Don't get me wrong -- nuclear waste is nasty. Nasty and more-or-less permanent. It's a compelling reason to be leery of nuclear power. But I'm not sure it's enough. The argument of the industry, taken up by some prominent enviros recently, is that we need a non-CO2-producing energy source, a big one, now, and nuclear is the large-scale source that's available. If you're convinced that nuclear power is viable, that it's a large untapped source of non-polluting energy, the problem of what to do with waste isn't all that compelling. Many people's intuitive reaction is: We're smart. We'll figure something out.
So Doherty doesn't even mention waste. He has two parallel arguments.The first is that the nuclear industry and its shills in the Bush administration are lying. Nuclear plants have been aging and crumbling since the 70s. The taxpayer subsidies the industry is after -- some $8 billion -- would simply go toward replacing those reactors. No additional power, or reductions in our economy's total CO2 output, would be in the offing for at least 10 years, and the much-ballyhooed "pebble bed reactors" would be online in 20 years at the earliest. Conveniently, this allows Bush's cronies in the oil industry plenty of time to squeeze every penny out of the declining oil market. Then, in 20 years, a new heavily subsidized and politicized industry takes over. As Doherty says, "It all adds up to a well orchestrated hand off from one powerful industry to another. Markets be damned."
The second prong of Doherty's argument is -- praise Allah/Jah/Whatever! -- a positive alternative: the "innovation economy." I quote at length:
This preservation of the status quo denies America the opportunity of a century: A chance to build an "innovation economy" that delivers not only energy independence but a booming era of growth--growth in large part made possible by transforming our energy infrastructure.Aaah. Like music to my ears.Economists and business leaders are increasingly talking about the next economic boom being based on innovation, on the application of knowledge to solve problems and deliver higher-quality services and products. To the extent that America can exploit our scientific and technological advantage to produce the energy and resource efficient products and services the developing world needs, we will be able to dig our way out of the insecurity, indebtedness and inequity that defines today's consumer economy.
The outlines of that "innovation economy" are emerging slowly, but distinctly. Information technology is driving revolutions in biotech, nanotech and materials science. Combining those technological innovations with innovations in the housing market known as "smart growth" --ending sprawl by integrating efficient transportation and healthier communities--America is poised to enter a new economic boom period.
That innovation economy requires clean, reliable, flexible and efficient energy. Clean, to mitigate climate change and improve public health. Reliable, to power the high-technology industries and services that require high-quality, uninterrupted power. Flexible, to accommodate the innovations in land use and transportation and the advances in efficiency that make turbines smaller and smaller. And efficient, to reduce overall cost and environmental impact.
Nuclear power consists of a small number of highly vulnerable energy sources pumping energy over long distances to consumers -- exactly the buggy, vulnerable, opaque system we have now, with new corporate masters. The alternative is an open, modular, distributed energy grid, which puts power -- both literal and political -- closer to people on the ground. Doherty paints a picture:
The resulting vision is quite elegant. Build a new building or housing development, and you can put a clean new power source with it. And it's not only dependent on natural gas. Wind turbines already allow rural communities to buy a town-sized wind farm and make money when they sell excess power back to the grid. As solar cells become more efficient, middle-class homes and urban rooftops could be generating--and selling--their own electricity. If that were to happen, big centralized plants couldn't compete with a network of distributed power generators. David will have killed Goliath.Bush is, always and everywhere, on the side of Goliath. Do enviros really want to join him there?
Comments
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joelgillespie Posted 3:40 am
15 Feb 2005
Joel Gillespie
Greensboro NC
(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
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dianebroad Posted 8:17 am
15 Feb 2005
In my work I help engineer renewable energy projects and, in some cases, fossil-fuel based distributed generation (DG). These technologies are ready, and there is increased interest on the part of the once-reticent utility industry. Detroit Edison is a good example. They use DG as a way to avoid constructing new power lines, increase system flexibility and reliability, and provide critical back-up power to some of their customers. They do this because it makes good business sense, not because some regulator is making them do it.
Wind power is cost-effective today, even here in the Northwest where we have cheap hydropower. With the extension of the production tax credit (PTC), we should see another boom year for wind energy installations. All we need to do is extend the PTC for a longer time, say 10 years, instead of the typical 2 or 3 years, with the seemingly inevitable lapses between renewals. A 10 year PTC would encourage wind turbine manufacturers to set up factories here in the US, creating good jobs, and further lowering the cost of wind energy. (It's expensive to ship a 1.8 MW wind turbine from Denmark to Oregon!) A typical wind farm, which today ranges in size from 150 MW to 300 MW, can be on-line in about two years, including permitting, engineering and construction. Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Montana currently have over 2000 MW of wind energy in the devlopment process, with over 600 MW likely to come on line within a year. With a stable economic environment (10 year PTC), Washington state alone could develop 6000 MW or more of wind energy in the next 5 to 10 years.
Distributed generation, that is, smaller generation projects spread throughout the grid, is also getting cheaper and more wide-spread, partly due to the lower cost of information technology. A thorough analysis of this industry was done by Climate Solutions of Olympia, WA. Their report, Poised for Profit II, outlines the emergence of this Smart Energy industry. (For more info, go to http://www.climatesolutions.org .)We don't have to wait 10 or 20 years to make this real. It's happening all around us, and only needs a little nudge and some leadership to really take off.
I am working hard to steer my current company, a small firm that once served primarily the wood products and aluminum industry, toward this new industry. I hope that we can get the word out that the innovation economy is a better choice for all Americans in the short term and in the long term, compared to nuclear.
Respectfully,
Diane
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jdhlax Posted 10:26 am
15 Feb 2005
All mining is very environmentally destructive, and uranium mining also puts additional radioactivity into our atmosphere. As there is no safe level of radioactivity, any addition to background levels is harmful.
Uranium is almost exclusively mined by Native Americans, mainly Dine (Navajo), who then suffer the cancers and other illnesses as a result. The traditional Dine do not have electricity in their hogons (homes). Non-native energy consumers who ignore this are being racist and/or elitist.
Nuclear energy is totally evil for many reasons and should be rejected out-of-hand by any thinking person. We need to constantly promote conservation and simplification of lifestyles, not how we can further destroy the planet to meet so-called needs that don't really exist.
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Spectrumist Posted 3:10 am
16 Feb 2005
The nukes that are scheduled to be decomissioned over the next 15 years represent a sizable portion of our electricity supply. The loss of these generating "assets" cannot be offset solely by renewable energy sources even if the renewable energy infrastructure is greatly expanded, largely due to the intermittant nature of solar, wind, and hydro power. 2000 MW (Megawatts) of wind power capacity, for example, cannot be expected to offset 2000 MW of fossil or nuclear; a more realistic evaluation for comparing intermittant renewable generating capacity with fossil or nuclear is MW hours per year as opposed to MW peak capacity. Power storage has real limits with current technology in terms of efficiency and capacity, so intermittant, distributed renewable energy will need to be supplemented by central station fossil or nuclear generation well into the foreseeable future.
In my view, expansion of fossil fuel generation capacity is not the way to go for all of the readily apparent reasons. Fossil-based DG may make sense in some regions, but here in the Northeast a tremendous amount of combustion-turbine generating capacity is sitting idle for most of the winter (and an ever-increasing portion of the rest of the year) due to rising fuel costs. Attempts to bolster the supply of natural gas by increasing the LNG storage and transport capacity may not succeed due to local opposition based on safety concerns. The way people are opposing LNG storage capacity expansion does not portend well for a future hydrogen-based energy infrastructure; the volatility characteristics of presurized hydrogen are not widely discussed, but this will pose a technological and public relations challenge will to delay widespread deployment of hydrogen-powered autos and fuel cells.
Regarding nuclear power, of course there are major drawbacks. However, the realistic, short-term options are limited and not at all appealing (more CO2 spewing coal burners?). I think nuclear power has promise as a 30 year bridge to a better future, but only if some of the major issues are addressed:
Waste disposal - A centralized processing and storage depot must be established, and all appropriate technology must be applied to re-cycle, encapsulate, and safely and securely store nuclear waste. In my view, this must be done in any case even if another nuke is never built to deal with the existing problem, so let's get it done.
Standardized Design - DOE and NRC must solicit bids for standardized design along the lines of the French model and then select a single design for all new nuclear generation projects. The free-marketers will howl but we must stand firm: no single standard design = no new nukes.
Renewable Energy Manufacturing Partnerships - This is the key element that makes the unpalatable nuclear option tolerable in my view. There must be a provision that any new nuclear facility shall work in partnership with a consortium of solar, wind, and other renewable energy technology manufacturers. The nuclear facility will be the center of a renewable energy manufacturing park (REMP) and some percentage of the power generated will be supplied to the consortium at a deep discount (free?). The REMP infrastructure will be partially subsidized and will be constructed in conjunction with the new nuke.
The REMP is the key, energy costs associated with the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines add a lot to the final product price and the energy used to manufacture these devices effectively reduces their efficiency. The best data that I have seen shows that currently, PV solar must operate for 2 to 4 years just to offset the energy used to manufacture the solar panel. If we are to see the tremendous growth in solar and other renewable technologies that we envision, the energy to manufacture the technology must come from someplace. Point of manufacture subsidization makes a lot of sense as well and could serve as the critical element that drives the cost of renewable energy sources over the tipping point where the technology becomes affordable for widespread application.
I know nukes are a tough pill to swallow, I lived two miles from Three Mile Island in 1989 and have tasted the bitter, metallic taste of a radioactive iodine release (true story!!) But, as I heard Christie Whitman say just the other day, "we can't just say no to everything". There are many voices proposing alternatives to coal and nuclear power, but I wonder sometimes how well-grounded the proposed alternatives are in terms of technical, financial, and (recently) political reality. Our challenge is to make the wise compromises and to promote a sustainable social and energy agenda at every opportunity; the renewed interest in nuclear power may be an opportunity for some bridge building in more ways than one.
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jdhlax Posted 9:33 am
16 Feb 2005
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