of natural gas and uranium; U.S., Canadian, and Australian uranium will also face a considerable export demand.
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Promotion of domestic energy production, especially of oil and gas and directly substitutable energy forms, would be equivalent to conservation in its external economic effects. Price controls on oil and gas, or other measures shielding domestic consumers from world energy prices, would have effects opposite to those of accelerated conservation and domestic production; they would reinforce the pressure for a higher world oil price.
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As years pass and new enrichment technologies appear, this front-end risk of weapons proliferation increases. Abandonment or postponement of the breeder reactor is likely to have effects similar to the avoidance of reprocessing, raising the price of uranium, and thus strengthening the interest of other countries in the development of breeders or advanced converters.
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P Holdren: it is unfortunate that this passage ignores the great potential of renewables other than hydroelectncity, and the potential of geothermal energy, in many developing countnes.
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This means, among other things, that they should encourage imports from the poor countries even where these imports compete with domestic production. The international institutions active in this field (particularly the international Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the international Development Association, and the
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The most vital of these observations is the importance of energy demand considerations in planning future energy supplies. There is great flexibility in the technical efficiency of energy use, and there is correspondingly great scope for reducing the growth of energy consumption without appreciable sacrifices in the growth of GNP or in nonenergy consumption patterns.
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Severe problems are likely to occur earlier because of political disruptions or cartel actions. Next to demand-growth reduction, therefore, highest priority should be given to the development of a domestic synthetic fuels industry, for both liquids and gas, and to vigorous exploration for conventional oil and gas, enhanced recovery, and development of unconventional sources (particularly of natural gas)
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, coal-fired generation presents the highest overall level of risk, with oil-fired and nuclear generation considerably safer, and natural gas the safest.§ With respect to accidents, the generation of electricity from fossil fuels presents a very low risk of catastrophic accidents. The projected mean number of fatalities associated with nuclear accidents is probably less than the risk from routine operation of the nuclear fuel cycle (including mining, transportation, and waste disposal)
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Because of their higher economic costs, solar energy technologies, other than hydroelectric power, will probably not contribute much more than 5 percent to energy supply in this century, unless there is massive government intervention in the market to penalize the use of nonrenewable fuels and subsidize the use of renewable energy sources. Such intervention could find justification in the generally lower social costs of solar energy in comparison to alternatives.
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There are several plausible options for an indefinitely sustainable energy supply, potentially accessible to all the people of the world. The problem is in effecting a socially acceptable and smooth transition from gradually depleting resources of oil and natural gas to new technologies whose potentials are not now fully developed or assessed and whose costs are generally unpredictable.
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pp 275-276, these include the "powerful imagery of extinction" and "fundamental fears about the integrity of the human body'' named by psychiatrist Robert Lifton, the type of surveillance and security controls that might be necessary to protect nuclear fuel cycles and installations, and mistrust of government bureaucracies. Fcr many, they suggest, nuclear power has become a symbol of technology out of control, and of the declining influence of citizens on important matters of policy 17 National Research Council, Supporting Paper 1: Problems of US Uranium Resources and Supply to the Year 2010,Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems, Supply and Delivery Panel, Uranium Resource Group (Washington, D C.: National Academy of Sciences, 1978)
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27. Amer can Physical Society, "Repon to the Amencan Physical Society by the Study Group on Light Water Reactor Safety," Reviews of Modern Physics 47 (Summer 1975)
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