When the Washington Post and New York Times are making the same corporate-friendly point, it’s safe to assume that some PR agency somewhere is earning its substantial fees.
In this case, the subject is the need for nuclear power—and, for the Post editorial board (4/18/16), for fracking as well. Standing in the way of this in the Post’s version is favorite target Bernie Sanders, while the Times business columnist Eduardo Porter (4/19/16) blames the “scientific phobias and taboos” of “progressive environmentalists.”
Washington Post (4/18/16)
“While campaigning in New York, Mr. Sanders has played up his opposition to nuclear power,” the Post editorialists wrote, citing his contention that the Indian River nuclear plant, 25 miles from Manhattan, is a “catastrophe waiting to happen.” Sanders’ “criticism came as little surprise,” the Post declared; “he had already promised to phase out nuclear power nationwide by steadily retiring existing reactors.”
“If we are serious about global warming, we will ignore Mr. Sanders’ sloganeering,” the paper urged. “Nuclear accounts for about a fifth of the country’s electricity, and it is practically emissions-free.”
In reality, nuclear power is not emissions-free; the process of mining and enriching uranium fuel, along with constructing nuclear plants, operating backup generators during reactor downtime, disposal of nuclear waste and eventual decommissioning of plants all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. According to an analysis published by the journal Nature (9/24/08), nuclear power does produce 14 times less in greenhouse gas emissions than coal, and seven times less than natural gas—but twice as much as solar cells and seven times as much as onshore wind farms. For halting climate change, in other words, there are more serious options than nuclear.
The Post went on:
Shutting down that much clean electricity generation would put the country into a deep emissions hole. Mr. Sanders argues that he will invest heavily in renewables. Yet every dollar spent to replace one carbon-free source with another is a dollar that could have been spent replacing dangerous and dirty coal plants. Under Mr. Sanders’ vision, either the country would fail to maximize emissions cuts, or it would waste huge amounts of money unnecessarily replacing nuclear plants.
Sanders actually favors “a moratorium on nuclear power plant license renewals in the United States”—in other words, as the Post had earlier described it more accurately, “phas[ing] out nuclear power nationwide by steadily retiring existing reactors.” So it’s not a question of using money to replace a nuclear plant that could have gone to replacing a coal plant; the nuclear plants need to be replaced with something when they reach the end of their useful lives.
And if you put that money into renewables rather than into a new nuclear plant, you can reduce emissions more quickly. The investment bank Lazard analyzes the “levelized cost of energy”—the cost of building and operating an electrical plant per unit of electricity produced. In its latest report (11/15), the bank found that nuclear’s LCOE ranged from $97 to $136 per megawatt-hour, while wind costs between $32 and $77; utility-scale photovoltaic solar was priced between $50 to $70. Note that these costs for nuclear do not include the decommissioning of obsolete plants, which can add $1 billion–$4 billion to the lifetime cost, nor the cost of accidents like the Fukushima meltdown, which is expected to cost Japan some $300 billion (Renewable Energy World, 4/28/16).
The Post concluded that the best bet would be to put a tax on carbon, then “let the market find the fastest and most efficient road to slowing the warming of the planet.” The irony is that if you had a truly market-driven energy system, there’d be no need for a moratorium on nuclear licenses; if you didn’t have the Price-Anderson Act capping industry liability for nuclear accidents—requiring it to pay less than 2 cents on the dollar of the projected costs—it’s unlikely that another plant would ever be built.
New York Times (4/19/16)
Meanwhile, at the New York Times, Eduardo Porter was defending nuclear power—“the only technology with an established track record of generating electricity at scale while emitting virtually no greenhouse gases,” as we’ve debunked above—against an even scarier foe than Bernie Sanders: “the left” as a whole and its “scientific and technological taboos.”
Brought in as an expert witness to make this case is the internet entrepreneur who once complained that “anti-colonialism has been economically catastrophic for the Indian people for decades”:
“The left is turning anti-science,” Marc Andreessen, the creator of Netscape who as a venture capitalist has become one of the most prominent thinkers of Silicon Valley, told me not long ago. He was reflecting broadly about science and technology. His concerns ranged from liberals’ fear of genetically modified organisms to their mistrust of technology’s displacement of workers in some industries. “San Francisco is an interesting case,” he noted. “The left has become reactionary.”
So far, the major achievement of GMO technology has been to boost 15-fold the use of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide—which Monsanto’s seeds are engineered to be resistant to. Since the active ingredient in Roundup has been declared by the World Health Organization’s cancer researchers to be a probable human carcinogen, fear is not necessarily an unscientific reaction.
As for technology’s displacement of workers in San Francisco, that’s where one of Andreessen’s fellow tech entrepreneurs wrote an open letter complaining, “I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day.” To be revolted by such attitudes is not “reactionary,” and you don’t need to be “anti-science” to be concerned that the soaring profits of the high-tech industry are pricing workers out of their homes.
But wrapping political and ethical choices in the mantle of “science” is what Porter’s column is all about—comparing to climate change denial the left’s failure to accept the “scientific consensus” on nuclear power, meaning that 65 percent of scientists favored building more nuclear plants in a Pew poll. The difference between an actual scientific consensus on the physical fact of global warming and a political preference expressed by two out of three scientists for a particular energy policy ought to be obvious; conflating the two is doing the opposite of what Porter claims to be advocating for, which is “somehow disassociating the scientific facts from deeply rooted preferences about the world we want to live in.”
The Times column offered some pre-emptive criticism of its own analysis: “Highlighting the left’s biases may seem like a pointless effort to apportion equal blame along ideological lines.” It’s not pointless at all, though: It’s a great way to sell pro-corporate policies under the guise of objective truth.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. He can be followed on Twitter: @JNaureckas.
Call it “scientific method acting”
As for phasing out nuke plants, if one of those blows up real good near your neighborhood before that occurs, you’ll be in jeopardy of reaching the end of your useful life.
Makes you wish WaPo’s distortion of Sanders’ stance was in fact factual, don’t it just?
Fear mongering.
Why a Nuclear Power plant CAN NOT Explode like a Nuclear Bomb:
Bombs are completely different from reactors. There is nothing similar about them except that they both need fissile materials. But they need DIFFERENT fissile materials and they use them very differently.
A nuclear bomb “compresses” pure or nearly pure fissile material into a small space. The fissile material is either the uranium isotope 235 or plutonium239. Plutonium 240 from a power plant is not good for making a bomb. They are the reduced bright shiny metals, not metal oxide. If it is uranium, it is at least 90% uranium235 and 10% or less uranium238. These fissile materials are metals and very difficult to compress. Because they are difficult to compress, a high explosive [high speed explosive] is required to compress them. Pieces of the fissile material have to slam into each other hard for the nuclear reactions to take place.
A nuclear reactor, such as the ones used for power generation, does not have any pure fissile material. The fuel may be 0.7% to 8% uranium235 oxide mixed with uranium238 oxide [uranium rust]. A mixture of 0.7% to 8% uranium235 rust mixed with uranium238 rust cannot be made to explode no matter how hard you try. A small amount of plutonium oxide mixed in with the uranium oxide can not change this. Reactor fuel still cannot be made to explode like a nuclear bomb no matter how hard you try. There has never been a nuclear explosion in a reactor and there never will be. [Pure reduced metallic uranium and plutonium are flammable, but a fire isn’t an explosion.] In a reactor, the fuel is further diluted by being divided and sealed into many small metal capsules. The capsules are contained in metal tubes. The fuel is further diluted by the need for coolant to flow around the capsules and through the core so that heat can be transported to a place where heat energy can be converted to electrical energy. A reactor does not contain any high speed [or any other speed] chemical explosive as a bomb must have. A reactor does not have any explosive materials at all.
As is obvious from the above descriptions, there is no possible way that a reactor could ever explode like a nuclear bomb. Reactors and bombs are very different. Reactors and bombs are really not even related to each other. There was no nuclear explosion at Chernobyl. If Chernobyl had had a containment building, there would have been no radiation release.
I have noticed you guys with an increased willingness to mention Chernobyl ever since Fukushima.
In the early 1950s, or later 1940s, the AEC (Atomic Energy Commision–now called the Department of Energy) lost control of a beta power generation reactor in Idaho and it blew up. Was it a fully atomic explosion? Probably not, but it sure melted down. And scattered radioactive material far and wide.
That military experiment you are talking about did not do what you said it did.
I told you the basic science. Go to coursera or edX and find a course in nuclear power. I have given you the correct answer. It is not a matter of rhetoric.
Nature isn’t just the final authority on truth, Nature is the Only authority. There are zero human authorities. Scientists do not vote on what is the truth. There is only one vote and Nature owns it. We find out what Nature’s vote is by doing Scientific [public and replicable] experiments. Scientific [public and replicable] experiments are the only source of truth. [To be public, it has to be visible to other people in the room. What goes on inside one person’s head isn’t public unless it can be seen on an X-ray or with another instrument.]
We build confidence by repeating experiments.
“Science and Immortality” by Charles B. Paul, 1980, University of California Press. In this book on the “Eloges of the Paris Academy of Sciences” (1699-1791) page 99 says: “Science is not so much a natural as a moral philosophy”. [That means drylabbing [fudging data] will get you fired.]
Page 106 says: “Nature isn’t just the final authority, Nature is the Only authority.”
I hate to have to correct you, however there was a nuclear explosion at Chernobyl. There is another however to this. The nuclear explosion at Chernobyl was technically a nuclear explosion but it is not what people commonly think of as one although it met the technical definition of a nuclear explosion.
First there was a boiler (steam) explosion that blew the lid off of the reactor. That would have been the end of it except that the RBMK reactor had a serious design defect technically called a positive void coefficient for the water coolant. In a standard Light Water Reactor, the water coolant is the moderator so if the water is lost, the rate of reaction decreases (negative void coefficient). However, the RBMK reactor at Chernobyl had the opposite characteristic. So, as the remaining water in the reactor flashed to steam, there was a sudden exponential increase in the reaction rate in the reactor. There was, as a result, a second explosion that resulted from the release of energy from the nuclear reaction (which is the technical definition for a nuclear explosion) that was accompanied by a bright blue flash. This explosion blew the fuel and the Graphite moderator apart spreading a cloud of radioactive material. The nuclear explosion is estimated to have been between 10 and 100 tons of TNT with the probable figure of 40 tons which is not large as nuclear explosions go.
There are no other commercial LWR power reactors with a positive void coefficient and the few RBMK reactors still in operation in Russia have been modified to greatly reduce the chances of this happening again.
James Richard Tyrer got the definition of nuclear explosion wrong. Just because the energy came from fission doesn’t make it a nuclear explosion. That definition is a scare tactic from anti-nuclear radicals. You are just trying to confuse people into thinking that a reactor accident can demolish a city. It can’t.
A steam explosion is not a nuclear explosion. Yes, I knew that the energy was the equivalent of 10 tons of TNT and all that other stuff. It was 10 tons, not 40 tons.
A nuclear explosion has to have a temperature of 15 million degrees, hot enough to start hydrogen fusion. That steam explosion boiled water. It couldn’t have started hydrogen fusion.
Even the backpack nuke set at 11 tons boils metal, not water.
The radiation release was equivalent to what a coal fired power plant puts out in 7 years and 5 months. The Chernobyl area has less radiation than Denver, Colorado. The Chernobyl area has been re-populated with wildlife including large mammals.
The RBMK reactors have been given containment buildings as well. Cherenkov radiation [blue light] is seen without any explosion. Cherenkov radiation is a result of particles traveling faster than the speed of light in water. No big deal. RBMK reactors have never been licensed in western countries. A positive void coefficient would prevent licensing anywhere, even in Russia, now.
Again, your scare tactic is pure propaganda. You are trying to scare people.
It is not a scare tactic. It has nothing to do with hydrogen fusion. People used to call them Atom bombs to make the difference between them and Thermo-nuclear or Hydrogen bombs clear. You appear to be getting the two confused. In case you are still confused, that was a fission explosion, not a fusion explosion. However, it certainly did boil metal. It also produced enough radiation (in a sudden flash) to make a large display of Cherenkov radiation in the cloud of steam.
There is also the other technical difference which is that the power surge that caused the second explosion at Chernobyl was probably caused by prompt neutrons rather than delayed neutrons. It is probable that they may have played a part in the steam explosion as well which is why the emergency stop failed to control the reactor.
I am not trying to make people think that a reactor accident can demolish a city. If there is a point here, it is that a nuclear explosion is not necessary something large. But, as I pointed out, there aren’t any other commercial LWR power reactors with a positive void coefficient. Only the few remaining RBMKs in Russia that have been modified to prevent a steam explosion.
I am not at all confused. I am saying that, if you call Chernobyl a nuclear explosion, you will be quoted as saying that Chernobyl was at least equal to Hiroshima or Nagasaki.
You have to write, if you can, in a way that will reduce the intentional misinterpretation. So you ought to know, the coal industry shills will automatically take anything you say out of context and misinterpret to make nuclear power sound as dangerous as possible.
James Richard Tyrer: You are not sending a message to me. You are sending a message to OH and TeeJae and to all of the lurking anti-nuclear radicals out there. Anything you say can and will be distorted into anything except what you intended to say. They will twist your words out of all recognizability.
James Richard Tyrer: You are not being careful enough with your words. You are generating a great deal of propaganda that will be used by the coal industry and by other people who have their own reasons for hating you and all you stand for.
There are people who will say that any radiation at all, no matter how little, is a curse and the work of the Devil. They won’t talk to you here. They will quote you elsewhere as a nuclear expert who said whatever they wanted you to say. So give them as little opportunity as possible.
James Richard Tyrer: I did not want to have to say the above. I am as sure to be as misquoted as you are. So quit generating misquotable content.
It appears that Asteroid Miner is still missing the point about the RBMK reactor (Chernobyl). This nuclear reactor is a difference in kind from all other commercial LWR nuclear power plants. It was a dangerous design that should have never been built and operated for commercial use. In fact, it was originally developed as a Plutonium production reactor.
My point is that it is so different that it was even capable of a small explosion of a type that could not happen in a modern reactor design. So different in fact that we should not even consider the unfortunate incident at Chernobyl when discussing the future of commercial power because we have better sense than to build dangerous reactors like that in the future. We should not consider it a statistic that we need to worry about happening again. We should just consider it an unfortunate historical incident such as the collapse of hydroelectric dams that have killed many more people in the history of the world or the many explosions of early steam engines which also killed and injured people.
It appears that James Richard Tyrer is still missing the point. Asteroid Miner understood everything James Richard Tyrer said. James Richard Tyrer did not understand what Asteroid Miner said.
QUIT GENERATING MISQUOTABLE CONTENT.
You are sending a message to OH and TeeJae and to all of the lurking anti-nuclear radicals out there. Anything you say can and will be distorted into anything except what you intended to say. They will twist your words out of all recognizability.
In other words: SHUT UP.
Speak technical details only when you are in a room full of physicists and nuclear engineers. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of public opinion. I am not going to answer James Richard Tyrer again because OH and TeeJae and to all of the lurking anti-nuclear radicals out there will also disinterpret everything I say.
It is really unfortunate that Asteroid Miner does not understand that anti-nukes are attempting to tar modern nuclear power plants with the same brush as the RBMK power plant at Chernobyl. The only defense against this is to tell the truth. And, that based on the facts, tell people that they should not consider the Chernobyl incident when considering the future of nuclear power.
Would you also tell people that the Lockheed Electra L-188 was a great airplane design and that we should base the future of commercial passenger flight on the original design?
It is really unfortunate that James Richard Tyrer does not understand that anti-nukes are attempting to tar modern nuclear power plants with the same brush as the RBMK power plant at Chernobyl.
The only defense against this is to tell the truth. And, that based on the facts, tell people that they should understand that RBMKs were Generation One reactors which have been built only once in the US and that was the world’s first reactor. That reactor never did anything beyond prove that it worked. It was torn down immediately, in 1944. Heisenberg, in Germany, was working on a reactor at the same time. RBMK was a copy of the US 1944 reactor without safety modifications that have been required here ever since.
As a strong advocate of nuclear power (in my mind there should be 3000 of the things globally instead of 500 and the world, like France, should be using no fossil fuels to make electricity) I tend to agree with Bernie about the Indian River plant. Plants should be located in remote locations where a possible disaster like the one at the Japanese plant would have minimal effect on the surrounding population.
Environmentalist are the tea partiers of the left. The well informed ones know that a immediate ban on new fossil fuel power plants is necessary (converting coal plants to combined cycle gas power plants is not good enough). Alternatives can be part of the mix but to make a dent into global warming the world need to build 1000’s of nuclear power plants as well.
Where are these remote areas you speak of? Im sure by remote you mean “Nowhere near where I live” . Also, how will it being built in a remote location have “minimal effect on the surrounding population”. It will have just as serious an effect on the “surrounding population” no matter where it is built. Oh, wait, i understand now that “surrounding population” doesn’t include you.
Power needs to be located where power is needed. And there isn’t much “remote” in the North East. As well, you seem to be making assumptions about the actual and literal safest power we have that don’t need to be made. Anti-nuclear foes make up enough myths about nuclear. We don’t need pro-nukes making up any.
Nuclear power plants make great neighbors. The people who complain are the people who have no real knowledge about them.
Or perhaps those complaining are the ones suffering health maladies from the environmental effects. If I was destroying your health by dumping all my toxic waste in your yard and water supply, would you still consider me a “great neighbor?” If my very existence threatened to destroy the whole neighborhood during the next natural disaster, would you still consider me a “great neighbor?”
TeeJae has a psycho-somatic disease, not a real disease.
Let’s revise your last sentence a bit: “to make a dent into global warming the world need (sic) to build 1000’s of [solar and wind farms].”
Solar and wind do not work. Solar and wind are so intermittent that they overload and break the grid.
Final Report
Prepared For:
Southwest Power Pool 415 North McKinley, #140 Plaza West Little Rock, AR 72205
SPP WITF Wind Integration Study
http://www.uwig.org/CRA_SPP_WITF_Wind_Integration_Study_Final_Report.pdf
Prepared By:
Charles River Associates 200 Clarendon Street T-33 Boston, Massachusetts 02116
Date: January 4, 2010 CRA Project No. D14422
SPP WITF Wind Integration Study January 4, 2010
If you deny that solar and wind work, then you are not serious.
I could counter with more links to debunk yours. But something tells me you would dismiss them out of hand.
Suppose there isn’t money for 1000s of new nuclear plants, because the private sector isn’t interested and the public sector can’t even provide reasonable funding goals in terms of solar and wind considering the threat. Why not use what money there is, for solar and wind.
Nuclear power plants should be built in the centers of cities, near the police station. I want a reactor in my neighborhood, next door to my house. What I don’t want is coal.
Wind doesn’t work. See:
http://euanmearns.com/el-hierro-completes-a-year-of-full-operation/
What wind power did:
“with renewable electricity at a cost probably exceeding €1.00/kWh and lowered the island’s CO2 emissions by approximately 12,000 tons at a cost of around €1,000/ton.”
Picked on a few molehills and made them seem like a mountain range. Compare the infinitesimally small Bequerel with a sievert or a curie – the amounts being leaked are like being in a forest and worrying about carbon monoxide from a single car idling nearby.
Context is everything, and both Bernie & Mr. Naureckas seem to be myopic on energy issues.
How about the context of the possibility of the next Fukushima?
Again: Zero people died of radiation at Fukushima. Go there and count the dead bodies for yourself.
That doesn’t fool the audience up here. Know your audience. The deaths are not measurable for decades and then, only by means of statistics! DISGUSTING!!!
I’ve never been to the FAIR page before. But I think you need to change your name if you think there is something wrong with nuclear power. I would suggest “Lying liar, hyper-fear mongering” because that is what your article comes off like.
And you come off like a nuclear industry shill.
“In reality, nuclear power is not emissions free….”
It must be nice to live in your world, where the steel for wind turbines, the neodymium for wind turbines, and the tellurium for solar panels and photovoltaic shingles and tiles comes ready-made, no mining or processing required. If you felt the need to leave out the blatantly obvious fact that “renewables” have carbon footprints as well, while discussing nuclear’s carbon footprints, why should I believe anything you guys say about costs for renewables vs. Costs for nuclear? With your shady methodology, you have probably taken something which is only partially true…and something which is partially untrue, and combined them together.
The bottom line is…when Vermont Yankee closed, New England emissions rose 7%, while natural gas use rose by 5.5. Sanders wants to close all nuclear power plants, and end tracking. Nuclear’s transmission rate is 80-90%; wind’s is 35-38%; solar’s is 25%. You can’t power this country adequately with a 30-32% reliability factor. If we draw down on nuclear power, and try and replace it with wind and solar…we WILL use more coal and gas. If we end fracking, much of that gas will come from foreign regimes who are hostile to us.
As someone from “a blue state” who gets 47% of my electricity from nuclear, I would rather not get 50% or more of my electricity from Russian, Saudi, Azeri, or Venezuelan oil and gas……….
Venezuela is not, nor ever was, a “hostile regime. Russia isn’t one either.
Paul, I definitely disagree about Russia. There have been a number of inidences recently between our planes, and theirs. Putin has trying to re-assemble the Soviet Empire since his invasion of Georgia in 2008. The way that the Kremlin plays the propaganda game, and attempts to crack down on both the media and the internet inside Russia makes what Snowden reveal about the NSA look like child’s play. What about his gurantees there were no Russian troops in Ukraine…followed up by Facebook notifications about funderals for Russian troops killed in Ukraine? Have you had the chance to read “The Red Web”? If you don’t think Russia is a threat, in would like to see you try and convince the Georgians. The Poles, the Latvians, and the Estonians…………
As for Venezuela, as someone who voted twice for Obama, when Chavez forced that book on the President, on one of his first foreign trips…I was completely appaled. It was nothing more than a power play. Chavez was trying to show how “weak” the President was back then…and how strong he was. As a supporter of Obama (a moderate, pragmatist, Democrat), I was sickened and saddened by the whole display. Of Chavez was that set on giving him the book…IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN DONE BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, NOT ON FRONT OF THE CAMERAS. Trust me…it was a power play!
All that, however, is besides the point. Do we want to be dependent on anyone else for our energy? We will be dependent on China for many of the lanthanides which go into wind and solar…and, if we try and replace nuclear with wind and solar…while eliminating fracking, we will have to import most of the gas to back up interermitent wind and solar. Despite my earlier post…while I may be worried about being dependent on Russian and Venezuelan oil and gas…there are other foreign sources I am far more worried we will be reliant on……..
This is old fossil-fuel and nuclear industry propaganda. Despite shills like you continuing to push this false information, the renewables sector (which has been making great strides in production, implementation and cost-reduction) WILL succeed outdated fossil and nuclear, thereby relegating those industries to the history books. The tide is turning. The writing is on the wall. Mark my words. Bet on it.
In that case, you might want to contact the nuclear industry…because I still haven’t received my “still” check.
Rather than actually coming up with answers to the points I made, it is pretty telling that all you can do…is come up with “propaganda” of your own and sound like a “shill” for the wind and solar industries, yourself.
“It’s getting better; it’s getting better. Etc., etc., etc.”
Let me know when solar has a 50%, or better, transmission factor; a wind turbine (with all that neodymium, and other lanthanides, and all the energy input that went into mining and reprocessing them) has a higher than 5 megawatt nameplate capacity; and wind turbines have a 60-70% transmission factor (according to the EIA, and not that “still”, media whore, Amory Logins). Until that point…if you continue to bash nuclear (and even natural gas), while singing the praises of wind and solar…the only “still” I see here…IS YOU.
TeeJae: Go ahead and bet YOUR [TeeJae’s] money. TeeJae won’t be the first or the last to loose his shirt on such foolish bets.
Before you make that bet, you might want to consider two things that will limit how much wind and solar we will be able to use.
First is the amount of wind and solar power that we will be able to place on the grid without using storage. The TJM interconnect report estimated this at about 30%. I note here that that this would be slightly more if we used only wind, but solar produces more power in the daytime. Yes, we could use storage, but the only storage that is current economic for general purpose grid level storage is pumped hydro. Batteries are going to need about a 50x price reduction and that will be decades away. While hydro is permanently limited by geography.
Second is the much greater amount of steel and concrete (i.e. Portland Cement) needed per unite of electricity (e.g.kWh) produced by wind and utility scale solar as compared to even our currently being constructed Light Water Reactor based nuclear power plants. This would be so much steel and Portland Cement that it would strain the world’s production capacity if we were to try to install the 30% in a short length of time (e.g. 20 years) and would make it impossible to install enough wind and solar to replace coal and natural gas for electric power generation by 2050 even if it would work..
But, I am not going to say that we shouldn’t install wind and solar. We should install the 30% if we can make it work and have the materials available along with the natural gas turbine CC plants needed for backup. They will not last as long as newly built nukes and the power will be needed. However, we will also need nuclear power and need to rapidly develop next generation nuclear power as well as enhanced geothermal power.
The IEA has predicted that coal use will increase 65% by 2035 and we must use other sources of power to replace it.
You have said that nukes and solar and wind should ALL be done. But, the private sector is not going to do it, the public sector is only with limited funding. Why should we use the limited funding equally, why not use all of the limited funding for solar and wind, and then pay for nukes one distant utopian future day when the money is there!
Because the battery for wind and solar would cost a quadrillion dollars for just the US. I did that computation personally. $ quadrillion is the same as saying it isn’t going to happen.
“Tom Murphy is an associate professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
Pump Up the Storage”
We would have to lift Lake Erie half a kilometer skyward per Tom Murphy. Be sure to read http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/08/nation-sized-battery/
first to see why we need a week’s worth of storage. The basic physics and chemistry didn’t change.
“Green Illusions” by Ozzie Zehner: A complete renewable energy system for the US would cost 1.4 QUADRILLION dollars.
My estimate for the cost of a battery for the US is $0.5 QUADrillion. 5 times 10 to the eleventh power. About 29 times GDP. How I got it: Fairbanks has a battery that can last 7 to 15 minutes. They paid $35 Million for it. Fairbanks has 30,000 people. That is $1167 per person. Multiply by 400 million people. Divide 7 minutes into a week. Multiply that by the number you got before. You get half a quadrillion dollars. Batteries are out. I did not account for price going up as resources are depleted.
What is absolute raving nonsense is forgetting to read physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math before commenting. Smart grids and flywheels and compressed air and biomass gas burners all added together don’t make any difference.
See: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner – “GVEA s Fairbanks battery bank keeps lights on”
http://newsminer.com/view/full_story/12739242/article-GVEA-s-Fairbanks-battery-bank-keeps-lights-on?
To go with renewables only, you need a whole week’s worth of battery power for the whole world because Europe can have a long cold cloudy calm winter. The batteries can run down over several months.
My list of references is too long to put here.
What part of the fact that we will only be able to obtain about 30% of our electricity from wind and solar didn’t you understand?
And, I might add that doing that is going to require backup that will mostly come from natural gas.
OH also doesn’t get that wind and solar are incompatible with the second generation nukes that we have now. Wind and solar are a fossil fuel tactic to get rid of nukes so that they can sell and burn more coal and natural gas. The only thing that ramps fast enough for wind and solar is a gas turbine, not a steam turbine. Wind and solar break the grid.
Firstly, are we to believe renewable energy lobbyists like ACORE and AWEA don’t have public relations firms? Is the author glibly characterizing eminent pro-nuclear climatologists like Jim Hansen as “public relations” men as well?
Secondly, the sweet irony of something calling itself “fairness and accuracy in reporting” cherry picking an 8 year old study to make nuclear not seem low carbon is too good not to savour. So, I’ll point out that the IPCC fifth assessment report (2015) agrees a median figure for nuclear emissions on par with wind power.
Thirdly; characterize Bernie’s anti-nuclear demagoguery as calling for a moratorium not a phase out if you like. But the tendency towards aggressive, fearmongering, anachronistic 1970s-style anti-nuclear witch-hunts opposing license fee renewals (which he supports) reveals the progressive green-left’s agenda to be a de facto phase-out. (I would argue anti-nukes are neither truly “green” nor socialistic either, sabotaging a high-employing clean energy industry ).
And lastly, the superficial treatment of nuclear versus renewables capital costs here overlooks a few glaring factors – chiefly energy storage. How do you store intermittent, entirely weather-dependent renewable energy to make it reliable? There is no truly economically feasible answer, but there is a huge amount of snake-oil and distraction being peddled by renewables financiers desperate to monopolize the forthcoming barrel-loads of clean energy plan pork in Washington. (Transmission of wind from the mid-West to demand centres is also a trillion dollar elephant in the room, as is integrating distributed solar into a traditionally centralized electricity grid.)
Either you’re yet another fossil fuel/nuclear industry shill trotting out old and debunked propaganda, or you need to keep up on the latest green energy research and implementation.
TeeJae is a coal company shill. What the coal companies know that most people don’t:
As long as you keep messing around with wind, solar, geothermal and wave power, the coal industry is safe. There is no way wind, solar, geothermal and wave power can replace coal, and they know it. If you quit being afraid of nuclear, the coal industry is doomed. Every time you argue in favor of wind, solar, geothermal and wave power, or against nuclear, King Coal is happy. ONLY nuclear power can put coal out of business. Nuclear power HAS put coal out of business in France. France uses 30 year old American technology. So here is the deal: Keep being afraid of all things nuclear and die when [not if] civilization collapses or when Homo “Sapiens” goes extinct. OR: Get over your paranoia and kick the coal habit and live. Which do you choose? Nuclear is the safe path and we have factory built nuclear power plants now. A nuclear power plant can be installed in weeks. See: http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf33.html http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf08.html
Fossil fuel money is spent to scare you away from nuclear.
Installed in weeks.
http://www.gen4energy.com
Asteroid Miner has ostrich syndrome. Your attempts to misinform are futile. Nothing will change our course toward a green energy future. If you pull your head out of the sand long enough to let the sunshine warm your face you would see that.
Wind and solar will prove themselves not to work. But go ahead and loose your own shirt. Put your money where your mouth is.
Nice column, Jim. Adding in energy efficiency which has a LCOE of 0 to 4cents per KWh (from new to deep retrofit) as a delivered electricity service makes the pro nuclear power case even more specious. A Amory Lovins recent piece on nulear notes, 20% of the exiting US nuclear fleet incur operating costs of 6 cents/kWh, and the average operating costs across the entire fleet is 4 cents/kWh. So, in addition to efficiency gains, the most recent Power Purchase Agreements (PPA) for wind generation in good sites are down to 2 cents/kWh and utility-scale solar PV generation PPAs in good sites are down to 3.8 cents/kWh. So the Wash Post and NY Times are engaged in fallacious posturing that is clearly unencumbered by facts and filled with fantasies.
I don’t want to be treading on anyone’s closely held belief system here, but you can’t power a grid with just wind. The cost of a single component of a grid(wind) is not an indicator of total grid cost, right? Transistors may be the cheapest component in a smart phone, but try building a smart phone using only the cheapest components.
I know this is going to sound like blasphemy on this site, but a mostly nuclear gird isn’t really more expensive than a mostly renewable one. Lots of studies have suggested this but we also have some real world examples. Residential electric bills in France are a fraction of what they are in Germany. And from Bloomberg:
“…Germany must reduce the cost of its switch from atomic energy toward renewables to protect growth, Sigmar Gabriel, Minister for Economic Affairs and Energy said. German companies and consumers shoulder as much as 24 billion euros a year for renewables because of subsidy payments, Gabriel told an energy conference in Berlin. “I don’t know any other economy that can bear this burden,” Gabriel said today. “We have to make sure that we connect the energy switch to economic success, or at least not endanger it.” Germany must focus on the cheapest clean-energy sources as well as efficient fossil-fuel-fired plants to stop spiraling power prices, he said. Chancellor Angela Merkel has made the top priority of her third-term government, which took office last month, reforming clean-energy aid after rising wind and solar costs helped send consumer bills soaring. Germans pay more for power than residents of any European Union nation except Denmark. While renewable aid costs are at the “limit” of what the economy can bear, Germany will keep pushing wind and solar power, the most cost-effective renewable sources, Gabriel said. Biomass energy is too expensive and its cost structure hasn’t improved, he said…”
Germany is demonstrating the real world cost of trying to reduce emissions with only renewables; $25 billion a year, according to Germany’s economics ministry. $25 billion a year would pay for thirty three $7.5 billion AP1000 reactors over ten years ($25 x 10 =250, 250/7.5= 33). Add those to existing reactors and they could supply about 80% of Germany’s electricity by 2025. And their emissions reductions have been flat for the last six years …six years of carbon in the atmosphere we can’t get back.
Future grids will likely be a mix of renewables, nuclear, and just enough natural gas to stitch them all together.
Assuming your data is true, economic cost is only one factor. Environmental cost and limited supply are two others.
We have a billion year supply of nuclear fuel in the ocean. We have thousands of years of supply for reactors that can use recycled fuel.
A billion years, eh? And what of the environmental costs of acquiring it? We will have drilled and mined and extracted (or more likely detonated) ourselves out of existence long before that.
Jim Naureckas said: “…In reality, nuclear power is not emissions-free…”
In all fairness, he said it was ” practically emissions-free.”
Jim Naureckas said: “…According to an analysis published by the journal Nature (9/24/08), nuclear power does produce 14 times less in greenhouse gas
The link is to an article in Nature that mentions the 2008 Benjamin K. Sovacool analysis (which actually was not published in Nature).
If you Google the Wikipedia page “Life-cycle greenhouse-gas emissions of energy sources” you find that nuclear is about the same as wind and less than solar. The different studies are listed by year, 21014 (IPCC, Global warming potential of selected electricity sources), 2012 (Yale University systematic review and harmonization of nuclear power data), 2011 (IPCC aggregated results of the available literature) and finally the 2008 Sovacool survey, which includes a criticism of his study by his peers.
Jim Naureckas said: “…And if you put that money into renewables rather than into a new nuclear plant, you can reduce emissions more quickly..”
I think that may also be one of those urban myths that doesn’t pan out if you poke around. If you Google the term “Nuclear Has Scaled Far More Rapidly Than Renewables” you’ll see what I mean. Take a look at the graph in that article.
Jim Naureckas said: “…The irony is that if you had a truly market-driven energy system, there’d be no need for a moratorium on nuclear licenses; if you didn’t have the Price-Anderson Act capping industry liability for nuclear accidents…”
There also wouldn’t be any wind or solar and a lot fewer electric cars without government assistance. No market is totally free. A properly regulated market is what we seek. German nuclear operators have unlimited operator liability, so, obviously, they got by without a cap. Every country has its means of insuring nuclear. Google the term “Civil Liability for Nuclear Damage” for a detailed explanation of how each country does it.
Thank-you. Good points. As a person, who is probably somewhat to the left of most of the FAIR staff in my ideology (libertarian socialist). I am tiring of these “de riguer” positions I must take to stay in good graces with what seem to be the “bourgeois-wing” of the left. Aside from its carbon emissions advantages, nuclear electric generation has a stellar safety record – both occupational and to the general public.
Then, there are all the required compromise-free stands I am required to take regarding shale-gas development, hydro power development, GMO’s (the technology, not the capitalist abuse of it) and sometimes even wind development! Much of the opposition comes from the reason-free zones. Then, further “left”, there are the anti-pharmaceuticals, anti-vaxers, the “911 was an inside job ” types and finally the “stop the airliners spraying us!”.
And yes, you gotta love the way the pseudo-left taps their inner Milton Friedman in their “free market” arguments against nuclear power.
There is no politics in science or engineering. None. You don’t have to remember anything. You only have to do the science and the math. All of those irrational people, regardless of right or left, are just that: irrational.
Nature isn’t just the final authority on truth, Nature is the Only authority. There are zero human authorities. Scientists do not vote on what is the truth. There is only one vote and Nature owns it. We find out what Nature’s vote is by doing Scientific [public and replicable] experiments. Scientific [public and replicable] experiments are the only source of truth. [To be public, it has to be visible to other people in the room. What goes on inside one person’s head isn’t public unless it can be seen on an X-ray or with another instrument.]
Science is a simple faith in Scientific experiments and a simple absolute lack of faith in everything else.
“Science and Immortality” by Charles B. Paul 1980 University of California Press. In this book on the Eloges of the Paris Academy of Sciences (1699-1791) page 99 says: “Science is not so much a natural as a moral philosophy”. [That means drylabbing [fudging data] will get you fired.]
Page 106 says: “Nature isn’t just the final authority, Nature is the Only authority.”
Maybe if you weren’t so blinded by ideology you would see what the so-called “conspiracy theorists” see. Raise your consciousness above what mainstream media force-feeds you.
You said:
“In reality, nuclear power is not emissions-free; the process of mining and enriching uranium fuel, along with constructing nuclear plants, operating backup generators during reactor downtime, disposal of nuclear waste and eventual decommissioning of plants all contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. According to an analysis published by the journal Nature (9/24/08), nuclear power does produce 14 times less in greenhouse gas emissions than coal, and seven times less than natural gas—but twice as much as solar cells and seven times as much as onshore wind farms. For halting climate change, in other words, there are more serious options than nuclear.”
The analysis you reference has been widely criticized for inaccuracies and bias.
The IPCC itself rejects that report and has published its own reports that recognize current nuclear technology as having a Carbon Intensity Per Kilowatthour (CIPK) comparable the hydro and wind, and about 3 to 4 times better than Solar PV.
When comparing countries that have spent comparable times and moneys on the unreliables (wind and solar) to thosethat have chosen nuclear, the nuclear countries have grids with WAY lower CIPKs than the unreliables countries. France, ~100g/kWh. Sweden, the same. Denmark, ~450 g/kWh. Germany even worse.
History shows quite clearly that the smart way to go is nuclear.
I skimmed the article and the comments. Good arguments on both sides, as is often the case when neither/nor is probably not the correct answer and “and” just might be.
The majority of the climate scientists I’ve read stress the fact that we need to begin to implement as many different green solutions to power generation and availability as possible. And that ideally any of these clean energy solutions do not require a whole lot of dirty energy to create.
An argument in favor of putting solar on this many rooftops as we possibly can did not seem to make it into either side of the argument. And unless I skipped right over it, any mention of how long it takes to actually construct a nuclear power plant didn’t seem to rate any mention. And neither did any discussion of the protracted arguments we’ve been having about nuclear waste disposal and where to put it – certainly not in my backyard….
And let’s not even discuss our favorite option which is to dump it someplace near where only Native Americans live. I think we owe it to those on whom we originally perpetrated genocide, broke every treaty we ever signed, and have more recently restricted ourselves to simply poisoning their water/land and desecrating their sacred sites.
So that leaves us with putting nuclear waste dumps in neighborhoods where only white people live, and we all know that’s not gonna happen.
So nuclear is a potential, if restricted, piece of the energy puzzle. But honestly, either greening our roof tops or installing as many solar panels as possible might be a far better focus for our human energy and our political will? Clean energy – and yes I know that there are issues in the mining of rare metals for the manufacture of solar panels – and job creation might be real pluses?
So, you are concerned about nuclear “waste” being in your “backyard”? Or in the “backyard” of Native Americans? What is it? Uranium, which can be fissioned to produce more energy, which can be sold for more money? Actinides like plutonium, which can be “burned” in a Gen IV “Burner Reactor”…and produce more energy and money? Lanthanides (or “rare earth”) which are worth a fortune and are also, ironically, necessary for many forms of wind and solar (solar relies on tellurium…which is present in nuclear “waste”…and it is the lanthanide components of wind and solar, like neodymium and tellurium…which create the wind and solar industries’ own little version of “nuclear waste”…a radioactive element called thorium……)?
I am not proposing that we should dump nuclear “waste” on Native American lands…but, it would be one of the largest economic boons to their future generations….ever, if we did!
I would say “Put it in my backyard, PLEASE”, but, in a manner of speaking, it already is. Illinois is the third largest producer of electricity in the country…with 47% coming from electricity. Currently, ALL the nuclear “waste” ever produced by civilian utilties…is stored at those facilities. There is as much nuclear “waste” “in my backyard” as anyone else in the country’s. And…I say, GOOD. We will need the future revenue it generates to get out of our unfunded pension mess………….
“With 47% coming from NUCLEAR”…….
Theoretically, as in, after all this time you guys haven’t gotten it to do that yet, and you merely offer more pie in the sky.
http://gehitachiprism.com
Suzie said: “… And unless I skipped right over it, any mention of how long it takes to actually construct a nuclear power plant didn’t seem to rate any mention….”
It was mentioned in the article and addressed in the comment field. Google the term “Nuclear Has Scaled Far More Rapidly Than Renewables”
You used the words clean and green to describe energy sources. What do those words mean, exactly? Aren’t we looking for low carbon sources first and foremost?
The nuclear powerplant waste issue as it turns out, is pretty trivial. Most people don’t realize it, but most nuclear waste issues have to deal with poorly handled waste from past military operations, not civil nuclear powerplants. Google the term “DOE Tries To Change The Rules On Nuclear Waste Disposal” to learn about deep borehole deposits.
Solar and wind can’t do it all. Moat reasonable studies I’ve seen suggest the future energy mix will consist of nuclear, wind, solar, hydro and just enough natural gas to stitch them all together. Sounds reasonable to me.
The irony of your headline is pretty rich. Global warming represents perhaps the greatest challenge civilization has ever faced, and we will need to leverage our most powerful tools if we are to have any hope of successful mitigation. That particularly includes nuclear power. Not only does it provide over 60% of our carbon-free generation today, but some form of next generation technology should enable a rapid global scaling within decades. Such designs are already being pursued, and the economic potential is simply incredible. A next generation nuclear system should be able to achieve an economy of materials by orders of magnitude over any comparable renewable system.
Renewable intermittents remain supplemental to conventional fossils and hydro. If natural gas is being used to back up the wind or solar farm, the emissions savings could easily be erased by well leaking. Furthermore, the emissions from the fossils that the renewables are supplementing should be included in the total. And finally, an LCoE study does not accurately reflect the costs of a particular energy mix at scale.
Even with conventional LWRs, a national nuclear grid would be cheaper, producing far less emissions, than any comparable renewable approach. Just take a look at France’s ultra-low emission high-nuclear grid compared to Germany’s.
Thank you for your article Jim.
No amount of propaganda or cheerleading changes the facts ~ Nuclear energy is too costly, too risky and produces a waste product that is so hazardous that is must be isolated for thousands of years.
Ever heard of a “burner reactor”? If you think nuclear “waste” is such an issue, you might want to research it…and, when you find out what it is, you might push for the research to develop and deploy them…..
As for the risk, it is unlikely Three Mile Island killed anyone, or will in the future it is unlikely Fukishima killed anyone, or will in the future…and Chernobyl’s fatalities, while tragic, were limited to 50-55. I say this with confidence because the argument more have died, or will die, is based on the LNT (Linear No Threshold model). That model was disproven by this study…so………
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477708/
As for cost of renewables vs. Cost of nuclear, it is rare that an actual, unbiased cost analysis is done. Always remember that, due to their transmission factors (80-90% for nuclear, 25% for solar, and 35-38% for wind)…you would need to build well over one thousand individual wind turbines to replace the output of one single 1000 megawatt reactor. Some nuclear power plants have 2, 3, 4, or even 5 1000 megawatt reactors. When you do those calculations…are you factoring in all those thousands of turbines? Will such a high demand for steel, lanthanides like neodymium…make the prices of those resources go up…increasing the cost of future reactors?
Caithness Windfarm Information Forum at http://www.caithnesswindfarms.co.uk/accidents.pdf
provides information on the deaths and injuries to humans caused by wind turbines. “11 December 2011 the Daily Telegraph reported that RenewableUK confirmed that there had been 1500 wind turbine accidents and incidents in the UK alone in the past 5 years. Data here reports only 142 UK accidents from 2006-2010 and so the figures here may only represent 9% of actual accidents.”
CWIF says the wind industry had, to their knowledge, 102 fatal accidents resulting in 136 deaths of humans. “17 bus passengers were killed in one single incident”
From Treehugger:
Summary of Wind Turbine Incidents (December 2008): 41 Worker Fatalities, 16 Public- Includes falling from turbine towers and transporting turbines on the highway. 39 Incidents of Blade Failure- Failed blades have been known to travel over a quarter mile, killing any unfortunate bystanders within its path of destruction. 110 Incidents of Fire- When a wind turbine fire occurs, local fire departments can do little but watch due to the 30-story height of these turbine units. The falling debris are then carried across the distance and cause new fires. 60 Incidents of Structural Failure- As turbines become more prevalent, these breakages will become more common in public areas, thereby causing more deaths and dismemberment’s from falling debris. 24 incidents of “hurling ice”- Ice forms on these giant blades and is reportedly hurled at deathly speeds in all directions. Author reports that some 880 ice incidents of this nature have occurred over Germany’s 13-years of harnessing wind power.
An older case from Germany: The whole machine on top came off and flew ⅓ mile like a helicopter. That was years ago with a much smaller machine.
Erica said: “…No amount of propaganda or cheerleading changes the facts …’
I would think that argument could be used just as effectively (or not) by pro-nuclear enthusiasts to describe renewable energy enthusiasts. The future grid will be a mix of many low carbons sources.
Erica said:”… Nuclear energy is too costly, too risky and produces a waste product that is so hazardous that is must be isolated for thousands of years.
1) See this comment about cost: https://fair.org/home/trampling-science-to-boost-nuclear-power/comment-page-1/#comment-3083476
2) Google the term “Terrorists, Nuclear Powerplants, and Snakes” for safety
3) Google the term “DOE Tries To Change The Rules On Nuclear Waste Disposal” for waste deposits
I can only suppose that you think that because you say it that it is true. That is not the case with facts. The two newspapers did the research and are simply stating the facts. Nuclear is our only real option to replace fossil fuel in the near future.
I do have to wonder what this “waste product that is so hazardous that is must be isolated for thousands of years” is. Do you actually have any knowledge here? Did you bother to look in Wikipedia?
Most of the waste from nuclear fission is highly radioactive with a half-life of less than 100 years — most of it with an average half-life of 30 years — although there is a small percentage of low level radioactive isotopes with half-lives greater than 210,000 years. Oddly, there is nothing with a half-life between 100 years and 210,000 years [check Wikipedia if you doubt this]. Also note that radioactivity is inversely proportional to half-life so the stuff with long half-lives is not “so hazardous” — not highly radioactive. The rule of thumb is that radionuclides are gone after 10 half-lives (only 0.09765625% left).
So, after ONE Thousand years, almost all of the highly radioactive material in Spent (used) Light Water Reactor fuel elements will be gone and they will be only slightly more radioactive than they were when new. However, it is unlikely that they will sit around for that long. They contain less than 4% waste. The rest can be reused as fuel in either current reactors or burnt completely in next generation reactors such as the GE-Hitachi PRISM or other IFR.
http://gehitachiprism.com/
WaPo and NYT state the facts? LOL! Those presstitutes are beholden to BigCorporate paid to disseminate whatever “official narrative” the Power Elite want them to. They cannot be trusted to tell the truth.
Show us your disclaimer.
Go to school.
I grow tired of your Leftist tactics used instead of a discussion of the facts.
Here we have hit and run as well as an ad hominem attack.
All these new correspondents to FAIR! Way to reach out, Naureckas. You have located the people who welcome one, two, many Chernobyls, Fukushimas, Windscales, Hanfords.
“Fairness and accuracy in reporting”? If you say so Herr Goebbels!
;]
I love how propagandists avoid science, whether climate deniers or anti-nukes. Perhaps this site should set itself on Hansen, Caldeira…even the Dalai Lama, to explain to them why they’re foolish to advise great expansion of the cleanest, safest form of power — nuclear. Here’s a list to start calling…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYP22KfI8lw&feature=youtu.be
http://energyforhumanity.org/climate-energy/nuclear-for-climate-declaration/ (50,000 scientists)
http://tinyurl.com/kn22qcn (Hansen, Caldeira, Emanuel, Wigley)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2486894/Scientists-urge-climate-groups-nuclear-power-warn-wind-solar-fulfil-worlds-energy-needs.html
http://decarbonisesa.com/2014/06/30/another-climate-scientist-joins-calls-for-nuclear/
http://www.sunshinecoastdaily.com.au/news/scientists-tell-greenies-embrace-nuclear-save-plan/2502717/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lXTPKGuQhzQ&feature=youtu.be
http://www.science20.com/news_articles/james_hansen_to_mitigate_climate_change_nuclear_energy_should_be_included-154923
http://tinyurl.com/m5qp8vf
http://tinyurl.com/necct2l
Hansen vs Big Green)
http://tinyurl.com/nh3bsh6
“I also recommend that the public stop providing funds to anti nuke environmental groups. Send a letter saying why you are withdrawing your support. Their position is based partly on fear of losing support from anti-nuke donors, and they are not likely to listen to anything other than financial pressure. If they are allowed to continue to spread misinformation about nuclear power, it is unlikely that we can stop expanded hydro-fracking, continued destructive coal mining, and irreversible climate change.”
http://epillinois.org/news/2016/4/6/james-hansen-condemns-bernie-sanders-fear-mongering-against-indian-point
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/24/more-views-on-nuclear-power-waste-safety-and-cost/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=1
http://www.slideshare.net/Revkin/dot-nuclear-1-2214-lettersigned-by-4-nuclear-scientists-and-engineers
https://www.facebook.com/download/823098194404759/An-Open-Letter-to-Environmentalists.pdf
http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/magazine/physicstoday/news/10.1063/PT.4.2433
Dalai Lama…
http://tinyurl.com/82o6etd
Ben Heard (former Aussie anti-nuke)…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzbI0UPwQHg
I love that I can use the same list with climate deniers and with naive anti-nukes. The latter are as dangerous to our descendants as are the former.
—
Dr. A. Cannara
650 400 3071
Saying nuclear is the answer to climate change is like saying death cures cancer.
My interview on Nuclear Hotseat for my of my take on the selling of nuclear as a solution to climate change.
have a good extinction everyone.
http://nuclearhotseat.com/2015/12/09/nuclear-hotseat-233-climate-changenuke-connection-rainbow-warrior-wnzs-kevin-hester/
If you are that scared of nuclear energy, you might as well leave the universe. ALL energy is an indirect form of nuclear energy. Wind and solar are indirectly based on a fusion reactor. Most geothermal comes from natural radioactive decay. Oil and coal were formed by a combimation of plants and animals absorbing sunlight (indirect fusion), dying, and then being subjected to tremendous amounts of natural radioactive decay heat and pressures.
If “nuclear power” is going to cause human “extinction” anyway…we might as well intentionally generate large amounts of nuclear fission power to improve the lives of as many people as we can, in the most reliable way we can…because there is enough naturally occuring “nuclear power” around us to cause our extinction, anyway………………
Nuclear power is the only way to stop making CO2 that actually works. To stop Global Warming, we must replace all large fossil fueled power plants with nuclear.
Renewable Energy mandates cause more CO2 to be produced, not less, and renewable energy doubles or quadruples your electric bill. The reasons are as follows:
Since solar “works” 15% of the time and wind “works” 20% of the time, we need either energy storage technology we don’t have or ambient temperature superconductors and we don’t have them either. Wind and solar are so intermittent that electric companies are forced to build new generator capacity that can load-follow very fast, and that means natural gas fired gas turbines. The gas turbines have to be kept spinning at full speed all the time to ramp up quickly enough. The result is that wind and solar not only double your electric bill, wind and solar also cause MORE CO2 to be produced.
We do not have battery or energy storage technology that could smooth out wind and solar at a price that would be possible to do. The energy storage would “cost” in the neighborhood of a QUADRILLION dollars for the US. That is an imaginary price because we could not get the materials to do it if we had that much money.
The only real way to reduce CO2 production from electricity generation is to replace all fossil fueled power plants with the newest available generation of nuclear. Nuclear can load-follow fast enough as long as wind and solar power are not connected to the grid. Generation 4 nuclear can ramp fast enough to make up for the intermittency of wind and solar, but there is no reason to waste time and money on wind and solar.
Risk is something you manage. Risk management requires looking at numbers. It isn’t a task you can accomplish by intuition or gut feeling. Risk management is mathematical.
From: http://desmogblog.com/sites/beta.desmogblog.com/files/chart-deaths-per-terawatt-hr-many-eyes-IBM.png
I find the following table in deaths per Terrawatt year:
coal 161
oil 36
natural gas 4
biomass 12
peat 12
hydro 1.4
nuclear 0.04
Other people may express the table differently or come up with different but similar numbers. No matter whose numbers you look at, nuclear produces the fewest deaths per unit of energy.
All forms of energy cause death, but not having energy causes the most death. So you choose the source of energy that causes the least death per unit of energy.
Again, what your parents or your friends told you is nonsense. What your churning stomach says is irrelevant. You have to count the dead bodies one way or another. So you count the dead bodies and divide by the energy produced. If you can, you count the dead bodies personally so that you know for sure. Smart people don’t believe propaganda or newspapers or what people say.
Journalists get you hooked into watching or reading or listening by saying things that they know will grab your emotions. Truth isn’t so relevant to journalists. I heard one of them say: “This geiger counter is runnin wild!” How would he know? He never saw a geiger counter before. He has nothing to compare with. They didn’t let him carry the geiger counter on the airplane. If they had, he might have noticed that Fukushima is about the same as everywhere else.
Your Geiger counter clicks. Every time you turn it on. Everywhere. At all times. If you had a time machine, you could take your Geiger counter back in time 1000 years or a million years or a billion years. Your Geiger counter would click at any of those times. How fast your geiger counter would click at any given time in the past would vary according to your location. Natural background radiation varies from place to place and from altitude to altitude. Buy a Geiger counter now. Find out how much radiation is there now, before the accident. That is the step that the Japanese didn’t take.
Thanks. Excellent comment. I work for MSHA and the fast and gory deaths, or the slow and painful deaths (black lung) that result from generating electricity from coal dug out of the ground haunt me every day.
Wow, this article has the nuclear shills out in full force. Stop spreading lies.
TeeJae: Go to college. Get a degree in physics. Then you will be able to understand that I am an engineer and a scientist, not a shill for anybody.
I have no interest, financial or otherwise, in the nuclear power industry. My only interest is in stopping Global Warming. My only income is from the US civil service retirement system.
I have no interest, financial or otherwise, in the electric utility industry, except that I buy electricity from the local utility. I have never worked for the nuclear power industry.
If you actually do the math, as the electric utility industry has, you will find out that nuclear is the only replacement for fossil fuels that actually works.
My nuclear experience is at the army’s lab for nuclear weapons effects, specifically EMP. That was a long time ago. I switched to working on weapons that kill fewer people at a time. I had something to do with getting robots into on-the-ground missions. I wanted to be able to give a war without “blood and gore,” as the song says.
I do have a B.S. in physics from Carnegie-Mellon University and a lot of grad courses in physics and engineering. I am retired from US government service as a scientist and engineer.
disclaimer
Yet I see you have no experience or education in the field of green renewables. Your refusal to understand that they are (already) a viable solution clearly shows you are not truly serious about “stopping GW.” Anyone still denying this fact has obviously not done their research, and is therefore not serious about the matter.
That is funny. I just love the circular reasoning. It is even worse than calling everyone that disagrees with you a “shill”.
Refusal to understand things that aren’t true and failure to believe the Green fairy tales that you read on the Green echo chamber are not exactly indicative of a lack of education in engineering.
If you believe in the Green fairy tale that wind and solar are a viable solution for stopping Global Warming, you are part of the problem. You are the one that needs to do some research. And research means reading real sources, not the Green echo chamber.
TeeJae said: “…Wow, this article has the nuclear shills out in full force. Stop spreading lies….”
If you go into the comment field of just about any article attacking nuclear energy you will find lots and lots of comments, mostly pro-nuclear. There is no coordinated effort swamp such articles, there are simply a lot of environmentalists who have realized that most of what they have been taught about nuclear energy was wrong. Being anti-nuclear is a tribal marker, not so much an informed decision.
“If you go into the comment field of just about any article attacking nuclear energy you will find lots and lots of comments, mostly pro-nuclear.”
Thanks for proving my point.
OH and TeeJae: Show us your disclaimers.
Sovacool’s numbers for nuclear power greenhouse gas emissions are from 2008, and are now 8 years out of date. Since then, uranium enrichment moved entirely away from the old, energy expensive, method of gas diffusion, to less energy intensive, gas centrifugation. In 2013, the last commercial uranium gaseous diffusion plant in the world shat, at Paducah USA.
It’s the shame that the author of this piece quotes obsolete, cherry-picked, studies [Sovacool] claiming that the GHG emissions of nuclear power is 66 gCO2e/kWh. It is not.
A more up-to-date comparison of greenhouse gas emissions from energy is: Turconi / Boldrin / Astrup, 2013, in Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews
Source … gCO2e/kWh
Nuclear … 3 to 35
Solar …. 13 to 190
Wind …… 3 to 41
http://www.uni-obuda.hu/users/grollerg/LCA/hazidolgozathoz/lca-electricity%20generation%20technologies.pdf
Doh!
In 2013, the last commercial uranium gaseous diffusion plant in the world shut, at Paducah USA.
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/ENF-Laser-enrichment-chosen-for-Paducah-2811137.html
Laser enrichment: A laser can ionize one isotope of uranium without ionizing the other isotope. This means of enrichment uses less energy than centrifuges.
Paducha, Kentucky – and they are still trying to clean up the mess. There is a gaseous diffusion plant in Ohio.
Portsmouth is closed too.
I thought this was supposed to be, “Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting,” but this article is neither fair nor accurate.
79% of physics PhDs in the AAAS support more nuclear power (http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/07/23/an-elaboration-of-aaas-scientists-views/), so if there is any argument from “science,” as some kind of anthropomorphization of the concept, it is already boosting nuclear power. (Oh, and ~90% of biomedical and chemistry PhDs support GMOs)
I won’t address the rest of the article, as it is uneducated drivel.
You must’ve missed the parts of the article pointing out that scientists can be bought off, too.
TeeJae,
Having read through the comments on this site, I spend a lot of time fighting the denial of anthropogenic global warming and was particularly struck with this comment of yours. Do you realize that this is the ***EXACT*** sort of thing that the climate change deniers say about scientists. Let’s leave the irrationality and denial of inconvenient science, facts, and data to the Right Wing. They have proven how good they are at it. The Left should be guided by science and facts, not completely captive to their own ideology as the Right is.
The glaring difference is climate scientists have not been influenced by industry money. Nuclear “scientists” have.
There’s other sources of money. The Right Wing ideologues just substitute “government grant money” for your “industry money”.
Can you explain to me how the nuclear industry has paid off a huge majority of physicists in AAAS? At this point, nuclear physics is only a tiny specialty in physics.
I hate to say it, but I think your argument for monetary influence here is even less plausible than that of the climate deniers’.
So, you still believe that 97% of climate scientists are beholden to government grant money? This argument never made sense to me. To what end? To ensure a never-ending stream of grant money to continue researching climate change? Why? I don’t get it.
Not to mention, government works hand in hand with the fossil fuel and nuclear industries, ensuring their success and survival. So, why would it continue to fund climate scientists who threaten the existence of those industries? Doesn’t make sense.
Conspiracy theory
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Conspiracy theory (disambiguation)
For other types of “conspiracy theory”, see Conspiracy (civil), Conspiracy (criminal), and List of conspiracies (political)
The Eye of Providence, or the all-seeing eye of God, seen here on the US $1 bill, has been taken by some to be evidence of a conspiracy involving the founders of the United States and the Illuminati.[1]:58[2]:47-49
A conspiracy theory is an explanatory or speculative hypothesis suggesting that two or more persons, or an organization, have conspired to cause or cover up, through secret planning and deliberate action, an event or situation typically regarded as illegal or harmful. The term conspiracy theory has a derogatory meaning, denoting explanations that invoke conspiracies without warrant, often producing hypotheses that contradict the prevailing understanding of historical events or simple facts.[3][4][5][6]
According to the political scientist Michael Barkun, conspiracy theories rely on the view that the universe is governed by design, and embody three principles: nothing happens by accident, nothing is as it seems, and everything is connected.[1]:3–4 Another common feature is that conspiracy theories evolve to incorporate whatever evidence exists against them, so that they become unfalsifiable and, as Barkun argues, “a matter of faith rather than proof.”
Clinical psychology[edit]
For some individuals, an obsessive compulsion to believe, prove, or re-tell a conspiracy theory may indicate one or a combination of well-understood psychological conditions, and other hypothetical ones: paranoia, denial, schizophrenia, mean world syndrome.
There’s nothing theoretical about it.
The alphabet agencies originally created to regulate industry and protect the people & planet have morphed into protectors of industry at the expense of people & planet.
Open your eyes.
“So, you still believe that 97% of climate scientists are beholden to government grant money? This argument never made sense to me. To what end? To ensure a never-ending stream of grant money to continue researching climate change? Why? I don’t get it.”
I didn’t say I believed it. I think its nonsense for the same reason that I think your claim about the physicists in AAAS that were surveyed are somehow in the pay of the nuclear industry is nonsense.
But, just to explain how their argument goes: Yes, they think that climate scientists have a good gig going, getting grants, flying off to conferences, etc., so that the incentives are for them to play up the problem. They use the term “rent seekers” that conservative / libertarian types like to throw around like you throw around “industry shill”.
Part of what makes this argument silly is that scientists are hardly raking in the dough…They didn’t choose science because they wanted to get rich but rather because they really had a passion for understanding how nature works. That is not to say that scientists are incorruptible or don’t have their ideological biases, but this sort of wholesale corruption of the entire field is just not at all plausible.
Another part of what makes it silly is that the people making this argument are just looking at one aspect of the various influences on scientists and ignoring the other aspects that go in the opposite direction (like the one you point out), the fact that scientists by nature tend to be cautious in making predictions, …
And, those are the same reasons why your arguments about the corruption of the scientists by the nuclear industry are no less plausible.
And, frankly, I think both you and Asteroid Miner are seeing the nature of the regulatory process through your own very different prisms. You see only regulatory capture by the industry and he sees only capture by irrational public fears that causes this so-called “regulatory ratcheting effect”. I imagine the truth lies somewhere in-between and that, in fact, it is quite possible that the NRC has done about the right thing, rather than going to either of the two extremes that you talk of. (Although I will freely admit that I am not up on the details of the nuclear regulatory issues enough to really have a strongly-informed opinion on that.)
I am actually quite a bit more ambivalent about nuclear power than either James Richard Tyrer or Asteroid Miner seem to be, but overall I find myself at this point being happier to see on my electricity bill that most of our power came from the local nuclear plant than that it came from fossil fuels. I would be even happier to see it coming from wind or solar (and I do pay an optional surcharge on the bill to fund wind power). But, there are real challenges with scaling up solar and wind to large fractions of the grid…Hopefully, we can overcome them, but until we prove that we can, I am overall happy to have nuclear cutting down on the amount of fossil fuels we are using.
Your Spiegel article is a de-mathematized version of what I have been saying.
Therapeutic Nuclear Medicine Springer 2012 ISBN 978-3-540-36718-5
Hormesis by Low Dose Radiation Effects: Low-Dose Cancer Risk Modeling Must Recognize Up-Regulation of Protection
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/119239051/Feinendegen-2012_Hormesis-by-LDR_Therapeutic-Nucl-Med.pdf
PNAS: Evidence for formation of DNA repair centers and dose-response nonlinearity in human cells
Contributed by Mina J. Bissell, November 1, 2011 (sent for review September 7, 2011)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2664640/#b81-drp-07-052
A short article with a clear hormesis graph:
http://atomicinsights.com/low-dose-radiation-doesnt-cause-cancer-helps-prevent/
https://class.coursera.org/nuclearscience-002/forum/thread?thread_id=343
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_hormesis
book: “Radiation and Reason, The impact of Science on a culture of fear” by Wade Allison. The Wade Allison in England, not the other Wade Allison at Harvard.
http://www.radiationandreason.com/
Professor Allison says we can take up to 10 rems per month, a little more than 1000 times the present “legal” limit. The old limit was 5 rems/lifetime. A single dose of 800 rems could kill you, but if you have time to recover between doses of 10 rems, no problem. It is like donating blood: You see “4 gallon donor” stickers on cars. You know they didn’t give 4 gallons all at once. There is a threshold just over 10 rems/month. You are getting .35 rems/year NATURAL background radiation right where you are right now if you are where I am.
Natural Background Radiation is radiation that was always there, 1000 years ago, a million years ago, etc. Natural Background Radiation comes from the rocks in the ground and from exploding stars thousands of light years away. All rocks contain uranium. Radon gas is a decay product of uranium.
Life evolved immersed in radiation.
BS. James Hansen, widely-regarded as the dean of climate science:
“Continued opposition to nuclear power threatens humanity’s ability to avoid dangerous climate change.”
Get a clue.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter/index.html
Those who are serious about global warming are serious about solar and wind power. If you are insisting that solar and wind doesn’t work, then you are not serious, you do not deserve credibility, and you are in denial of the facts. Who is going to be the champion of nuclear power, who has credibility? Not anyone who cuts down solar power and wind power. Not anyone who cuts down the leading candidates who are in favor of recognizing the urgency.
I think that at this time, if you were to get the deniers and obstructers out of the way, we could probably make a deal on a comprehensive solution which includes some nuclear power so as to get those special interests on board with a total package. But that chance is slipping away, so is the credibility of those who would defend nuclear power. Solar and wind work, and sorry to have to tell you but you can not roll out designs for new nuclear plants that are not even in the prototype stage yet, when we only have 40 years to get our new infrastructure built out. Even assuming the best case scenarios for these theoretical prototypes of new nuclear plants, the interest is simply not there in the private sector to take any risk, and they won’t be up and running in 40 years even under optimistic scenarios.
Solar and wind are ready, and they work – deny that and you are simply not serious.
Nobody is saying that wind and solar don’t have a role in addressing global warming. They have a 30 to 40 percent role to play. What is it about the wind not blowing all the time, and the sun shining less than 50% of the time do you not understand? .What will be the clean energy source for the rest of the electric power demand? It is certainly is not coal or oil or gas. What other alternative is left?
http://www.uwig.org/CRA_SPP_WITF_Wind_Integration_Study_Final_Report.pdf
Charles River Associates is an engineering consulting firm. They analyzed wind integration into the Southwest Power Pool [SPP]. SPP currently serves parts or all of eight states: Arkansas, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas and has members in Mississippi. The SPP has much better wind resources than Illinois does.
There is one word that is very popular in this report. That word is “Overload.” Wind energy causes overloads to the grid, breaking transformers and transmission lines. Another popular word in this report is “spinning” as in “spinning reserve.” Wind energy forces the electric companies to build brand new natural gas turbine power plants to make up for the intermittent nature of wind power.
What the fossil fuel industry likes about wind and solar power is that wind and solar force the closure of nuclear power plants so that they can sell more natural gas. Natural gas makes CO2, which defeats the “Green” project of stopping Global Warming. When the “Greens” campaign for wind and solar power, the Greens are shooting themselves in the foot. The Greens who campaign against nuclear power or in favor of wind and solar power are not really green.
Wow, I’m dizzy from all that spin. Good grief. Btw, natural gas extraction and use emits methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than CO2.
I presume that you understand that wind has a Capacity Factor of about 40%. So, with a simplified model of the grid, that would mean that it would be possible to obtain 40% of the electricity from wind with no solar. So, where would the rest of the electricity come from? It would come from backup power which would be mostly natural gas.
The wind blows only 20% of the time. Wind turbines are decorations on natural gas turbines.
According to more recent studies, renewables (wind, solar and water) can fuel 100% of the planet. The only hurdle is the greed of Big Fossil Fuel and Big Nuclear.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-path-to-sustainable-energy-by-2030/
http://www.go100percent.org/cms/index.php?id=94
November 1, 2009
See http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/design-cert.html
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission has certified 6 reactors for factory production. More certifications for factory production are on the way.
“Design Certification Applications for New Reactors”
copied from:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-reactors/design-cert.html
“By issuing a design certification, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) approves a nuclear power plant design, independent of an application to construct or operate a plant. A design certification is valid for 15 years from the date of issuance, but can be renewed for an additional 10 to 15 years.
The links below provide information on the design certifications that the NRC has issued to date, as well as the applications that are currently under review.
Issued Design Certifications
The NRC staff has issued the following design certifications:
Design Applicant
Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) General Electric (GE)
System 80+ Westinghouse Electric Company
Advanced Passive 600 (AP600) Westinghouse Electric Company
Advanced Passive 1000 (AP1000) Westinghouse Electric Company”
ABWR Design Certification Rule (DCR) Amendment
South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company
Which means: If you want a nuclear power plant in a short time, like under 3 years from signing to turn on, the US is open for business. Since these are factory built, turning on the factory means getting a lot of reactors, not just one.
5 more Design Certification Applications are Currently Under Review.
I am well aware that the fossil fuel lobby has made nuclear power pointlessly expensive by adding needless safety nonsense. COAL IS THE KILLER!
The plant up the river from NYC is Indian Point, not Indian River.
Nothing says DESPERATION like an industry that sends its shills out on a disinformation campaign. Your days are numbered, BigNuclear, and you (obviously) know it.
The NYT article was atrocious. Good to see it so thoroughly debunked for what it was. Deliberately biased journalism. I would add that even at first glance it was peculair to see an article in the business section that torally left out the comparitive cost of the generators which were being compared. I hope this piece goes to the NYT public apologist.
If nuclear power was as unsafe as wind power, nuclear would be the cheapest. Coal company shills have raised the price of nuclear with completely pointless “safety” and “security” additions.
http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html
As your quoted chapter says: “The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and its predecessor, the Atomic Energy Commission Office of Regulation, as parts of the United States Government, must be responsive to public concern. Starting in the early 1970s, the public grew concerned about the safety of nuclear power plants: the NRC therefore responded in the only way it could, by tightening regulations and requirements for safety equipment.”
“This process came to be known as “ratcheting.” Like a ratchet wrench which is moved back and forth but always tightens and never loosens a bolt, the regulatory requirements were constantly tightened, requiring additional equipment and construction labor and materials. According to one study,4 between the early and late 1970s, regulatory requirements increased the quantity of steel needed in a power plant of equivalent electrical output by 41%, the amount of concrete by 27%, the lineal footage of piping by 50%, and the length of electrical cable by 36%. The NRC did not withdraw requirements made in the early days on the basis of minimal experience when later experience demonstrated that they were unnecessarily stringent. Regulations were only tightened, never loosened. The ratcheting policy was consistently followed.”
“responsive to public concern. Starting in the early 1970s, the public grew concerned about the safety of nuclear power plants”
“Regulatory ratcheting is really the political expression of difficulties with public acceptance. In an open society such as ours, public acceptance, or at least non-rejection, is a vital requirement for the success of a technology. Without it, havoc rules.
It is clear to the involved scientists that the rejection of nuclear power by the American public was due to a myriad of misunderstandings. We struggled mightily to correct these misunderstandings, but we did not succeed.”
Which is exactly what I told you. The public has been propagandized by the coal industry into fearing all things nuclear.
Americans are paranoid about all things nuclear. NMR [Nuclear Magnetic Resonance] had to be renamed MRI [Magnetic Resonance Imaging] to get sick people into the scanner. It is the exact same machine. Only the sign has been changed. Apparently, the average American doesn’t know that all matter, including people, is made of atoms and that all atoms have nuclei. The NMR/MRI machine aligns the spins of the nucleons in the atoms in the patient using a big magnet. Since different atoms have different nuclear spin resonances, the NMR/MRI machine can see one element at a time.
Most Americans have never heard of NATURAL Background Radiation. Natural Background Radiation is radiation that was always there, 1000 years ago, a million years ago, etc. Natural Background Radiation comes from the rocks in the ground and from exploding stars thousands of light years away. All rocks contain uranium. Radon gas is a decay product of uranium.
The ‘nuclear’ problem appears to be a pathological instance of a problem that often happens in American English. Perhaps it is just laziness but people have a tendency to drop the noun from commonly used references and just use the adjective. I don’t know if you call this a dialect or something else. The problem is that after a while they don’t realize that this is what they are doing and think that that adjective is a noun that refers to something. There are old examples such as: ‘radio’ or ‘TV’. Or, in the case of ‘nuclear’ they are just very confused because they don’t even know what the word means but they clearly don’t realize that it is an adjective. Perhaps the problem is more basic than a lack of general science education. Perhaps the problem is that they don’t understand the grammar of their own language.
Hmm. And Londoners, in full command of the Queen’s English, were entitled by royal decree to use “underground” as a noun?
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/08/26/risk-fans-fission/
According to some, death will often ensue when an electric fan has been left running in a sealed room in which people are sleeping. This peculiar belief is widespread in the nation of South Korea, and nowhere else. The South Korean media occasionally runs stories about people who have been found dead in their bedrooms or apartments when an electric fan has been left running during hot weather. In any other nation in the world, those deaths would likely be listed as resulting from heat exhaustion, or indirectly from heat stress on an elderly person. In South Korea, however, no-one is in any doubt that insidious fan death has struck again.
In fact belief in fan death is so strong that the government has responded to community concerns by mandating that all electric fans sold in South Korea must come with a timer switch to cut the power after a few minutes should you be so reckless as to wish to go to sleep with the fan on, and people are encouraged to use it for their own good. Doctors, politicians and media figures solemnly warn people of the danger. The Korea Consumer Protection Board issues safety alerts granting the warnings official status. Doubtless, mothers drill the knowledge into the minds of the young, and another generation is indoctrinated into the gospel of fan death. And doubtless this virulent meme has resulted in many avoidable deaths in South Korea through the years, ….
“Power to Save the World; The Truth About Nuclear Energy” by Gwyneth Cravens, 2007 Finally a truthful book about nuclear power. This book is very easy to read and understand. Gwyneth Cravens is a former anti-nuclear activist.
Page 211: “In 2005, the production cost of electricity from nuclear power on average cost 1.72 cents per kilowatt-hour; from coal-fired plants 2.21; from natural gas 7.5, and from oil 8.09. American nuclear power reactors operated that year around the clock at about 90 percent capacity, whereas coal-fired plants operated at about 73 percent, hydroelectric plants at 29 percent, natural gas from 16 to 38 percent, wind at 27 percent, solar at 19 percent, and geothermal at 75 percent.” The costs per kilowatt hour for solar and wind are 600 or more times the cost for coal, and that is in sunny and windy places, respectively.
This is really quite simple. FAIR is a Leftist organization and has written an attack piece in support of the traditional Leftist antinuclear position.
OTOH, the two papers have done their research and have printed the facts.
If the Green fairy tale that wind and solar can provide 100% of our electric power was true, there would be no issue here. But, there is an issue here because that is only a fairy tale. The TJM study by engineers indicates that wind and solar can provide about 30% of our grid power and to do that will require natural gas fueled backup power. So, we will need other sources of power.
We will need enhanced geothermal power, run-of-the-river hydro power (that doesn’t have a dam that makes a large lake) like is going to be tried in Canada, and we will most importantly need nuclear power. We will need both the current Generation III and III+ reactors as well as the advanced Generation IV reactors to come in the next decade as well as fusion that is probably going to be demonstrated in the laboratory within a decade.
If we don’t use ALL of these, the Earth is in real trouble. The IEA predicts a 65% increase in coal use by 2035 and we need to use something else for that power. If we don’t have a plan for something besides wind and solar, we will be using coal when 2035 comes.
James Richard Tyrer is correct in saying that we need nuclear fission power Now. Without nuclear, we humans could be extinct by 2040.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800914000615
Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies
http://upriser.com/posts/study-predicts-impending-collapse-of-industrial-civilization
http://planetsave.com/2015/06/25/climate-change-induced-collapse-of-civilization-by-2040-reports-uk-foreign-office/
Scientific Model Indicates Climate Change-Induced Collapse of Civilization by 2040
https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28046-extreme-weather-could-trigger-frequent-global-food-shocks/
Extreme weather could trigger frequent global food shocks
“Accuracy Check on Predictions of Near-Term Collapse” by Barton Paul Levenson
http://www.ajournal.co.uk/pdfs/BSvolume13(1)/BSVol.13%20(1)%20Article%202.pdf
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/03/unforced-variations-march-2015/comment-page-5/#comment-627687
233 Barton Paul Levenson says:
http://www.lloyds.com/~/media/files/news%20and%20insight/risk%20insight/2015/food%20system%20shock/food%20system%20shock_june%202015.pdf
“Food System Shock” Food prices go up 500% by 2030. Lloyd’s of London insurance
“According to an analysis published by the journal Nature (9/24/08), nuclear power does produce 14 times less in greenhouse gas emissions than coal, and seven times less than natural gas—but twice as much as solar cells and seven times as much as onshore wind farms.”
The analysis described here was not “published by” the journal Nature, but was one of several described in a general-audience article on the topic. The author of this analysis, Dr. Benjamin Sovacool, is attributed with a multidiscplinary PhD in Science and Technology Studies, an MA in Rhetoric, and a BA in Philosophy. He has been an outspoken critic of nuclear energy.
The analysis of lifecycle emissions is highly dependent on initial assumptions; the assumptions of Dr. Sovacool have been among the most controversial. Though he is credited as a contributing author to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) AR5 report, IPCC has chosen to publish a median value of 12 gCO2eq/kWh for nuclear’s lifecycle emissions – five and one-half times lower than Sovacool’s estimate. According to IPCC, nuclear has lower lifecycle emissions than every commercial generation technology except wind, including coal, biomass, gas, solar PV, geothermal, solar PSV, solar CSP, and hydropower.
FAIR goes on to make the demonstrably false assumption that “nuclear plants need to be replaced with something when they reach the end of their useful lives”. The “useful life” of a nuclear plant is an arbitrary designation; there’s no inherent fault preventing nuclear plants from operating indefinitely, supplemented by periodic maintenance anticipated well in advance of construction.
An excursion into promotional, non-peer-reviewed “research” provided by Lazards follows (the investment bank recently handled General Electric’s $16.9 billion acquisition of Alstom’s thermal, renewables and grid businesses), and genetically-modified food, and other topics. FAIR concludes with:
“But wrapping political and ethical choices in the mantle of ‘science’ is what Porter’s column is all about—comparing to climate change denial the left’s failure to accept the ‘scientific consensus’ on nuclear power, meaning that 65 percent of scientists favored building more nuclear plants in a Pew poll. The difference between an actual scientific consensus on the physical fact of global warming and a political preference expressed by two out of three scientists for a particular energy policy ought to be obvious.”
Interestingly, what FAIR considers a “physical fact” gets less credit than nuclear from scientists polled by Pew: only 57% “generally agree that the earth is getting warmer due to human activity”.
My colleague filled out a fillable AU P 1018 document at this site
http://goo.gl/vEQoGX