Premier Debate 2016 September/October ld brief

AFF—A2 Advantage CPs

A2 All Nuclear

AT All Nuclear Energy CP

Kills cars and airplanes

UCSB Science Line n.d.

UCSB Science Line, “Search Our Archives,” http://scienceline.ucsb.edu/getkey.php?key=1525 [Premier]

Another reason we can't just switch to nuclear power is that we need a PORTABLE FUEL, like gasoline for cars and airplanes. If we use nuclear energy to generate electrical energy (in power lines) we cannot directly use that in our cars, for example, like we do with gasoline. We COULD use the electrical energy from a nuclear power plant to charge batteries, but currently batteries are not very efficient and not long lasting enough to replace something like gasoline. There are other options to electrically charging automobiles, but they are still under development.

A2 Regs CP

Accidents are inevitable. Fukushima proves that even the best safeguards aren’t enough.

Hiroaki 11 [Koide Hiroaki, Assistant Professor at the Kyoto University Research Reactor Institute, “The Truth About Nuclear Power: Japanese Nuclear Engineer Calls for Abolition,” The Asia-Pacific Journal Vol 9 Issue 31, August 8, 2011, http://apjjf.org/2011/9/31/Satoko-Norimatsu/3582/article.html] [Premier]

Though I think most of you are already familiar with this matter, nuclear power generation is a technology that deals with huge amounts of radioactivity. Please look at the small square at the lower left corner here. This is the amount of uranium that burned when the Hiroshima atomic bomb exploded: 800 grams. That amount, which you can easily lift by hand, burned and annihilated the city of Hiroshima. Now, how much uranium is necessary for nuclear power generation? It requires one ton of uranium to run one nuclear power plant for one year. This gives you an idea of the enormity of the highly radioactive fission byproducts generated as a nuclear power plant operates. A nuclear plant is a machine. It is expected that machines go wrong and cause accidents. It is we humans who operate the machine. Humans are not God. It is only natural that humans make mistakes. No matter how we wish that no accidents occur, there is always the possibility of a catastrophe. So what measures did the nuclear policymakers take to deal with the possibility of accidents? They just assumed catastrophic accidents would seldom occur. So they decided to ignore the possibility by labelling it as an “inappropriate assumption.” Here’s how they denied the possibility of catastrophic accidents. I took this illustration from the website of Chubu Electric Power. They claim that there are multiple barriers to keep radioactivity from leaking out. The most important barrier of them all is the fourth one, the reactor containment vessel. This is a huge vessel made of steel, and they adopted the idea that this vessel can always contain radioactivity, regardless of what happens. They claim that, according to the Guidelines in Reactor Site Evaluation, they have serious accidents, or “virtual accidents of a fairly serious kind” in mind. According to their claim, even if such an accident occurs, there is absolutely no possibility of the containment vessel, the final barrier to contain radioactivity, being breached. A radioactive leak would be impossible. Therefore, nuclear power plants are safe under any circumstance whatsoever, and any other assumption is an “inappropriate assumption.” But a catastrophic accident has actually occurred, and is still going on. Tragic events are underway in Fukushima, as you all know. And the government’s responses to the ongoing accident have, in my view, been highly inappropriate.

A2 Renewables CP

Links to net benefit—Can’t have both nuclear power and renewables – 3 warrants

Schneider et al 11

Mycle – consultant and project coordinator, Antony Frogatt – consultant, Steve Thomas – prof of energy policy @ Greenwich University, “Nuclear Power in a Post-Fukushima World 25 Years After the Chernobyl Accident” World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2010-11, http://www.worldnuclearreport.org/IMG/pdf/2011MSC-WorldNuclearReport-V3.pdf [Premier]

From a systemic perspective, the key question is whether nuclear energy is in fact compatible with a power system that is dominated by energy efficiency and, in particular, by renewable energy. Experience in places where renewables account for a rapidly growing share of electricity generation, such as Germany and Spain, suggests that efficient “co-dominant” systems are not possible. The main reasons are as follows:

[1] Overcapacity kills efficiency incentives. Large, centralized power-generation units tend to lead to structural overcapacities. Overcapacities usually lead to lower prices, which discourages energy efficiency. Lower prices also stimulate consumption or inefficient uses, often leading to higher electricity bills.

[2] Renewables need flexible complementary capacity. Increasing levels of renewable electricity will require flexible, medium-load complementary facilities rather than inflexible, large, baseload power plants. Johannes Lambertz, CEO of RWE Power, one of Germany’s largest electricity utilities, observed in 2010 that, “what is most important for the energy industry is the wise integration of renewable energies into the power generation market.”29 In Germany, the injection of renewable electricity has legal priority over nuclear and fossil power. But in October 2008, wind energy generation was so high that some non-renewable electricity had to be offered for “negative” prices on the power market because utilities could not reduce the output from nuclear and coal plants quickly enough—even though some 8 GW of nuclear capacity was off line for maintenance.30 Since then, negative electricity prices, legal in Germany since September 2008, have become a more frequent phenomenon: in the six months between September 2009 and February 2010, power prices in Germany dropped into the red on 29 days. Negative prices, a sort of financial penalty for inflexibility, reached stunning levels: on October 4, 2009, one power producer had to pay up to €1,500 per megawatt-hour (15 cents per kilowatt-hour) to get rid of its electricity.

[3] Future grids go both ways. Smart metering, smart appliances, and smart grids are on their way, and received considerable emphasis in the economic stimulus packages of many countries in 2008. Under this entirely redesigned grid system, which is radically different from the top-down centralized approach, the user also generates and stores power. The consumer becomes producer and vice-versa, giving rise to the “prosumer.”

In many developing countries, where key decisions about grid infrastructure have yet to be made, it is critical to assess the implications of these basic system choices. Industrial countries illustrate the outcome of past strategic choices. Unfortunately, although there are numerous successful local and regional cases, there is no “good” example of a successful national energy policy that provides affordable, sustainable energy services. All countries have implemented policies that have serious drawbacks, and major “repair jobs” are necessary to address the defaults.