29 December 2008
Michelle and Barack Obama
Chicago and Washington, D.C.
United States of America
Dear Michelle and Barack,
We write to you as fellow parents concerned about the Earth that will be inherited by our children, grandchildren, and those yet to be born.
Barack has spoken of “a planet in peril” and noted that actions needed to stem climate change have other merits. However, the nature of the chosen actions will be of crucial importance.
We apologize for the length of this letter. But your personal attention to these details could make all the difference in what surely will be the most important matter of our times.
Jim has advised governments previously through regular channels. But urgency now dictates a personal appeal. Scientists at the forefront of climate research have seen a stream of new data in the past few years with startling implications for humanity and all life on Earth.
Yet the information that most needs to be communicated to you concerns the failure of policy approaches employed by nations most sincere and concerned about stabilizing climate. Policies being discussed in national and international circles now, which focus on ‘goals’ for emission reduction and ‘cap and trade,’ have the same basic approach as the Kyoto Protocol. This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat. It could waste another decade, locking in disastrous consequences for our planet and humanity.
The enclosure, “Tell Barack Obama the Truth—the Whole Truth” [PDF] was sent to colleagues for comments as we left for a trip to Europe. Their main suggestion was to add a summary of the specific recommendations, preferably in a cover letter sent to both of you.
There is a profound disconnect between actions that policy circles are considering and what the science demands for preservation of the planet. A stark scientific conclusion, that we must reduce greenhouse gases below present amounts to preserve nature and humanity, has become clear to the relevant experts. The validity of this statement could be verified by the National Academy of Sciences, which can deliver prompt authoritative reports in response to a Presidential request1. NAS was set up by President Lincoln for just such advisory purposes.
Science and policy cannot be divorced. It is still feasible to avert climate disasters, but only if policies are consistent with what science indicates to be required. Our three recommendations derive from the science, including logical inferences based on empirical information about the effectiveness or ineffectiveness of specific past policy approaches.
1. Moratorium and phase-out of coal plants that do not capture and store CO2.
This is the sine qua non for solving the climate problem. Coal emissions must be phased out rapidly. Yes, it is a great challenge, but one with enormous side benefits. Coal is responsible for as much atmospheric carbon dioxide as the other fossil fuels combined, and its reserves make coal even more important for the long run. Oil, the second greatest contributor to atmospheric carbon dioxide, is already substantially depleted, and it is impractical to capture carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles. But if coal emissions are phased out promptly, a range of actions including improved agricultural and forestry practices could bring the level of atmospheric carbon dioxide back down, out of the dangerous range.
As an example of coal’s impact consider this: continued construction of coal-fired power plants will raise atmospheric carbon dioxide to a level at least approaching 500 ppm (parts per million). At that level, a conservative estimate for the number of species that would be exterminated (committed to extinction) is one million. The proportionate contribution of a single power plant operating 50 years and burning ~100 rail cars of coal per day (100 tons of coal per rail car) would be about 400 species! Coal plants are factories of death. It is no wonder that young people (and some not so young) are beginning to block new construction.
2. Rising price on carbon emissions via a “carbon tax and 100 percent dividend.”
A rising price on carbon emissions is the essential underlying support needed to make all other climate policies work. For example, improved building codes are essential, but full enforcement at all construction and operations is impractical. A rising carbon price is the one practical way to obtain compliance with codes designed to increase energy efficiency. A rising carbon price is essential to “decarbonize” the economy, i.e., to move the nation toward the era beyond fossil fuels.
The most effective way to achieve this is a carbon tax (on oil, gas, and coal) at the well-head or port of entry. The tax will then appropriately affect all products and activities that use fossil fuels. The public’s near-term, mid-term, and long-term lifestyle choices will be affected by knowledge that the carbon tax rate will be rising. The public will support the tax if it is returned to them, equal shares on a per capita basis (half shares for children up to a maximum of two child-shares per family), deposited monthly in bank accounts.
No large bureaucracy is needed. A person reducing his carbon footprint more than average makes money. A person with large cars and a big house will pay a tax much higher than the dividend. Not one cent goes to Washington. No lobbyists will be supported. Unlike cap-and-trade, no millionaires would be made at the expense of the public.
The tax will spur innovation as entrepreneurs compete to develop and market low-carbon and no-carbon energies and products. The dividend puts money in the pockets of consumers, stimulating the economy, and providing the public a means to purchase the products.
A carbon tax is honest, clear and effective. It will increase energy prices, but low and middle income people, especially, will find ways to reduce carbon emissions so as to come out ahead. The rate of infrastructure replacement, thus economic activity, can be modulated by how fast the carbon tax rate increases.
Effects will permeate society. Food requiring lots of carbon emissions to produce and transport will become more expensive and vice versa, encouraging support of nearby farms as opposed to imports from half way around the world. The carbon tax has social benefits. It is progressive. It is useful to those most in need in hard times, providing them an opportunity for larger dividend than tax. It will encourage illegal immigrants to become legal, thus to obtain the dividend, and it will discourage illegal immigration because everybody pays the tax, but only legal citizens collect the dividend.
“Cap and trade” generates special interests, lobbyists, and trading schemes, yielding non productive millionaires, all at public expense. The public is fed up with such business. Tax with 100 percent dividend, in contrast, would spur our economy, while aiding the disadvantaged, the climate, and our national security.
3. Urgent R&D on fourth generation nuclear power with international cooperation.
Energy efficiency, renewable energies, and a “smart grid” deserve first priority in our effort to reduce carbon emissions. With a rising carbon price, renewable energy can perhaps handle all of our needs. However, most experts believe that making such presumption probably would leave us in 25 years with still a large contingent of coal-fired power plants worldwide. Such a result would be disastrous for the planet, humanity, and nature.
Fourth generation nuclear power (4th GNP) and coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) at present are the best candidates to provide large baseload nearly carbon-free power (in case renewable energies cannot do the entire job). Predictable criticism of 4th GNP (and CCS) is: “it cannot be ready before 2030.” However, the time needed could be much abbreviated with a Presidential initiative and Congressional support.
Moreover, improved (3rd generation) light water reactors are available for near-term needs. In our opinion, 4th GNP2 deserves your strong support, because it has the potential to help solve past problems with nuclear power: nuclear waste, the need to mine for nuclear fuel, and release of radioactive material 3 . Potential proliferation of nuclear material will always demand vigilance, but that will be true in any case, and our safety is best secured if the United States is involved in the technologies and helps define standards. Existing nuclear reactors use less than 1% of the energy in uranium, leaving more than 99% in long-lived nuclear waste. 4th GNP can “burn” that waste, leaving a small volume of waste with a half-life of decades rather than thousands of years. Thus 4th GNP could help solve the nuclear waste problem, which must be dealt with in any case.
Because of this, a portion of the $25B that has been collected from utilities to deal with nuclear waste justifiably could be used to develop 4th generation reactors. The principal issue with nuclear power, and other energy sources, is cost. Thus an R&D objective must be a modularized reactor design that is cost competitive with coal. Without such capability, it may be difficult to wean China and India from coal. But all developing countries have great incentives for clean energy and stable climate, and they will welcome technical cooperation aimed at rapid development of a reproducible safe nuclear reactor. Potential for cooperation with developing countries is implied by interest South Korea has expressed in General Electric’s design for a small scale 4th GNP reactor. I do not have the expertise to advocate any specific project, and there are alternative approaches for 4th GNP (see enclosure).
I am only suggesting that the assertion that 4th GNP technology cannot be ready until 2030 is not necessarily valid. Indeed, with a Presidential directive for the Nuclear Regulator Commission to give priority to the review process, it is possible that a prototype reactor could be constructed rapidly in the United States. CCS also deserves R&D support. There is no such thing as clean coal at this time, and it is doubtful that we will ever be able to fully eliminate emissions of mercury, other heavy metals, and radioactive material in the mining and burning of coal. However, because of the enormous number of dirty coal-fired power plants in existence, the abundance of the fuel, and the fact that CCS technology could be used at biofuel-fired power plants to draw down atmospheric carbon dioxide, the technology deserves strong R&D support.
Summary
An urgent 4 geophysical fact has become clear. Burning all the fossil fuels will destroy the planet we know, Creation, the planet of stable climate in which civilization developed.
Of course it is unfair that everyone is looking to Barack to solve this problem (and other problems!), but they are. He alone has a fleeting opportunity to instigate fundamental change, and the ability to explain the need for it to the public. Geophysical limits dictate the outline for what must be done5. Because of the long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the air, slowing the emissions cannot solve the problem. Instead a large part of the total fossil fuels must be left in the ground. In practice, that means coal.
The physics of the matter, together with empirical data, also define the need for a carbon tax. Alternatives such as emission reduction targets, cap and trade, cap and dividend, do not work, as proven by honest efforts of the ‘greenest’ countries to comply with the Kyoto Protocol:
- Japan: accepted the strongest emission reduction targets, appropriately prides itself on having the most energy-efficient industry, and yet its use of coal has sharply increased, as have its total CO2 emissions. Japan offset its increases with purchases of credits through the clean development mechanism in China, intended to reduce emissions there, but Chinese emissions increased rapidly.
- Germany: subsidizes renewable energies heavily and accepts strong emission reduction targets, yet plans to build a large number of coal-fired power plants. They assert that they will have cap-and-trade, with a cap that reduces emissions by whatever amount is needed. But the physics tells us that if they continue to burn coal, no cap can solve the problem, because of the long carbon dioxide lifetime.
- Other cases are described on my Columbia University web site, e.g., Switzerland finances construction of coal plants, Sweden builds them, and Australia exports coal and sets atmospheric carbon dioxide goals so large as to guarantee destruction of much of the life on the planet.
Indeed, “goals” and “caps” on carbon emissions are practically worthless, if coal emissions continue, because of the exceedingly long lifetime of carbon dioxide in the air. Nobody realistically expects that the large readily available pools of oil and gas will be left in the ground. Caps will not cause that to happen—caps only slow the rate at which the oil and gas are used. The only solution is to cut off the coal source (and unconventional fossil fuels).
Coal phase-out and transition to the post-fossil fuel era requires an increasing carbon price. A carbon tax at the wellhead or port of entry reduces all uses of a fuel. In contrast, a less comprehensive cap has the perverse effect of lowering the price of the fuel for other uses, undercutting clean energy sources.6 In contrast to the impracticality of all nations agreeing to caps, and the impossibility of enforcement, a carbon tax can readily be made near-global.7
A Presidential directive for prompt investigation and proto-typing of advanced safe nuclear power is needed to cover the possibility that renewable energies cannot satisfy global energy needs. One of the greatest dangers the world faces is the possibility that a vocal minority of anti-nuclear activists could prevent phase-out of coal emissions.
The challenges today, including climate change, are great and urgent. Barack’s leadership is essential to explain to the world what is needed. The public, young and old, recognize the difficulties and will support the actions needed for a fundamental change of direction.
James and Anniek Hansen
Pennsylvania
United States of America
——-
Footnotes:
1. Given the brilliant scientists Barack has appointed to his team, is there need for a National Academy of Sciences meeting? Yes, his team surely would welcome not only clarification of the urgency of the climate situation, but also interdisciplinary (economics, engineering, physics, biology…) discussion and evaluation of policy options. Barack’s first year or two in office is almost surely our last best chance to get the climate and energy strategy right in time to save the future of our children and grandchildren.
2. I am not referring to the DOE’s “Generation-4” nuclear program, which is a diffuse program that will not yield rapid payoff. Instead, as discussed below, there would need to be a Presidential directive to pursue a path(s) with the potential to contribute to decarbonization of global energy systems as rapidly as practical.
3. 4th generation reactors can include automatic shutdown in case of an earthquake or other interruption. It is noteworthy that, even with the presence of poorly designed nuclear power plants in the past, and in some cases demonstrably sloppy operations, the waste from coal-fired power plants has done far more damage, and even spread more radioactive material around the world than all nuclear power plants combined, including Chernobyl.
4. Urgency derives from the nearness of climate tipping points, beyond which climate dynamics will cause rapid changes out of humanity’s control. Concern about such behavior derives not from theory or speculation, but from improving knowledge of how the Earth responded to past changes of atmospheric composition and from observations of ongoing changes.
Tipping points occur because of amplifying feedbacks. Feedbacks include loss of Arctic sea ice, melting glaciers and ice sheets, release of ‘frozen’ methane as tundra melts, and growth of vegetation on previously frozen land. The surface changes increase the amount of sunlight absorbed by Earth. Added methane reduces heat radiation to space, amplifying the warming effect of carbon dioxide produced by burning fossil fuels. Analysis of Earth’s history helps reveal the level of greenhouse gases needed to maintain a climate resembling the Holocene, Creation, the period of reasonably stable climate in which civilization developed. That carbon dioxide level, unsurprisingly in retrospect, is less than the current 385 ppm (parts per million).
The safe amount for the long-term is no more than 350 ppm, probably less. Pre-industrial carbon dioxide amount was 280 ppm. Precise definition of a safe range requires better knowledge of all climate forcing mechanisms. What is clear is that continuing fossil fuel emissions will put Earth on an inexorable course toward an ice-free state, a course punctuated by increasingly extreme disasters with hundreds of millions of climate refugees. A large fraction of species on Earth face certain extinction, if we burn most fossil fuels without capturing and storing the carbon dioxide. New species may come into being over many thousands of years, but all generations of our descendants that we can imagine will live on a far more desolate planet than the one we knew.
5. Total carbon in conventional fossil fuels (oil, gas, and coal), if released to the air, is enough to initiate a dynamic transition to an ice-free climate state, a transition that would be out of humanity’s control. A large fraction of the carbon dioxide emitted in burning fossil fuels stays in the air many centuries. Thus the climate problem cannot be solved by only slowing the rate at which we burn the fossil fuels. Solution requires that a large part of total fossil fuels is left in the ground, or the carbon dioxide captured and stored. In addition, the unconventional fossil fuels (oil shale, tar sands, methane hydrates) must be left largely untouched or the carbon dioxide captured and stored.
6. Now, with oil prices down, is when a hefty carbon tax should be added. In the future, when the price of gasoline again reaches and passes $4/gallon, most of this cost will be tax, staying in the country, spread among consumers, and driving our economy to a clean future. The public can understand this, if Barack explains it, and they will accept it, if there is 100 percent dividend.
7. A carbon tax requires agreement of only several major nations. If any given nation does not apply the tax, an equivalent duty can be applied to their products at ports of entry.
Carbon trading: Worthy of Feinstein’s ire?
Comments
View as Flat
dwalters Posted 4:07 am
02 Jan 2009
Great stuff
Climate change activists and environmentalists need to see that Hansen's method also includes ditching previous opposition to nuclear energy. We can all learn a lesson from the good Dr. on this.
David Walters
Permalink
Peter B. Meyer Posted 4:13 am
02 Jan 2009
A FOSSIL Carbon Tax - it would help, but ...
I cannot quibble with the Hansens' science ... I am not qualified to do so. So I shall assume its validity. But their summary action agenda and the claims they make for it are another matter.
Move to terminate coal-fired electricity plants. YES, but the alternatives are not clear ... and many of the renewable alternatives require a new structure for the electricity grid for which the Hansens' proposals make no provision.
Carbon Taxation - fine, but let's be clear on what we're taxing.
-- We are NOT taxing all carbon generating processes if we tax oil, gas and coal at the port, wellhead, or mine shaft. (Did you ever light a campfire?)
-- We're taxing fossil carbon. We're also taxing petrochemicals and other industrial materials made from oil, gas and coal, some of which may not be carbon emitting, depending on the production processes involved.
-- We are NOT taxing biofuels, that some have argued are causing deforestation and thus removing badly needed carbon sinks.
-- We are NOT necessarily providing a progressive new tax: many of the poor live in badly insulated housing and drive old inefficient cars, so their proportional share of the carbon tax dividend may not cover the tax they pay. (This is especially true if they rent their homes, since their landlords have no incentive to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. Since those with available capital can spend to reduce their energy consumption while those that do not have such funds available cannot, this problem will get worse, not better, over time.)
The Hansens claim that, "Fourth generation nuclear power (4th GNP) and coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) at present are the best candidates to provide large baseload nearly carbon-free power (in case renewable energies cannot do the entire job)." They then call for a program of investment in those technologies.
I find this a formula for massive risk-taking that could - and should - be avoided.
-- We know that small scale renewables work, and that wind, water and solar power generating capacity has been increasing efficiency over time with minimal public investment. Why turn away from them? Why not give them funding?
-- Why assume that technologies that do not now exist, and all of which pose risks of catastrophic failures (or diversion of dangerous products) will be a panacea?
-- The answer to the first question of why not fund renewables helps explain why the new nukes and CCS are not appropriate objects of public investment: economists' analyses of the efficient ways to spend public resources to address the need to generate non-carbon-based power come to a conclusion based on past experience with subsidizing technologies: it is likely to be very inefficient.
-- WHY? Simple: how do you pick the right technologies to support when you have no idea what investment and investigation will uncover in the way of approaches to the problem? You can't pick because you don't have the data.
-- So, I agree that investment in new technologies is badly needed ... but I don't want to see any single group picking the tehcnolgoies ... putting all our eggs in that one basket.
Let's make sure that we provide a subsidy of sorts - or a guarantee of massive profits in the future - to those who can solve the power generation problem, let's modernize the power grids and transmission lines in the US - and across the globe - to facilitate use of decentralized generation, to transmit from windy and tidal and desert zones where we can generate power but not move it to where it is used, and let's make sure we reward those who might come up with ways to move electricity down transmission lines with less line loss - lower power needs to move those electrons. Then we are diversifying our portfolio of electicity generating options.
But let's also remember that there might be other power sources out there, and leave room for them. (What are they? I don't know ... do you? -- but that's why we need a diversified approach!)
We're going to pull out of the economic mess a failure to remain diversified in financial investments has created for our supposedly smartest financiers. The toxic debts remain and will continue to do damage, but they will gradually dissipate as drags on the economy.
It's not as easy to pull out of the ecological mess we've created by having an undiversified power system, too reliant on fossil carbon.
The last thing we can afford is to risk a similar lack of diversification in our hoped-for alternatives. Let's create massive incentives for invention and innovation - but under no conditions should we bet on any one or two technologies to save the planetary conditions that have nurtured us so far.
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 5:09 am
02 Jan 2009
*sigh*
Kind of a weird statement.
"Best candidates"
"Although they aren't anywhere near being ready."
"But they could be ready sooner if we give them a lot more subsidies than we already do"
Wouldn't that make them "not" the best candidates?
But I guess I can understand couched statements like that as chasing towards the political middle to for the mere purpose of consensus building.
Just kinda of a weird statement coming from a guy who says "We need to act as soon as possible!!!".
When the soonest current 3rd gen Nuclear powerplants are projected is 2020.
And 4th gen and CSS are hardly even in their pilot stages.
-David Ahlport
Permalink
hapa Posted 1:40 pm
02 Jan 2009
why don't people see this part?
that's very clear support for "repowering america" and other such high-speed plans.
this statement is carefully worded and highly accurate.
-- since we have one shot at this and one plan alone is not a good idea and massive climate system intervention is very hard to call "practical" or "possible" --
particularly in china and india, which do not have enough nuclear and gas plants in current operation to provide baseload power for their wildest industrial dreams, which is what they bring to the negotiating table.
this is a very simple argument of risk abatement. all that's needed is a promise to work on future nuclear and CCS in exchange for doing current clean power now. if they don't pan out, we'll know.
but look again at the opening sentence.
there is no doubt what is meant by this statement. but it gets ignored by both sides of the nuclear argument when they see the word "fission."
crazy.
Permalink
Bob Wallace Posted 2:14 pm
02 Jan 2009
Why don't they?
"Energy efficiency, renewable energies, and a "smart grid" deserve first priority in our effort to reduce carbon emissions."
Perhaps because efficiency, renewables, and the grid have small advertising budgets.
I have to believe that many of the pro-nuclear people who post on these forums are a) paid by the industry or b) somehow locked into the industry via their jobs or investments. 'Teh math' tells a rational person that nuclear is not a solution for our 'next 20 year' energy needs and cutting atmospheric gases Now.
I would expect coal executives see a limited lifetime for their plants. Feels to me that we've entered the 'end of coal' era. Advertising in the support of "clean" coal probably serves to extend the use of coal and every year further coal plants are allowed to operate means another year of profits for coal companies.
Putting most of your window on the south and including appropriately sized overhangs when you build has no budget for advertising and lobbying.
Permalink
hapa Posted 3:15 pm
02 Jan 2009
not what i meant.
every time i've seen this letter (and attachment) reviewed, the emphasis on nuclear R&D has completely wiped the letter's clear statement of a need for a gigantic existing clean tech push, from the reviewers' minds.
it doesn't make any sense. hansen was very public in supporting a smart grid and all renewable energy, mid-2008, and the letter endorses that as a first and major priority. i think maybe, in his mind, to say that we need that push now is like saying we need to breathe or drink water, because he's talking about eliminating coal plants in 20 years.
but he comes out with a word of caution not for joe lieberman, not for james inhofe, but for real serious do-it type people, describing a backup strategy, and instead of treating it as a backup strategy, saying something like,
instead of that, people try to turn him into a pro-nuke denialist fruitcake!!!
Permalink
BILL HANNAHAN Posted 7:06 pm
02 Jan 2009
Failure is not an option.
Generation 3 reactors can produce an 80 year lifetime supply of electricity from 58 pounds of uranium, Gen 4 reactors use 6 ounces. Coal plants burn 1.4 million pounds of coal, producing 2.4 million pounds of CO2 to produce the same amount of electricity.
Seawater uranium can provide several hundred years of electricity using Gen 3 reactors.
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/4558#comment-413193
A very insightful comment as fourth generation plants can reduce storage time from 130,000 years to 270 years (page 5).
http://www-pub.iaea.org/MTCD/publications/PDF/TRS435_web. ...
A good beginning would be to create facilities to mass produce Gen 3 floating nuclear power plants and as similar to Offshore Power Systems.
http://www.atomicinsights.com/aug96/Offshore.html
Another approach would be small reactor systems that can be mass produced in factories.
http://www.nuscalepower.com/pdf/NRC_preapp_mtg_072408_DES ...
Dr Hansen understands that nuclear power is the only proven technology that can produce unlimited amounts of clean low emission baseload power at an affordable price. To eliminate failure as an option we must push fission as hard as possible. If something better comes along that would be great.
What is the massive risk?
Which countries get over half their electricity from these? Denmark has been pushing wind with enormous subsidies since the 70's. As a result they have the most expensive electricity in the world, about 40 cents/kWh. They make about 150 watts of wind power per person, 10% of the U.S. rate, and they export half of it because when the wind blows they cannot use it all. They import hydro and nuclear power.
That would be high output wind, solar, cellulosic ethanol?
What is Dr. Hansen's secret connection?
Things Everybody Should Know About Energy
Permalink
Pangolin Posted 7:17 pm
02 Jan 2009
Faulty details break our trust
The bolded heading...
... supersedes the body text initiation:The rest, the majority, is about nukes and coal.
There follows no mention of specific energy efficiencies or off-the-shelf technologies that destroy "clean coal" and nuclear power in speed of implementation and cost-effectiveness. Ground-coupled thermal systems installed in all possible buildings would close coal plants down permanently. This isn't rocket science but pumps, piping and wells no more complicated than in many rural houses; why ignore this tool?
Dry rock geothermal, concentrated solar power and wind turbines together could provide several multiples of US power consumption, each alone, if fully built out. In combination a versatile, stable and affordable source of grid power is available without new research.
I can't find the words solar, wind, or geothermal anywhere in this letter despite the fact that they can be installed far faster than we can build clean coal plants or nukes. In the last five years I've seen solar panels installed over carports, houses, parking lots, gas stations, brewery's and bus stops. No coal needed, no nukes required and none built in California during the recent building boom.
In promoting the twin follies of "clean coal" and "advanced nuclear power" James Hansen drains the strength of his earlier work. Any place in the world can harness the wind, the sun and the heat of the planet right now. Most buildings in the world could be served more efficiently converting to renewables than continuing the use of coal, fossil methane or biofuels. These benefits are available faster, cleaner and cheaper than waiting for new coal or nuclear plants to be built from non-existent models.
I thought this was an emergency? Why promote fantasies while neglecting solutions we can install today or tomorrow? Solid solutions exist; let's use them first.
Put the Carbon Back
Permalink
Pangolin Posted 7:46 pm
02 Jan 2009
Failure is the default
In any complex system failure is the default. Our power supply interactions with our environmental support system is nothing if not complex. As it stands today; humanity will fail to quench global warming and suffer catastrophic environmental damage.
That's the default.
Any divergence from that is an option. In testing our options, such as nuclear power, we need to ask 1)Is it necessary 2)Is it safer than other options and 3)Is it faster, cheaper and better in executing a divergence from the default.
Nuclear power fails the first, necessity, as there are other options available most importantly, conservation. It fails the second, safety, with existing fuel cycles and reactor designs. It fails the third, speed and cost, as it requires massive centralized engineering projects and infrastructure to replace multiple approaches of the renewable grid model.
The ants are more successful in raiding my kitchen than my dog. They try everything while my dog is easily led to a point of failure. Like ants, failure of a point, such as a solar panel, is trivial as long as the majority function. Like dogs, failure of a nuclear plant is a disaster simply due to the scale of the loss. Nuclear power doesn't have the versatility or resilience we need to avoid the default situation.
Put the Carbon Back
Permalink
Bob Wallace Posted 10:29 pm
02 Jan 2009
Bill -
Why do You push nuclear? What is your motivation?
Surely you recognize that we can provide all the electricity we need with non-nuclear, non-fossil fuel methods.
Surely you know that "affordable" nuclear is only a dream at this time. It's unproven concept and would take decades to implement when we need alternative sources of power now.
Are you capable of sitting down and creating a non-nuclear solution on paper and then doing a cost comparison and time to production comparison?
Permalink
thollandpe Posted 12:25 am
03 Jan 2009
Efficiency first!
Glad to see efficiency put first. When are we going to get around to that? It's time we recognized it as not only an effective, but vital, strategy.
I love the ants vs. dogs metaphor posted by Pangolin. Because efficiency, cogeneration, and small-scale renewables are highly decentralized. That's why they are so difficult to marshal and promote, and all-too-easy to discount.
Let's march.
Toad the 12 sprocket
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 3:52 am
03 Jan 2009
Vagueness
From what I can tell, "4th generation" seems to be as vague a term as "clean coal".
What I think you're specifically talking about is Breeder Reactors / Fast Neutron Reactors.
-David Ahlport
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 3:52 am
03 Jan 2009
Basically
Plutonium/Transurenics based reactors
-David Ahlport
Permalink
BILL HANNAHAN Posted 6:13 am
03 Jan 2009
Comments
Some friends recently put an addition on their house. I recommended they look into ground-coupled thermal systems. They got three estimates, $25,000- $32,000. Multiply this by the number of homes in the country. Where are all the money, steel, copper, aluminum and plastic coming from? The CO2 released in manufacturing and installing all that equipment will be huge. Lots of gas furnaces will be scrapped, but electrical demand will go up.
Possibly true if money and commodities are unlimited and authoritarian governments use eminent domain to confiscate property and bypass environmental studies and permitting.
Frankly, just acquiring the permits, environmental studies and land to build the super grid this vision would require will take decades. With nuclear, especially small modular nuclear, the average distance traveled per kWh will be much shorter.
Sorry to here about your ant problem, maybe replace the dog with an anteater, but I like the ant approach. That is why my recommendation is to level the playing field, push every technology as hard as possible, and use whatever works best.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/10/8/163812/742#com ...
It is the most anti nuclear recommendation that is practical.
Why do you want to eliminate from consideration the one non fossil technology with the demonstrated ability to produce unlimited amounts of baseload power at an affordable cost? Could it be an emotional response to the word nuclear, combined with the repressed knowledge that nuclear power would dominate on a level field?
No, I am not, but I encourage others to do so and compete with fission. Why do you want to eliminate the competition?
There are many possibilities for fast reactors, sodium cooled, lead, and lead - bismuth. They could be used to drive conventional steam turbines or high temperature high efficiency dry gas turbines. We should explore all these options, we should have been exploring these options vigorously for the last 30 years.
Molten salt reactors using thorium, which is more abundant than uranium, have many potential advantages including continuous online refueling, even higher capacity factors, no plutonium production, and very low fissile and waste inventories.
http://nextbigfuture.com/2007/12/fuji-molten-salt-reactor ...
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/
Thorium is also a possible fuel using more conventional reactor technology.
http://www.atomicinsights.com/oct95/LWBR_oct95.html
Dr Hansen is not talking about business as usual. The Manhattan Project was signed into existence in 1942, and we had two different working models by 1945. Today's DOE would need six years to come up with a conceptual design.
If we recognize the potential cost of failure and put that into the equation, pushing everything as hard as possible is the only reasonable option.
Things Everybody Should Know About Energy
Permalink
Pangolin Posted 9:34 am
03 Jan 2009
The faster solution
An example:
Given $100K to spend on greenhouse gas reductions we could invest in geo-exchange retrofits now or nuclear plants now. If I cluster installation of my geo-exchange systems (4 homes) I can realize significant savings in the greatest cost of the system, the drilling for the ground loop. If I bundle systems into neighborhood or block thermal-service units unit costs go down again.
In any case average extra cost of geo-exchange heat pump system is usually recovered by the building occupant in 5 to 10 years. At the ten year point where the geo-exchange system has repaid it's investment and has been reducing fossil fuel use for 9 years the nuclear plant has yet to produce a single net watt.
If these same buildings add solar thermal and solar pv systems to their roofs at year five when geo-exchange payback periods start to kick in they could be at zero net power use by year ten. Due the the reduced load from the geo-exchange system the solar pv system can be sized smaller than on a similar house with standard air conditioning. Due to the ability of the geo-exchange system to use the ground as a heat sink the solar thermal panels need not be high-temperature metal tubing but could be HDPE plastics. Rather than being demand-sized the entire system can be reserve-sized by taking advantage of the thermal battery the ground offers.
So in ten years a cluster of four homes might convert that $100K into a net-zero grid demand with some residual debt on systems. That reduction in demand lowers the cost of building the proposed supergrid. It reduces current carbon output of these building to near zero and has a residual life of 20 to 40 years.
The nuclear option has still produced no power at all in that time with standard building schedules. The nuclear option will require acceptance of many multiples of the current nuclear power plants be sited, financed and approved by the public. Then it will require grid upgrades down the line to convert homes using natural gas and oil for heating to heat pumps or resistance heating. Probably using geo-exchange heat pumps. That's a lot of steel, pipe, wire and concrete to expend for a ten year delay in greenhouse gas reduction.
In comparison nuclear power is simply a waste of money. It will not and cannot produce "unlimited power" because we still live on a limited planet. It simply removes the power limit early allowing other resource limits to check the growth of the human race. It can't even produce the desired services of comfortable homes and buildings with anything like the speed of conservation conversions. The persistent myth of nuclear power as a preferable option is simply delusional; it has no basis in fact.
Conservation, solar, wind, and geothermal resources are the faster solution.
Put the Carbon Back
Permalink
Bob Wallace Posted 7:52 pm
03 Jan 2009
Nukes, smukes...
"Dry rock geothermal, concentrated solar...sun and the heat of the planet right now."
"Possibly true if money and commodities are unlimited and authoritarian governments use eminent domain to confiscate property and bypass environmental studies and permitting."
You honestly think that it would be easier to get the public to buy into the idea of ~400 new nuclear plants (which means new plants in everyone's back yards) than to go along with wind farms in the windy parts of Texas and the Great Plains, small footprint geothermal, and concentrated solar spread across the southern edge?
You gotta quit smokin' that stuff.
"Frankly, just acquiring the permits, environmental studies and land to build the super grid this vision would require will take decades. With nuclear, especially small modular nuclear, the average distance traveled per kWh will be much shorter."
It might not be the most efficient route, but we've already got the real estate to build HVDC lines. Everywhere is basically hooked to everywhere else now. Beef up the towers where needed and add another set of lines. We probably could convert a lot of our AC transmission lines to HVDC and move a lot more power with a lot less loss with the existing wire.
Certainly the case here on the NW coast of CA. We had to scale back our upcoming wind farm because the existing grid couldn't carry more surplus to the Pacific Intertie. Switch our existing AC to HVDC and we could feed significant power to everywhere from Seattle to San Diego. (Off Cape Mendocino is one of the great concentrations of great wind.)
Pro nuke people seem to think that the public wants more nukes. Even if someone actually invented a safe reactor the majority of the public would not believe them. It would take military intervention to build new nukes in a lot of the country.
Permalink
BILL HANNAHAN Posted 9:12 am
04 Jan 2009
Check your facts.
That is an interesting comparison. 1... Intense conservation with renewables. 2... Continued exponential growth with nuclear.
Why not 3... Intense conservation with nuclear, that is what Hansen is calling for. If conservation can eliminate coal plants, existing nuclear plants and hydro will be generating over half of our electricity, natural gas generates the other half. That would be a huge drop in CO2 emissions. Mass produce 150 floating nuclear plants to displace the natural gas and the problem is solved without messing up anybody's back yard.
Our existing nuclear output is growing faster than wind and solar.
Most homes are wired with enough capacity to handle electric AC, cloths dryer, and stove. The advantage of ground thermal is that it takes less power to run due to the more optimum heat source/sink temperature. Smart grid technology can smooth out the loads so that existing transmission capacity is sufficient in most locations with nuclear but not if we build massive wind and solar in the west and southwest.
Where are the demonstration plants proving deep well geothermal and CST will work in the south, and at what cost. What happens if deep well geothermal sets off the New Madrid fault and kills 1,000,000 people and causes $500,000,000,000 in property damage? Is geothermal insured for that loss?
HVDC power lines are more efficient over long distance than AC lines, but their power handling capacity is not a great deal more than the best AC lines. Just because a right of way exists does not mean you can send unlimited power down that right of way. The advantage of HVDC lines is not as great as people think, that is why we do not have more of them.
Power lines serving wind farms will be loaded at an average capacity factor around 0.3 while power lines from nuclear plants will be loaded at about 0.9 CF. the owners of lines serving windfarms will have to charge 2-3 times the nuclear plant rate/kw-mi. The average distance traveled for wind kWh's from Oklahoma going to the east coast, vs. nearby nuclear plants, would be over 1000 mi / 50 miles, 20:1, so the ratio of wind transmission cost to nuclear transmission cost would be 2.5 x 20 = 50:1.
Exactly my point. Once we accept nuclear power our energy problem is solved. We can move on to other issues like population and food.
"Zogby Poll: 67% Favor Building New Nuclear Power Plants in U.S."
http://www.zogby.com/news/ReadNews.cfm?ID=1515
"More than three times as many strongly supported nuclear energy than strongly opposed it. Two thirds of self-described environmentalists favor it"
"In mid 2007 a survey of 1150 people living within 16 km of nuclear power plants in the USA, but without any personal involvement with them, showed very strong support for new nuclear plants. Over 90% thought nuclear energy was important for future supply, 82% favoured it now, 77% said that new plants should definitely be built and 71% said they would accept a new plant near them."
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.html#opinion
People who live near existing nuclear plants are more supportive than average Americans. Some of the new construction will be on existing nuclear sites, like the two plants in Texas.
Dr. Hansen addressed this.
Next generation plants are specifically designed to absorb a full meltdown. If airliners could be designed to crash without killing anybody, would you say they are too dangerous?
Frankly they are too safe. If we took irrational emotion out of the equation we would accept a small nuclear risk increase in exchange for lower cost and shorter construction times. We could cut into the 20,000+ deaths / yr from coal much faster.
For years my recommendation has been to push R&D for everything as hard as possible and use whatever works best. Why don't "renewable" supporters sign on to this policy?
When the sun runs out of gas and destroys the earth, earth will still have abundant supplies of uranium and thorium. If intelligent life exists than, uranium and thorium may provide the energy to go to the outer planets. Fission is our longest lasting renewable.
Things Everybody Should Know About Energy
Permalink
Bob Wallace Posted 10:40 am
04 Jan 2009
Kind of boils down to this...
- Intensive conservation along with new nuclear at $0.15+ per kWh and which would not come on line for one to three decades, and leaves unsolved safety and waste disposal efforts, or...
- Intensive conservation along with renewable at <$0.10 per kWh which can be installed within the next decade or so with concentrated effort.
(I think Hansen an expert in climate issues. I suspect him under-informed when it comes to power generation issues. Same with some of our incoming administration. But all smart people and will look at the data rather than make "faith-based" decisions.)Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 4:30 pm
04 Jan 2009
Notes on a disturbing statement
This really needed to be said, but Barack will go with "experts" who tout cap and trade, the "free" market solution. The same sort of "experts" who caused the credit crisis and are now failing to deal with it. Hansen will be deemed to have no expertise in these business matters.
The measures he recommends will have almost no effect. It will not be possible to avoid disaster with any of these, or even with real solutions that are already working, spread as quickly as possible with WW II war production-like efforts.
He seems to have overlooked methane and ice melt feedbacks that have most likely pushed the climate past the tipping point already.
This is shocking and sad if this is the sort of information Obama is getting from our most respected activists on GHG climate disaster. This is what we had to ignore during the Obama volunteer campaign, the realization that the same old catastrophic conventional wisdom on climate change would inform the new president, even if we won.
Basically the battle has been lost in the transition, the teams of nuclear, coal, ethanol, and auto/oil industry lobbyists have hit the ground running, while we relaxed post election.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
vakibs Posted 11:23 pm
04 Jan 2009
bob
I am surprised you never get tired of churning out baseless propaganda. I think I asked you atleast 5 times on the gristmill blog to prove to me why nuclear would be more expensive than renewable energies.
Our last debate.. I quote
And your reply
When I gave you the exact requirements on cement, steel etc, it is precisely capital costs that I am quoting. I have left out fuel,O&M and everything else which are pretty cheap for nuclear.
Your bible of anti-nuclear propaganda (the RMI report) itself acknowledges that capital forms the bulk of nuclear costs. Everything else is pretty cheap for nuclear.
So let's get down to business. Why would capital costs of nuclear be higher than renewable energies, when it has lower requirements on every single raw material ?
Renewables need 10 times to 100 times more land than nuclear. If we include land-lease costs, nuclear would be that much more cheaper than renewables.
The fact is nobody with their head in the right place believes that renewables could be cheaper than nuclear power. That is exactly why every other country is building nuclear power plants and renewables still do not contribute to a decent portion of the world's energy portfolio.
So please stop being dumb. I implore you.
You can have any criticism on nuclear (waste, proliferation dangers, risk of meltdown etc.. all of these fears are again baseless, but atleast reasonable to have). But criticizing nuclear based on cost ? This should take prize as the dumbest criticism ever.
Unless of course, you are arguing for natural gas plants or natural gas + cogen plants which have lower capital costs (but much higher fuel costs) than nuclear power. This is exactly the trump-point of the RMI report, and this is why I criticize them that they are sold out to the fossil-fuel (natural gas) lobbiests.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 12:22 am
05 Jan 2009
Nuclear cost
From Romm's Gristmill article last summer:
Just for starters, this puts the production cost of nuclear power at the retail cost of electricity, leaving no margin to cover all the other costs utilities incur.
It's rising:
Another nail in the radioactive coffin:
You won't get off that easily on this cost point Vakibs. Lovins, Bob, and I had nothing to do with these utility industry reports and estimates, partially funded by the nuclear industry itself.
Will the mysterious 4th generation nukes cost less than these estimates? Doubtful, who knows how long R&D will take and what it will come up with? To beat these prohibitive costs nuclear reactors would need to be built from mass produced modular parts. And have a much simplified, waste neutralizing, "fast neutron" design.
Why? because it's turning out that just transporting nuclear waste to a repository is so deadly dangerous that it can't even be insured. And that makes it prohibitively expensive and risky.
Each cask on a "glow train" (the term for these rad waste trains, because they are like portable x-ray machines, dosing everyone along the rail way line) has the potential to release 300 times the contamination from the Chernobyl disaster. And each train must carry many casks to make the transport even financially possible.
There are over 3000 rail accidents in the US every year.
Maybe Obama ought to talk with Romm? Hansen hasn't kept up with the pertinent facts on nuclear power.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
vakibs Posted 12:34 am
05 Jan 2009
amazing, none of these reports answer my question
All these reports that you have quoted are either
(a) the quote of electricity by private utility companies which use nuclear power, but which want to maximize their profits (even if they could produce for much cheaper)
(b) the anti-nuclear propaganda done by private utility companies which rely on natural gas
All these reports say that nuclear costs are rising, which is true. This is because the raw-material costs are rising in the world market. But none of the reports explain why nuclear costs would rise higher than other sources of power production.
Specifically, if nuclear uses less raw-material than wind or renewables (or even coal plants), why would nuclear power be more affected by raw-material costs than anything else ?
Nuclear power uses less material for construction than wind or coal. The only power source which uses less construction material than nuclear is natural gas. Can you dispute on that ? If that is true, then why would nuclear cost more than wind or coal ?
Specifically, please point me to a report that explains why nuclear costs would be higher than other power plants, not just how the costs are rising in a few private utility companies.
All that I've been talking about is current existing 2nd generation nuclear plants (not even the slightly improved 3rd generation plants that are being proposed in the USA : which use less raw-materials than the 2nd generation plants)
This topic of discussion does not concern (even remotely) the problem of nuclear waste or the 4th generation plants that are being proposed to tackle it. So let's stay right on the topic of discussion.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 12:55 am
05 Jan 2009
Why?
I would assume that manufacturing and construction costs are the main problem now. But investors sure won't listen to our speculation when they decide wether or not to fund new nuclear plants. They consult these industry reports.
Here's another huge problem for nuclear fission, a possible breakthrough in fusion. It looks close right now. The French reactor has a net energy gain now, and is shooting for 10 times the energy output ratio to 1 part energy input. At that point they are claiming it will be feasible.
Is that 10 years away? A new nuclear plant will take over 10 years to actually generate any power, after the financing is obtained.
Roof mounted solar cogeneration will produce power a few months after it's ordered. Large wind machines in remote locations, free of NIMBY problems, go up in a year or so. The same for farm biogas operations.
Smart grid systems are being installed right now in Boulder, no 10+ year wait. Ground source heating/cooling systems are going in right now, all over the planet. Likewise plugin hybrids are being mass produced in Europe and China.
Mass produced, modular, waste neutralizing nuclear reactors that replace aging fission reactors are the only possible saviour of the fission industry. But why even waste money on fission anymore? Go with fusion, it can produce fast neutrons to neutralize the legacey of contamination left over from the fatally flawed version of nuclear power we have now.
Meanwhile close down coal plants first, then phase out nuclear fission and replace it with renewables or eventually fusion, to deal with the waste problem onsite, no glow trains necessary.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
vakibs Posted 1:42 am
05 Jan 2009
fusion has more problems than we know
I would be very glad if nuclear fusion works. We will have so much energy that ordinary people can do space travel :) But I am afraid this will have to wait for atleast 50 or even 100 years.
Even if scientists demonstrate a positive EROEI in fusion, there will be significant economic and environmental problems before we can adopt fusion. The first problem is about disposing the radiation containment equipment. This will be bombarded by extremely energetic particles and has to be replaced every 10 years. Such fool-proof equipment will be very costly to produce.
The good thing about fission is that all the technology is already tested today. Even waste-eating breeder reactors have been tested thoroughly. We even have commercial designs for these reactors (such as the GE's S-PRISM design).
This is false. Japan has installed nuclear plants in a record time of 4 years. And still we are not talking about modularized mass-produced small reactors. Such reactors can be installed even faster. When we have our planet in peril, we should do things in the fastest manner possible.
I agree that we should use electric vehicles, solar rooftops, windmills etc.. wherever they make environmental sense (I don't even care about whether they are economically feasible or not). And cogen plants are fine, but only when compared to coal plants. We should strictly keep in mind that they use "natural gas" which is a limited resource and keeps spewing CO2 into the atmosphere. After all the coal plants are shut down, we should shut down natural gas plants and cogen plants. Power plants which use biogas are fine !
But clearly, this is not the time for limiting our options in what to do. Anyone with a good idea should be made welcomed, as long as the idea makes environmental sense.
Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.
Permalink
BILL HANNAHAN Posted 4:50 am
05 Jan 2009
Hansen is no dummy.
Bob, you left out some things in your cost estimate.
1... The cost of the new grid required for renewables, not nuclear.
2.... Most existing fossil plants are getting old. Include the cost of the new backup plants or storage facilities.
3... The cost of the fuel for those backup plants, escalated over the next 60 years.
4... The cost of the carbon taxes on those backup plants escalated over the next 60 years.
5... Seasonal variation.
You are comparing proven (in France and elsewhere) technology, with a very simplistic and unproven model. Do you want today's children to go into the future without a backup plan?
Hansen has joined a growing list of intelligent thoughtful people who have looked at the facts and determined that fission has huge benefits and low risk. How many people can you name that were pro nuclear and are going the other way based on updated information?
What is your answer to this question?
For years my recommendation has been to push R&D for everything as hard as possible and use whatever is best.
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/10/8/163812/742#com ...
Why don't "renewable" supporters sign on to this policy?
1500 MW x 0.9 capacity factor x 1000 kW/MW x 24 hr/day x 365 day/yr x 0.25 dollars/kWh = $2.96 billion dollars in the first year.
1500 MW x 0.9 capacity factor x 1000 kW/MW x 24 hr/day x 365 day/yr x 0.145 dollars/kWh = $1.7 billion dollars per year after that.
O&M costs including fuel are a small fraction of these numbers. The plant will pay itself off very quickly at these rates, but with a 60 year design life I see no reason why it must be so fast.
Comparing the output of a plant that produces huge amounts of reliable predictable power with an intermittent unpredictable source, as if the two products are equally valuable, is a false analysis.
Drx, you should do a standup comedy routine at the next American Nuclear Society meeting, you would have them rolling in the aisles.
Most of the radiation health effects from nuclear weapons and Chernobyl are due to the intensely radioactive short-lived fission products. Chernobyl ejected one third of its core at the end of a long power run. A spent fuel cask would contain a small fraction of that, decades after removal with no short lived fission products and a much lower level of radioactivity.
The casks have passed violent crash testing, the trains and track are inspected. They are much safer than the average industrial freight train.
Coal trains contain uranium, radon, radium, thorium and all the other decay products of uranium and thorium. They are leaky glow trains.
Things Everybody Should Know About Energy
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 5:00 am
05 Jan 2009
Proven?
Perhaps.
But not commercially proven.
Saying that you can build something with deficit spending, and then run it as a federal monopoly isn't proving much.
-David Ahlport
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 5:09 am
05 Jan 2009
Also
If we want to talk about cost overheads.
What about Nuclear Waste, Decomissioning, and Geopolitical/Military cost overheads.
Those keep going up and up and up.
Renewables don't have any of that.
If anything, Renewables would actually lower the Geopolitical/Military cost overhead.
-David Ahlport
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 5:31 am
05 Jan 2009
HAH!
Aka. Easily accessible Nuclear bombs.
Great idea!
-David Ahlport
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 5:33 am
05 Jan 2009
Oh, and
I should have phrased it
Easily Accessible, Portable, Nuclear bombs.
Even better :P
-David Ahlport
Permalink
Jessica Barry Posted 11:07 am
05 Jan 2009
Experts
When it comes to the science of climate change, I would absolutely listen to what James Hansen says. He is the expert. But he is not an expert in other areas, namely energy technologies (and he says so himself) or economics. When it comes to deciding what technologies to support, I would go with Amory Lovins -- he's broken down all the numbers in terms of what is the best bang for the buck. No doubt, it starts with energy efficiency, but according to Lovins, nuclear is by far the most expensive technology. It would be easiest to just stop incentives to all technologies, place a carbon tax (or cap-and-trade), and let the market decide what technology wins. Why not? And that way, maybe it will be nuclear, but I would highly predict energy efficiency followed by wind, solar, and geothermal would end up on top.
Environmental Associate Kingston, NY
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 12:51 pm
05 Jan 2009
Yes Jessica
Let them compete evenly, but only after R&D on some of the more problematic technologies, like nuclear, "clean" coal, and agribizz fuel farming. The present approach on these is an expensive GHG/contamination nightmare.
I think subsidy diversion is the right way to even the playing field now. Take the 50 billion per year (at least) from corporate welfare for fossil, nuclear, and agribizz and incentivize home, farm, and business solar, wind, and ground source heating/cooling.
As these technologies overcome the effect of status quo monopoly pressure exerted by lobbyists and policticians at the behest of industry, say 5 to 10 years from now, drop all subsidies and compare the different alternatives on cost safety, climate effect, contamination, waste, job creation, ans so forth.
Then "let the market decide". once it is a real free market again, rebalanced to allow competition and innovation by careful re-regulation.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 12:58 pm
05 Jan 2009
Good point Dave
"Easily accessible Nuclear bombs."
These devices would need to be secure from tampering by anyone, especially terror supporting governments, who might buy them to generate power.
Pollonium for dirty bombs can be made very easily by anyone possesing a nuclear reactor. This makes nuclear power dangerous in a way that is hard to imagine that any security measures could fix.
Terror groups can infiltrate the site and make all the dirty bomb ingredients they want.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
BILL HANNAHAN Posted 1:40 pm
05 Jan 2009
Curious.
How do you turn a small pressurized water reactor, with 5% uranium 235 fuel, into nuclear bombs? The details please.
You got it right on the first try Jessica, explain it to these guys. But Amory does not want nuclear to have a chance on a level playing field.
Things Everybody Should Know About Energy
Permalink
amazingdrx Posted 1:55 pm
05 Jan 2009
How about it BILL?
Explain how you would keep Al Queda from getting one of their guys a night job at a Pakistani nuclear facility and making all the Pollonium they want?
Dirty bombs forever. As far as the nuclear proliferation nightmare can be foreseen.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin
Permalink
GRLCowan Posted 6:29 pm
05 Jan 2009
Polonium-210 is natural
In the aftermath of the Litvinenko story, journalists found persons they considered expert to tell them the polonium must have come from a nuclear reactor. However,
Some were put onto instrument faces, but there probably still are many bottles in the world, each containing a quantity of purified radium in a 0.1-g to 1-g-ish range.
In short, the materials used in Litvinenko's assassination are very unlikely to have had any acquaintance with any reactor.
Polonium-210 also accumulates* on the walls of vessels used to contain or carry natural gas or LPG. When the synagogue in Algeria was bombed with an LPG tanker, that was a dirty bomb attack.
--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)
* actually its parent lead-210 accumulates, but the result is a 210-Po activity that continues for longer than the 138-day half-life would indicate. Lead-210 has a 22-year half-life.
Permalink
lonelygirl Posted 2:33 am
06 Jan 2009
yes, let's do it!
Hansen's letter is the clearest explanation to date I've seen on what we can do to stop climate change, and gives me a lot of hope that we can still avert total climate collapse with some very appealing and concrete proposals. I'm very inspired by his proposals, and dismayed to see all the carping and negativity about it.
I just came back from a trip to India. It was very eye-opening. A number of the criticisms posted above completely lack understanding of the context of these developing countries. If we want China and India to stop burning coal, we need to give them a cleaner alternative that is dirt cheap. I saw lots of people burning trash, including plastic bottles. The air quality was horrendous. People accept it as just the way things are, versus what, not having a campfire to cook your food at night?
The average income in India is less than $800/year. Their standard of living is not even a third as good as ours in the U.S. Most people there own very little, material-wise, and they just don't have ease of access to material resources that we do, while we waste tons of resources every day and toss things out without a second thought. It's immoral and it's no wonder that these countries insist on their right to development, even if it pollutes, because we in the U.S. pollute plenty to support our extravagant lifestyles, while they struggle to obtain basic necessities.
The reality is that it's difficult to begin to even think of accomplishing things in India that we take for granted here. When the average "middle-class" family is surviving on $40/month after they pay for rent, water, sewage and electricity, not to mention the legions of ultra-poor families that get by on even less than that with no household water, sewage or electricity, it's hard to imagine a material reality of solar panels or ground-source heat pumps everywhere.
This was the first I'd heard that there might be a nuclear energy option that didn't create tons of hazardous waste for a bazillion years. That is really exciting news. If it's realistically within technical possibility, I'm all for pursuing it as a backup plan and sharing it with developing countries to get them to stop burning fossil fuels, which is what Hansen is suggesting.
Implementing these major initiatives and policy recommendations will put us on the right track to stop climate change. We can always implement additional policies to deal with any unintended consequences, for example if one is concerned that biofuels will displace forests if we don't tax biofuels like fossil fuels. After all, that sort of displacement is a concern whether or not a Hansen-style carbon tax is implemented. Just work to protect more forests!
I'd like to see a strong grassroots push for a carbon tax as Hansen proposes. Who will join me in this effort?
Permalink
GRLCowan Posted 5:14 am
06 Jan 2009
Dividend first
Hansen wants new fossil fuel revenue to be equally divided out. It would be very bad to forget that.
To have real grassroots (rather than just grossrats) support, the dividend has to be done first.
Existing very large subsidies from fossil fuel users to government should be paid out as equal dividends out first. That will do so much good that taking more money, to divide right back out, may not be necessary.
Dividend first. Dividend first. What was that rule again? Dividend first.
Also, gasoline and diesel fuel taxes, and natural gas royalties and retail taxes, should be returned on a per-head basis before any new fossil fuel taxes are enacted -- and when that happens, the revenues therefrom should be paid back to the citizens as equal dividends.
--- G.R.L. Cowan (Read my new paper. If you can't, please let me know how far you got)
Permalink
JBURKE Posted 9:55 am
06 Jan 2009
do-yourself-solar
I see how easy it is to get swallowed up in the "new nuclear" excitement. All those scientists are sure it will save the planet and humans from the climate change crisis. The "new grid" will allow us to utilize the new re-newables the scientists have in store for us all.
I have been working in the solar field for almost 30 years, promoting "do-yourself-solar". The grid means "centralized, distributed, addiction"! Making our own solar photovoltaics (PV) and solar thermal, will allow us the option to be more self-reliant in our lifestyle, and break the centralized grid addiction that has us all on the brink of climate frenzy.
Remember, the scientists told us that nuclear power would be "too cheap to meter", and that the radiation "might be good for us"!
We learned the truth the hard way. Do we need to remember that plutonium radiation remains deadly for thousands and thousands of years? Will the next generations look back at our frenzy and thank us for creating a positive, self-reliant future for the world community or tons of nuclear waste that will require constant vigilance and guards to keep the poison from leaking or getting in the "wrong" hands.
I have seen the look on peoples faces when they have assembled their own PV module and harnessed the sun's energy for their family to use. In Nicaragua, India, Haiti, Mali, Mexico and in the US, the technology is available for the low skilled person to take the steps toward self-reliance. A new grid is not the answer. Decentralized, local utilities, providing solar and wind power on a small scale. Not for prifit, but for the betterment of society, to save the Earth and defuse the climate crisis. The technology exists for a change, Now!
John Burke www.dadsolar.com dadsolar@yahoo.com
Permalink
Rmoen Posted 4:07 am
11 Jan 2009
Our only hope: replace coal with nuclear power
For the past 40-50 years America's energy policy was run by lobbyists and special interest groups. I'm hopeful President Obama will listen the to the scientists. I urge all environmentalists to take a fresh look at nuclear power. In the large global warming picture, wind and solar energy are sideshows. Only nuclear energy can replace dirty coal. The 4th generation reactors to which Dr. Hansen refers can essentially provide us with unlimited clean, safe electricity. For useful, objective energy information see Energy Plan USA.com.
R. Moen
Permalink
GreyFlcn Posted 4:17 am
11 Jan 2009
Why do Nuclear advocates
Always use the word "Only"?
As if that's their real argument that "No other possible options exist!!!"
Kind of a pathetic argument to make.
(And yet that's the one that they keep using)
-David Ahlport
Permalink
davedenali Posted 7:35 am
11 Jan 2009
Yes, Mr. Hansen, but.....
I"m an environmental leader, I've heard you speak and I've spoken to you. I admire you. But you're mistaken.
I don't doubt for a second that a carbon tax is preferable to cap and trade. But an imperfect remedy you can get through Congress is damn sight better than a perfect one you can't. You underestimate the success that the Republican Party has had in absolutely demonizing taxation. That success has done great harm, but it's real, we're stuck with it, and I do not believe a carbon tax could pass Congress. Nor do I believe the public would support it. In 1992 the Clinton Administration proposed a BTU tax. That trial balloon didnt last a day.
Permalink
GRLCowan Posted 11:31 am
11 Jan 2009
Are you all impaired in some way?
The public will support Dividend First. It's a tax reduction.
It will do so much good that increases in fuel-carbon tax, also to be immediately divided out, will not necessarily be a tough sell, but they also may not be necessary. When government no longer profits from fossil fuels, it will have no problem turning up at a householder's leaky house, local contractors in tow, and inviting him to stay in a hotel for a day or two, gratis, while they fix it.
Compare the present case, where discussions of such assistance in making houses efficient sometimes mention the free-rider factor -- those householders who take the people's money to do fixes they would have done anyway. It's almost as if finding those people, and funding them preferentially, were on the program managers' minds for some reason.
--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)
Permalink
Bob Wallace Posted 5:42 pm
11 Jan 2009
Bill - I'm late getting back to your question ...
RE: transmission and distribution costs for renewables vs. nuclear.
Here - look at figure one.
http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid467.php
There right there in technicolor for you.
And your question...
"How many people can you name that were pro nuclear and are going the other way based on updated information?"
I could start by counting me.
I used to think that the danger of nuclear and the unsolved problems of waste were something that we had to accept as a "lesser of the evils".
But as I've seen renewables develop and fall in price and as I've seen the price of new nuclear rise I now ask the question...
"How can anyone accept the risk and problems of new nuclear when it means higher utility bills and prevents us from dealing with climate warming for two or more decades?"
Permalink
GRLCowan Posted 2:40 am
12 Jan 2009
If you believe in many close calls ...
and, bafflingly, no hits, you were never pronuclear, nor genuinely pro-renewable-energy.
Similarly, a belief that nuclear power plant waste presents unsolved problems, despite its management so far having been completely successful in preventing harm to anyone, is never found in anyone who isn't trying to direct attention away from carbon monoxide injuries and deaths that are lucrative for him or her. (Usually through fossil fuel taxation. You really only have to fool one person.)
Pronuclear people believe nuclear energy is an optional good, not a necessary evil.
--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)
Permalink
BILL HANNAHAN Posted 5:17 am
12 Jan 2009
Snake Oil.
Drx, if the U.S. gives up nuclear power, explain how YOU would keep Al Queda from getting one of their guys a night job at a Pakistani nuclear facility and making all the Pollonium they want?
A simple, cheap, easy to build, unpressurized plutonium production reactor provides much higher quality weapons grade Pu than a commercial power plant.
Giving up commercial nuclear power does not make the world safer. It makes the world more dirty, dangerous and increases human suffering.
Would you close down all pharmaceutical companies to prevent a bio weapons attack?
The electricity we use in our home is only 1/3 of the electricity that supports our lives. Where will the other 2/3 come from?
Great reference Bob, a Rochard Test for energy bias, courtesy of Amory Lovins. People who believe that transmitting intermittent wind kWh's 1000+ miles costs no more than transmitting high capacity factor nuclear kWh's 50 miles, are sipping the Lovins Cool Aid. Nonbelievers see this as one more piece of evidence of Lovin's bias.
. I see Amory Lovins as the canary in the coal mine, with a reverse twist. When things are bad in the coal mine the canary dies. When our education system is failing, snake oil salesmen like Lovins thrive. Not that he is all wrong; the best snake oil has some active ingredients.
Things Everybody Should Know About Energy
Permalink
JBURKE Posted 9:06 am
16 Jan 2009
Do-Yourself-Solar
Bill - when we are on the way toward self-sufficiency and world peace, we will lose the yoke of the addiction that holds us back.
It doesn't really matter if the grid has fossil, fission, fusion or "other" power. It's the grid, thgat keeps us down. The power of do-yourself solar will be the start we need toward our clean Earth and reversing the climate change crisis. The power of the individual, one step at a time, can turn into the mass step that will create the movement to the self-reliant life-style we need.
Our families needs, energy and food, produced locally in our own communities, will give us the time to help our neighbors and create the positive attitude that our grand-children deserve.
We can sit back, throw money at the problems and let the scientists come up with possible solutions; or, take a low-tech, do-yourself approach, working toward self-sufficiency and efficiency on a family by family, community by community basis. The technology exists now for our recovery. It's up to us! Thanks.
John Burke www.dadsolar.com dadsolar@yahoo.com
Permalink
Bob Wallace Posted 2:10 pm
16 Jan 2009
GRL - not one option...
"If you believe in many close calls
and, bafflingly, no hits, you were never pronuclear, nor genuinely pro-renewable-energy."
I grew up close to Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility. I toured the plant back in the 1950s. I saw what they projected as the future - "the friendly atom" - and I believed that safe, cheap nuclear energy was the world's future.
But over time I became aware of the lack of "safe". A lot of it came from living downwind of Rancho Seco in the 1980s. Then, the more I read, the less I believed in "safe". As far as I'm concerned there is no safe nuclear. Only a record of one meltdown (and some close calls) and multiple significant leaks to date.
"Cheap" went away for me within the last couple of years as I began to read cost analyses based on inclusive numbers, not the simple-minded "too cheap to meter" PR stuff spouted by industry shills.
Likewise my feelings about renewables evolves over time. I once thought ethanol was the answer. Then I saw the math. Same with hydrogen. Math kills BS and false hope.
Now what I see is that wind-generated electricity is coming to market at very affordable prices. Solar PV and thermal are showing every sign of doing the same. That's where I am with renewables.
I'm a fact-based believer.
"Similarly, a belief that nuclear power plant waste presents unsolved problems, despite its management so far having been completely successful in preventing harm to anyone, is never found in anyone who isn't trying to direct attention away from carbon monoxide injuries and deaths that are lucrative for him or her."
That's just pro-nuke BS.
It's nothing more than saying the crackhead standing on the sidewalk firing his Glock in random directions is OK because he hasn't hit anyone yet.
Right now we've got spent nuclear fuel sitting in temporary storage in Humboldt County because there is no safe long term solution. None. Period.
The same problem exists around the world.
To blame the problems of nuclear waste on people "trying to direct attention" is highly intellectually dishonest and you should be ashamed of having such a statement associated with your name.
Permalink
Bob Wallace Posted 2:18 pm
16 Jan 2009
Bill...
"Would you close down all pharmaceutical companies to prevent a bio weapons attack?"
I think we can take this type of argument as a sign that the pro-nuke people realize that they are badly losing the debate.
Then when we read statements such as this we realize that they aren't willing to be honest in their discussions.
"People who believe that transmitting intermittent wind kWh's 1000+ miles costs no more than transmitting high capacity factor nuclear kWh's 50 miles, are sipping the Lovins Cool Aid."
It's not a 1,000+ vs. 50 mile issue. It's about the initial cost of the power being shipped. A small percentage loss of cheap power is very acceptable when compared to somewhat smaller loss of very expensive power.
Permalink