Scott: To go green, go nuclear

Despite recent steps to encourage wind-generated electricity in Nebraska, Omaha businessman and philanthropist Walter Scott said Thursday that nuclear power is the only economically viable way to generate electricity without carbon-dioxide emissions.

“To me, that is the ultimate answer if you want to reduce carbon dioxide,” Scott told about 150 people at a breakfast session of the Omaha chapter of the Association for Corporate Growth, held at Happy Hollow Club.

Solar and wind-generated electricity require government subsidies, Scott said. And because the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, Pa., shut down nuclear energy construction in the United States, this country will have to buy its new nuclear-generating equipment from France and Japan, which dominate that industry, he said.

“Isn't that a wonderful thing?” asked Scott, who also said electric vehicles eventually will capture a significant market.

The Three Mile Island accident “shook people up” even though no one was killed and the containment vessel worked as designed by engineers to prevent radioactive material from spreading, said Scott, chairman-emeritus of Peter Kiewit Sons' Inc. and a director of several corporations, including Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

Kiewit has been involved in the energy industry for decades, he noted, and Berkshire's energy division, MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., has substantial wind farms in Iowa and several other states. But those wind farms are viable only because they operate under government rules that guarantee a return on investment, even with their higher costs, Scott said.

Independent wind energy companies would have a difficult time without government incentives, because wind turbines are expensive and generate electricity only about 30 percent of the time, he said. That makes their power more than twice as expensive as electricity from coal or natural gas.

Scott said Nebraska politicians celebrated changing state laws recently to encourage more wind energy in the state, but it will be difficult for wind energy companies to operate economically.

Nobody has developed an effective system to store wind-generated electricity until it can be used, he said. On windy days, it must be transmitted directly to power companies, which then shut down some of their regular generators to balance the supply of electricity with the demand at the time.

“I think it's going to be difficult to make anything significant happen” with wind-generated power in Nebraska, Scott said.

He also said solar energy panels are significantly more expensive to operate than coal or natural gas systems even though they generate electricity nearly every day, even when it's cloudy. “I don't think solar is going to make any significant difference.”

But Scott said he expects electric cars to capture a significant percentage of the market, partly because there's no need to set up any special infrastructure. Electricity is readily available anywhere in the country, he said.

“I think the electric car is the only logical major change we can make if you're concerned about the use of energy and carbon dioxide.”

In 2008, Berkshire bought 10 percent of BYD Inc., a Chinese company that makes cell phone batteries and electric automobiles. It plans to sell its cars later this year in the United States.

Scott said the Chinese market for autos is larger than the U.S. market and likely will remain larger for some time. BYD also is trying to develop batteries to store electricity from alternative power sources, which he said will be difficult to do economically.

Liquefied natural gas doesn't promise to be an economical source of energy because domestic underground shale formations promise adequate natural gas supplies for “an extended period of time,” he said. Importing liquefied natural gas would require building more import terminals and other equipment to handle the shipments and convert it into gas for use in power plants.

Contact the writer:

444-1080, steve.jordon@owh.com

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