Comments vakibs has made

Selective love of Dr Romm

How does the your choice of Severance differ from the method employed by the Wall Street Journal op ed page to determine whether climate change is a worry?

Karen, that was a brilliant retort :)

What I find the most hilarious is that every criticism that Romm uses (from his reading of Severance article) is applied 10-fold to renewable energy generation : high capital costs, deterioration in cash flow, operating risks blah blah blah..

Probably this criticism is not applicable to energy efficiency measures (and conservation a.k.a starving yourself obviously) but wind, CSP and every other renewable kid gets the same criticism.

What escapes unscathed is natural gas generation (never mind the astronomical fuel costs). There are too many vested interests in keeping the natural gas empire alive - what with the geopolitical games they are playing in Iran, Russia, Central Asia, South America etc..

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

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.

if we tweak a variable, we fix that, not another

Environment is an extremely complicated system , wit h a huge number of interlinked variables. Not even the best climate models take care of all the variables.

When we tweaked a variable (increased the GHGs in the atmosphere) and screwed up the system, our first thoughts should be to set that variable back in place. Not to tweak another variable (albedo) in order to balance that effect. We will soon get into  a major mess of things : for example, rainfall variations turning riverbeds into deserts, decreased sediment of alluvial mud in the deltas, increased erosion by sea etc.

The fact is there are some forms of geoengineering that we could attempt which focus on just the GHG variable. We can suck up the excess CO2 by  reforestation (preferably by rapidly growing trees) spreading olivine mineral on the surface, and constructing some mechanical contraptions to rapidly absorb CO2.

Why not start with them right now ?

BTW, shutting down coal plants will do good too. There is no point one guy trying to put the flames down when another guy just goes on putting the house on fire.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

justlou & others

Please please please.. Go ahead and convince the people to drive less, Go ahead and build the railway network and convince everyone to use public transport. Go ahead and convince everyone to use less energy.

Nobody is stopping you.

If you are successful, well and good.

But please stop crying after "technocrats" trying to do their best to solve the problem. If you can't do your job, at least let the scientists do their job ! We are in a crisis situation here.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

arrogance is not green

Apparently, religious green activists can contentedly comment on genuine scientific interests as "baroque".

The Berkeley lab is headed by a Nobel laureate, for God's sake. He is a staunch convinced of AGW, and he is a brilliant guy looking for smart solutions. He doesn't need to tow to nobody's religion.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

nuclear threat is for real, think smartly

Nuclear power is not equal to nuclear weapons.

Nuclear medicine is not equal to nuclear weapons.

The current state of the world with respect to nuclear weapons is quite dangerous; terrorists might steal any loose nuke and explode it in our backyards. There is a huge amount of secrecy on the whereabouts of nuclear weapons.

More important than finished weapons, terrorists might get hold of "fissile material". Highly enriched U-235 or Pu-239 are just hanging around, in several wearhouses around the world.

We should seriously consider having a thorough inventory of the fissile material. And destroy everything that is not needed (ideally, get into a total nuclear disarmament in the world).

With regard to nuclear power, we have 4th generation reactors that are much superior to current nuclear reactors in terms of safety and proliferation concerns.

For example, IFR / LFTR does not require the enrichment of Uranium. No fissile material ever leaves the reactor. All forms of Uranium enrichment / fissile-material isolation can be outlawed by international law (by IAEA, for example), because nobody would have an excuse to have them in a world of IFR / LFTR.

All existing nuclear weapons / radioactive nuclear waste / nuclear fissile material can be burned in these reactors and the inventory can be rapidly brought down to zero. This is what we should do !

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

missing in carbon tax : carrots or pork ?

A carbon tax is easy to impose, and easy to monitor. As Dr Hansen explains, it is also easy to return the tax dividends directly to the consumers, so they would not feel the pain of a tax burden.

What a carbon tax does is simply this : discourage burning of carbon. This is what we want.

How it is achieved is a problem for which the market engineers a way out for itself. You don't need to lay carrots for the rabbit (market) to the way outside. Principally, there are several ways outside. What gets picked by the market need not align with the personal preferences of various green activists.

Another thing that we need to seriously comprehend is the distinct nature of our requirements (1) ensuring a moratorium on fossil fuels, especially coal (2) ensuring energy efficiency.

(2) DOES NOT LEAD TO (1). It is important to note this, because it is simply not acceptable that we lose the battle (1) at any cost.

So, this requires us to formulate two different policies to achieve the ends (1) and (2).

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

finally a scientist for energy secretary

ba-rock on .

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

dig holes every 20 years ?

.. to tap into nuclear heat that is deep underneath the earth's surface.

Why not build a small manageable nuclear reactor under the earth, and do the same thing ? Makes a lot more sense to me.

If we learnt anything from this climate crisis, it is that the earth's environment and ecosystem are very complex and interlinked systems.

We have no clue what will happen when we tamper with important variables in this system. For example, as amazingdrx said, the geological heat is a key link to the earth's magnetic field, which is shielding us from cosmic rays. We cannot alter this much - even at a local level.

It comes down to how respectful we are to environment and its complex variables. The same criticism holds for biofuels. Even if the technology is good on a small scale, it will be disastrous if it alters the variables in a huge manner : For the case of biofuels, it is fresh water supply. For the case of geothermal, it is geological heat. Just because we put a pipe down, and it is economically profitable to suck up all the heat, we should not abuse geological heat reservoirs. We should treat the reservoir in a sustainable manner - not suck it dry in 20 years.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

American - synonym for stupid ?

It is time that American people took offense to the way the word "American" is getting abused.

That's what they described. When I look at what a majority of Americans say is clean coal, the fact that we're using technology today to reduce the emission of hazardous air pollutants, and the fact that we will be able to over the next ten years to begin to bring technologies into the marketplace to capture and store carbon, that's what the American people believe that clean coal is.

Nationalistic sentiment never fails to rouse emotions from deep underneath. Spin-doctors like ACCCE are maximizing the use of this sentiment, to delay the shutting down of coal plants.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

deforestation is the principal problem

As we speak at this moment, forests are being cleared and species are going extinct. There is an enormous loss of biodiversity happening already. We don't need to wait for the disastrous effects of climate change to make things worse.

A zero-carbon future is a necessity. But even before that, we need to figure out a way to solve the deforestation problem.

The deforestation question is directly related to the fresh water crisis.

I'd say that has more to do with agricultural practices.

When the land becomes barren due to monoculture of crops, when rivers grow thinner and underground acquifiers get used up, farmers (particularly, subsistent farmers) have no option but to clear more forest land to grow crops. This is how humanity performed agriculture for thousands of years. This slash-and-burn agriculture is no longer sustainable due to our humongous numbers.

Providing clean fresh water is a must for solving the deforestation problem at its roots.

The second principal cause (though more visible) for deforestation is logging. Firewood is the only source of energy for several tribal populations. This has to stop, and alternate means of energy (electricity) should  be provided to the populations living around rainforest areas.

Electricity is also needed to solve the above fresh water problem (particularly in areas which are under threat of desertification due to climate change).

If we don't solve the electricity+clean fresh water issues (both of which are top priorities for the UNO anyways), deforestation and biodiversity loss is a given.

This threat is far more direct and proximal than the global warming threat, as scary as that can be by itself.
 

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

exchange heat from the underground

Geo-exchange heat pumps are a very nice way to store heat/coolness, and thereby to reduce the heating/airconditioning bills.

This is an ancient technology, first employed in Iran. Ancient Persians used their muncipal water supply system to do this heat exchange.

Heat / coolness can be better stored because of the advances that we have achieved in thermal insulation. (This form of energy storage is one of the plus-points for solar thermal power)

Doing this storage underground is a brilliant idea.  It should be  better than coupling the heating with the refrigerator.

@Gar

What you say is also very nice. Air-conditioning can take energy from the sorrounding heat. Ancient Persians have developed a technology, called wind-catchers to perform this in a mechanical manner using the flow of the wind. This can be done in a better manner by coupling it with electric air-conditioning systems.

@Amazing

Refrigeration costs can indeed come down a lot in the winter at temperate regions.Instead of just storing the vegetables outside (which is what I do  come December), it will be nice if somebody builds an appliance so that the fridge can do this heat exchange directly with the cold air outside. Are you aware of any such gadget ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

interesting article, colin wright

This article warrants serious debate. However, I can't say whether the authors are correct. I would still like to wait for scientific consensus to be reached on this theory. (actual article can be downloaded from here)

This article compares the relative effects of nuclear and solar power in a scenario of steady increase of energy use.

What it doesn't do is to compare the thermal forcing effects of (a) increased electricity consumption with (b) increased greenhouse gas emissions (c) increased deforestation and (d) increased melting of ice cover on the earth's surface.

As we stand today, not using nuclear power has a direct relation with (b) (c) and (d). The opportunity cost of not using nuclear power should be calculated by taking these into account.

Also, the thermal forcing that is mentioned in the article assumes that the heat is dissipated into the atmosphere and gets trapped there. This  is a danger with increased energy consumption, whichever energy we use ! So I hope we discover alternative means of dissipating heat (to underneath the earth or into the oceans, for example). It would be early to comment on the technical feasiblities.  

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

why i support gen 3+ nuclear power

@amazing

I have pretty much given up hopes that any "existing - right in the market" technology can make significant dents in curtailing fossil fuel use. Current generation 3+ nuclear reactors are carefully tailored to cater to new energy demand. None of them are planning to "replace" existing coal plants.

So is the case with wind or solar power. I don't see any of them shutting down existing coal or natural gas power plants. This problem is much more exacerbated in China (India and several other countries).

All these technologies have significant bottlenecks to overcome before they make a serious impact on the energy landscape. For the wind and solar power plants, it is simply their ability to scale up : their demand on land and raw materials is huge. Their requirement for investment is huge. I don't think I can convince any of you "wired-in-the-mind" guys but I will give another try :  Wind power has 10 times more requirements than nuclear power on steel and about 5 times more requirements on concrete. How in a physical world can this be cheaper than nuclear power ? Can you please understand logic ?

The current generation 3+ reactors have bottlenecks in the form of construction (pressurized chambers need specialized foundries which are non-existent), fuel (peak Uranium is nowhere as close as peak coal, but it is quite close if you consider country-by-country basis), and man power (nuclear engineers are running out, and we need a lot of them to man the active safety systems).

But still, I place my bets on generation 3+ reactors than wind/solar power to reduce emissions at this very moment. Apparently, the CANDU reactors don't have some of the construction bottlenecks, and this is the reason why the fossil-fuel-establishment fears them in the USA. But I haven't investigated this issue in detail.

In any case, I hardly care about reducing emissions. Because I believe what we need is a fossil fuel moratorium, nothing more nothing less.

We clearly need to have generation 4 nuclear power to achieve this. So I gave up on arguing on generation 3+ reactors. It is upto you guys who care about annual CO2 emission reductions, to figure out what are the safest bets. I hope logic wins in the end.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

wishful thinking on nuclear power

Bill, Nuclear power doesn't become a dead turkey, just because you wish it be so.

In reality, the world has seen a 3 fold expansion of nuclear power. This expansion is bound to be much larger in the future. Even remote and underdeveloped countries are investing in nuclear power.

You Americans have a choice of letting it all happen, and snoring deep in your sleep. Or you can face the reality of global expansion of nuclear power. In today's world, the dangers of nuclear proliferation are more than ever - as has been demonstrated by the smuggling of nuclear secrets by the Pakistani scientist AQ Khan to North Korea.

Global control of fissile material is a necessity. Whether we use nuclear power or not !

Japan has recently built gen 3+ ABWR reactors in record times of 36 months, for record low prices of 1.6 billions per GW.

But there in USA, Duke Energy finds it profitable to quote a price of 14 billion dollars, and still get to construct the plant. You have a problem, mate. That is your broken electricity infrastructure due to the deregulation boondangle.

BTW, these are comparative requirements of iron and concrete for nuclear, coal and wind power :

For each megawatt of power output from a new nuclear plant, 40 metric tons of steel and 190 cubic metres of concrete are required. For an equivalent output of 1 megawatt of power a coal plant requires 98 metric tons of steel and 160 cubic meters of concrete. A wind farm requires 460 tons of steel and 870 cubic meters of concrete.

Put two and two together, you will realize that nuclear power maintains its cost advantage against coal & wind power. The only place where it loses out is to natural gas, which has low capital costs but astronomical fuel costs. This is where most of this bullshit propaganda of nuclear-costs is coming from. Repeating this mindlessly will not only make you look dumb, but positively evil. I don't want serious environmentalists like you to suffer that predicament.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

jabailo rocks

I like his plan of using evolution to make us all resistant to quarter pounders, but then I have other feelings about letting McDonalds run for the next 25 million years.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Stop putting words into Dr Hansen's mouth

Jon

Dr Hansen didn't say anything about oil use because curtailing it is the most difficult thing to do. It is called smart thinking, keeping your solution as independent of external factors as possible.

Making the transportation electric is an important thing to do. As Dr Hansen acknowledges here, it is already happening. High oil prices drive people towards electric cars, more than anything else. When the electric car infrastructure gets a boost due to this, no force in this universe can stop this shift from happening. Even the best coal-to-liquid fuel cannot compete with electric vehicles based on price. And moreover, we have promising alternatives to increase the range of vehicles, such as Boron fuel cells. About public transport, it is already rapidly gaining favor in USA. It is a big hit everywhere else in the world.

Dr Hansen has spoken against tar sands, oil shale and coal to liquids program, several times. Please stop putting words into his mouth.

The only reason why he is targeting on coal power plants, is simply because they are the worst offenders. We just have a lot more coal than any other fossil fuel source. If we burn the planet, we will do so by coal power plants.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

joe raises the white flag

450 ppm is not an option. It is like playing Russian Roulette with our atmosphere. You don't know how many takes you get before you bite the bullet.

350 ppm can be achieved. Joe is right about his 8 wedge theory. But all these can be done; coal and natural gas plants can be shut down by 2030.

All we need is coordinated political will.

The missing ingredient in Joe's recipe (and why he raised the white flag) is 4th generation nuclear power. Sadly, Joe is unaware of the potential of mass production for 4th generation reactors such as IFRs. These reactor types have no construction bottlenecks, and there are no fuel bottlenecks.

In fact, we would have been mass producing IFRs at this very moment, if not for the bone-headed decision of the Clinton administration to discontinue the IFR project in 1994. The cost of stupidity can be quite high, as we realize today.

Let's restart the IFR project. While we are at it, let's also start the LFTR project. With the technical knowhow that we have accumulated till now, we can build prototype reactors quite rapidly. By 2015, we would have already open commercial designs, several hundred years of reactor experience (globally, we already have 300 reactor-years of experience in running fast reactors), and mass production facilities.

Let's cut the crap about cutting down emissions. What we need is a fossil fuel moratorium.

If Joe & co have solved the energy crisis by 2015, and shut down all coal & natural gas power plants (in the entire world, not just in USA), we are well and good, no need for nuclear. Otherwise, we will have a champion power source to vanquish fossil-fuels. A global fossil-fuel moratorium by 2030 can be easily imposed. This moratorium is a necessity for our planet. Let's make it a reality.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

I understand your point amazing, but

@amazing

"research" doesn't confirm that nuclear technology is safe or cost-effective.

Careful statistical analysis of the technology tells how safe a technology is.

Lots of reactor experience in running the power plants tells us further about safety.

Careful point-by-point break up of costs will tell us about how cost-effective a technology will be.

More important than dollar costs, environmental costs of a technology (land use, water use, requirement for mining, particulate air pollution, GHG emissions, potential threats to biodiversity) they can all be worked out through statistical analysis and simulation.

Under this consideration, nuclear power plants are the friendliest technology for the environment. Nonplussed ? Bamboozled ? Discombobulated ? You are not the only one.

Sometimes, truth is very counter-intuitive.

Please be more open on 4th generation nuclear power. It is a vital bullet that we need for preventing climate tipping points.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

cap and trade will not help the poor

It will only assuage the guilt of the rich countries, and lets them pollute for much longer into the future.

It is plain silly to think that extreme poverty can be eliminated by buying raw materials from a third world country. When cornered into a situation where they have no other option, most third world countries (atleast their governing classes) will welcome an opportunity to sell their raw materials - such as iron ore, gasolene or biomass. But this will do nothing to improve the economic situation of the general population.

The economic wellbeing of a country is directly related to how much the country is industrialized. When most of the menial work is automated, people will not have to work on back-breaking work just to have a meal.

The quality of exports that are beneficial to the economic growth of a country, in the long run are in the increasing order, as follows

0. raw materials and biomass
   
1. agricultural products
   
2. manufactured goods
   
3. services

Cap & Trade has no relation to the third world poverty. It is just masquerading as being so. In reality, it is a crime against the world's poor where the rich continue to pollute and put the planet in peril.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

biodiversivist, you missed my point

But of course, consuming less energy and energy efficiency are desirable things. But the way to look at them is not through a GHG framework.

I don't consider Prius, or zero energy homes as a global warming solution. They are sidekicks.

Please don't get me wrong. I am a big fan of electric transport and also zero energy housing (One of my best friends is doing a PhD on energy efficient house design). I think we need these efforts, even if there was no global warming ever happening. Encouraging people to use energy efficiency is a different problem from solving global warming, and it has to be tackled differently. We have good models of how to increase energy efficiency : California has been doing it for a long time. It has great benefits, both environmentally and also economically.

But this has nothing to do with the nature of the global warming problem. The task is to eliminate  (not reduce) fossil-fuel use. We need economic incentives to bring about that desired moratorium on fossil fuel usage, particularly of coal. Sean has several good points, but his plan has holes which permit continued coal/natural-gas usage just to make way for energy efficiency to be included in the GHG prevention umbrella. This is not a smart thing to do.

Let's solve global warming, and let's also bring about energy efficieny. Let's do them separately.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

emissions are not the problem, dependency is

Sean

I am sorry to say you are clueless about the problem. All the analogies that you make (quite creative BTW) are meaningless to the current situation.

You are fixated on "reducing emissions" which are just a means to an end. By doing so, you lose track of the real goal : which is to eliminate fossil fuel usage.

To the atmosphere, it doesn't matter when the CO2 is emitted : whether it is done today, 10 years from now or 100 years from now. It is all the same. This CO2 stays hanging there for 10000 years.

Let's say we have emitted X tons of CO2 in 10 years. If we reduce our emissions by 50%, (a) we will emit the same X tons of of CO2 in 20 years. (b) we will emit the same X tons of CO2 in 10 years, with double the economic activity (a distinct possibility due to rapid economic growth in the developing world).

By reducing emissions, we are just postponing the solution : which is the total elimination of fossil fuel usage. That, and only that, can ensure that CO2 levels in the atmosphere will not rise. Only after we have an alternative energy infrastructure, we can safely say "problem solved" (and start worrying about bringing down CO2 levels).

Particularly important in this task is bringing a global moratorium on coal, as elucidated by JMG. This cannot be ensured by pricing carbon emissions at the tailpipe. The only way to do it is keeping the carbon underneath. There are a fixed finite number of places where carbon is drilled / mined : imposing a carbon-penalty on these places will gradually bring about the moratorium that we seek.

( I like the word carbon-penalty more than carbon-tax )

What this exercise will not ensure is the installation of energy efficiency systems. These systems are beneficial irrespective of the nature of energy that we use. The best way to promote these is neither by a carbon-tax, nor by cap&trade. It is by direct subsidies to the consumers / industries who install these type of systems. How much of subsidy should the government provide ? We all agree that government should not be choosing winners amongst these type of technologies. So we should provide a subsidy based on exactly the amount of energy that each of these technologies conserve. These are hard numbers, and can be worked out. The subsidies can be set proportional to these numbers. No point of dragging down carbon-pricing into this business.

These are two different problems, and thus, be attacked independently.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

caniscandida

Really, you should be joking ? :)

What we need is a real mandate for the UNO, and increased democracy in the WTO and IMF. We need a strict adherence to the millenium development goals, and the deepest respect to human rights everywhere in the world (including the right to food, the right to energy, the right to health and the right to education).

Please keep the US presidency for yourself.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

cap & cap

Cap & Trade is a joke, because of the second part. The whole system is drafted as an elaborate method of making holes in the purported cap. This will never wean the world's addiction to fossil fuels.

Let's be sincere, what we need is cap, this is what we should be talking about. How to convince the markets is another story. But the primary objective is to eliminate fossil fuel usage (I call this hard cap 1 : This is set with a fixed deadline, let's say 2030). A means of getting to that end is reducing CO2 emissions annually (I call this hard cap 2 : These are set for every year : by a maximum quota that a country/region can have). So what we want is cap&cap, not cap&trade.

Please note that the hard cap 2 doesn't automatically ensure hard cap 1. There are several countries which are non-signatories to the hard cap 2 : what is the guarantee that China/India will not burn coal after 2030 ?

This is why we should be pushing sincerely and independently towards hard cap 1. The hard cap 2 should be obtained as much as the markets agree for it.

Now what is the best way of motivating the market  to fall in line with hard cap 2, (and to some extent, hard cap 1) ? A direct market mechanism to discourage carbon usage. (tax what we burn, not what we earn).

What is not a solution ? Carbon Trading. It is an expressly designed mechanism to help the markets get away from hard cap 2. The basic fault of this approach is that - we are setting the price of carbon in carbon itself (Fossil fuels, the unwanted monarch of our energy, dictate the currencies of every single country on this planet) . This circular nature will ensure that burning more CO2 is always profitable in the market. Carbon trading does not ensure (in fact prevents) the establishment of well needed infrastructure, new types of power plants and power grids, to help us step into a zero-carbon economy.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

how to solve the energy crisis

@tasermons

I am copying stuff that I read from the book of Tom Blees. I think what Tom says is brilliant; do read his book. (Please correct me Tom, if I say something wrong)

1. Nationalize the electricity industry, and run it by public utilities. It is important to do so, irrespective of which source of energy you plan to use. Electricity comes under what is called as a natural monopoly. It is in public interest to run it for non-profit basis. Even if we don't nationalize the industry, monopolies automatically arise due to the nature of the power grid. Any country which has a nationalized electricity industry (India, China, France, Japan..) has stable and low electricity prices. Deregulation and private utilities only bloat up the costs and discourage investment in much needed infrastructure. Furthermore, electricity is not a consumer good. There is no need of choice (as in between coca cola and pepsi). The electricity demand for a society is well known, there is no need for market disturbances.

2. Remove limits on the amount of electricity that individual consumers can generate by themselves at home. This can be in the form of energy efficient buildings and instruments, solar panels on top of the houses, local biomass plants etc. In fact, subsidize the installation of any of these devices so that consumers are highly motivated to cut down electricity use.

3. Bring all the big electricity production plants under a single public utility company. Impose strict deadlines on the shutting down of all fossil fuel plants.

4. Have an open design of generation 3+ reactors (with every country sharing their intellectual property) and do mass production of these modularized reactors. When done like this, new nuclear plants can be constructed at a rapid pace, and at a very low cost.

5. Revive the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) project and construct demonstration plants. Demonstrate the technology of nuclear batteries. Once these generation 4 designs are finalized, start building these reactors instead of generation 3 reactors (We will step into an era of no more nuclear waste and unlimited nuclear fuel).

6. Nuclear power will first be replacing coal plants in the G8+china+india (which contribute the maximum to CO2 emissions, and which already have nuclear weapons.. no question of nuclear proliferation). Very soon, the global nuclear power industry should be brought under a single umbrella and nuclear fissile material should be under the exclusive control of this inter-country organization. This global organization (called GREAT by Tom) will undertake the task of providing cheap energy to the developing world. Countries with no power grid (such as in Africa) will benefit by nuclear battery technology. All nuclear weapons should be eventually dismantled towards complete nuclear disarmament.
   

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

tasermons calm down

You are fundamentally wrong about two things

1) Renewables can be put up faster than nuclear plants, and they have a better hope of shutting down coal plants.

The truth : Small scale renewable plants can be constructed quickly, but precisely because they are small-scale.To make a reasonable dent in the energy landscape (higher than 25% say), it takes lot more resources and time to construct a renewable infrastructure. Don't take my word for it. Greenpeace is giving dates of 2050 and 2090. In the meanwhile, as you know, we are totally cooked.

2) France is subsidizing its nuclear industry.

The Truth : This is a joke. They can probably subsidize it for their citizens. But why would they export it to foreign countries (which don't pay them taxes), at a low price. Do you think the French are so masochistic that they run an export industry in order to make losses ?

The problem with you is that you had an overdose of koolaid that you've been drinking from sources such as this and this : which are loosely disguised propaganda to keep natural gas industry in the electricity business. (even when natural gas prices are going sky-high). Who is there to benefit from this ? Not the environment, for sure.

For a more realistic estimate of nuclear power costs, check the IEA report or the practical costs of how much the ABWR reactors costed in Japan.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

congratulations to American people

Be proud, this is a historic moment :) You deserve that statue of liberty, after all.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

nuclear is cheap, and this is why

If you please excuse me Sean, as any self-respecting computer scientist, I look upon PDFs converted from Powerpoint through a lens of suspicion :)

The "report" of FERC that you mention spends a lot of time on the rising prices of natural gases, which are alarming indeed. Should be a cause of alarm for any industry dependent on natural gas for power generation, don't you think !

About the increase in construction costs, mentioned in pages 6 to 9, they affect all types of power plants. In fact, wind and solar power installations need more construction materials than nuclear. The reason why the FERC-lord concentrated only on nuclear power on the page 7 is because he didn't even consider renewables as a reasonable alternative. Nuclear has more construction costs than only one source - natural gas plants. This is exactly to whom the FERC-lord has sold his soul, for the sake of some natural gas royalties.

The interesting joke is on the page 11, where the pink bar (estimated 2008 costs) are lower for wind, geothermal and solar.. than for nuclear. This is more so when you see the yellow bar (2003 costs) are quite low for nuclear. There are two things hidden under this lie (1) wind has a capacity factor of around 30%, so you have to essentially multiply by 3 the estimate for wind (2) there is absolutely no data to support why solar/wind/geothermal would be less affected by construction costs than nuclear (Considering their low power density, they would need more cement, wouldn't they ?). In fact experience shows otherwise, several investors are pulling off funds from renewable technologies amidst market blues.

Now, for some serious business. The internal costs for nuclear power are well-known, and reported by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in comparison with several other sources of power. Practical costs of nuclear power are also well known, as paid by consumers in nuclear powered countries. I live in France, and we pay 3 cents per KWH here.

Don't get me wrong - it is cheap to run if you're willing to sacrifice capital recovery, and if we are willing to pay 7 - 8 cents/kWh for the environmental benefits of nuclear, it will likely get built...

This is a disingenuous black lie. Nuclear needs no public subsidy to get built. Guess what ? The dark side of the force is already planning to use nuclear power : to get oil from the tar sands and make money out of it. Why did they choose nuclear power and not some wind power to do the job, if nuclear is supposed to be so very expensive ?

The 3rd generation nuclear plants that are in proposal such as the AP-1000 are essentially simplified versions of the current 2nd generation plants. They have fewer valves and pipes. They should take less money to build, and less time as well (since we have a lot of industrial experience over the years). The AP-1000 reactor is being quoted at 1.2 billion dollars per GW. If you don't trust the numbers in USA, you can look at the equivalent numbers of the new ABWR reactors constructed in Japan. They tally superbly well.

In fact, 4th generation reactors (such as the IFR) will be even cheaper. Because of passive safety systems, the need for external safety valves will be gone.

None of this is to assure you that electricity prices in the USA will fall down : they might indeed remain sky-high, with your deregulated industry swamped with private utilities, it is quite possible.

You should refer to my earlier comment on  the "null hypothesis on nuclear power". Intuitively speaking, we expect nuclear power to be cheap : the reason is its extremely high power density. If this is not cheap, it means there is something quite weird. It is imperative for anti-nukes to explain why nuclear is expensive; this takes more than quoting from a FERC-lord. This means dissecting how the comparative construction costs (or distribution costs) will be cheaper for wind/solar than for nuclear. Nobody has ever come up to me with an explanation why, becuase such an explanation is impossible to find.

Don't get me wrong. I like wind and solar power. (But I hate fossil-fuel driven CHP plants). I am completely confident that a pure solar energy plan is feasible. It is even economically profitable. But it is way short of being the optimal plan - either in terms of economics, or in terms of environmental impact.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

a detour on electric vehicles.

Dr Mackay has done extensive performance tests on electric vehicles. What he found is that a car that you can buy out there in the market will need 21 kWh per 100 km. In money terms, it translates to 2.1 pence per km (assuming 10 pence per kwh). Since the energy consumption wouldn't change from UK to the USA, and assuming an electricity rate of 10 cents per KWH in the USA, you would need 2.1 cents to run a KM on these cars.

The average mileage of a gasolene car (or an ethanol car) is 33 miles (53 kilometres) per gallon. Since gasolene is costing around 260 cents per gallon in the USA, in money terms it would be 4.9 cents per KM.

Electric vehicles are half as expensive as gasolene vehicles, and this is about today. You can work out on how long it takes for an electric vehicle to pay for itself.

I believe that (I qualify my statements as you have requested) this disparity will rise further in the future due to rise in gas prices.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Let's be honest Sean : nuclear is cheap

I am not in the least connected to the US nuclear industry. In fact, I am not even a US citizen.

When I hear this pure unadulterated nonsense about nuclear power being expensive, repeated umpteen times, I am at an utter loss for words.

You can dissect the costs of nuclear power : construction costs + fuel costs + land lease costs + operating costs + decommissioning costs +  waste management costs and so on.. We have a lot of data on each of these costs. None of this is mysterious. When you add up all of these you get the internalized-costs of nuclear power. As reported by varied kinds of studies, nuclear power is always the cheapest or the second cheapest source of electric power. Only big hydro projects end up being slightly cheaper. All fossil fuel power plants have high fuel costs (nuclear fuel costs are bare minimum). All renewable technologies have much higher construction costs than nuclear.

When you want to consider external costs (risks to the environment, society etc), again nuclear ends up being at the bottom of the list, as studied by the ExternE report. Only wind power has lower external costs.

All kinds of objective studies report nuclear power to be about the cheapest source of electricity. Good case study : France (with 80% nuclear + 20% hydro) has about the cheapest electricity prices in Europe. Czech republic has even lower nuclear electricity prices. Denmark, the blue-eyed boy of wind power, has the highest prices.

None of this is surprising. If you want to repudiate the fact that nuclear power is cheap, the task is easy. Take a paper and pencil and dissect the costs of nuclear power. Get the corresponding costs for any renewable competition. It is easy to see that the requirements (land+construction materials etc) are lower for nuclear.

Don't hear me wrong. I am not against energy efficiency mechanisms, or careful use of extra heat during electric power generation. Both of these are as compatible with nuclear power as they are with renewables.

But I am strictly against comparing any power dependent on fossil fuels with nuclear energy.

It is utlimately upto the American people to make a wise decision on the future of energy. Whether they like it or not, Russia, India, Japan and China (not to mention France) have already realized the potential of nuclear power. Unlike USA, they don't have private utilities and stupid legal loopholes to delay the construction of nuclear plants.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

anti nuclear activists are of two types

The first type are ones who are completely aware of the technology, who realize its potential to produce massive amounts of power while creating minimal (or zero) environmental impact, but who still oppose nuclear power for several reasons. They might be directly working in tandem with fossil fuel companies - such as Mr. Amory Lovins of RMI, or the former head of DOE Hazel O'Leary. They accept the eventuality of a nuclear powerered future, but would like to delay it as much as possible so that their fossil-fuel friends can maximize their profits in the meanwhile. They might also oppose nuclear power for philosophical reasons - they hate consumption and would like mankind to lead an ascetic lifestyles. They spread misinformation on nuclear power to suit their ideologies. All these kind of people are beyond my hope; I cannot hope to win them with a conversation extolling the benefits of 4th generation nuclear power.

But the majority of anti-nuclear activists oppose nuclear power due to strong valid reasons. They feel strongly on the issues of nuclear waste, nuclear radiation and the symbiotic existence of nuclear power plants with the nuclear weapons industry. My task is to win the hearts of those people by explaining the facts in favor of nuclear power. To do this, I have to work not only on a logical plane, but also on an emotional plane. None of this would be easy. But in front of the daunting challenges that we humans are facing now - global warming, water wars, market volatility due to energy prices, terrorism and unequal wars : I think reason has a good chance to win.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

tasermons, a secret

Greenpeace is a bunch of gollums (golli ?) :  people who started out with clear intentions, but who got sold out to the fossil fuel interests in the end.

...at our current rate and increase in consumption of fossil fuels, we'll run out long before 2090.

Here you miss a fundamental point. Greenpeace (gollum) is out there to service fossil fuel interets (sauron), until that moment in the future where we no longer have fossil fuels. Squeeze all the juice that is there out of oil, gas and maybe coal. All the super-corporations will then be happy.. their investments will have to pay to the last drop. A tiny bit of their money will eventually change hands, to wet the hands of their stooges; the top-bosses in greenpeace and the like.

The foot-soldiers of these organizations will keep shouting at the top of their voice, thinking that they are doing a service to the world.

Now the secret is that this doesn't have to be this way. If we have the will, we can phase out all forms of fossil fuels by 2030, or even earlier. All coal and natural gas plants should be replaced with 4th generation nuclear power.

All the good stuff that is coming out of installing energy efficiency, wind and solar power systems can be a welcome addition in this process.

For a smarter plan, please check out the book of Tom Blees : Prescription for the Planet.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

david bradish is talking too rapidly

@David Bradish

China is not replacing coal with nuclear. And neither is USA planning to do so, with these new 45 nuclear plants of McCain.

All these new nuclear plants will be towards satisfying the new energy demand, which will be rising in the future. If we keep going like how we are, we will be burning more and more coal. Thank you ! The data collected by Dr Hansen attests to this very fact.

Please take that "We are here to save the world" hat off, Mr Bradish. The NEI is not doing as much as it should, towards promoting new reactor types which have a better chance at "replacing" coal plants.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

jon raises good points

I personally would like to have democratic means of oversight on nuclear power plants and fissile material. It is a great thing if they are run by governments (or better, by a global organization). But in reality, they will be run by private companies..

Market mechanisms are notorious for thwarting any investment opportunity that requires them to wait. Thinking on short term profits is good, but is prone to financial boom and bust cycles, as we can all attest at this very moment. It is a shortcoming of our current economic system.

I would not want to leave the climate crisis at the mercy of market mechanisms, expecting a miraculous cure. Joe Romm has been as forthcoming as I am, in a recent blog.

About the 5th concern of Jon on nuclear fuel, it is utter bogus. I will be a very happy man if that is true; because it would mean breeder reactors will automatically become profitable. This is unfortunately not the case - Uranium prices are very low, and there is plenty of it there to last for several hundreds of years.

About the 6th concern, we need to rapidly modify our thinking on nuclear proliferation. As we stand today, nuclear proliferation is already happening amongst the worst regimes in the world. So far, our policy has been that we can restrict access to technology and nobody will dare poke into the nuclear pie. This thinking is quite inane.

We should be serious about the very real threat of a nuclear terrorist explosion. The only way to prevent it is by complete oversight on fissile material everywhere in the world. This can be achieved only by a functional international organization. Tom Blees has a nice suggestion on this in his book.

@amazing

I think the use of sea water for turning nuclear power turbines has been studied quite well. I don't know if there are any plants implementing these designs already. We need to subject the seawater to some treatment first of course, but we don't need fresh water to begin with.

By the way, fast reactors (such as IFR) have much less requirements on water, as they use liquid Sodium/lead coolants.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Null Hypothesis on nuclear power

Let me give a word of advice to all you anti-nukes. Before you dump your arguments that nuclear power is costly etc, you should know what you are up against.

You are up against the null hypothesis, which is in favor of nuclear power.

I will explain. You calculate the amount of energy required for nuclear plant construction + the amount of energy needed in mining the required materials + the amount of energy needed to lay down transmission cables + the amount of energy needed to start the nuclear reaction. This is the input energy.

Now you calculate the amount of energy produced by a nuclear plant in its entire period of operation. This is the output energy.

Is the output energy > input energy ? Of course. By thousands of orders of magnitude.

Now imagine a feedback loop where the output energy is pumped into the input. This creates a feedback with a huge gain factor (for people who understand control theory). The system should register rapid exponential growth.

If you understand science, this is how your brain thinks. Your null hypothesis on nuclear power will be that it should be quite economical.

To rebut that argument, you anti-nukes have to work hard. It is not sufficient to just show figures that nuclear electricity is expensive. You should also explain why it is expensive. Otherwise, you will not convince folks, you will be losing the game.

Of course, none of you dare to do this. Because deep down, you know that your argument holds no merit. Nuclear power has lower requirements on land + construction materials + capital expenses per MW of electricity produced than any sort of renewable power (wind power included). So please concede your defeat, instead of carping on crap.

Having said that, I respect your doubts and suspicions on nuclear power. You might fear nuclear accidents, radiation spills, nuclear proliferation, nuclear waste and what not. Let's have a meaningful debate there.

Low costs is not a strong-point for renewables in the debate against nuclear.

@amazing Dr X

Please double check on your physics. Nuclear reactors produce a lot of heat (at extremely high temperatures), all of which is essentially discarded currently. This can be easily redirected to several purposes - water desalination, biomass cultivation, Boron refinement and so on.

Today, this heat is just used to evaporate water (the clouds that you see on top of those dreaded cooling towers are water vapor clouds). A simple distillation mechanism would get that water to your taps. This is extremely pure water : will have no dangerous traces of Tritium (may be in your imagination).

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

grow your own biofuels

Encroaching on pristine forest lands in poor countries in Africa is a crime against humanity.

If one is desperate about bio-fuels, one should grow them in one's own garden.

Straining the land, water and soil fertility of a poor country in the name of keeping SUVs going is a shameless deal. This cannot be masqueraded as helping the poor country's economy to grow.

Anybody wants to make FDI in the third world ? He is welcome to make it in capital intensive industries, such as manufacturing .. please.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

emission outcomes is NOT our goal

We can meet all our emission targets, and still end up in deep trouble. Why is this so ?

By reducing our emissions, we are only postponing the climate tipping points, not preventing them. As the atmospheric CO2 levels keep increasing slowly, but steadily, one day polar ice cover will melt completely.

The debate is not about when this will happen, or how long in the future this can be delayed.

The debate is about how to prevent this from happening.

So why do we keep talking about emission targets ? They don't make any sense. They are inadequate to be our goal, and consequently, any paths that lead to them are utterly meaningless.

As mentioned time and again by climate scientists, including Dr James Hansen, what we should aim for are fixed caps on the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. This is directly related to fixed caps on the amount of fossil fuels that we agree to leave buried in earth. This is our goal.

We should set paths which help us towards this goal. In other words, we should have comprehensive energy plans which are completely sustainable : efficiency, solar power, nuclear power. We should have fixed deadlines on when we achieve these energy blueprints.

Once we have our goals fixed, we can keep discussing about the paths : about which paths are market-friendly and so on.

Emission targets are not a goal; Cap & Trade mechanism is meaningless. Please move on, everyone.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

interested in buying #1 coal stock

just click on the advertisement running at the bottom of this page. [from kciinvesting.com]

Seriously, here is a blot on grist's credentials.. First let's fix that before talking about blots on Obama's credentials.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

cap and trade is nonsense

Capping CO2 emissions is utterly pointless. By cutting down our emissions by 50%, we will kill the planet in 40 years instead of in 20 years. Reason to be cheerful, anyone ?

To prevent climate tipping points, we need to have a cap on the CO2 concentration levels in the atmosphere (measured in ppm). This is a long-term cap, and it should be fixed with a reasonably safe margin.

The only way to do so would be to impose a carbon moratorium (in a steadily increasing manner). We should have firm deadlines after which we will not allow any dirty-coal plants, or any natural gas plants. (The mythical beast of clean coal will never be born because it will be outrageously expensive).

This is the only way to do it. The economic incentives that the market needs to spur innovation in a no-carbon economy should be given directly : in terms of increased R&D funding,  and increased prototyping of technologies..

None of this is happening. Particularly in bad economic weather, clean-tech investments are vanishing rapidly.

Cap & Trade is good neither for the short term (for clean-tech investment upswing) or for the long term (for fixed limits on CO2 levels in the atmosphere). It just presents a nice opportunity to the likes of Mr.Pickens to make a quick buck by swindling the exchequer.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

mind closed : sealed with wax

case closed

Mixed crop agriucluture that relies on compost is many times more productive than industrial monoculture.

There are two things here : crop rotation and natural fertilizers such as compost. Monoculture is never a good thing, and several agricultural scientists warn against this. But at the same time, they support soil replenishment by fertilizers (most of them made by chemical processes). They also support plant culture for producing better yields and being more resistant to diseases. (sometimes, they support genetic modification if it helps in this process)

Compost is a good fertilizer, but it cannot be sufficiently satisfy fertilizer demand.

First, she pointed out that for all of industrial ag's vaunted food-production power, 1 billion people -- and growing -- live with hunger.

The reason for famine is not lack of food, but lack of purchasing power. You can read Dr Amartya Sen's thesis on this. The causes of all starvation are artificial : for example, Mugabe is responsible for the starvation of Zimbabwe (western leaders complicit in cutting off that country's economy from the rest of the world).

On the other hand, if you suppress the scientific advancements that resulted in high yield seed varieties and replace them with "natural" low-yield seed varieties, massive famine will result due to under production.

She also noted that locally adapted agriculture is not a fixed, static thing -- it evolves and responds to changes in the land and climate.

It is amazing that she speaks of some "locally adapted agriculture" to a vibrant evolving method.. and as we all know scientific discipline is just a dogma, the pace of change is so very minimal right ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

why are there subsistence farmers in 21st century

This is the question to ask.

With or without biofuel cultivation, there is going to be population pressures and people will be pushed onto virgin forestland. We need to rapidly find ways to accomodate these population in cities. Otherwise, biodiversity loss is a given.

Pointing fingers at biofuels is not going to solve the problem.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

causes of deforestation

in the amazon basin and in the world.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

coal is cheap.. stop kidding yourself

Dirty-coal is cheap, and it will remain cheap for quite some time.

Coal mining is a hazardous occupation, but it is protected by a large network of miner-unions.

People will keep burning coal until they get convinced that doing so is as yucky as open defecation.

If coal is not stopped voluntarily by the will of people, it will never be stopped. None of your fancy windmills or solar mirrors have a chance of shutting down coal plants.

This joke of CCS will never be constructed. It will be prohibitively expensive, and coal plants will never agree to tie that rock round their necks. So whenever we environmentalists speak of coal, we should remember that it is dirty-coal we are up against, and not some clean-coal from imagination-land. Dirty coal is cheap, and thus remain a dangerous opponent on the marketplace.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

jabailo's logic

I hate to push myself into the mud with jabailo, but this pig needs to be badly whacked.

Basically India wants to grow.   The head of the IPCC is Indian.   What they basically did is put the whammy on the United States to try and spook us into cutting production so they could get a leg up on us!

Most of India's growth stems from service exports to the USA and Europe. If USA goes down, it will hit the hardest on developing countries such as India. Several Indian companies are downsizing to wither the global economic storm.

To make things clear, none of this is because of the Indian workers' fault... nor the American workers'fault. Some idiots on the wallstreet got greedy and punctured holes onto the stock market, the ship sinks and takes everyone down with it.

Now we have uber-idiots like jabailo complaining that it is all some Indian conspiracy - put an Indian scientist at the head of IPCC and viola, we are on the path to global domination.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

so the clergy expels the heretic from the religion

Democratic debate is the last thing you expect from greenpeace. Can they please change their name to redwar, as this is how they apparently see the world ?  

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

geothermal power is like fossil water

It should be mined in a very careful way to make this a sustainable energy source. Otherwise, we will extinguish geothermal acquifiers like we have done for fossil water acquifiers.

Please read chapter 16 (page 103) in Dr Mackay's book on sustainable energy. Geothermal has a maximum sustainable power density of 17 mW/sq-mt. It is not all that much, and wouldn't even satisfy a fraction of our energy needs.

GreyFlcn fantasizes on numbers such as solar insolation and how much geothermal "is out there". Neither of these numbers get translated to the actual electric power that can be produced.

The weakest point about solar thermal / geothermal power is their power density. These are great sources of energy, and they have a crucial role to play in easening the energy crisis, but they are by no means sufficient, and by no means the optimal energy source.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Modular and insular designs

@amazingdrx

Such designs already exist. In fact, this is the trend in nuclear reactors apparently.

India has a Thorium reactor design which satisfies your requirements.

In fact, the world over, we have several such reactor designs. There needs to be proper brainstorming and scientific exchange between several countries. It is sadly missing current.y. There needs to be proper funding of R&D. That is also missing currently.

After we agree on standards and designs, we can do massive simulation and testing, accumulating several hundred years of reactor experience.

And we can still be ready by as early as 2015 to mass production and nuclear power deployment. It will still be not too late to save the planet.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

the biggest shame

.. is that a majority of young people (in the demographic 18 to 31 years) oppose nuclear power.

This speaks volumes about how biased the media is, on nuclear power.

I respect Joe Romm, he has a PhD from MIT. I really hope he understands the concept of sustainable energy in all its depth. I hope that as a true scientist, he pays more attention to why nuclear power "should be" more expensive than why it "is" expensive. Are there any inherent technical reasons why the construction should be delayed, any technical reasons why it should cost more than other power plants etc..

I have absolutely no regard for Amory Lovins. He is sold out to natural gas companies. For somebody who champions about energy efficiency, he supports Hydrogen for locomotion - the ultimate wasteful energy carrier. All his propaganda is carefully constructed to increase the revenues of natural gas companies. Careful coining of words such as micropower, CHP cannot hide the ugly fact that we are perpetually being dependent on fossil fuels. This is the last thing we need at these testing moments, where our very survival is at stake.

David, you grew up in a culture which participated in movements against nuclear bombs, which still had strong memories of nuclear devastation in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.. Americal nuclear industry has started as primarily a state-subsidized entreprise to produce Plutonium for nuclear arms race against the soviets. These memories are strong and will not go away easily.

But at the same time, we should try to separate facts from prejudice. Nuclear power need not be like this. The scientists and engineers who work in nuclear power are not mad men, who have a secret desire in annihilating every thing on this planet. They are highly motivated people who are keen on solving the problems of the world - how to provide sustainable energy, how to prevent radiation fallout, how to prevent nuclear proliferation and so on...

Just as rational human beings, we listen to climate scientists when they warn about changing climate, we need to listen to nuclear scientists about what they have to say on the state of nuclear power. They know much more than we do. Please don't listen to special interests such as Amory Lovins. Go hear the story from the horse's mouth. Let's listen to scientists not to the biased media.

Just as there are climate-change sceptics or critics, there are a few odd nuclear scientists who argue against nuclear power. Don't go with these sound-bites. Try to look for what is the scientific consensus on the state of nuclear power. You will be deeply surprised.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

ingrid, next time you see obama

please grill him on his support for coal.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

It is going to happen

The only policy that makes sense to the climate change problem is a moratorium on fossil fuel use.

OK, well, that's not going to happen.

So what now?

David,

Failure is not an option. We will have to have a moratorium on coal in place, at the worst by 2050. I have better hopes.. That it will be operational by 2015 in developed countries and by 2030 in the third world countries.

I think the moratorium will be incremental. All easy options such as redesigning coal plants to burn bio-mass (or to use pebble-bed nuclear reactors) should be implemented rightaway. This refitting will probably be much more economical than attaching that CST monstrosity, which I suspect will not even work.

In any case, no new coal plants should be constructed. And no kid should be getting employed in a coal plant. We need fixed deadlines to achieve this.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

we need a comprehensive plan

I suspect you will agree that if the choice is subsidized sun and wind or subsidized nukes, subsidized sun and wind is better.

Gar, you are right in arguing that we should look a little beyond making a quick-buck in the market. We need to prevent climate tipping points, and this essentially forces us to look quite far into the future.

It is not about just deployment. We should do massive R&D; technologies that are ripe should be immediately funded for demonstration, and we should invest in infrastructure (transmission, storage etc).

Even if you think that nuclear is worse than renewables (such as solar baseload), you should not risk burning the bridges. We should have all the cards open.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Reprocessing normally means PUREX

@Jon Rynn

What McCain has meant by reprocessing is the PUREX reprocessing to yield Plutonium from spent nuclear fuel. The obtained Plutonium can be re-utilized in Light Water Reactors. PUREX is a 1970s technology, which is in vogue in several countries. It is however not the smartest way for reprocessing because of two reasons (a) It uses only 6% of the nuclear fuel instead of the 5% that is used in LWRs (b) This technology has several proliferation concerns.

The better way to do fuel reprocessing is via breeder reactors such as IFR: this is known as pyroprocessing. Breeder reactors use up 100% of the nuclear fuel. And drastically reduce the risk of proliferation. This technology is tried and tested, a commercial demonstration can be built in a couple of years if there is sufficient political will.

Nice geeky t-shirt message : "Yes to Pyroprocessing. No to PUREX"

A Scientific American article explaining the differences between the two.

McCain is correct in declaring that nuclear power is safe, even 2nd generation reactors are very safe. If anyone is complaining against power plants, let them first complain against coal plants and natural gas plants please..

But anyways, kudos to McCain for risking political backlash and speaking out in support of nuclear power !

@ Jim Beyer

Thumbs up, mate !

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

loopholes in your assumptions

@Sean
I will not get to the topic of disputing your assertions on nuclear power that it costs $157/ton for CO2 reductions or that loan guarantees are the same as subsidies etc.. This thread is not about nuclear power.

I will have to criticize you on the fundamental topic of CO2 reductions.

a) You are talking of reducing CO2 emissions per KWH of electricity produced. What if more KWH of electricity is needed ? You will produce more CO2. What if your energy source has a fossil-fuel component and this goes indefinitely into the future. You will produce more CO2. There is no implicit check in your thinking to limit the amount of CO2 emissions that you might produce.

b) You are assuming that different energy technologies will compete with each other in this holy job of reducing CO2 emissions. An implicit assumption that you have is that each of these technologies can be scaled up infinitely. But in reality, there is only a finite amount of energy that can be extracted from each of these technology. There is only a tiny weeny bit of geothermal power that can be extracted (it is not sufficient to even 10% of our energy needs). Similarly, there is only a limited amount of hydro-electricity that can be extracted. Even if all your winner technologies be used to their maximum potential, there will still be unaddressed energy demand.

c) You are making future energy policies based on ephemeral numbers which are prices in dollars of coal, natural gas and so on.. This is bad on two counts (1) These prices change rapidly based on whether the economy is doing well or not - essentially based on the purchasing power potential of the citizenry, which in itself is dependent on the accessibility of energy (2) Different countries and regions have different prices of fossil fuels, and thus some countries will still find it profitable to pollute.

d) When you favor a technology which depends on natural gas (local cogeneration or whatever), you are not considering (1) a long term strategy of what we will do when natural gas reserves dry up (2) the sensitivity of the produced electricity to natural gas prices which are bound to rise in the future (3) the utter stupidity of continued reliance on a fossil fuel component upto an indefinite period into the future (which keeps rising the CO2 concentration levels in the atmosphere)

The basic mistake with your thinking is that it is grounded on two notions that are unimportant to the climate change question (1) reductions in CO2 emissions (2) dollar prices.

The only thing that is important in the climate change question is the concentration levels of CO2 in the atmosphere -> this is directly related to the amount of fossil fuels that we leave underneath the earth. As long as your plan doesn't impose a hard limit on the total amount of fossil-fuels you will use in the future, it remains utterly meaningless towards the climate change problem.

The only policy that makes sense to the climate change problem is a moratorium on fossil fuel use.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

be practical about coal

Coal is expensive and damaging anywhere it's burned.

Sorry Pangolin.. Coal is cheap. Bad news.

In energy speak, coal is the lowest common denominator. Nothing is cheaper than that for producing electricity. That is why google is breaking its heads with the RE < C campaign. I don't have much hopes that it wil succeed.  

I have much higher hopes that the NE < C will succeed, though I am not completely confident over there either.

People are going to keep burning coal if your plan doesn't work. And poor people are not going to shell out money when the solar costs remain skyhigh.

If all you have to do is let nature grow what grows best, chop it and chip it, there are lots of easier options than growing corn.

The best energy crops are not natural, but developed in laboratories. All kinds of biomass have hard limits of power density, imposed by photosynthesis, which is very inefficient. When we are hard pressed for land and water, we should do the best possible with what is available.

Engage in cheap, proven, carbon capture and storage.

Sorry pangolin, you are producing some weird-speak . Biomass should not be called CCS. Call it bio-mass. If not, you are just rolling out excuses for burning more coal, which is very dangerous. No amount of biomass can offset coal emissions.

And whatever CST that is available, if at all it is available, is not cheap even in your wildest dreams.

If the be-all and end-all of your existence is to opposes nuclear power, then I can't argue with you . But if it is about preventing climate tipping points, then I repeat you should be serious about using a huge chunk of nuclear power, along with all your other favorite power sources.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

the nature of the objections is different

Richard

Each of the objections that you have raised are about a disaster. Considering the validity of the objections, we might have disagreements. But in computer programming terminology, the nature of these objections are all around uncaught exceptions.

The objections I have raised against a pure solar economy (CSP + biomass + whatever) are not about a disaster. They are about the fundamental viability of this economy. If this economy is not viable, then we will all be walking into a fool's paradise.

We will keep burning coal, and that's a risk completely unacceptable at this moment of time.

This is how I see both the anti-nuclear and anti-renewable objections in perspective.

To be frank, I am not anti-renewable at all. I love renewables and I would like to  use them as much as possible, wherever they make environmental sense. I am not even concerned about how much they cost in dollars.

But I want to use CSP (or solar baseload) only in areas which have the least impact on ecosystems (such as deserted martian landscapes). I want to use biomass harvesting only in places where we do not disturb natural ecosystems and animal behavior.

In a world that I envision there will be a lot of CSP and a lot of biomass. And for sure, we will have to use energy very efficiently. But, these things are not sufficient by themselves. And we cannot risk continued usage of coal.

This is why, we will definitely need nuclear power to complete the mile. About your specific objections on nuclear power (a) even if minor radiation spills from nuclear power plants are indeed dangerous (not yet proven in science), they are less than natural radiation exposure in normal sorroundings (b) nuclear bombs are a reality and we need to solve the problem, the best way to do it is to have complete supervision of fissile material, not just restriction of sensitive technology (c) nuclear plants cannot be destroyed by earthquakes. and even if they do, they will not suffer a meltdown

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

coal is the mother evil

Coal gave birth to the industrial revolution, and it is gonna keep it going come what may.

The use of coal has rapidly dropped down in the last 60 years or so, because of the discovery of better fossil fuels such as gasolene and natural gas.

These reserves are now drying up. People will inevitably fall back on coal. Fortunately, this has not happened yet but there are indications of things to come.

Natural gas is being touted as an alternative to gasolene for the transport sector. As less natural gas will be available for electricity generation, coal will be used up more. At a point in the future, natural gas will be completely dried up along with oil shale.

Then we will step into the era of liquifying coal.

There is enough coal to keep us all going for another 100 years to come.

Ofcourse, this is madness. But this is how people operate in this world. It is a given. If it's possible to change people just by speaking to them, John Lennon would have done long before you or me.

People won't change. They will drive this planet to destruction. And they are going to do that by coal.

So let's be careful when we talk of replacing coal. It is a 15000 GW question. It is not as easy as it sounds.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

good remark biodiversivist

:) Is it tea-time in the USA ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

nuclear fuel is a non-issue !

If USA uses nuclear power with Generation 2 and Generation 3 reactors (as being planned by McCain) and uses nuclear power for all its energy needs, the total amount of Uranium it needs for the next 50 years can be provided by Australia and Canada. No need to be at the beck and call of Mr Putin. Ofcourse, Russia wants to earn some money by selling cheap Uranium to USA, but it cannot control the nuclear fuel supply by heading a cartel à la Saudi Arabia's OPEC.

Uranium costs account for a tiny morcel of total nuclear costs. Capital construction costs dominate for nuclear power. The fuel needs are extremely minimum.

Ofcourse, if USA builds generation-4 nuclear plants, it doesn't even have to look for Uranium. It can keep burning the existing "nuclear waste" for several hundred years and get all the energy that it needs.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

pangolin : read carefully the wiki article

Third generation nuclear power is inherently safe. Your point (1) is already taken care of !

The point (3) is addressed a little, but not completely. The fuel efficiency of generation-3 reactors is higher than 2nd generation reactors.

But the point (2) is still unaddressed. It can be addressed only in the 4th generation reactors. These reactors are 20 years behind schedule due to the stupid maneouvres of the Clinton administration which discontinued the IFR project. If USA restarts this project (through the GNEP framework), a demonstration reactor can be built within a couple of years. And we will be building commercial 4th generation reactors (and shutting down coal plants) by 2015.

Unlike USA which experienced political hurdles, India is going full-speed towards realizing breeder reactors. There is already a working reactor which uses Thorium. Based on experience gained on this, India is constructing a new fast reactor with better fuel efficiency. India is focussing on Thorium instead of U-238 (depleted Uranium or nuclear waste) because it has vast mineral reserves of Thorium. But the technology is similar.

Do you want USA to lose the race to India :) ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

richard

The power density is an important number, because it gives an estimate of how much land we would need. The number given in McKay's book for biomass is 0.2 to 0.3 W/m^2. So to produce enough power as a 1 GW power plant we would need 3333 sq-km of forests.

1 billion acres = 4 046 856.42 sq-km which can produce a total of 1214 GW. Yes, I take this number seriously :)

But this is much lesser than our total power requirements. We should judiciously use all forms of energy production - each technology has its niche areas. I am not against any technology.

My whole point is that we should treat nuclear power as one of the good guys. We should say "nuclear, wind, solar and biomass" as against fossil-fuel alternatives.

The transport of Uranium fuel is a non-issue. A tiny pellet of Uranium produces as much power as several tons of biomass.

We should stop saying "oil, coal and nuclear". It is as stupid as saying "oil, coal and wind power". We should particularly avoid weasel words such as micropower (coined by Mr Amory Lovins) which actually puts natural gas amongst the good guys.

GRL Cowan

You are right. It was not CANDU, it was CIRUS. But the research reactor was donated to India because we said we will be using it for exploring power plants. The Canadians were had.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

pangolin

There already exist 3rd generation nuclear plants. They are recently built in Japan, and they work like a charm.

You would have been building 4th generation nuclear plants in USA right now, if not for a bone-headed decision taken by the Clinton administration in 1994.

So, yes. We don't have any working 4th generation plants. But we have designs and blueprints, even commercial designs. GE is planning to build one in USA as early as possible, if only the government agrees. These reactor designs (called Fast Reactors) is the culmination of several decades of scientific work in USA.

Molten Salt Reactors are another promising design, which have been unfortunately discontinued in the USA. These are also extremely promising, but these reactors are slightly behind schedule. For example, there are not yet any commercial designs on this concept. But these will appear within no time.

Both the LFTR and the IFR share several common aspects in their designs : they are both very resistant to proliferation,  they are both passively safe, and they both have very high burnup ratio of fuel (this means that they obtain 100 times more energy from the same amount of fuel as current nuclear reactors).

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

these costs also include subsidies

@Bob

Somebody has just accused me that I am a shill or a sockpuppet.

Now, you are citing me a study prepared by none other than Amory Lovins, who is a "consultant" to several fossil fuel companies. Are you kidding me ?

I don't want to know what the costs are. I want to know "why" the costs of wind power will be lower than the costs of nuclear power. Trying to find out why is the key to the scientific debate. Please respect that.

I won't take your numbers for granted, because as we all know there are several subsidies to nuclear power. Who knows, nuclear might cost even higher without the subsidies ? :)

The same is true for the subsidies being received by renewable power (we know that renewables are not getting a lot of subsidies .. but if you divide the subsidies per Giga Watt of electricity produced, you will see there is a substantial subsidy for renewables). Let's not bicker about who is getting subsidies.

Let's break down the costs and look at the blueprints of power generation. Let's  compare the costs of nuclear vs your-favorite-renewable power, across each and every domain. Is anybody up for this challenge ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

on leaks

Nope.  No danger here.  This nuclear power stuff is so safe.

Will you do me a favor Bob, and produce information on all the above leaks with precisely the amount of radiation contamination that has been leaked, in REM.

The impact on the affected population depends exactly on the levels of REM.

For comparison, the average person living in the United States is exposed to approximately 0.15 REM annually from background sources alone.

Reported dosage due to dental X-rays seems to vary significantly. Depending on the source, a typical dental X-ray of a human results in an exposure of perhaps, 3[3], 40[4], 300[5], or as many as 900[6] mrems (upto 0.9 REM).

My guess is that the radiation levels of these "leaks" are so minor that they are less than what you get when exposed to, say, on a chest X-ray. In which case, I will please request you to spend more time and effort criticizing (a) lead poisoning due to paints (b) mercury poisoning due to bulbs (c) any other poisoning due to any other unscrupulous industry.

But above all, as I already mentioned to you, the design of 2nd generation nuclear reactors has nothing to do with the 3rd and the 4th generation reactors. The reason nuclear scientists have built new reactors is precisely to avoid problems as you have mentioned.

BTW, do you understand that we could provide all our electricity from wind turbines and a few hours of compressed air and pump-up hydro storage?  

Yes, in the sense we could find enough windy areas, either on land or offshore.

But no, because the environmental costs of this construction will be too prohibitive.

I don't care about dollar costs. But since you asked..  

And we could do it for less than half the cost of providing our electricity needs with new nuclear?

No. This is completely false. Please show me the break up costs of energy production

a) Land lease costs for the construction of wind turbines ?

b) The amount of steel and concrete needed, and their corresponding costs.

c) The amount of transmission cable that needs to be laid.

d) Multiply your estimates by the inverse of the capacity factor (If your capacity factor is 1/3, you need 3 times as many wind turbines)

e) Similar construction costs for the storage.

f) The amortization costs for this construction

g) Add The decomissioning costs divided over the plant life time

h) Add the operational costs for manpower + cleaning + maintenance

Then you show me the numbers and prove that wind power is cheaper than nuclear.  

Vakibs, you have now passed solidly into sockpuppet territory. What do you do for a living, please?

This is me.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

let's call the debate final

@Bob Wallace

I will happily reply to you, but please promise you won't use the same arguments against me the next time.

Nuclear is not safe.  

Well you should quantify your statement. Where is it not safe ? I will reply on two possible topics

(a) nuclear plants might meltdown : No, the nuclear plants of the current technology will never melt down. If everybody supervising the plant suddenly dies or disappears mysteriously, the plant will cooly shut itself down. This feature is called inherent safety. All 3rd and 4th generation nuclear reactors have such feature. So no more 3-mile island (which itself produced zero deaths and minimal radiation leaks, btw) Chernobyl is not even being discussed because Soviet Union no longer exists. Sorry.

(b) nuclear plants leak radiation outside : You can measure radiation using Geiger counters. Take one of these instruments yourself outside a nuclear power plant and see how much radiation is getting leaked. Zilch. Note down the number and take the same instrument around your kitchen utensils. You will find there is more radiation.

Statistically speaking, nuclear power has the least number of deaths amongst all possible modes of power production (counted in deaths per giga watt hour). And this is including chernobyl disaster. Hydropower is the most dangerous (all your renewable technologies need pumped storage, which has essentially the same level of danger as hydropower)

There is no solution for safe storage of nuclear waste.

Yes there is. Nuclear waste will be annihilated and will be transmitted as electricity to your home.. So that you can watch TV or charge your plugin vehicle. Cool isn't it ?

But some profound philosophical reason, people like you didn't like this idea in 1994, so they are currently trying to store nuclear waste deep underneath the Yucca mountain.

There are continuing serious problems in design, construction, and operations of nuclear facilities.

The design of new nuclear plants is completely different from the older ones. It is as different as a macbook is different from an ENIAC. But people like you want to have ENIACS and not macbooks. What can I say ?

There are continuing serious problems in construction of nuclear plants. Yes, precisely. People like you are preventing this construction. Faced against such monumental odds, how can nuclear plants have any hope ? I mean, it is probably easier to circumnavigate the known universe in a fusion-powered space ship.

Spending a small amount of money to seek solutions to these problems isn't a bad idea, IMO.  A few millions, not billions.

In fact, there was a moment in 1994, when you didn't have to spend any money. Nuclear power was just sitting there, all for free. The Japanese wanted to spend 60 million dollars so that American nuclear scientists can work in peace.

But the US senate said "No, you guys pack up and close the project."

The scientists replied that packing up costs more money than just letting them work peacefully for just another 2 years. And that, after 2 years, we will have plans for unlimited energy for a several thousand years.

"No" said the US senate, "If we let you continue to work for 2 more years, the North Koreans will steal the plans and proliferate nuclear weapons"  

"But", said the scientists, "our technology has nothing to do with nuclear weapons. It actually has potential to reduce nuclear proliferation. And how anyway, can North Koreans steal our secrets ? "

The US senate said "Blah-blah-blah.. Nuclear power, nuclear weapons.. it is all the same.. Your project is dead. Case closed".

So the Integral Fast Reactor had its obituary written. Ten years later, the North Koreans built the nuclear bomb anyways.

Coal might be made clean.  It's a very, very long shot.  About as long a shot as making hydrogen vehicles efficient.  

When you burn coal, you get CO2. If you don't want CO2, you don't burn coal. Coal = dirty. Dirty = coal.

Clean coal is something like smart Bush. It exists in an alternative universe consisting entirely of antimatter. If you discover such a universe, please let me know.

"Coal and nuclear were power sources that found some use in the 20th Century but were phased out in the 21st as clean, safe, less expensive renewables made them untenable."

Humanity has been using coal  .. since.. let me see ... 10,000 years ago. You have been slightly off the mark when you said 20th century.

We have discovered nuclear power due to some pinheads such as Marie Curie, Niels Bohr, Albert Einstein, Nicolas Tesla etc.. It has been 100 years since these discoveries are made, and we still are burning coal ? This is essentially the strength of our character. Let's say phooeey to all the pinheads. They belong to the 20th century.  We are the brave 21st century folks.. we will be spinning windmills, lining up solar panels (<small>.. and burning all the oil, coal and natural gas that is ever there to find ..</small>)

Oil, coal and nuclear power.. This is how it goes. With increasing level of danger. All evil stuff. As far as we are concerned, they are all the same.

And we 21st century folks enter the brave new world through our such intelligence .. A brave world which is 6 degrees warmer than the 20th century. A brave world where sealevels rise and spread watery happiness. A brave world where old species get exterminated and new species rise. A brave world where Bangladeshis drown, along with their Royal Bengal Tigers. A brave new world where polar bears find eternal peace, without the mundane hassles of a fish-eating life.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

let's listen to jim hansen

450 ppm sets just a limit on the maximum amount of fossil fuels that we can burn.

Essentially it means we can burn oil and natural gas (not oil-shale / tar sands), but no more coal.

450 ppm is noway close to an ecologically acceptable limit. With sustained forestry and biomass, this should be brought down to 350 ppm in the next 100 years.

We should use 4th generation nuclear power in this endeavour. Jonas, your friends on the beyond-zero-emissions are net yet in tune with Dr Hansen's message. Their energy plan has lots of natural gas. It can be done for probably Victoria, Australia but not for the whole earth.

One world. Think global.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

It is a great defeat for the environmentalists

That people are still talking about clean coal..

Clean coal is the quintessential definition of greenwashing. Much more than corn ethanol.

And who is doing the maximum talking ? Democrats.

What happened to your voice ? Is it that you guys scream only when it is politically acceptable.. ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

right question asked david

Well, the answer is fourth generation nuclear power.

The case for breeder reactors is so convincing, and it is a pity that progressives are unable to penetrate through their emotions.

The future of our planet is at stake, let's have some cool blue reason please !

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Correct Links

Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) is a technology already capable of addressing energy and environmental crises.

The vital importance of GNEP :  Several countries in the world are already building breeder reactors, and if their Uranium/Plutonium (say in Pakistan) runs loose, the bombs will explode in New York.  GNEP actually addresses these dangers and helps the cause of non-proliferation.

Read the book of Tom Blees.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

the math is done..

@george mobus

Infact, we have sufficient energy to support more than the current population, and at lot more lavish lifestyles.

But this is not an excuse to not conserve energy, to not reduce the populations in the long run, and to not care for the environment.

The PDF that I linked above is still working (It is a December 2005 SciAm article archived at another website).

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

all the questions on breeder reactors answered

Please refer to the FAQ pages maintained by Steve Kirsch. I learnt a lot of stuff myself, over there.

Basic question and the answer (I quote) :
What additional research do we need on the IFR before we build one?

There's not really a lot of research to be done on this. We just have to get off the dime and build them. The last step of the project that got short-circuited was the commercial scale pyroprocessing, but by the time Congress killed it the facilities had already been built and were ready to go. It's a pretty simple technology and had been used over the course of the years of the IFR research to make over 3,400 fuel slugs. We're not talking about large amounts here, either, only about a gallon a day for a 2.5 GW reactor. That's peanuts. I think it's important to stress not that research has to be restarted, which makes this sound undeveloped, but that we have to build one of them.

Kirsch should be familiar to Californians for his criticism against nuclear power, which appeared as Op-Eds in SanJose Mercury news. If he is convinced now of the potential of breeder reactors, that should ring a bell in each of you guys.

The book of Tom Blees (Prescription for the Planet), which impressed none other than Dr James  Hansen, is now available for purchase on Amazon.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

take all the subsidies off, and you'll die

When you cancel all the government incentives and put these babies out in the open, they will die before the dirty coal.

Mind you, I am not asking for the cancellation of subsidies. They are as essential for the germination of a technology as the mother's womb is essential for the development of a baby.

And soon in the future, I am sure these technologies will be able to compete. But not right now !

You guys know it. Stop using the stupid economics argument.

The funny thing with breeder reactors is that as its solar cousins are getting milk and honey, the govt decided to abort the breeder technology. The IFR was cancelled and the scientists were asked to shut up.

This needs a decade long (at least) experimental testing program, that produces a commercially viable, safe, disaster proof, waste and fuel recycling, mass producible, cost competitive  design.

That's exactly what the scientists are demonstrating when they got pulled off the plug.

And by the way, breeder reactors will always be expensive than once-through nuclear (for at least another 60 years until Uranium is cheap and plenty). So they will not be commercially viable , unless we explicitly put a price on nuclear waste.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

biodiversivist..

I will be very glad to have a debate with you. I looked up your website and even read your online book. It is quite cool.

I am extremely serious about protecting the biodiversity of our planet, and I really like your signature. In the end, it all comes down to biodiversity.

So, it is important that we debate on the key difference. I think that a high-energy future is good for the biodiversity, where as you think the opposite.

I think that producing a lot of energy (in environmentally careful ways) is the most important task. You place the emphasis on population control, which I consider secondary.

By the way, if we want to get into an energy abundant world, we can do it right now, with breeder reactors. We don't have to wait for nuclear fusion, or any other science fiction.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Sean in the wonderland : environment is not money

Fossil fuels cost money..

Wait, the relationship between energy and money in an industrial society is not like that. Energy is not a consumer good.

In our society, energy doesn't cost money, but energy is money. The more energy you have at your fingertips, the more comfortable your lifestyle is.

Therefore, using more fossil fuels (a source of energy) means you have a better lifestyle. You will get richer, and thus be able to afford to drill/mine more fossil fuels. And so it goes on in a vicious circle.

When you realize that energy is money, any policy which reduces energy use is a policy which lets you guard your money, you get rich, and therefore a good policy.

Also, any policy which produces more and more energy is a policy which supplies you more energy, you get rich, and therefore is also a good policy.

This is where the fantasyland of convergence between economics and environment falls apart.

When you count purely on economic terms, we should prefer policies which produce more and more energy : particularly those policies which fare better in an attribute known as "EROEI" (energy return on energy invested).

This attribute is superbly good for oil, coal and all the evil things that you can think of. You cannot prevent the onslaught of oil-shale/coal etc.. by putting on an economics professor hat.

Unless ofcourse, externalitites such as the damage to the environment are internalized into the very notion of our money. (Ergo, my signature).

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Speak out on the real alternative, Gar

Aren't HVDC lines an environmental disaster?

Not compared to coal and natural gas generation.

But this is not we should be comparaing them against ofcourse. The alternative is nuclear energy, especially new models of small reactors such as LFTR.

What is the lesser evil ?

Mining a lot of iron and copper, and dumping all the money of the government to produce an electric superhighway, and forever wasting 15% of the produced energy in transmission losses.

Or some nuclear radiation spill (which is theoretically ruled out by the reactor design, and practically never observed in the USA) lurking somewhere deep in the figments of your imagination.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

or simply you can rent the other car

The other car can always be used for longer trips or commutes beyond electric range.

Most people use a rented car anyways, whenever they are making loooong trips.. in order to avoid all the hassles of insurance + accidental damage + need for bigger cars + need for camping cars etc..

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

energy density is not everything

Joe

You have a round about way of rebutting the criticism against battery vehicles. What are these weird factors of multiplication to factor in the capacity of battery vehicles to get charged overnight ?

Agreed, energy density per weight is a sound advantage for liquid hydrocarbons. But this advantage is important only when we consider the driving range.

Energy density places key barriers on the driving range of a vehicle. Most consumers look for driving ranges below 100 km for daily use, and the current battery technology is good enough for this.

New generation of batteries such as Lithium-polymer and Lithium-sulphur batteries provide much higher driving ranges.. around 1500 km.

As long as your requirements are within the driving range offered by the technology in question, you don't care about energy density anymore. What you care about now is energy efficiency, for which electric drive is the king.

We have to accept that there will always be cases which have driving range requirements which far exceed what are offered by batteries. For such cases, we have no other way but use hydrocarbons. These cases are rare and the corresponding requirements for hydrocarbon fuels are much smaller : biofuels can be used to satisfy that need, in a post-peak-oil scenario.  

There are new promising technologies which offer an energy density which is higher than hydrocarbons. Boron gas can be used in fuel-cells, and this technology beats gasolene in the energy density advantage. (Hydrogen fuel cells beat gasolene when you consider energy density per weight, but energy density per volume is much lower for Hydrogen). If Boron fuel cells become popular, we would have no need for liquid hydrocarbons at all. Boron fuel cells compress 3 times as much energy as gasolene of the same volume. And their energy density per weight is 1.19 times that of gasolene.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

sorry wrong chart linked

the correct link is here : the causes for deforestation.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

leave the coal untouched

simultaneous recyclo-combinatory hot-waste power re-generation with lots and lots of coal is the wave of the future!

How depressing a future !!

The next thing you guys will be talking of is about using solar power to liquify coal, and thereby reducing emissions on the way.

Listen to Dr. Hansen. Leave the coal buried in the earth. Forever !!

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

take a look at the title

Didn't you notice, Jonas, that this manifesto is focused on American domestic issues?

and the title says "we young farmers, all over the world.. "

Jonas is right.. word for word.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

thankx amazing

I am glad you are supporting further prototyping and research on breeder reactors.

I don't buy the McCain plan. It is stupid to build 40 bulky second generation nuclear reactors. Moreover, they don't even have a standardized design yet. Until the reactors are modularized and mass produced, they will be very expensive.

McCain's plan looks very stupid, even though he probably likes nuclear.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

jon.. nuclear industry has an inertia

I live in France. I actually live quite close to the place where the French had their breeder reactor program, in a place called Superphénix.

I will tell you the story of why it was shut down.

The breeder reactor started badly, because nobody in the nuclear industry were keen on breeder reactors. Though France has no natural Uranium,  it can easily import Uranium from the world market (unlike for example India). And the price of Uranium is so very low. Secondly, France reprocesses some of the depleted Uranium already (a very crappy technology, and also inherently dangerous because it produces Plutonium). So the French nuclear industry was asking "why bother with breeders ?".

Then the breeder reactor has run into problems. The molten Sodium coolant reacts violently with water, and this coolant was leaking all the team. It was wrecking the nerves of the administration, and the plant was shut down quite often to fix the leaks. (The IFR developed at the Argonne laboratory in USA fixes the molten Sodium problem by having an additional coolant loop. So this problem is solved. The other technology that I am interested in (LFTR) doesn't have molten Sodium at all).

Since the French breeder was a pilot project and because of all its problems, the cost of the produced electricity was much higher than standard nuclear fare. There were huge protests that the govt stop subsidizing this plant.

Finally, an eco-pacifist group (!) based in Switzerland obtained missiles from Jackal the arms dealer and fired it at the reactor, partially destroying the core but without radiation damage. This put a full-stop to the program. I seriously wonder who was behind this operation.. It is clearly not some eco-nuts, there is sure some fossil money behind it, but we would never know.

The result : the French shut down their breeder reactor. But the French nuclear scientists are largely still passionate about the breeder reactor program. You should ask your brother in law if he knows anyone in the nuclear physics research labs. They will give you more details.

Here is a 2006 article from the lab in Grenoble (where I live) analyzing how fast the world can convert to breeder reactor based nuclear power.

The opposition to breeder reactors come from different sources.

1. fossil fuel (coal+oil+gas) industries : this is the most dangerous and the most well-funded opposition. The coal industry especially will die rapidly if breeder reactors become popular.  They spread FUD against breeder technology, and highlight the economic aspects of pilot projects. They also spread FUD against plutonium running lose.

2. inertia in nuclear industry : the second most important opposition. The nuclear industry does not want to invest in R&D. They do not want to change their designs, and they do not want to change their business model (they currently earn money by changing fuel rods.. which will not exist in LFTR type breeder reactors)

3. environmental groups : the least important opposition to breeders. They are against nuclear power in general, but only recently getting to notice the differences amongst LWRs and breeders.

No well-funded publicity exists for this technology. Only nuclear physicists and engineers know the details of this technology, and they don't spend too much time talking about it. One exception is Dr Bernard Cohen (a physicist at the University of Pittsburgh) who has an outdated online book. There is also the book of Tom Blees which will be published sometime soon.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

jon

A few misconceptions :

1.plutonium : is produced by 1970s era fuel reprocessing techniques. This is a dangerous element and there are valid concerns about it, but most of the hype is blown over the top. Fourth generation breeder reactors fall into two types (a) they don't produce plutonium (b) they produce it in a format unusable for making nuclear bombs

2. proliferation : making a nuclear bomb out of fissile material produced in a nuclear reactor is extremely difficult. nuclear bombs need a lot more enrichment of uranium/plutonium. this has to be done in a research facility. If such a facility exists, there is no need of a power plant at all to begin with.

3. demonstration of technology : I don't know about China. But India has a working thorium burner reactor. USA has built and run several breeder reactors for several months (including the most recent integral fast reactor at the ANL). What has not been demonstrated is the commercial viability of breeder reactors. (Try looking at the harshest critics of breeder reactors, including the recent Science article, MIT's report on nuclear power.. The wording is always the same). If this rings a bell to you, you will realize that this is the same problem with 90% of the technologies we discuss on this website.

No, a very misleading question. Breeder reactors are easy to build. And several people have built them already.

Why are breeder reactors expensive ?

Because Uranium is dirt cheap !! This is the problem. A breeder reactor has lot more capital costs than a normal LWR. So nobody wants to lose money building them.

Why is land difficult to find in India ?
India's land is extremely sensitive due to its rich biodiversity. It is already under pressure due to intensive agriculture. Massive power requirements in the over-populated north or huge cities like Mumbai cannot be met by solar plants. The costs will be just too high.

@russ

Anybody opposed to expansion of nuclear power based on economic grounds is a fossil-fuel guy. Take what he says with a pinch of salt.

Renewable power can never be economically cheaper than nuclear power (read my earlier comment).

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

please understand what it means to be human

@wolverine

Do you find my attempt at having a conversation with you to be very unusual ? It is surely a difference from your regular day.. you expressing your contempt for other human beings, and they expressing their contempt for you in return.

I don't know if it helps at all, but it is my responsibility to answer some stuff you threw at me.

What the hell does a Upanishad have to do with Buddhism, other than that Buddhism is to Hinduism what Christianity is to Judaism?

Hinduism is not a religion. Each Upanishad offers a different strand of philosophy, and they are all quite different. Indian culture is very syncretic, and ideas get borrowed and thrown around different religions.

Buddhism is an offshoot of the Sramána way of life : which has its roots in the Samkhya and Yoga philosophies. The terminology used in Buddhism ( ánanda, nirvána etc.. ) is borrowed from the language of these philosophic schools. I just traced you the roots of this language in the Brhdáranyaká Upanishad.

I haven't given you any of the teachings of the Upanishad in question (And I am not the right guy for this job), but merely explained the language to you.

Thinking that there are certain people who are capable of reaching some godlike state while everyone else is doomed to a lower level of existence is a gross misunderstanding of Buddhist teachings.

No, this is not correct. You have definitely misinterpreted me. Achieving supreme bliss (ánanda) is a long path, and you cannot get it in a minute. Buddhists believe that this path sometimes requires you to suffer several birth-death-cycles, improving yourself on each step. This idea of karmá is another misunderstood concept of Indian thought.

But the point is, striving towards this eternal bliss is what we should all do. (it is not the privilege of some supermen).  

The 3 Buddhist principles (awareness, shedding desire, monism) that you mentioned are present in several other ancient texts as well.

) realizing we are all one with everything in the universe and that any feelings of separation are just illusions.

My earlier message says exactly the same thing. I wonder how you missed that. the Bodhisattvas whose compassion subsumes every single human, every single animal, every single plant and every single particle in the universe. This state is called the  nirvana  where you become one with the universe.

On the subject of anthropocentrism v. biocentrism, traditional indigenous people who understand that humans are no better or more important than any other form of life and that everything in the natural world is alive

Humans are matter. Humans are life. And, Humans are animals. But, humans are something more. What is this something more ?

jñāna comes from the same root as the words know, gnosis etc. It means awareness, perceptory knowledge. All forms of life possess this.

How to react to such perceptory impulses is usually hard-coded in the genes : this is true for plants.

Animals possess something bigger : control mechanisms to react to unexpected inputs. This mechanism is provided by the brain, a necessary organ for animals to handle the demands of mobility and finding food.

What humans possess is bigger than a brain : we possess a way of abstract reasoning over jñāna, this is called vijñāna. The closest English word for this is cognition (co+gnosis) / understanding / science .

We are a unique species that can represent abstract concepts as symbols. For example, we can create a story of Pinnochio and appreciate that story.

If you want to understand how marvellous humanity is, you should study cognitive science.

All this is not to say that human beings are important. Each single particle in this universe is equally important. This is just to understand the basics of our human existence.

And lack of appreciation of art and sciences is not at all an environmental problem.  Lack of appreciation of biology, especially wildlife biology and marine biology, and ecology are serious environmental problems, but appreciation of traditional indigenous teachings would serve as well or better.

Just possessing the ability for understanding is not sufficient. We should actively use it. This is what we as humans are supposed to do. Then we will do things such as art, science and compassion. Science includes wildlife biology and ecology. And compassion includes caring for the environment and ecosystems.

What I say is that this is the basic requirement of fulfilling our human existence. Being human necessarily means being pro-environment. And it also means something more than that.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

I like renewables

@greyflcn

When did I say that their problems are insurmountable ?

If you haven't heard me saying this already, I repeat : It is possible to power our society completely with renewable technologies (even at the level of the enormous energy waste that we do). We have enough resources and enough money to do this job.

Intermittent renewable power can be resolved by energy storage (which already exists and is getting better) and smart power grid.

Where do I stand in contradiction with you ?

What I ask for is a decent analysis on the costs of renewable power technologies. Not even the dollar costs (which I don't care). But purely the environmental costs : how much land we need (as worked out earlier on grist, USA needs about 40,000 sq km of land), how much water we need, how much metal needs to be mined etc..

If you are criticizing nuclear power (my preferred technology) on certain issues, apply the same criticism for renewable technologies as well.

I believe there are +s and -s for each technology (nuclear, biomass, CSP with storage, CSP without storage, wind, tidal ..) and that each of these technologies will find their niche areas in our society.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

who is giving breeder reactors a free ride ?

@mwright

Breeder reactors aren't off the ground.  The best India with all its massive resources claims it can do is 300MW of capacity by 2020.  I'm sorry we don't have that long -- see Hansen et al.

Was this a joke or sarcasm ? India with all its massive resources.. I mean I am so speachless.

Quickfacts. More than 50% of the world's undernourished are in India. More than 50% of the world's uneducated children are in India. I mean, bogged by such issues, how much money can India invest in nuclear physics and space exploration ? With whatever peanuts we invested in, I am very proud to say India is doing superbly well.

But there is a monumental hypocrisy and hostility towards India at every step.

Since 1970, India has been the world's nuclear untouchable. For the crime of conducting nuclear tests, all trade of fissile material to India has been banned. India has very meagre indigenous Uranium resources and it has been doing the best use of them in the nuclear power program.

India has lots of Thorium, but Thorium is not naturally fissile. It first needs to be ignited with some neutrons. These neutrons come from naturally fissile material (either enriched U-235 or Plutonium), which India has none.

For the sake of USA, you can just dismantle the stockpile of nuclear weapons and use that as the fissile material. India's inventory of fissile material is close to zero. The world wants to keep it that way, because it is dead scared India will pile up nuclear bombs.

Coming to nuclear bombs, India has been pleading everyone in the world for complete nuclear disarmament. Nuclear bombs should be destroyed, nobody needs them anymore. It is only time before a terrorist steals it from some place and explodes them in your backyard. USA thinks it has some divine right to maintain a massive nuclear stockpile and preach everybody else about disarmament. This is utterly stupid. Because destroying all nuclear bombs forever, is first in the best interests of USA.

The recent nuclear deal that has been passed between India and USA allows for the sale of fissile material to India. This allows India to speeden up its nuclear power program and increase its fissile material inventory. With luck, India will be powered by 50% nuclear by 2030. This deal is still to be approved by the US senate, and there is a massive hostility to it, primarily from the democrats (such as Edward Markey and Howard Berman..most of these senators are directly funded by "clean"-coal money. Edward Markey has even an article on grist singing praises of clean coal.).

India is the only successful democracy in the third world. It has never been an aggressor, never started a war. It is a pluralistic and secular country with a thousand languages,  cultures and religions. It has never proliferated nuclear weapons. It has a voluntary  no-first-use policy and a voluntary moratorium on nuclear tests. The only thing India will never do is to sign the NPT - which discriminates the world into nuclear-haves and nuclear-have-nots. It will be the first country to sign a complete nuclear disarmament policy.

India is a rapidly developing country with growing energy needs. It is a densely populated country with not enough space for solar power deployment. In short, it is the ideal case for the utilization of nuclear power (And it has about 30% of the world's Thorium reserves). If not, it also possesses dangerously high coal reserves. Would you want India to burn coal the way China does ?

But there is no shortage of people trying their best to refuse India access to fissile material. Kept shackled like this, Indian breeder reactor program will be further delayed.

This is called giving breeder reactors a free ride !!?

And about Dr. Hansen, please watch this video, or read his most recent article. He is strongly in support of breeder reactors. He understands the dangers of coal and climate tipping points  much better than anybody else.

And about your questions on Uranium mining, man.. we have enough "nuclear waste" right now which can power our world for about 300 years. There is no question of further Uranium mining.

But now that you asked, do you know the energy density of natural Uranium with breeder reactors ? It is around 24,000,000 million Joules/kilogram. The mining needs of Uranium/Thorium are minimal.

With liquid flouride thoirium reactors, we need 200 MegaTons of Thorium ore (0.5% Thorium) to be mined to produce a power of 1 Giga-Watt-Year of electricity. To produce an equivalent amount of electricity with light water reactors, we would have to mine 800,000 MegaTons of Uranium ore (0.2% Uranium). The equivalent number for coal will be 1000 times higher. I refer you to the presentation of Kirk Sorensen for more details on this technology.

The energy density argument for breeder reactors is a slam-dunk. It cannot get better than this, with the technology that we currently possess.

Finally, about the current state of the art in breeder reactors :

These reactors work. It is proven. Please try talking to any nuclear physicist who worked in this area. The only problem against breeder reactors is economics. Cheap Uranium prices are tempting nuclear power companies to continue with their archaic technology. It is as simple as that. And there is enormous opposition from the "clean"-coal companies. The only people who can change this status-quo is you, environmentalists. Demand a price on the longevity of nuclear waste. Breeder reactors will appear the very next instant.

The nuclear physicist community of India is unanimous in continuing towards the breeder program. It are unanimous in arriving there at the fastest speed possible. There is no disagreement there.

Think.. people !! By rejecting breeder reactors, you are rejecting your best friend in the fight against coal. It is not that renewables cannot handle the battle by themselves. They are strong enough. But, the stakes of the battle are too high to take this risk.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

boggy men ? more like idiots

By the way, the correct spelling is bogeyman (the word derived from the Indonesian pirates of the Bugi tribe who terrorised the European colonizers)..

Anyways, I am not scared of oil companies. In fact, you are scared of us. Because knowledge is on our side, and the science is on our side. And we as a community are much smarter than you can ever be.

Too bad, Saluki.

eco-cultists ?

You are getting desperate in your attempts Saluki, to portray the environmentalists as some kind of fringe movement. No, we are the mainstream. You are the fringe. Get back into your reallyrealclimate foxhole.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

McClemens, get dirt off your system

The global warming facts website you referred to states that atmospheric CO2 levels are not at record high levels currently. They believe that CO2 levels were at 6000 ppm some 500 million years ago.

I don't know what procedures they adopted to obtain this figure at this level of accuracy (sic). But this is a freak opinion, not supported by a majority of scientists.

If you want to study the CO2 concentration data, I refer you to this website. This argument is addressed by Coby Beck here.

I am more and more getting convinced that Saluki is a shill. We cannot expect scientists to come down onto forums such as grist and refute all the arguments of shills, point by point. Their time is more precious than that.

This is where grist is awesome, because it maintains a repository of documents addressing each single argument. It will be great if the shills make their comments on the appropriate webpage. But it is too much to expect of them :)

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

another estimate on nuclear costs

US cost figures for 2007 published by the Energy Utility Cost Group showed nuclear utility generating costs averaging 2.866 c/kWh, comprising 1.832 c/kWh operation and maintenance(O&M), 0.449 c/kWh fuel and 0.585 c/kWh capital expenditure (NB apparently not amortization of the plants).

From the same forum on another thread.

Can you give sources for your figures greyflcn ?

My gut feeling says the production costs & amortization costs cannot be as high as 10 - 15 cents per kwh. In this calculation, what is the number of years in which the plant is expected to amortize ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

compassion beyond genes is uniquely human

mad mac :

Compassion is uniquely human. What we find in the animal kingdom is evolved behavior to ensure the perpetuity of one's genes. All such behavior (even seemingly altruistic behavior) can be understood from the perspective of the selfish gene.. I don't know if you have read Richard Dawkin's book, but you can find several examples in there.

The love of a mother to her offspring is one of the most beautiful things in nature, but it doesn't qualify as compassion. It is purely selfish behavior for one's genes.

What sets us humans apart is our ability to empathize with several other creatures which have nothing to do with our genes. Not everybody possesses/exhibits this trait, but this compassion is one of the things which make us humans unique. It is the direct result of our ability to understand and reason (called vijñāna in Sanskrit).

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

inevitable stupidity ?

@Saluki

I can pretty much guarantee that shale oil is coming.  With demand for oil outstripping supply, the prices are going to continue to rise quickly.

There is no inevitable here. The oil industry is being too complacent about its power. It thinks it can use its money advantage to tilt the market to its preferred crappy technologies. But guess what ? This strategy doesn't work.

The game will soon be over. Oil industry will be checkmated on all fronts. If these people wish to save their investments, they should go with the science. There is not much time to lose, as the technologies are picking up steam. And many people with money are investing already.

Shills like you cannot save their ass.  

amazingdrx

Your rebuttal of drill-drill-drill is incomplete. Republicans can always say that they are for an all-the-above strategy. Don't provide them with this means of escape. Drill them on their plans for other-than-drill technologies. They have none. Make them show their balance sheet on energy demand and energy supply for the transport sector. They have none.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

smart yes ? NO !!

come on richard !

You are squandering a very important talking point when you say McCain and Palin are smart.

How many years did it take them to graduate from high school, and how many to graduate from college ? Seriously, they are smart, as in George W Bush smart.

The guys who are really cunning and smart (in an animal way, as put down by Russ) are the rightwing commentators such as Karl Rove, Will Cristol and so on.. The republican team is just a pair of puppets. The puppeteers are somebody else.

You can never win an argument against a right-wing person by pulling at their heartstrings. It is impossible. The only way to win is to expose their stupidity.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

shale oil breaks even, but is a stupid choice

Shale oil works. So does coal liquification. They are economically sound alternatives, and make sense in the current market (which is mostly powered by middle eastern oil).

But something being possible doesn't mean it is the optimal choice. Shale oil is point blank stupid - very low EROEI, very high environmental impact, very large quantities of waste, and finally, a very stupid way of burning a very finite resource.

This is even before you consider the problems of global warming.

Shale oil will be totally unattractive in a future market driven by solar and nuclear power, and in a society geared towards using energy efficiently. In such a society, shale oil will have no demand and it will be exorbitantly expensive.

@Saluki

As environmentalists, this is our bone of contention with you Saluki. When we make policy decisions, we don't make them for now, but for the future. We don't care about the distorted prices dictated by a fossil fuel economy. There are a million ways of entering an energy rich economy. If you are not satisfied with solar power technologies, add in nuclear power. You have all the energy that you care for.

What we should care for are the environmental costs of any technology. Priced in these numbers, shale oil will be a big time loser.

If you cannot get over the idea of burning carbon based fuels in the internal combustion engines of your cars, use (a) bio fuels created out of agricultural waste - cheaper, lesser environmental impact (b) energy intensive algae cultivation powered by nuclear power - cheaper, lesser environmental impact. Both the above technologies are sustainable (unlike shale oil) and they are economically viable right now !

But you know, we guys on this forum don't stop over here. We continue to discuss about what are the optimal choices for producing and using energy.

Shale oil is right at the bottom on the list. Right along with liquid coal.

Even if you think you are smarter than 95% of the climatologists working all over the world and  believe global warming is a hoax, you should not lobby for shale oil. Unless you are getting paid lots of money for doing this lobbying. In which case, you are wasting your time down here on grist.
 

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Population - the hidden variable

There is a hidden variable which is ignored by all the organic food afficiandos - population. The current world population is way over sustainable levels. It is not natural, and there are no "natural" ways of providing sufficient food for all the people.

This population is a given, and we cannot wish it away. This problem is a by-product of the success in the health sector, and we have to live with this problem for several centuries.

Fertilizer driven, water intensive, improved seed variety based green revolution is a must for nourishing all the people. This is what has been proven in India. And what needs to be implemented in Africa. The scientific update that we have over the last two decades in genetics - which result in less water use, less fertilizer use and more resistant to diseasese - has to be used for this green revolution.

In the span of just two generations, industrial-scale farming has drawn down the water table to perilous levels across large swaths of India. Meanwhile, farmers on the GMO/agrichemical treadmill have been gripped by a sustained wave of suicides, attributed in large part to the severe financial strain from debt incurred from buying pricey inputs.

I am an Indian, and I have ready answers for these two points.

1. Water table : India's population is exceedingly high. The depletion of water table is a natural outcome of this, green revolution or not. Water scarcity is one of the most serious problems facing India as a nation, and we have to live with it for a few centuries. This problem will be solved by better water management, linking of rivers to avoid drought and flooding, and finally water desalination projects.

2. Farmer suicides : The reason for farmer suicides is the lack of access to credit. Limited land holdings and extreme economic pressure due to price inflation is forcing several farmers to commit suicides, whether they use GMO seeds or not. The solution lies in reducing the number of people dependent on agriculture and improving the access of microcredit to farmers. Better planning of water and fertilizer distribution will also help.

GMO seeds have problems. But these problems need to be discussed in an objective manner, as being done in certain other threads on grist. The above two issues are non-issues when discussing problems related to GMOs.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Russ : scientific spirit needs to be cultivated

I'm afraid science is too important to leave to the scientists.

Everyone is welcome to follow scientific debate. But this has to be done in the proper manner. This is called the scientific spirit.

1. The utmost importance should be given to data driven analysis.

2. Constant validation of hypotheses by experimentation.

3. Rigorous study supported by mathematics.

4. Immediate dissemination of your results by publications.

5. Withstanding to very rigorous criticism through blind referee process.

The problem with political activism is that they appeal to the baser emotions of people, and reason gets excluded. This is not the right way to do science.

The fact is, most scientists are literal sociopaths. As a matter of professional culture, practice, and usually pride, they hold aloof from political and moral concerns and disclaim all responsibility for the social and environmental consequences of their actions.

This is utterly, utterly false. And personally, I take it as a slander because I aim to be a scientist one day. Did you even know that the biggest opposition to the use of the nuclear bomb came from the scientists who were part of the Los Alamos laboratory ? It is the politicians who forced its use.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

how to lose a debate which you can win

1. Produce more facts than you need to support your argument.

2. Do not pin-point the disagreement between you and your opponent.

3. Do not concentrate enough on identifying the fallacies of your opponent

4. Spend more time on expanding your ideology, and give time for your opponent to criticize you on facts not necessary for the debate.

5. Give occasion for your opponent to further generalize your ideology and call you names. The opponent will sign off the debate saying you are a lunatic.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

do you vote for a GW Bush with lipstick ?

@mreinbold

If you do, then go ahead. It makes you kinda kinky, but we have no issues with you. But if you think otherwise, do explain the differences please :)

It is quite difficult for us to distinguish Mrs Palin's policies from those of a lipsticked George W Bush.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

compassion is uniquely human

saluki

You are right. Human beings are uniquely gifted with the trait of compassion. This is what makes us human, along with our unique ability to reason. Let's celebrate these qualities. Let's think, let's be creative, and let's save the biodiversity of our dear planet.

What wolverine is bemoaning is the appalling lack of this very human quality among several human beings, including Sarah Palin.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

saluki you are wrong

oil reserves and oil extraction are different

The ANWR has about 6 to 15 billion barrels of recoverable oil. US annual oil imports are 1500 million barrels. When you compare the two numbers, you might think ANWR has enough oil to last for several years. But drilling takes time and it cannot produce beyond a capacity of oil. Additional drilling will not show effects before 5 to 8 years. And after 5 years, it can produce a maximum of 80 million barrels per year. That is, it can solve only 1/20th of the US oil import problem. A completely insignficant thing.

shale oil is dirty, slow to extract

and there is not as much of it as you think there is. Drilling for all the possible shale oil will solve at best another 1/20th of the US oil import problem.

solar and wind energy technologies have become mature

That is why there is a lot of private investment in these sectors. Obama says he will pump in a lot of money for R&D in these sectors, so that future technologies will be even better. Left to itself, oil industry is currently spending less than 1% of profits for research in alternative energies. McCain and Palin will give no money for R&D and expect the free market to somehow solve all the problems.

Nuclear energy is sustainable only if you reuse nuclear waste

So far, it has been only Obama and Biden who have clearly mentioned that they support reuse of nuclear waste by 4th generation breeder reactors. They want to pump in significant amount of money for the R&D in breeder reactors, fuel reprocessing, and improving the safety of nuclear reactors. Simply put, they are for the 4th generation nuclear reactors.

McCain and Palin support the 2nd generation reactors which use 0.5% of the nuclear material, and want to store enormous chunks of nuclear waste produced by these reactors in the Yucca mountain. Simply put, McCain and Palin want to burn all the coal, all the U235 and all the oil that we have as quickly as possible. And we will find out very soon (after 50 years) that there is nothing to burn. And they care a zilch about a more important problem which is the environmental disasters of global warming.

Obama and Biden have a comprehensive plan for green, sustainable energy. But the problem is there are several people like you who can digest only half-baked truths and incomplete information as spawned by the Republican propaganda. If you care about future, think, drill for the right kind of information, and drill inside your own head for better ideas.Cheers :)

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

politics is not class warfare

@caniscandida

The idea is to antagonize the least number of people possible. mreingold might have a very funny outlook of the world, you might think he is stupid, greedy or even malicious.

But the plain fact is that he is not the personification of all evil on this planet. He is just a bloke writing comments on a website. The impact of evil that he can / will commit is very less.

In that case, it should be your priority to reason with him, convince him, and win his heart. It is a more difficult job than picking up a fight. But in politics, this is necessary. This is what Obama's message of unification is all about. It is about being united and solving our problems in a smart way.

I also saw your comments on another page over small town values and how they are detrimental to the country. This is not the time to worry about small town values versus urban values. This is not the debate we need. If you accept Republican language, you will automatically walk into their trap, and they can brand you as an "elitist", whatever that means.

You might think Karl Marx is a great philosopher, but there are several people, who rightly, think that he is also responsible for a lot of evil. Mentioning karl marx is just a right wing tactic to antagonize the democrat message. Whether you like Marx or not, you should agree that Obama is no Marx. His message is completely different.

And whether you like Marx or not, if you just start to think a little, you will realize that one more Republican administration will lead to  economic poverty and environmental destruction. This is what we should be worried about. Republicans are trying to distract the people from the real issue by the clever use of a poster-girl, with the message of identification, and so on.. The best way to counter this propaganda is not by further antagonizing lots of people.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

how to make an optimal decision.

@mwright
No Nuclear -- Yes Solar All agreed?

What we agreed on are the requirements of a pure solar economy. But this doesn't mean we have agreed on the optimal decision for our energy needs.

I consider solar energy as a possible and a viable choice. (Thank you for the analysis on the steel and other material that needs to be mined for the grand CSP plan.) But I do not yet consider it to be my optimal choice as to eliminate nuclear altogether from the table.

I will give you two comparisons :

(1) USA can replace all its gasolene needs by growing cellulosic ethanol plants. The agricultural land that is present in USA will be "sufficient" for obtaining this. But does it mean this is the optimum way of running the transport sector ?

(2) Obtaining Hydrogen from water electrolysis and running vehicles on this Hydrogen will give you a mileage equivalent of less than $4 gasolene. Now that gasolene prices are higher, this technology has become economically feasible. But does it mean this is the optimum way of running the transport sector ?

None of the above two alternatives are correct. You have written (and I agree) that most of the transport sector should use electric drive (light rail + trains + PHEVs). This is the optimum way of running transport, with the technology that we have. What was our criteria for optimization ? Minimal energy use.

Now, for producing our required energy, we have not yet mentioned our criteria of optimization. My criteria for optimization is "minimal environmental impact" with respect to land, water use and impact on biodiversity. I would like to minimize the territorial space on which humans impact the environment. I would like to leave the maximum possible land for plant and animal species in a natural ecosystem.

With this criteria, I would welcome solar technology in different forms (a) solar panels on all the available roof space (b) wind mills spread over agricultural land (c) small hydro-electric plants which do not require large reservoirs (d) tidal plants close to the ocean shore, but where there is no marine life (e) solar CSP plants in areas with no biodiversity. (f) biomass obtained by responsible forestry ... and so on..  

Beyond that, I would like to use nuclear energy for the rest of our growing energy needs. This is because its requirements on land are a thousand times smaller than the solar equivalent. (Its power density is around 1000 W/m^2).

Your criteria of optimization could be different from mine : "no accidantal radiation spill" or "no proliferation" could be one of your optimization criteria. In which case, you can eliminate nuclear from the mixture altogether.

This is the debate we need to have : on what are our criteria for optimality.

As environmentalists, what worries us most are the environmental costs. This should be one of our criteria for optimality. We have not analyzed in detail the environmental costs of this construction and operation of neither nuclear plants nor solar plants. So, let's work towards doing that.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

Ignore Palin

Guys, Palin may indeed be an ap"palin"g choice for a veep. There might be several juicy stories about her husband, daughter or beauty contests or what not.

But this is not the point in discussing this. Ignore Palin, focus on the issues.

She is just a card drawn out by the Republican party to hide the extreme un-interestingness of their candidate or his policies. Democrats will be walking right into their game by talking more and more over Palin.

McCain and his team are getting worried about the general perception of Obama, how charming he is, and how smart he speaks etc.. Putting Palin on the ticket is a desperate attempt.

This election is too important to waste time on silly matters such as Palin. Let's just give Palin the amount of space that she deserves -- which is 0.00000001 times the space allocated to real burning issues such as energy security, environment, economy, depletion of American soft power in the world and so on..

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

republicans choose the language

force Americans to sacrifice their way of life or trim their hopes and dreams for their children

The former (way of life) is contradictory to the latter (dreams for their children). Is wastage of food, wastage of energy or the wastage of neurons in people's brains : is it the american way of life ? If you define it thus, then ofcourse, this has to change, to preserve the dreams of our future generations. What part of this is difficult to understand ?  

doomsday climate change scenarios peddled by the aficionados of centralized command-and-control government

Doomsday climate change scenarios are a clear and distinct possibility. They are "peddled" by scientists of all hues, if you care to listen to the scientific debate. They are no aficiandos of centralized command-control government here. Infact, the problem is indeed centralized-command-control economic power vested in a powerful few. Republican leadership are just puppets of these people (read big oil).

It would be unrealistic and counterproductive to expect the U.S. to carry burdens which are more appropriately shared by all.

Preventing climate change is not a "burden". It is common sense. If Republicans care even a little about American leadership in the world, they will accept that responsibility. But what they care about is not American leadership, but American exploitation of world's resources.

Wake up, this era is coming to an end in a multi-polar world.

address the risk of climate change based on sound science without succumbing to the no-growth radicalism that treats climate questions as dogma rather than as situations to be managed responsibly.

Economic growth is always possible in a no-carbon economy. It is not a no-growth scenario. In fact, there are lots of green-collar jobs to be made and the US manufacturing industry will receive a boom by adopting green economic policies. It is the fossil-fuel based economy which faces clearly defined limits to economic growth, because these reserves are drying up and they are by no means sustainable.

And please, climate-science is not a dogma. You know what "dogma" means ? Turn the pages of the dictionary : a specific tenet or doctrine authoritatively laid down, as by a church. For example, (a) intelligent design based on biblical dates (b) laisse faire economics (c) opposition to cell culture and other Republican talkative points classify as "dogma". In contrast, climate-science works by analysis, feedback and scientific criticism.

People in power cannot afford to be "stupid". People in power should not be "greedy". Republican ideology is a dangerous cocktail of the two.

First thing, we should end using the Republican language in our debates.

The problem with Republican ideology is clear (a) Too much power to big oil (b) Too little investment in the alternative energies of future (c) Sacrifice of science for the sake of petty self-interests.

This is what the debate should be about.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

environment or mreinbold's ass

mreinbold

Sorry, we are interested neither in your ass nor in your "as"inine comments.

Population is a serious and sensitive issue. It is directly related to the environment.

@others

The more you talk of Palin, the less people will hear about the real issues. Please ignore the person, and focus on the policy implications of McCain.

By the way, if anyone still has doubts about how nice a guy Obama is, they should disappear with these his comments.

"This story has no relevance to Governor Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president." He added that, "my mother had me when she was 18. How a family deals with issues and teen-age children -- that shouldn't be the topic of our politics."

"So," he added, "I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories."

For comparison, McCain has made the following comments once :

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly?" McCain said at a GOP fund-raiser in Washington. "Because Janet Reno is her father."

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

sarah palin is a distraction

I think it is better to talk the least possible over Sarah Palin. Agreed that she is a very interesting personality, but she is a HUGE distraction amongst the real issues facing USA.

This is what Bob Herbert of New York Times says about her. His essay is a must read for all the people working for the Obama-Biden ticket.

Let's ignore Sarah Palin. In some battles, distractions can be very costly.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

LS9 uses sugars apparently ?

Any technology which uses sugars / carbohydrates to convert into fuels will be using only a tiny portion of the plant mass. This will mean a lot of land will be required for plantation - exactly like 1st generation biofuels (corn ethanol).

We need to use the whole of the plant : the cellulose. This is why the land demands of cellulosic ethanol are much lesser than corn ethanol.

Ofcourse, biofuels in general are very low power density ( around 0.1 to 1.5 W/m^2). Their requirements for land, water (and federal dole) will be competing with several other issues. So, they should be used only in the least amount possible. And when we are picking amongst the biofuels, let's pick the ones which have the least requirements on land.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

what about keeping food-refills on every table ?

In our university canteen, we were encouraged to take smaller helpings in the first serve. There were food refills on every table, and we could take more helpings if we need.

I think this is a smart idea, I noticed that there was much less waste food on my plate.

It is unfortunate that not many schools or colleges adopt this plan.

Now the canteen where I eat does not have this system. And I regularly suffer the guilt of throwing away food on my tray. I am a slow eater, and my friends on the table get impatient if I linger too long.
On Colleges forgo cafeteria trays to save water and energy posted 1 year, 3 months ago 11 Responses

obama is smart

amazing

I am happy that Obama is not listening to Amory Lovins and his gang. We need a responsible energy strategy, and not one driven by blind prejudice.

Bill Hannahan is questioning you on the constraints of construction cost, material cost, reliability and so on. None of these issues are completely proven for renewable power (I wish they were, but they are not).

But my concern on renewable power is something even more basic. I say let's ignore the dollar costs.

I am just concerned about the true environmental costs (how much mining we need to do, how much waste is generated, what are the water requirements and land requirements etc). All these questions come down to the basic issue of the average energy density of different renewable technologies. When a serious article like Michael's appears on grist without even mentioning energy density, there is something seriously wrong. Misleading facts such as 1% of the desert area is sufficient  will fool people into thinking that land is not an issue. (Until Michael's explanation, I didn't even know what he meant by a "desert")

As being worked out by Michael, Daniel and me, the land requirements for CSP are in the range of 50,000 sq-km. This is not a joke, even for a vast country like the USA. Mammoth construction of this level will require enormous amounts of capital, and it will have a huge environmental impact. Why don't we be open about this ? For more densely populated countries in Europe and Asia, this land will be even further a constraint. Are we serious about reducing the use of coal in China and India, or are we not ?

Energy densities of solar technologies are open facts, let's remove the confusion there and discuss clearly. Getting satisfactory answers for these questions is an important priority for environmentalism. Let's not shoot ourselves in the foot and end up burning coal even after 20 years.

No matter how much energy demand is reduced in the USA, the global energy demand is going to rise more and more. We need to be prepared for generating this much of energy, in the smartest manner possible. My order of preference is (a) energy conservation and efficiency (b) renewable technologies as long as they are not harming biodiversity (c) fourth generation nuclear power.

If you consider me a "nuker", so be it. But I am not the only one in the environmentalist community.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

use pickens, but don't let him use you

whatever the environmentalist community does, it can never match the publicity dollars of pickens. It helps to use that channel and get the message across.

Apart from that, there should be no delusions about pickens. He is a master trickster. If you take a thermometer and measure his love for the environment, it will read negative farenheit.

Along with the rest of the fossil fuel crowd, we have a dangerous guy here. One should always look out at the subsidies that he wants to gobble up from the federal government. He might turn out to be a bigger con than the huge agro-businesses which grows corn.

Simply, let's use pickens but never let him use us.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

comments to michael

Thanks for giving me the numbers. It will be better if we used the same units, but I am wishing for too much here :)

"Desert" in the world of CSP is not just the areas that we cordon off in our mind as desert but anywhere with the appropriate "direct normal" insolation for solar thermal plants.

In my understanding, a "desert" is a place where we can do the least harm to biodiversity. A power plant occupying such a place will have an impact on the ecosystem (as one user "stopgreenpath" would point out to you) but this impact will be less than in any other place. I hope your new definition of "desert" would satisfy this as well ..?

#  212,000 square miles of the US southwest that have more than 6 kWh/m2/day insolation and ground slope of less than 3%.  This by no means the entire 6.5 state area but are the prime areas for solar thermal development

212,000 sq miles = 549,077 sq km (1.4 times the size of California).

Insolation of 6 kwh/day/m^2 = 6000/24 = 250 W/m^2 . An optimistic number for a temperate region, but you can definitely find a few places with such insolation.

# NREL assumes a power density of 130MW/sq mile.  This is a number that is somewhere between the low estimate of 100MW and higher estimates for more compact plant designs (150 MW/sq mile).  With innovation this number should go up.

Power density of 130 MW/sq-mile = 130*10^6/2589 988 W/m^2 = 50 W/m^2. This is clearly peak power density. You should average this out to account for night time and cloudy days (to truely reflect the solar insolation at that region). The revised number will be around 15 W/m^2 to 18 W/m^2. Please get back to me with comments on this. (as requested in the remarks section)

# I assume a capacity factor of .25 in these prime areas, particularly in those areas with over 7 kWh/m2/day.

Is the capacity factor a way of averaging out power. In that case 0.25 * 50 = 12.5 W/m^2 which will be a pessimistic estimate. Does this capacity factor also include transmission losses ?

# This yields 285 million kWh/year.

I lost the train here. What yields 285 million KWH/year ? A plant spread over 1 sq-mile ? That is not correct.

With your numbers, I find that with a wattage of 130 MW * 0.25 = 32.5 converted in kwh/yr (32.5 *365/24) = 494 million kwh/year.

Please explain, and calculate your numbers here.  

# In the electricity sector, the US consumes, inefficiently, 4.1 trillion kWh/year

# I'm getting therefore, an area of 14385 square miles or less than 100 by 150 miles.

First question, is 4.1 trillion KWH/year the  total electricity consumption, or just home electricity consumption ?

4.1 trillions = 4.1 * 10^6 millions

Divided by your mysterious number of 285, we get 4.1 * 10^6 / 285 = 14385 sq miles.

So that is true, your earlier number is the total power produced by a power plant spread over 1 sq-mile.

By the way 14385 sq miles = 37,256 sq km = 3 squares of 100X100 km each.

# This is less than 2% of the area of the Southwest (starting in West Texas)

# If we, unrealistically, converted all transport inefficiently to electricity and used the same amount of energy we do now (which won't happen with electric motors anyway), we would need an area 45,000 of the 212,000 square miles pointed out by NREL as being suitable (from an environmental standpoint as well) for CSP with storage.

 Do you mean to say that the total US transport needs are 45000*285 = 12.8 trillion kwh/year ? Divided by US population (301,139,947) and the number of days in the year (365) we obtain 116 kwh/person/day. This can be slashed to 1/3rd or even lower.

# As plug-in and V2G advocates know, battery electric vehicles will be able to piggy back onto the 4.1 trillion kWh/year figure to some degree, leaving the amount of land required to fuel transport at much less than the estimate in "8".

I agree with you, but let's not say "some degree". Let's calculate exactly to which degree.

# Furthermore, combination renewable power plants, EGS, hydro, wind, solar PV will realistically cover a lot of power usage.

Each of these modes of energy production will require about the same amount of land as CSP. Their energy densities are at about the same level.

# Energy efficiency can cut power usage by over half, so the number I use is 21,000 square miles for all energy use in the US.

21000 sq miles = 54389 sq km. This looks quite low for me to be true.  

My remarks

1. The key number for your whole argument is the energy output of a CSP plant covering 1 sq-mile : you say this is 285 million kwh/year. Please rework this and show your assumptions behind it.  

2. Particularly, it will be really helpful if you mention the average density you assume for CSP (my calculations showed you are using peak power of 50 W/m^2 which is not correct to use).

3. We need transmission cables to send all the power that is produced in the southwest to everywhere else in the USA. You haven't worked out the losses in electricity over the transmission.

4. Your estimates for other energy demands are incomplete. We also need to account for energy demands for food, fertilizer and imported gadgets.
   

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

thanks for the example

@ GRL cowan

I am using energy density and power density interchangeably. This is clearly wrong, but if we average out the power produced during the plant operation and multiply it by the time, we can easily obtain energy density in W-hour/m^2.

Average power is a good indicative of energy density. Not peak power, obviously :) So, let's keep using the term energy density, but let's make a note that we mention average power and not peak power.

@daniel pedersen

Thanks for giving the numbers. The density that you worked out 35 W/m^2 is about twice the number worked out by Dr Mackay. My first question was, were you accounting for night-time ? As GRL Cowan said, we need to average out the power, and use that as the indicative. Dr Mackay refers to Stirling Energy and says it is averaging out at 15 W/m^2. So, I would say GRL Cowan is too pessimistic with his 7 W/m^2. It will be good to iron out the confusion on this value.

If Mackay is right (with 18 W/m^2), we have to double your land estimates. To obtain 2000 GW of current electric production, we will need 12 squares of 10,000 sq-km each.

Also, there will be losses in transmission of electric power (irrespective of how efficient and smart we make our electric grid). The energy density needs to be reworked to account for these losses.

Thanks for also giving the demand based on transport. Mackay has worked out in his blog that the pure electric drive of Rewa GWiz needs about 21 kwh per 100 km. Imagining that we have pure electric drive in future, your figure of 2 kwh per person would let each person drive for about 10 km every day. Quite reasonable, I say. Technology improvements might increase this even further.

General remark

In reality, we have a lot of choices for renewable power. We will diversify into tidal power, CSP, some photovoltaic, some wind and so on. But the energy densities of each of these sources is about the same.. It is quite low. (ranging from 5 W/m^2 to 40 W/m^2). For Jonas and other biomass proponents, the energy density of biomass is about the lowest in all the solar technologies.

We guys are discussing really large amounts of land here. Around a million square kilometers of land dedicated for power production.. it will have a lot of impact on the environment ! (For comparison, this area is twice the size of California). This is not solar panels in the backyard, or 1% the size of deserts. This is much bigger than that. This is where I think is the real bottleneck for renewable power.  

But in my opinion, we are not anywhere close to these bottlenecks YET. Growing by the current rate of growth in renewable power, these will not be apparent until atleast another 20 years.

But this doesn't mean we should not plan for the future. Having some allowance for nuclear power makes sense instead of a total renewable plan. How much exactly will be the share of nuclear (whether 20%, 40% or 60%) this needs to be worked out.

It doesn't make sense for nuclear and renewable power industries to be fighting each other. They should work together to get rid of coal.

If we know that there is a need for nuclear power, we should lose no time in getting the technology up to date with safety and environmental issues (a) support breeder reactors which reduce waste (b) increase investment in prototyping these reactors (c) thorough testing of all the safety issues.

These will take time, and we need to do them as early as possible. The argument that nuclear plants take too long to build has been used till now as a criticism. The same argument should work to hasten the support in prototyping and building nuclear plants. Global warming is already upon us. It doesn't matter when we release the CO2 into the air - now or 20 years later. We should do the best possible to get us off the fossil fuels.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

hapa : point out the desert area in a world map

sorry missed your comment..

Please point out on a map of the world the 1,000,000 sq.km required for the CSP idea.

Wikipedia says this about the 10 largest deserts in the world :

Antarctic (Antarctic)     14 000 000
Sahara (Africa)     9 000 000
Groenland (Arctic)     2 000 000
Gobi desert (Asia)     1 125 000
Kalahari desert (Africa)     580 000
The Great Sandy Desert (Australia)     414 000
Karakoum (Asia)     350 000
Taklamakan desert (Asia)     344 000
Namib desert (Africa)     310 000
Thar (Asia)     260 000

Of this antarctic and groenland are ruled out..

We can probably use a part of the rest ..

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

let's have some love for facts and numbers

Quoting someone doesn't necessarily mean you believe in that person. As explained by Dr Mackay in page iii of the preface "Some chapters begin with a quotation. Please don't assume that my quoting someone means that I agree with them. Think of these quotes as provocations, as hypotheses to be critically assessed".

Environmentalist movement of these days is turning into a religious movement. If the upper Ayatollahs don't agree with you, you will be banished as a heretic. Dr Patrick Moore has thus become an "eco-traitor".

Before you give the book of Dr Mackay a serious study, you will peek into his nuclear chapter and see if he loves nuclear. If he does, bad guy. You will not listen to him.

It doesn't work like that. You should criticize a theory based on numbers. Point out the mistakes in the calculations of Dr Mackay. Point out whether he is making any false assumptions. Give some constructive criticism. I am sure that he will accept it whole-heartedly.

It will not be long before the Ayatollahs condemn the very Dr James Hansen (as he was recently seen providing support for breeder reactors). David Roberts of grist.org was already seen twitching his lips at the very first comment.

Don't you see a pattern here ?

You are ostracizing all the reputed scientists out of the community. As I was mentioning in another post to Wolverine, environmental studies is a scientific discipline. It needs to be done with the best regard for numbers and facts.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

So, Dr X is better than Dr Mackay ?

Dr Mackay is a very nice chap, he is an authority in information theory, and has a nice textbook which we folks use in Computer Science.

He has a doctoral degree in physics.

He knows his numbers.

If you find any mistake in his calculations, do write to him. You can reach him on his blog.

Sorry to disappoint you amazing, but I am a person who is serious about the environmentalist cause. I cannot let nonsense pass unchallenged.

Frankly, I didn't expect this from Michael. I really liked his earlier articles. Though Michael takes the silver medal for environmental idiocy,  you take the gold. Your kitchen-job sources of producing energy will not be sufficient for even an iota of our needs.

The environmentalist community cannot afford to live in .. what is the right word.. "fools' paradise".  Why don't you guys get real about the task ahead of us ?

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

world's current energy needs

@GRL Cowan :

The current electricity demand of the world is around 2000 GW.

But this is only a portion of our total energy needs (we need a lot of energy for food, transport, stuff and so on). Counting all this, the current energy demand of the world will be around 15000 GW.

I am just quoting from the elaborate analysis done by Prof David Mackay. His book is a highly recommended primer, for anyone who is interested in sustainable energy.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

how to isolate waste for 300 years

@mshedd

Nuclear waste is not a perennial problem. With breeder reactors, the longevity of waste will be reduced to a couple of hundred years and not thousand years.

How can we isolate the waste for a few hundred years, so that the spills of radiation will not affect humans or biosphere.

Simple answer #1 : Dump it in the ocean. Deep ocean sea bed is practically devoid of life. And the water sorrounding the waste acts as a natural moderator for radiation.

Simple answer #2 : Sorround the waste with a huge coating of lead/graphite to absorb all the radiation possible. Dump these balls in the ocean.

Simple answer #3 : Construct a building next to the nuclear plant. Cover its walls with a lot of ead and graphite. Make the building very strong to withstand earthquakes and explosions. The entire nuclear waste for a lifetime operation of a breeder reactor will fit into a small room.

Simple answer #4 : The same as #3, but construct that storage building deep underground.

Due to its extremely tiny volume, nuclear waste is a non problem. We human beings operate a lot more volumes of different types of hazardous material. And most importantly, a lot of these hazardous material is directly released onto the atmosphere (sulphur and CO2 from coal plants) or into river streams (check any industry which is located next to a river).

Nuclear industry is one of the few industries which claims total responsibility for all the waste that is produced.

The killer answer #5 : There are several techniques to neutralize radio active material. If you are really scared of radiation, you neutralize the waste by these techniques. A lot more of these techniques will be developed in the future.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

wisdom is needed (and let's not talk in abstract)

Wisdom is a very loaded word. It is obviously a great thing, and I don't have anything against wise people :)

And I don't have anything against courageous people, either !

But wisdom or courage are very subjective words, and can be made to mean right about anything. And I don't want to talk in abstract.

What I have made is a very strong case for the limitations of plain human intuition. Your gut-feeling is insufficient to deal with the problems we have right now.

What we need is an approach driven by experimental validation, observation, objective analysis and so on .. commonly understood as "science".

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

how to face exponential functions

We human beings have no intuition of the nature of the exponential function. When we say something is growing exponentially, it is impossible to imagine how quickly it is rising. This fallacy is at the root of most of our problems.

Until quite recently, we had no need to worry much about exponential functions. So it was not a big part of culture or folklore. Then everything changed in the 18th century. The industrial revolution created a positive feedback in the economic system of our society. This positive feedback resulted in an exponential growth of our wealth. Parallel to that, there was an exponential growth in human population.

Now when we calculate the per-capita income of the society, you divide economic product (e^x) and with the population (e^y) and you obtain another exponential function e^(x-y). If we think intuitively, we might guess that both these effects cancel each other out. They do not, and the per-capita income indeed is growing exponentially.

What is funny about an exponential function is that if something is growing exponentially (y = e^x) even the rate of its growth will be growing exponentially (dy/dx = e^x). Your intuition will never help you in imagining this.

Why I say all this is because, Wolverine's thesis that indigenous populations have some collective wisdom to save the environment is totally wrong. The culprit is the exponential function. Indigenous wisdom is good at handling linear changes, but it is not sufficiently evolved to handle the effects of exponential destruction of our environment.

We take inspiration from these ideas, but we need a drastically new science to understand these effects. This is called "the science of environmental studies". There are several scientists working on this area, they model complex systems with computers and study the effects. This is why I said environmentalism is a science. As people who care about the environment, it is our duty to listen to what these scientists say. It is not about wisdom, or courage, or experience, or any other thing. The most important thing is to get rid of the illusions of our human intuition, and listen to real scientists. Courage or wisdom or anything else will come later.

@Wolverine

There is nothing inherently bad with western science, or philosophy.  At a basic level, there is nothing that separates the west from the east.  If you see bad things happening to the environment and the various species of the earth, it is not due to western materialism or blah blah. It is due to the exponential growth I mentioned. Eastern philosophy is no superior to                   western philosophy in addressing these challenges. (And I am an Indian who is quite interested in Buddhist thought).

Human beings are not the root of all the evil on this planet. We have been just hapless so far, under the violence of the exponential functions. Further, we are the only species on earth which can do art, science and most importantly which can understand compassion. No other species has this feeling. If humans disappear from this planet, so will disappear the feeling of compassion. Just as Buddha preached compassion to other human beings and every other species on the planet, so did Jesus. So please trust in the inherent goodness of human beings.

@George Mobus :

Just as any other scientist, Dr Paul Ehrlich deserves criticism over his failures. He has clearly misunderstood the relative speeds of our economic growth (e^x) and our population growth (e^y). This is not to take away the dangers of population explosion. But the danger will not be famine, or poverty, or lack of metals, etc.. but utter destruction of the biosphere. This is the real constraint to our economic growth, not the lack of energy or metals.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

let's build a comprehensive energy plan

But the compromise to let the other (almost certain to fail) technologies proceed experimentally is important for political purposes.  It would let these industries and their lobbyists save face and get them out of the way of real progress.

Amazing at its humble best again :) The reason why we need to have a multi-pronged approach for alternative energies is not about compromise. It is about common sense.

1. Each of the renewable technologies have limits to scalability. There is only a limited amount of wind, geothermal or solar energy that can be tapped on earth. No greyflcn, don't show the foolish picture of how much solar energy falls on the surface of the earth. We have to calculate the potential of any energy based on the amount of land, water and other environmental resources.  Likewise there are limits on the amount of energy that can be conserved. Ignoring these limits will be suicidal for the environmentalist movement. If our energy demand is higher than the energy that can be generated within these limits, it means the gaps will be filled by the dirtiest coal possible.

2. Lumping all the technologies that you don't like such as "clean coal, nuclear, cellulosic ethanol" into one sentence might make you feel good. But it doesn't make any sense. Each of these technologies is different and has to be evaluated differently. For example, coal CCS sucks and nuclear power rocks.

3. No technology will have infinite growth and replace coal/oil within a day. If we think about long term future, we should allow for the growth of all these technologies lest we find ourselves in deep trouble after 20 years. Particularly, as pointed out by nuclear critics, nuclear plants take too long to build. So if we wish to have fall back on nuclear energy to avoid burning more coal in the future, it is wise to allow for a reasonable growth in the nuclear industry right now.

4. The world is not run by a single government, and there will be several countries which will not play by the rules. There will be several countries which will keep burning coal. In that case, it will be wise to develop carbon sequestration technology (and make it cheap) so that we can atleast minimize the damage by fitting the coal plants of the future with CCS.

5. You can have a list of favorite technologies and ignore the rest. But, each technology will have its niche capabilities. Some technologies will work best for densely populated countries with limited land resources (nuclear breeder reactors). Some other technologies will work best for countries with a lot of waterfalls and hydro-electric capacity (hydro-electric). Some technologies will work best for countries with a lot of wind (denmark, USA), with geothermal (iceland) and so on.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

environmentalism is a science

Hi Wolverine

Unlike what you might think, environmentalism is a science. As any scientific discipline, it means we need to value things such as objectivism, experimental validation, open debate ...

All these values also happen to be "liberal" values.

You might have good intentions, but you might get crappy results if you don't do environmentalism the right way.

 What do you mean by "objective," that people who advocate that selfish human desires should be given equal priority with the environment should have equal say?

No. Being objective means having no prejudice, staying neutral about which method obtains the best results. This will only be decided by experimental validation.

Having a lot of "experience", having "good intentions", being a loud lawyer etc.. don't count when it comes to understanding complex systems such as environment and human interaction with it.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

greens love jabailo

... for his charming wit, intelligent analysis and his passion of finding Hydrogen as the source of life in all the posts.

Like the solitary electron which revolves around the Hydrogen nucleus, jabailo keeps revolving around the topic. Which direction of spin do you have, jabailo ?

Is it true that we cannot know your velocity and momentum at the same time ?

Are you a particle or a wave, jabailo ?

A grist without jabailo will not be a happy grist.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

scare mongering and science

@madmac

Most people on grist do not study environmental science, but they care about the environment. Some of us have scientific background (I am a research student in computer science) but we do not necessarily follow the fine details of the scientific debate on climate change.

But I assure you that a lot of brilliant people are actively participating in this debate. A huge list of countries have convened their national academy of top scientists to follow this debate and they came to a consensus.

In science, consensus doesn't mean that there will not be dissent. For example, there are a few scientists who question the mass energy equivalence, or the absoluteness of the speed of light, and so on. Such rival theories will be on the fringes of the scientific community because they don't fit the facts as well as the competing ones.

Having this dissent is good for science, but it is not good for politics. They help to inflame the passions of uneducated people who know nothing about climate change or about evolution.

Coming back to the topic of CO2 levels, in physics phenomena happen when a threshold is reached. For example, water boils at 100 degree Centigrade. If you have a beaker of water which is at 100 centigrade, you can be sure that very soon all the water disappears as steam. Below 100 degrees, there is always some formation of steam but the content of water in your beaker remains stable.

Similarly, we know that there is a terrible chain reaction that might happen if CO2 levels in the atmosphere reach above 450 ppm. The temperature goes up and up in a spiral. Earth will then be uninhabitable for most life forms. There's enough evidence for this chain reaction. It has been validated in lab experiments and in computer simulation. The only question is about what exactly is the required the threshold of CO2 levels : 450 ppm or 400 ppm or something else..

The talk of winners and losers of climate change makes no sense when you realize the magnitude of the problem. As CO2 levels go upwards, sure there will be some minor effects - like abnormal cyclones, sea level rises. But this is just an indication of what is going to come.

I mean, you should be very thick skinned to turn a deaf ear to what the majority of scientists say on this. It is not fear mongering. We don't need to fear anything, because we can solve the problem.

Human society progresses by abandoning problematic behavior - For example, rats cause plague, so they were culled. Flourocarbons deplete ozone layer, so there were banned. Now we know that coal is dangerous for atmosphere, so we should stop it. It is just common sense.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

science doesn't proceed by honesty and trust

The sicentific community has a history of being dishonest concerning climate change.

MadMac, science doesn't work by honesty and dishonesty. There is something called peer reviewal, experimental validation, falsifiability and so on.

A scientific hypothesis becomes a theory only after it is validated by a lot of data. There is a huge debate involving a lot of intelligent people, when everyone tries to find holes in the theory. A "dishonest" person will be exposed very rapidly in science.

A scientific consensus is derived only after a lot of this exchange. True there will always be dissenters, but that is the nature of science. We always cultivate a healthy scepticism about every theory.

Scientific consensus happens only when the theory fits to the facts. Having a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere is clearly an abnormal thing, and there is sufficient evidence to prove that it does a lot of bad things to our climate.

You don't "trust" persons in science, it is not politics nor religion. There is no question about honesty/dishonesty in this. Either you have a scientific bent of mind, or you don't. It is as simple as that.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

yes I know

Hey amazing

Unlike you who just keep hanging onto rigid opinions, I make an effort and do some research on the technology out there.

The Argonne National Laboratory had a working demo of the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) which has inherent safety design built in. This reactor has been tested in the scientific community. The funding was cut short abruptly by a fossil-fuel lobbyist, and the scientists were told to shut up .  

The aircraft reactor experiment had tested the molten salt idea in the 1960s which is the key for the liquid flouride thermal reactor (LFTR). The funding again disappeared due to lobbyists.

France had an operating breeder reactor at Superphénix which was disrupted by a missile attack by an eco-terrorist group.

India has an advanced breeder program and has a few prototype reactors running. But it doesn't have enough money to build them on a large scale.

.. that have been thoroughly tested by independent scientists working for honest government agencies?  That compete on cost with renewables and conservation?

Really, what do you mean by "independent" scientists and "honest" agencies ? who will give these labels - you ? Mr Amory Lovins ? Why should we even care ?

There are a billion documents available for analysis for people who are competent in analyzing them.

Competing on cost : Depends on what you mean by "cost". If you factor in government subsidies and calculate the amount in dollars, you will get an estimate of the cost. Every fool will make his own estimate for his favorite technology, and show that it is cheaper than the rest.

What makes real sense is estimating the environmental cost - the requirements on land, the requirements on mining, the requirements on water ... Again by people who are competent in doing that.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

"coal moratorium" will sell to public

@madmac

Talking about a moratorium on coal will sell to the American public. This is not a fringe opinion. And unlike gas prices, personal vehicles etc, coal is not something that anybody is personally attached to.

The only reason Obama/McCain is not talking about this is because they got too much money from the coal lobbying industry.

Some of the Obama Vice-president choices have openly lobbied for the coal industry themselves.

This is the real problem.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

please be open to facts

New nuclear technology is a joke. Nobody wants untested technology installed in their neighborhood. It's not exactly carbon-neutral as the uranium comes from mines powered by diesel.

Really, do you know about breeder reactors ? Do you know about generation 4 nuclear reactors ? Do you know about the concept of inherent safety in reactor design ? Do you know that U-238 considered waste is actually nuclear fuel ?

Somebody publishes a report that uranium mining uses diesel (such an obvious fact.. as if this is a revelation) and the antinukes jump onto this.

Do you know how much Uranium has to be mined for the generation of 1 GW of electricity ? Do you even know that we don't need to do mining for several hundred years .. because constructing breeder reactors will just burn the current piles of nuclear waste ?

Do you know the mining requirements for the iron, copper and the million other metals required for the construction of solar panels or wind mills ? Do you have numbers of how much of these metals have to be mined for 1 GW of electricity, and how much CO2 is generated by this mining ?

Do you have relative estimates of the water and land requirements for nuclear vs wind power ?

Nuclear beats all the other modes of electricity generation in all these aspects.

Blind prejudice is the biggest enemy of the future of our humanity, coming second only to blatant greed.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

newsflash: corn stover is a sustainable fuel

Hey amazing

There seems to be a recent article about your carbon cycle complaints.

(A portion of) corn stover could be used for cellulosic ethanol, without worrying about ground carbon levels. The researchers are the same guys who have earlier published that carbon-replacement poses the most important constraint for cellulosic ethanol, more so than water.

Apparently, this constraint is not too strong enough. It means that cellulosic ethanol will have a part to play in the future (maybe not a big part, but still a decent part).

These are the official figures : Corn stover could supply as much as 25% of the biofuel crop needed by 2030.

You can contact Dr Wally Wilhelm for further illumination.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

the choice : imperialism or self sufficiency

The era of great powers is over.

USA has a stiff choice today (a) to continue to consume 26% of the world's oil+gas and a lion's share of every other resource (b) to become self sufficient in energy and resources

(a) leads to a fossil fuel economy, (b) leads to a renewable / nuclear economy.

The foreign policy of USA so far has been tailored for (a) and it is no longer feasible. As the world's economic product is growing exponentially, every individual country is becoming rich and strong enough to defend itself. The US share in the global GDP is falling, and so is its geopolitical clout. This is inevitable.

There are strong interests in USA to continue with the fossil fuel economy because several rich people have massive investments in that sector and they want their investments to pay off as much as possible. This can only be obtained by a perpetuation of US hegemony over the world (They have think tanks such as  the Project for a new American century, the American Entreprise Institute etc) . They have their men stationed in both Democratic and Republican parties (with Republicans courting these interests more aggressively). But the problem is that the strategy (a) is becoming less and less feasible in the world today, and hence it is a dying cause.

The strategy (b) leads to a rapid increase of the world's energy and other resources, and also cures the global environment. From the point of view of a true statesman, strategy (b) is a no brainer. The only obstacles that need to be removed are the fossil-fuel sycophants who are stationed in media and politics.

@Jon

In absolute terms, current Russia is stronger than the erstwhile Soviet Union, and hence a bigger menace for the imperialist aims of USA. Similarly, China is a bigger menace. Instead of facing these menaces, why not just abandon the imperialist agenda and become self sufficient ? The democrats above are not "wimps" but simply simply serviteurs to the fossil fuel interests.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

common sense

Imagine that you are lost in the Amazonian rain forest, and that you are starving. You come across a rare bird long thought of as extinct. You are dying of hunger and the bird is over there.. right in front of you..

What will you do ? Kill the bird and eat it, of course.

The pangs of hunger force people to do several unnatural things.

Now the point in question is different only in scale. If you build this coal plant, no species will go extinct, but CO2 levels increase. If you don't build it, you will not die of hunger but will remain poor. The native Americans chose to build the plant and become rich.

They have been robbed of their land, and all the resources for several centuries now, and when they see the affluence of other Americans which is denied to them, they will obviously go with the temptation.

It is extremely stupid that we are even debating questions like this. Why should anyone be put in such a situation ? If we make the society rich altogether and distribute the richesse at a roughly even scale, then nobody will be forced into these silly dilemmas.

Organizing poor people into the green movement requires that they be made rich first. In our world, this means that they be given sufficient energy to their needs. This is most true to the people of India and China, which are increasingly burning coal due to lack of alternative energies.

Only a world with abundant energy will contemplate the risks to the environment and make the right choices. When you starve people of energy, some of them will be tempted to make the wrong choice.

(What am I driving at ? I am proposing increased use of nuclear energy, the dual bullet which make s energy abundant and reduces the use of coal).

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

sandra is right on point

coal should be killed. as early as possible. nobody is yet talking of any dates when this can be achieved.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

nuclear means ...

Because nuclear means...

...DANGER, and really, really BIG EXPLOSIONS!!!!

Please GreenMom.... grow up !! Try to have a real conversation with a nuclear supporter, and you will understand the arguments in support of it.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

energy is the true currency

@ Jon :
exports peaking :: ..but it robs those countries of badly needed development money..

The importance of capital for industrialization / automation has diminished greatly during the years. The world is currently dripping with capital. The world economic product has reached unprecedented amounts.

In this circumstances, energy has become the true equivalent of money. All global currencies are currently tied to energy prices.

Those countries who have energy automatically become rich countries. So it is in their interests to spend all the energy that they have for themselves. Capital for investment is coming begging at their doors. They don't have to ask for it.

These circumstances force USA to rethink its strategies and become energy independent. It can either do it by cutting down demand or developing indigenous energies. I just hope that coal will not get into this new energy mix.  

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

stagflation

Here is a simple formula for economic growth :

Use the energy that you have for two purposes (1) creating an infrastructure for automation (2) creating an infrastructure for producing further energy. Take the energy produced from (2) and divert it to (1).

As you keep automating the economy, human consumption increases and human suffering decreases. People will be happier.

What is happening in USA is a serious mismanagement of capital. The market is so grotesquely distorted by governmental policies (which favor burning the environment, pillaging other countries and depleting your economic engines) that there is no incentive for either (1) automating the modes of production (2) exploration of new forms of energy.

In effect, you get stagflation as result.

USA accounts for  13.7 trillion dollars out of a total global economic product of 53 trillion dollars. If you count the share in the global disposable income, it will be higher.

Instead of using this capital smartly for obtaining the best economic growth possible, USA has squandered it by grotesquely distorting the market to favor (a) wastage of food (b) wastage of fuel (c) unnecessary driving (d) wastage of stuff (regular throwing away of junk bought in supermarkets), (e) investment in non-productive sectors such as real estate (f) investment in sectors with limited growth capacity such as fossil fuels... the list goes on. The sad reality is that US accounts for so much of the global market that when it goes down, it takes the rest of the world down with it. So the world as a whole has to suffer due to American economic mistakes.

This is the time to wake up and get back to the basics. It means a significant boost to investment in the sectors (1) automation and (2) new energy production of unending sources (such as solar or nuclear energy). This can be done by simply eliminating the grotesque subsidies and distortions in the market, and let individual businesses take care of the rest.

In creating environmental friendly policies, there are no compromises involved on economic growth. In fact, the opposite is true. Environmentally destructive policies such as coal plants and obscene waste of resources are the root of the economic sickness.

Let's think in terms of eco-dollars.

desire for personal transportation

@bob wallace :

I come from India, and I have first hand experience of what happens when you have a high number of personal vehicles in an over-populated country.

What happens ? Shit happens.

The roads are constantly under stress (the road space available per the number of vehicles is about 1/11 the required space), the air is deadly polluted, there is the constant annoyance of traffic jams, and increasingly more people are dying in road accidents.

Indian middle class cannot afford Tata Nanos. There will soon be a government directive to discourage personal vehicles. There is simply a constraint on the amount of road space available, and you cannot have people dying on the road every day.

Now, a good example of managing high density living is Singapore. Personal vehicles are seriously discouraged there. Housing is provided in sky-rise apartments. And there is a brilliant public transport. Maybe not your version of paradise, but it works.

Another very nice example is the city of Paris.

Luckily we have sufficient free energy falling on us every day to power those rides.

Welcome back to the real world. There are ecological effects on the amount of solar energy that you can tap - these thresholds are defined by the land area you possess.

Notice that they aren't pursuing fuel cell, nuclear, or hamster powered vehicles.

Fuel cells are just an energy storage mechanism. They have certain advantages (energy capacity per weight) and certain significant disadvantages (flammability, energy loss during conversions) when compared with batteries.

Nuclear is a way of producing energy, not storing it. You don't have to have nuclear reactors in your cars. Like any other electric power, you just store nuclear energy in batteries.  Nuclear energy is indispensable for powering our society in a fossil-fuel free world.
On A three-pronged approach to getting off oil for transportation posted 1 year, 3 months ago 36 Responses

please hate coal.. amazingdrx..

Thank you for sticking up to your American units. I wonder why the rest of the world thinks of Americans as  pricks, kinda surprising heh :) ?

300 pounds for 6 kwh is a reasonable number for lead acid. (with a capacity of 40 Wh/kg.. you can do the conversions)

Storing energy is a different chapter from producing energy. In reality, all this energy in your PHEVs will be obtained by burning coal. We need a massi