Comments Karen Street has made

tritium worries?

Ok, guys, time to talk about something important.

Exposure to radioactivity for someone living near a nuclear power plant is less than for someone who smoke one cigarette/year.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

waste energy

David,

You're right, it's about waste energy. One problem is that that's not the argument that any of us intend to have, we all believe in using waste energy, up to a point. I visited a waste dump where the methane that used to be flared was now producing electricity, but it required a fairly substantial subsidy.

But the numbers do come across as non-mainstream analysis, including the current percentage of electricity that comes from coal. Since we're not going to get 25% of our energy from waste, and it's not clear to me that old coal with scrubbers counts as waste, and coal with scrubbers produces more GHG/kWh than the old polluting kind, and biopower pollutes but for some reason is called clean, the question is, where is the 25% clean electricity coming from?

I also don't believe that policy people believe in getting rid of subsidies for wind. Last I read, and this may no longer be true, a GHG tax that eliminates coal is insufficient to bring wind into the mix, and we want to bring wind into the mix. Even though wind must be subsidized, and even though wind uses fossil fuel backup (hopefully with CCS within a decade or two), it will be an important part of our energy portfolio.

I'm not really sure we want to go back to the days when anyone laid wires--it used to be chaotic when our population was much, much smaller.

Karen Street

25% clean

No, current electricity is not 25% clean. Hydro causes lots of damage, though it's not air pollution.

19.4% nuclear, 2.5% other renewables some of which is biomass, about 22% clean.

A requirement of 25% renewables means substantial biopower. This will increase food prices, even more so if there is a strong renewable fuels requirement, and produce dirty power. The cost of electricity will also rise

I wonder at the emphasis on renewables over clean. Does anyone know?

Karen Street

climate change unimportant?

It is my observation that many think that climate change is unimportant because so many use climate change discernment to stay in the same place. Climate change! yes, we really need to do exactly what I've been saying for decades. Support solar, oppose nuclear, go vegetarian. I don't think that Americans will "get it" until even more environmentalists shift to being pro-nuclear power.

Job creation? Before nuclear power plant construction begins, sometime this year or next for a new US gen iii+ plant, parts construction must begin. People are hired to make the parts.

I agree with Joffan on the knot tying. Joe, you don't explain why you go with a CPA's non-peer reviewed analysis of costs rather than International Energy Agency's and other similar quality groups. You use a Turkish example, when there was clearly only one bid because no one wants to work with Turkey's current proposals.

For years, nuclear power was more expensive than natural gas and coal. This changed by the late 90s, early this decade, as coal prices increased with increased respect for human and other life. As natural gas prices increased with increased demand. And as the very expensive safety retrofits required by Nuclear Regulatory Commission produced power plants that are almost always on, over 90% of the time, instead of having long down times for planned and unplanned maintenance. NRC required safety, and the nuclear industry found profit.

Add in the likelihood of a small GHG charge in the next decade, and nuclear power clearly became an attractive source of electricity. Wind still requires a 1.8 cent/kWh subsidy, solar is still way too expensive, and they have other problems, including the need for inefficient fossil fuel backup. Many utilities opted for nuclear power. It still remains necessary to see how well the nuclear, wind, and solar industries do--can they produce high quality products on time with a minimum of quality control glitches?

I read about the good chance that the US southwest (start from the northern border of Missouri-Kansas, and go west and south until you get the majority of land in Mexico), south Africa, the Mediterranean, etc will move into a dust bowl later this century. I read attacks on nuclear power as too expensive (if that is true, then utilities will build solar, etc, and your post is unnecessary). And I grieve.

Karen Street

It's because we're gluttons

Gar, not quite right.

If population goes up 20%, then each person gets 100/120 of the allotment, which was 20%, so we still get 16.7%. However, we in the US emit way more than our share, so the average person will end up with 3 - 4% of US share. That means we cut way back, or we ask Cambodians to cut by the same percentage.

You're right it's carbon, not carbon dioxide. It doesn't work to say that some of it will be absorbed, because the amount absorbed is the maximum amount the Earth can absorb. At this time, this does not increase with the amount of emissions.

If no positive feedback.

And there is no group acceptable to IPCC that has found a path that gets us there from here.

Karen Street

Strauss

To be fair, Lewis Strauss may have been chair of the Atomic Energy Commission when he uttered those words, but there was no one trained in science who believed them.

He also worked to get Oppenheimer's security clearance revoked, so he was working in a different universe, both numerically and ethically, than just about everyone in the field.

Your point is one I heard from someone in nuclear energy years ago, that many renewables advocates sound like they are saying "too cheap to meter". Many have wind already cheaper than coal, which would mean that Congress could eliminate the wind subsidy, so wind people probably hope no one is listening.

An analysis I saw years ago looked at how much aluminum we would need to go 50% photovoltaic. A report released just before California Public Utility Commission got rid of its electric car requirement showed that the amount of lead introduced into the environment through extra batteries was comparable in health importance to that from leaded gasoline. In China, poor workplace leadership is leading to unhealthy workers on solar panels, big time.

Greater efficiency can also have costs. Improved efficiency helps, up to a point. Almost 1/3 of greenhouse gas reductions in a recent IEA analysis come from efficiency. But at some point, it's easier and cheaper to produce the energy. A clear example is solar power: it is cheaper and less resource dependent if we build solar thermal far away than lots of solar panels for local use. While it may make sense that we save a lot of money on transmission lines and line loss with local PVs, the cost of manufacture, installing in bits and pieces, etc, begins to add up. Additionally, utilities tend to be more effective at maintenance.

Any serious use of wind depends on widespread integration of the grid, and transmitting wind hundreds of miles, along with fossil fuel reserves. The other option is to use fossil fuel reserves in even greater quantities. There is waste in building up the grid, but compare that to the current situation with wind.

I, along with almost everyone else, support subsidies of wind and other technologies today, as an investment in cheaper and greener energy tomorrow. When the subsidies are well over $100/ton, as they are for solar panels, we may be catering to our constituency rather than making good investments--not all subsidies are created equal.

Thanks for the post.

Karen Street

power plant cost expert?

What makes Severance an expert, writing a non-peer reviewed report? Why are his conclusions more credible than IEA? 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?

Here is my comment from another post:

On the other hand, International Energy Agency (http://www.iea.org/textbase/techno/essentials4.pdf) says, "In the absence of a carbon price, nuclear power costs are comparable with coal- or natural gas-based power at current price, or slightly higher. A carbon price of between $10 and $25/tCO2 makes nuclear power economically competitive." One  assumption is an economic lifetime of 25 - 40 years for the plant, though Chu and the other 11 directors of the national labs are suggesting that we look into extending lifetime to 80 years.

Karen Street

IEA or Craig

Sean, I'm confused as to how you decide which analysis you will pass on to others. You cite one person whose article is not peer reviewed.

On the other hand, International Energy Agency (http://www.iea.org/textbase/techno/essentials4.pdf) says, "In the absence of a carbon price,nuclear power costs are comparable with coal- or natural gas-based power at current price, or slightly higher. A carbon price of between $10 and $25/tCO2 makes nuclear power economically competitive." One  assuption is an economic lifetime of 25 - 40 years for the plant, though Chu and the other 11 directors of the national labs are suggesting that we look into extending lifetime to 80 years.

Several minor points:
It may be more economical to shut down coal--but it still has to be replaced with something. The decisions to finish Watts Barr and Browns Ferry were made recently. Also refueling is more typically once every 18 months, a truck load of fuel, while coal plants can use a mile long train of coal, or more, each day.

And contracts have been signed (http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=242 ...): "A construction contract has been signed for a new nuclear power plant in the USA. The deal between Progress Energy and the Westinghouse and Shaw consortium is the third so far."

While NRC has not yet approved any new nuclear power plants in the US, excepting Watts Barr and Browns Ferry, quite a few companies are assuming it will happen.

Sean, all 12 US national lab directors say that expanded nuclear power will be necessary past  2100. It's a good bet that they looked into the issues before making a public statement.

Karen Street

lone wolf

Jon,

Peer review in economics journals take a good portion of a year, much slower than for science. Science magazine often gets early versions online, before they can get the article into the magazine, say a couple of months later.

Perhaps people are not following Jacobson is because the data they look at don't lead them to the same conclusions. Remember, this is not an isolated field few are looking at. All of this work gets much consideration. If Jacobson really is a leader rather than a diversion, I will see his ideas appear in the uber-reports. Once I see ideas in the uber-reports, I share them in my presentations.

I have never heard that Hansen was a lone wolf on climate change. What he was willing to do was say this is our middle picture analysis at a time when error bars were really large.

The lone wolf argument appears often, that Galileo was right in addressing the non-scientific establishment, and he was a lone wolf, or something, and so being a lone wolf often leads to being right in addressing the scientific establishment. This is sometimes true, but not so often. Much more often, being alone in your thinking, as some policy and climate skeptics are, means that other experts have looked at your thinking and rejected it.

Jacobson may turn out to be right, and the overwhelming number of policy people speaking in fields he hasn't studied (eg, nuclear power) may turn out to be wrong. I personally don't feel comfortable cherry-picking the ideas of individuals in fields I haven't studied.

One more thing, and I've said this many times: when I began looking at climate change in 1995, the science and policy establishments had turned all their thoughts to climate change. Meanwhile, a decade later, environmentalists are paying a great deal of attention to non-issues like mercury in the food chain because of coal. I have heard that until An Inconvenient Truth, environmental groups did not even cover climate change in every single monthly magazine. It's not as if scientists and policy experts aren't studying the issues. They need 3 - 5 times more R&D money, yes. But the assumption that people don't pick up on my favorite answer or problem through lack of expertise on their part is not one I have found over time to have validity.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

more on peer review

Peer review doesn't make something correct. All it means is that it is entered into the scientific and policy discussion--apparently, the work of  Lovins and Makhijani work is directed at the public.

Jacobson's ideas on wind power were widely attacked as too optimistic in Science magazine a few years ago by other pro-wind advocates, such as David Keith.

After peer review, which is the minimum we should look for, comes the discernment of the community. We can read, for example, major national lab reports, National Academy of Sciences, International Energy Agency, and IPCC to see how the ideas are received. I have seen no indication in any of these analyses that the policy community has accepted Jacobson's thinking on how ubiquitous wind power can be. If you find a top level analysis that finds a way to get there from here without seriously expanding nuclear power, I'd be interested in reading it.

In the absence of such analysis, it looks like those who oppose nuclear power are more interested in picking and choosing solutions than in seriously addressing climate change. I heard Jim Hansen last night, talking about the likely unattainable goal of 350 ppm CO2, though really 300 - 325 ppm would be much better for people and species. He showed pictures of some of those species, and some of those people (his grandchildren). I would think that finding ways to extend the set of solutions, eg, finding carrots and sticks to get people out of planes, would do more than attacking the too-small set of solutions that now exists.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

peer review

First of all, peer review means that the ideas have been submitted to the policy community for their consideration. It will be interesting if Jacobson is right, and we have so many solutions that we can throw some away, since this is not what the analysis of others show. We'll see if these ideas are accepted over time.

An unusual analysis: from Jacobson's text, the blue bars are the GHG emissions/kWh, based on assumptions different from what I've seen elsewhere, and the red bars are a category called opportunity cost emissions due to delays. We'll see if this methodology is adopted by the next IPCC WG3.

If we can meet European times for nuclear power, then we can build a plant including approval in 4 years. It might not be that fast here, but that's a pretty good time.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

Working Group 3

Start with IPCC, eg, Technical Summary: http://www.mnp.nl/ipcc/pages_media/AR4-chapters.html

They cite IEA World Energy Outlook 2004 as baseline: http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/2004.asp

But you can get more recent versions of World Energy Outlook, or at least parts of them, at IEA: http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/

The WEO provides the BAU analysis others use.

When the national labs do a report that economists don't like, they need to redo it. Chu understands that economics is important. It's also true that everyone who is pro-nuclear is aware of a substantial amount of anti-nuclear feeling. Indeed, when I read in peer-reviewed sources about problems with nuclear power, it most frequently lists not nuclear waste, for example, as public perceptions of nuclear waste. People addressing climate change are addressing the understanding of legislators, environmental groups, and the public. See the recommendations in Lighting the Way.

I hope that Bob and all other readers who really care about addressing climate change are doing their darndest to turn public perception around. (It's already started, I'd guess that about 1/4 of the anti-nuclear power people I know won't change ever, and most of the others have shifted or are showing definite pre-shift understandings.)

The quality of our lives depends on it; for many species, it's the chance to continue to exist.

Karen Street

He's also pro-nuke

Of course Chu is. He's looked at the issues and EVERYONE publishing analysis at his level is pro-nuke. There is no peer-reviewed analysis, so far as I know, that shows us getting there from here, without seriously expanded use of nuclear power. The old baseline analysis used by all (peer-review) analysis used in the IPCC Working Group 3 report is International Energy Agency 2004, which shows some expansion. The new baseline analysis from IEA shows more. I would expect IEA 2010 to show considerably more.

Jon, what are the chances that a director of a national lab, who will hear from those he works with and others when he makes mistakes about policy and science, is very wrong on this kind of stuff? People at the national labs were seriously interested in finding solutions to climate change when I became interested in 1995, and had been for years. I don't know why some consider that they just haven't been thinking about the issues enough.

What are the chances that Chu's thinking fairly accurately reflects the thinking of those who have been studying the issues, and are passionate to find answers? In my own presentations, I assume they are good. That doesn't mean that the group who does high level discernment of peer reviewed work is always right--I've had to change my presentations often as their conclusions change. But it is my experience that these conclusions don't shift in the direction of the non-peer reviewed work.  

Also see the conclusions of Lighting the Way: Toward a Sustainable Energy Future, which he co-chaired.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

Greenpeace and Sierra Club??????

Er, peer reviewed. Peer doesn't mean equal, it means elite.

Why do you think that policy people and scientists aren't pedaling as fast as they can????

Check out the huge number of peer reviewed studies. You can begin with International Energy Agency Energy Technology Perspectives 2008, and the National Research Council study on wind. You can get to these and other peer reviewed reports from my blog.

I also looked at a Sierra Club analysis, comparing it to a John Holdren analysis. Not in the same league.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

the market won't build nuclear?

Jon, why are so many utilities spending a fortune on plans already submitted to Nuclear Regulatory Commission, or intended for submission soon, for construction and operating licenses?

Why do so many analysts, the peer review kind, believe that at a fairly low GHG tax, or the equivalent due to cap and trade, that nuclear is clearly a good choice, and some find it competitive with coal even without the tax?

And why would any gristmill writer spend even one erg of energy arguing against nuclear power if the market didn't favor it? That's my absolute favorite argument, from the first time I saw it in 1995, that no one will ever build nuclear but I'm devoting a lot of energy to convincing you it's bad anyway.

(My second favorite argument against nuclear power comes from Union of Concerned Scientists--let's see if renewables and efficiency are enough first, as if no one has ever done the calculation.)

But maybe I'm not understanding your point? The government must sponsor large scale R&D. Government also sets mandates, for minimum amounts of renewables, or in California, that GHG emissions can be no worse than for natural gas. The government also can tax emissions, or effectively tax them through a cap and trade proposal. In several states, such as CA, new nuclear power is banned until "the nuclear waste problem is solved" as if the problems of nuclear waste even in the absence of climate change are somehow comparable to the problems of fossil fuel waste.

Why would government need to specifically require nuclear power? It can give it the same perks it gives other high capital cost energy sources (good loan rates), but that's not a preference so much as an even playing field. New nuclear technologies need R&D, but wind and especially solar will for a while as well, and as all peer review policy reports are emphasizing in italic bold, we really need to get started on CCS R&D. Several years ago!!!

It seems to me that the biggest government selection process, beyond requiring the reduction of GHG, is the selection of certain technologies through renewables portfolio standards. But even RPS have their limits.

OK, the US recently completed a nuclear power plant (Browns Ferry), and has one under construction (Watts Bar). Some utilities expect to be building more modern plants beginning in 2009 or 2010, with construction complete as early as 2014 to 2016. This interest to a large degree exists because some kind of GHG tax is anticipated. So where is the throat-jamming?

Unless you mean that it will be necessary for the government to have a strong cap and trade program with a rapidly decreasing cap, in order to discourage the very large number of fossil fuel plants planned, as well as eliminating restrictions on nuclear power "until the waste problem is solved"? Yes.

We will accomplish a good part of it with cap and trade, because the EU is working on phase 2 of their cap and trade policy, working out the second set of kinks. It makes sense that whatever basic program the EU ends up with is the one we are likely to more or less adapt. It would be a lot of work to reinvent the wheel.

Re phasing out coal power plants, it can only happen when there are other sources of power to replace them.

Karen Street

nuclear waste transport

Jim, when nuclear waste was going to be transported in the SF Bay Area, the local newscasters had done their homework and knew that the fire resulting from two diesel trucks crashing together would not result in a release in radioactivity. So the antis interviewed did not raise this point. Instead, they worried about a bomb, perhaps a nuclear bomb, being dropped on a truck on a freeway in a crowded metropolitan area, resulting in s tiny increase in radioactivity downwind. It didn't appear that these arguments were interesting to anyone, not even the reliably anti-nuclear power people I know.

President Obama mentioned support for nuclear power in his acceptance speech at the convention. Climate change is listed as one of the top 3 national security issues by his top security advisor. I have heard NO one at that level who believes we can address climate change without expanding nuclear power. I have heard NO discussion in any kind of academic setting, any peer reviewed policy setting, that sees us addressing climate change without expanded use of nuclear power.  

Richard, who for some reason is focusing on nuclear power's contribution to the supply of energy rather than electricity, believes that little new nuclear power will be built and there will be shutdowns soon. At the McCain rally last night, there was announcement after announcement of states won by McCain and music instead of TV coverage. Maybe some in the crowd were surprised by the concession speech. Ditto for those who have missed all the announcements over the last couple of years of plans for new nuclear power here and around the world, and massive investment in capital and labor by companies selling reactors and parts. In Germany, the numbers opposing closing the nuclear power plants at 32 years, half or less of their expected lifetime, is now equaled by those who support keeping them open.

Vakibs, who seems to me quite good at keeping his cool, expresses anger at Lovins. There are many reasons why people might say what they say. Many just plain find it difficult to say, "I was wrong." Monbiot said it, but other people and groups whose persona is tied to anti-nuclear power, and in some cases there is a fund-raising tie as well, may find it harder to shift. Some will be able to say that the NRC has improved oversight, so nuclear power is now acceptable. Others will say that better policy analysis shows that nuclear power is needed because of the greater dangers of climate change. Or that the companies got their act together and the economics are not as bad as was feared. Those of you who are anti-nuclear might consider in which way you will explain your change of heart. I truly expect that by 2015 or earlier or much earlier or much, much earlier, people will have begun to "get" the dangers of climate change. Opposition to nuclear power will go the way of lower capital gains tax to fix an economic meltdown.

Karen Street

cost of nuclear power

If the cost of nuclear power were not competitive with other low-GHG alternatives, there would be no need for anyone to ever argue against nuclear power.

Vakibs talks about the operating cost of electric/PHEV cars, and it is true that the operating cost is competitive. The capital cost in the absence of a technology breakthrough is currently too high.

Jon, Greenpeace???? Does IPCC cite Greenpeace as a reliable source? If not, should we?

Sean, lots of energy sources get loan guarantees, and there is only a cost if there is a default. Part of this is to compensate for the inability of some utilities to collect money during construction, sort of like saving for the Prius while it's being built. There are other ways that our current system skews decision-making, and loan guarantees can help balance it. Also, you cite Brown and Lovins, but are these sources acceptable to and accepted by IPCC? If not, should you use them?

Again, some questions:

• can you find evidence in the major reports, acceptable to and accepted by IPCC, that show a path without expanded nuclear power?

• is it the work of members of the public, like the writers for Gristmill, to eliminate solutions found by experts, or to add to them? Is it the work of members of the public to pick and choose  reports to cite? For example, is Brown's initial post based on peer-reviewed work accepted by the science and policy community over time?

• why work so hard to pick and choose which solutions to accept? There is such a disconnect between what the experts are talking about-we're in real trouble here, and there is no path without terrible consequences, now we can only try to prevent some of the worst of the worst consequences-and the public discussion-we have so many solutions that we can pick and choose among them.

• I asked this below-are any of these arguments convincing those neutral or hostile to your thinking, or are they arguments that only work for those who are anti-nuclear power? If the arguments are not persuasive, should they be given up?

I am discouraged. We will see awful environmental problems, increasing year by year, between now and 2030. We can prevent none of these. It's too late for that. We can only work to mitigate future destruction to human health and society, to other species. Meanwhile, some here argue against many of the most effective solutions. To me, such arguments, where I cannot find support in the science and policy community, just mean more delay. To me, these arguments mean more death.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

civility and enough renewables

I should have been clearer, I was not referring to David Bradish when I mentioned a hope for greater civility. It is my experience that many people have shifted to being pro-nuclear power based solely on the behavior and tone of those who are anti-nuclear.

Jon, I am not clear why you think the academic community is not interested in renewables. Just one example: Chu agreed to (leave physics, where he has a Nobel Prize and) direct Lawrence Berkeley Labs if they created a Helios Project.

The national labs, universities, etc. don't have as much money as they need--everyone agrees that research has to be upped several times. More research $ are desperately needed. There have been problems with the current president/vice-president/political appointees. I haven not seen a corresponding problem with the science and policy communities somehow missing the point.

Sean, people are voting with their wallets for nuclear power. That's what all of the utility submissions for new nuclear power plants are about. That's what the Italian government's position that their nuclear power phaseout was a 50 billion euro mistake.

Read David Bradish's industry blog, http://neinuclearnotes.blogspot.com/, or World Nuclear News, http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/, to get some idea of how rapidly investment in nuclear power is increasing.

Some of the US increase in recent nuclear power comes from adding capacity at plants, and some from increased capacity factor. By 2015 or 2016, it is widely believed by those in industry and companies investing in expanding their production capability, there will be new plants.

No one knows whether new nuclear power will be cheaper than new coal power until after some plants are built. We do know that the total cost of coal power, including pollution, including climate change, etc, is too high. All low-GHG solutions need to be invested in, and for some, this includes substantial research and tests.

Again, opposition to nuclear power appears to be declining in the public. Concern about climate change, on the other hand, is not yet commensurate to the dangers we face--almost no one in the US considered climate change worth voting on, even before the economic meltdown. Studies are showing that few understand how rapidly and radically climatologists want to reduce GHG emissions. Hopefully, the public will grow to understand this without feeling that it's too late to do anything. But these frequent anti-nuclear posts on Gristmill seem to be going against the flow of public understanding. I haven't met anyone in years who is shifting to being more anti-nuclear power.

I really do have a question, for the anti-nuclear posters: why not?

Karen Street

promise of renewables

Jon,

The reaction to the Stanford study from strong wind advocates in Science magazine was highly negative. It's important that we rely on information which is first peer-reviewed, and then accepted, by the community. It doesn't hurt to read a magazine like Science regularly, as over time one really begins to get that the public (this includes Gristmill) and scientific discussion differ.

Check out what National Academy of Sciences, or the various national labs (especially the directors, like Steve Chu, say about the potential of renewables. I remember reading an attack on Chu at this site, because Chu did not agree with the author. But national lab directors must keep the respect of the science and policy communities. When I find that my presentations differ from what those who are knowledgeable are saying, I change my presentations--pretty much, I've been the one who was wrong.

Severin Borenstein's analysis is highly respected. See http://www.citris-uc.org/CDS-March17 for his paper and his talk on the potential for the current technology solar panels in CA (where it is both sunny and not all that hot).

John Holdren is highly respected, a former president of AAAS, and founder of Energy and Resource Group at UC, Berkeley (he's now at Harvard).

The MIT "Future of" series is good, though the nuclear power one is woefully dated.

For nuclear power, David Bodansky's Nuclear Energy, 2nd edition, is published by American Institute of Physics, so physicists trust him to characterize accurately what is known and not known about nuclear power.

I found in my own process that while I have not given up my questioning attitude (lots of whys), I have learned many, many times that policy experts and scientists know more than I do.

Karen Street

thanks for posting this

I hadn't seen this clip. And thanks to Wolverine for posting his reasons for opposing proposition 1A. I now have more ideas to consider while making up my mind.

Karen Street

who owns what?

Jon,

Perhaps since the government provides loan guarantees for so many sources of electricity, ownership makes sense, but I don't think it matters as much as getting the new nuclear + wind + etc out there. I've read quite a few people (I believe this list includes Holdren) who believe that we are better served by a number of decision-makers, rather than just one. Because we have a federal system today (or did a couple of weeks ago), getting to a national system isn't going to happen anytime soon.

I think that messing with who owns what and getting diverted into that discussion pretty much assures that we delay working effectively with the system we have.

(I wondered about this myself when I began looking at energy issues in 1995--I certainly went in with a belief that because the US is responsible if we pollute across borders, etc, the US should be making the decisions. I still wonder, but don't really think that this needs to be figured out today!)

Mostly I want to see decarbonizaton at a much faster rate.

Jon, disposal is national, though paid for by the consumer (0.1 cent/kWh). Insurance is paid for by the utilities. I'm repeating myself, but I so often hear talking points that really don't speak to me, and others: we want a focus on decarbonization. Skip reading the environmental groups and go the groups that IPCC Working Group 3 considers reliable, to see what they are saying. Example: International Energy Agency, Energy Technology Perspectives, 2008, looks at what is needed for a 2.4°C increase goal.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

sensible manly men

A friend told me today that McCain's support of nuclear power, with his reference to his experience in a nuclear powered submarine, was the only part of McCain's spiel in last night's debate that she liked. But neither of us are manly men. Is it OK for us to have an opinion?

We both have shifted our thinking on this topic. A neighbor told me that he was concerned that Obama's support of nuclear power isn't strong enough, a major shift from his thinking a year ago. (I doubt that support for nuclear power will change my neighbor's vote.)

Reading the tea leaves: the more the media cover climate change, the less interest the public has in opposing nuclear power. Indeed, it now seems that the group is fairly small that still opposes nuclear power, worries about nuclear waste, and believes that we can make sufficient greenhouse gas emissions reduction without nuclear power, though a much larger group is still not sure. This based on the people I know, of whom a majority once opposed nuclear power.

Even in Germany, there is change: http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NP_European_support_ris ...

It seems to me that the discussion opposing nuclear power is becoming louder with some groups (NRDC expressed concern about nuclear waste transport a few months ago, very strange), but increasingly irrelevant. What are the rest of you hearing?

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

long construction time

Thanks for this post.

Just a couple of points.

First, the greenhouse gas emissions of nuclear power over its life cycle is comparable to wind and less than solar. While wind and solar don't require fuel, which requires mining and enrichment and transportation, they do require pretty large collectors for diffuse energy sources. All are considered zero GHG compared to coal.

Second, the first couple of nuclear power plants in the US won't come online until around 2016. The application process is slow for the first few, and the first couple of any type of plant will take 6 years to build while Nuclear Regulatory Commission dots i's and crosses t's. Later ones are expected to take 4 years. Meanwhile, here in CA we are subsidizing photovoltaic panels, hoping to have 3 GW on roofs by 2017. These will produce about as much electricity as a 0.6 GW nuclear power plant. So a 1.4 GW nuclear power plant (average expected) could come online first and produce more than twice as much electricity.

It is true that the current design of nuclear power will not be usable forever, but they don't have to be. They will be used now, if we are going to tackle climate change seriously.

You place nuclear power ahead of carbon capture and storage. International Energy Agency places CCS ahead of nuclear by 2050, and nuclear ahead of solar plus wind. Hydro is also more important than I expected in their ambitious plan to reduce GHG emissions 50% by 2050. This is in part because industry will be using CCS separate from electricity and in part because all coal plants would have to be retrofit with CCS or abandoned.

I'm with you--if we're going to tackle climate change, we need every tool in the toolbox. And some not yet invented. I remember looking at a national lab report from the 90s that listed about 1/3 of energy as surprise. The IEA plan includes replacing natural gas for heating and cooking with electricity. That's a lot of electricity in 2050.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

More Lovins comments on the NEI posts on his work

I was looking forward to more Lovins response to the attack on his article:

We will address Mr. Bradish's forthcoming posts on "nuclear and grid reliability" and "costs" as they appear.

What happened?

Karen Street

450 ppm

Joe, thanks for posting on this report.

I believe that IEA believes that it will be difficult to achieve this goal, not that the goal of a temperature increase of 2 - 2.4 C is sufficient. We learn from climatologists how big a temperature increase is OK, not from economists!

Of course, 13 GtC in 42 years is 15.5 wedges.

The nuclear addition would be 32 GW/year, say 24-25 1300 MW plants/year. One wedge nuclear would add 1,000 GW in 50 years. Since this plan would add that much in less than 32 years, it actually comes out to 1.6 wedges. Add in any of today's nuclear power plants anywhere in the world still operating in 2050 (most US plants are expected to last 60 years at least, and some are talking about 80 years), and that increases the nuclear contribution beyond 1.6 wedges.

It would be fantastic if you are right and that wind and solar can be added faster than IEA's estimate. Quite a bit of the renewables added aren't so wonderful, eg, about 12 GW of hydro/year, about 1/5 of Canada's capacity. The new hydro would likely supply more electricity than the new photovoltaic.

IEA does mention more than once how difficult even this will be to achieve: "A global revolution is needed," "Unprecedented levels of co-operation among all major economies," and "A dramatic shift is needed in government policies" are typical phrases highlighted in the report.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

Scenarios vs Climate Policy

I am confused by what you wrote.

A B1 scenario might describe a world where, for example, most go the way of France, using nuclear power for reasons that have little to do with climate change (France wanted to reduce air pollution and reduce costs). Instead, we have a world going the way of Germany, closing nuclear power plants prematurely and building coal plants to replace them, not to mention Chindia, well, the B1 scenario does not describe our world.

Given the choices we make independent of climate change, it is then necessary to add policies to  reduce greenhouse gas emissions even more.

We are not in a B1 world, actually GHG emissions are increasing faster than predicted by the fossil intensive scenario.

When IPCC Working Group 3 Summary for Policy Makers was released, scientists' comments in Science magazine pretty much said that it would be harder and more expensive than WG3 predicts to reduce GHG emissions enough.

Again, no analysis examined by IPCC keeps temperature increase below 2 C. Business as usual assumptions are now worse than when those analyses were done.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

IPCC pessimism

Note that none of the 177 analyses accepted by IPCC aims to keep the temperature increase below 2 C, only 6 aim for below 2.5 C,and that business as usual has worsened since the analyses were accepted.

Why do you say that liberals find nuclear wedges distasteful? Some liberals, yes, but a decreasing number. It does seem to be true that organizations considered liberal by themselves, such as environmental groups, oppose nuclear power.

I second the point on the difference between capacity and effective capacity--in the US, the capacity factor of rooftop solar is about 19-20%, in Europe it's going to be less. If CA achieves 3 GW in photovoltaics by 2017, the added reductions in greenhouse gases will be much less than if they built one 1.1 or 1.5 GW nuclear power plant. That is not to oppose new solar, it's just that some mistake 3 GW in solar as equivalent to two large nuclear power plants, when it's closer to half a smaller one.

Not every approach can be a wedge. I read increasing pessimism in scientific literature about the ability of trees planted today to sequester as much carbon as was thought a decade ago. Some approaches can supply more than one wedge, notably efficiency and nuclear power.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

importance of nuclear power

Jon,

Thank you very much for your response.

To make sure I understand, you place nuclear power as better than fossil fuels, but worse than renewables (all renewables??? or are there exceptions?)

If you learned that it were true that nuclear power is needed, you would stop trying to solve the problem without nuclear?

What you said confuses me. I would not assume that the people who are creating the reports to address climate change, the big reports, UNFCCC, InterAcademy Council, IEA, IPCC, and so on, are pro-nuclear. Some are, but the main emphasis seems to be to find ways to create affordable energy that don't do great harm to people and the Earth. They are not fussing over a fraction of a cent/kWh, but they are realistic about how decisions are made.

I discovered climate change in 1995, and people in great numbers were working at that time to try to find solutions.

Thank you again for your answer.

Karen Street

a MW is not a MW

There are more comments than I can respond to.

Tasermons Partner keeps saying that nuclear power plants have a long payback for the energy of building them. Source please, one we can all agree is respected.

I wish that energy sources had capacity factors attached,as well as capacity. 5,000 MW wind at 30% capacity factor produces about the same amount of electricity as the Finnish plant. So in two years, we put up as much wind as one nuclear power plant, and if we could build more than two nuclear plants at a time, we could put up nuclear faster.

Re Collapse, I often think of how Europeans in Greenland would not change their way of being when the climate changed, and they died, as did the culture they were trying to protect. Many find it difficult to change our way of living, and many find it difficult to change beliefs on how to supply electricity. It was one thing when opposing nuclear power just killed tens of thousands of Americans/year, hundreds of thousands of Chinese, through coal. Now the dangers are much greater.

Jon, pretty much all decentralized sources of electricity in the US are diesel generators. I don't think that many see decentralization as the way to go except for people who live far from the grid, whether an individual house or a small town. Locally, most PV are on houses well-connected to the grid. Lots of inefficiencies with decentralization, sort of like the GHG emissions from everyone using efficient cars vs everyone using the bus and train.

This is all I have time for now, sorry.

I do have a question for Jon--some questions from conflict resolution. What do you believe about nuclear power, and what could you learn, if you confirmed it to be true, that would change your mind about the need for nuclear power?

Karen Street

Fast and faster

Fast is important, which is why the UK will be fast-tracking new nuclear plants. 10 years? For the first couple US nuclear power plant, while NRC dots i's and crosses t's, then construction time is expected to fall to 4 - 6 years, as 4 years is the current timetable for new plants in parts of the world with experience. The Finnish plant, with its delays due to being one of the first, is expected to take 6 years. So between now and 2020, slow, afterwards fast.

The new solar thermal plant at 284 MW, 20% capacity factor, is about 1/25 as large as a new 1,500 MW nuclear power plant, 90% capacity factor. It is part of the solution, but with costs that will hopefully decrease to 10 cent/kWh, land requirements (and the effects of habitat destruction), and requirements for new grid infrastructure, it will not displace nuclear in the immediate future.

I read reports in the policy community, from InterAcademy Council, IEA, UNFCCC, IPCC, etc, etc. I do not try to create policy to be what I want. Solar will be an important part of the solution, but not for decades unless there is technology improvement. (Aside: we need to increase money for energy research by a factor of 3-4.)

Tasermons Partner, can you justify your assertions using a source we can all agree on? Lots of this stuff comes from anti-nuclear power sites, rather than the science or policy community, those who submit their analyses to their peers for review. For me, it's like reading on a parallel track--this community says evolution is happening, and that community says it can't possibly, look at the eye.

Also, does it make sense to oppose nuclear power and slow down its construction and then complain about construction time?

I personally support (almost) all low-GHG sources of energy, and ways to reduce energy use. I was disappointed by Borenstein's analysis showing it doesn't make sense to subsidize current generation photovoltaic (solar) panels, and not just because I have to change my slides. I want all choices to exist, to be cheap. But the reality of failure is grim, and we should not try to make the reality of policy choices fit our preferences.

Karen Street

The main point

You may notice that the main point isn't absolute number of gallons used, except for hydro perhaps, because each power source provides enough power for 700 houses (1 MWh/day) while using as much water as a few houses (300-700 gallons/day).

The main point is that old power plants were not designed for today's drought. This is true of all power plants. Illinois plants are getting extensions so that the pipes reach the lakes, as the lake levels are dropping. This is true of any power plant, none would have been designed for today's lake level.

New power plants will need to be designed somewhat differently to take account of tomorrow's climate, water levels, etc. The main question is, do you want to use power sources that change the climate? Or do you want to use nuclear power?

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

And then there's hydro

Hydro is down 70% in the southeast.

How much is residential water use in the southeast? 150-200 gallons/house/day?

1 MWh/day provides electricity to 700 houses or so.

Biomass and coal consume 300 - 480 gallon/MWh, and I assume efficient natural gas is even lower. Coal and natural gas help cause droughts, so how does that affect the choice?

Nuclear consumes 400 - 720 gallon/MWh

Solar thermal: 1,060 gallon/MWh

Geothermal: 1,800-4,000 gallon/MWh

The southeast doesn't have wind, so you want to power the whole area with photovoltaics and batteries?

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

a few percent

Let's see, 3 - 5% of 5 - 6 cent/kWh, works out to, nope, I'm going to have to go with KenG on this one.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

Wind, then hydro

Right, in the short term, wind is more limited by hot weather than hydro, thanks for catching my mistake.

Also, coal plants in Alberta were shut off this summer because of the unseasonably hot weather. Cooling is necessary for all thermal plants: nuclear, fossil fuel, biopower, and solar thermal.

Does anyone know the effect of temperature on photovoltaic (solar) panel efficiency?

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

which can be built faster?

Tubby,

Photovoltaic (solar) panels and windmills can be built faster, but nuclear power plants are large.

National Academy of Sciences estimates that of the 120 GW that will come online in the US by 2020, 19% maximum could come from wind. The 120 GW assumes that the windmill/power plant/PV is running at maximum 24/7.

California is investing $3 billion by 2017 (plus federal subsidies, plus the purchase price), with the hope of 3 GW in solar by that year. But 3 GW in solar is equivalent to 0.6 GW, or less. For $3 billion, a 1.5 GW nuclear power plant could be built, equivalent to about 1.35 GW. It could come online before 2017.

If you look at the most optimistic estimates for new solar (tiny), plus wind, plus nuclear (maybe 20 plants, maybe 1.5 GW each, by 2020, and 30 - 40 plants by 2025), together they do not account for all of the new electric capacity the US will build. I would hate to exclude any of them.

That's in wind and solar rich US. China and India are closer to the equator, but Rome is north of NYC. Mongolia and the US have the most wind. So Europe and Japan can also build nuclear faster than wind + solar.

The main question is this: do we want to replace some of those coal plant construction in the US and elsewhere with nuclear?

We need to add nuclear, wind, solar, much much greater efficiency as rapidly as possible. Europeans will be bringing more hydro online, a large portion of their new renewable by 2020. And the world will be adding coal.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

nuclear waste

The real problem is fossil fuel waste. No solutions exist to the fossil fuel waste problem.

Before you read further, describe to yourself the problems that could result from nuclear waste. Or describe to all of us. Ignore references that talk about lots of radioactivity, lasts a long time, but go to the bottom line: environmentally it's a non-issue, but how many might die?

From a questionnaire on relative dangers of energy use, there is a question on Yucca Mountain:

Assuming current technology and current plans to monitor over 200 years, how many are expected to die from US nuclear waste that will be generated this decade?

The answer may be smaller than you think. When I began looking into the issues of coal vs. nuclear for a school paper back in 1995, I went in with preconceptions that did not include nuclear waste being pretty much a non-issue. I spent a long time trying to find sources I could trust, people who did not mess up the numbers or the physics, who would justify my preconceptions. Not only would no reliable source do so, they kept harping on climate change.

If you want to know more, check out National Academies Press, written by the National Research Council Disposition of High-Level Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel: The Continuing Societal and Technical Challenges (2001) From the executive summary:

Today the biggest challenges to waste disposition are societal.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

Is fighting climate change your first love, or

fighting nuclear power?

For example you recently posted an analysis of how to shut down nuclear power and fight climate change at the same time, and all the analysis included were % reductions/increases each year, except they weren't even exponential functions. A goal is not the same as a plan. What conceivable reason could you have to believe that there was useful content in this?

By mid-century we're looking at enormous species loss, a billion or more people without year-round water due to climate change, and other horrors, see IPCC working group 2. You tout solar energy, though a recent UN report puts solar at 0.1% of world energy in 2030 under the reference scenario, 0.2% under the mitigation scenario. Coal, which provides 25% of today's energy today, would provide 26% under the reference scenario, 19% under the mitigation scenario -- since there will be more energy in 2030, even the mitigation scenario will see an increase. The increase in natural gas will be even greater, with national security implications as well. Meanwhile, nuclear will go from 6.4% today to 5% in 2030 (an increase of more than half) under the reference scenario, 9% under the mitigation scenario. (Energy use doubles under the reference scenario, and increases by about 70% under the mitigation scenario.)

Operating assumptions include strong anti-nuclear feelings in many places. Otherwise we could build more nuclear, less coal, at a lower cost, with lower pollution and GHG costs, fewer miner deaths, etc.

Oh, and non-fossil fuel, non-hydro, non-nuclear? Under the mitigation scenario, it comes in at 13% biomass, 1.1% geothermal, 1% wind, with some other much smaller contributions.

People will die due to climate change, and those who don't are likely to live in a world harsher than the one we know. When I read you, I don't hear a concern for those people. I hear exultation over reports of problematic quality that show that nuclear won't compete.

It is almost impossible to limit atmospheric GHG levels to 450 parts per million, 550 ppm will also be difficult. Each of these gives too great a chance that temperature increase will exceed 2 C. Those of us who care more about climate change root for the solutions to work. But whether they will or not, I find it better to get my analysis from people who study the issues.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

It will take everything and more

I also responded to the NRDC post.

I haven't read the original S&N piece, but have been following the discussions.

It will take major public investment in R&D to improve technology, particularly solar, which at current rates of improvement -- deployment and technology -- is likely to provide far less than 1% of the world's energy by 2030. Much of the money will come from private sources, but pretty much everyone in policy agrees that the public till should open a little further. I hope that you don't disagree with this point?

Both significantly increased public investment and cap and trade are necessary.

It bothers me that while UN and EU and other policy analyses assume that a combination of nuclear power plus coal and natural gas with carbon capture and storage (both more expensive and more GHG emitting than nuclear power) will provide a majority of the world's electricity in 2050, or worse, coal and natural gas without CCS, the environmentalist discussion tends to focus on wind and solar, oh my. I support wind and solar, I support incredible subsidies for deployment and R&D for wind and solar, particularly solar. But geez, people who get their info from Grist and NRDC seem to have a distorted sense of how important these energy sources will be.

For example, 90% collector efficiency, 80% system efficiency? Collectors in cost-does-not-matter applications (rockets) do not achieve that level of efficiency.

Jon, a trillion dollars in solar and wind won't go as far as you think. Climate change is expensive, but we need to spend the money a little more effectively than just giving away a trillion here, a trillion there. Also, re public transit, which I use because I don't own a car and I almost never use cars and never fly -- we need to finance it. But we also need to redesign cities to make driving even more inconvenient/public transit more convenient (you'd think that we would have achieved this, but people seem to have a great tolerance for traffic jams). And enough of the middle and upper class have to use it to change A) the subsidy/passenger and GHG emissions/passenger, and B) the way that public transit is seen by the middle and upper classes.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

Why did they say 4 years?

I just skimmed the article, and it turns out that the company said/promised 4 years, which is the time probably needed for construction when the company and government have experience. In the US, the first few nuclear plants are expected to take 6 - 7 years to build. Now it turns out that the Finnish plant will take 6 years, and be 2 years behind schedule.

Do you really think that we can keep atmospheric levels of GHG below 450 ppm without incredibly expanding nuclear power? Do you think that we can do that even with expanding nuclear power?

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

4.5 billion year supply of sunlight, and it's free

I hope that we stop building any new coal power plants without carbon capture and storage, such as are being built today in China, India, Germany, and Minnesota.

Yes sunlight is free, but the collector is expensive. We need to continue subsidizing solar power, both R&D and deployment, not because it's going to be an important part of our energy present, but because it can be an important part of our energy future.

We need considerably more than solar energy if we are to get rid of coal. We need even more low GHG sources of energy, and faster, than the UNFCCC mitigation scenario.

From the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change: Analysis of existing and planned investment and financial flows relevant to the development of effective and appropriate international response to climate

Solar provides 0.003% of today's energy (not just electricity) -- in 2004 we consumed about 17,400 TWh total. Under the reference scenario, solar can supply 0.1% of our energy needs for 2030; the toal will be about 34,000 TWh -- that's about twice as much energy as we used worldwide today. Under the greenhouse gas mitigation scenario, solar can supply 0.2% of our energy needs in 2030, about 28,000 TWh due to increased efficiency. Much of the solar will be for heating water.

Nuclear power provides 6.4% of our energy today. Under the reference scenario it provides 5.1% (of twice as much energy, so the use of nuclear power expands), under the mitigation scenario, 9.1%.

Under the mitigation scenario, we add considerably less solar energy (not just power) than coal power without carbon capture and storage.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

Promoting coal and natural gas instead

You linked to an editorial that recommends coal power:

Further, the amount of electricity that could be generated simply by making existing non-nuclear power plants more efficient is staggering. On average, coal plants operate at 30% efficiency worldwide, but newer plants operate at 46%. If the world average could be raised to 42%, it would save the same amount of carbon as building 800 nuclear plants.

I haven't checked their math, but on the one hand, 800 new nuclear plants (really fewer because they are assuming 1 GW/plant, newer plants are bigger) compared to building thousands more coal plant and raising their average efficiency to 42%.

It recommends natural gas:

One fast-growing technology allows commercial buildings or complexes, such as schools, hospitals, hotels or offices, to generate their own electricity and hot water with micro-turbines fueled by natural gas or even biofuel, much more efficiently than utilities can do it and with far lower emissions.

Probably not true. There are scads of mistakes in here. Definitely not the case that we want to A) import lots of natural gas, and B) burn it.

I have never seen a peer-reviewed analysis that says that we can stay below 550 ppm GHG, let alone 450 ppm, let alone much lower and much safer levels. The LA Times eiditorial promotes alternatives that will really pump those GHG out.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

Chill the water?

Charles made a joke.

Actually, all thermal power sources -- nuclear, fossil fuel, biopower, solar thermal (concentrating solar) -- use cooling water, though nuclear uses a bit more/kWh. Solutions exist: increase the temperature increase allowed, or build cooling towers. Others?

Of more concern is that the wind doesn't blow when it's very hot or very cold. Hydro can dry up during a drought (as my part of the country is expected to see for the remainder of the century).

Do you really think that nuclear is so bad that you have to argue against it almost as often as against coal? or is it more often?

It distresses me to see opposition to nuclear power on such picayune points (since substantial arguments can't be found?) People will die if we don't expand nuclear power rapidly enough, perhaps not on my block, but in many areas of the world, in many areas of California (my state).

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

3 a week?

Hmm, there is so much here that is fascinating, it's hard to figure out where to start.

First, one wedge of nuclear would be increasing today's 350 GW to 1,000 GW or so. Assume that the average plant to be built in the future 1.4 GW, some are larger, some are smaller. So 1.4 GW/plant x 3 plants/week x 52 weeks/year x 50 years comes to more than 10,000 GW.

I've showed you my arithmetic, can you show me yours?

The 14 plants/year assumption (with China committed to adding close to half, the rest of the world adding a wee bit over half) are assumed to be the same size as today's plants, about 1 GW.

I do want to ask why you assume that the world needs 8 to  10 wedges. Socolow and Pacala assumed 7 to stabilize, but cutting emissions 80% or more is probably preferable, plus they ignored positive feedback. I doubt that any climatologist wants to see only 8 to 10 wedges.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

some of the subtleties missed

Interesting.

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission has a different take than Lovins on where nuclear power is going in the US; We Support Lee says the NRC is Busy!

From Dr. Dale Klein (chairman of NRC):

* We've been told by industry to expect license applications for 27 new reactors in the next two years... and every day our Executive Director of Operations warns me to prepare for an even higher number.

Germany has been told by International Energy Agency and Deutsche Bank that German plans to close nuclear power plants are incompatible with reducing GHG emissions. Coal plants in Britain will be replaced by nuclear. Finland is getting another nuclear power plant. South Africa is looking at nuclear power. China plans about 300 GW by mid-century. Norway is looking at building a thorium nuclear power plant (Norway has large thorium reserves). France plans to build plants.

Lovins characterization of the lack of American and worldwide interest in nuclear power seems to miss some of the subtleties.

I'm writing from California, where 21% of our electricity comes from coal power.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

A great graphic

Jeffrey Winters, the author of the original article and the excellent graphic, sent me a better version than used in the article; it's posted at A Cool Graphic. You can also go here to get just the graphic.

Winters' source for his graphic, on my to-read list, is Draft Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2005, released in February. Winters finds the whole report to be "a goldmine", but check out the "Trends" and "Energy" sections for the data he used.

The WRI graphics are also excellent.

Much thanks for advertising the graphic and A Musing Environment!

Karen Street

Thanks to both Jons

Of course we need numbers. Legislators and businesses need real numbers to design policies, businesses need concrete goals. And the public needs to start thinking beyond recycling.

The California plan is by 2050 to reduce GHG emissions 80% below 1990 levels. With the expected population increase, this means a 90%+ decrease per capita. Even as wealth increases. This is worrisome, because wealthier people drive and fly more, live in larger housing, don't count the pennies (or hundreds of dollars) to heat and air condition. Additionally, air conditioning is expected to become more desirable to the majority of us who live on the coast. Add in desalination plants, and we're talking a challenge.

This 80% (or 90%+ per capita) needs to be translated into yearly terms, as JMG did in his/her first post. And ways to get there from here need to be found and examined.

Policy makers assume that individuals won't make enough voluntary changes in their own lives to have an impact on policy. The City of Berkeley is asking citizens to commit to a 10% reduction in GHG emissions this year, and 2% by year afterwards. In the absence of a way to compare emissions, this means that everyone cuts back 10% on flying, driving, electricity, heating.

There is now an accurate lifecycle climate footprint calculator on the web. It includes upstream costs of refining and transporting fuel, coal, and so on. You can check out how your use of fish compares to your use of meat.

A couple of comments on other comments.

If New Zealand uses 30% renewables, it's primarily hydro. In many countries, hydro will become increasingly problematic as a source of electricity.

To give you an idea where solar + wind are now in the US, imagine a 5 feet piece of paper with the energy contributions marked off. Solar plus wind would be about the thickness of a pencil, solar alone the thickness of the pencil lead. Coal would be 2.5 feet.

From the US Department of Energy: The increase in electricity production, from both increasing population and increasing per capita consumption, was 2.1% from 2004 to 2005. That's 4 times the total contribution of solar + wind (not the increase in solar + wind). It will be a while before the increase in solar + wind matches the increase in electricity production, let alone begins to displace coal. Coal use grew only 1.7% -- the increase in coal was 3 times total generation from solar + wind.

Ignore Limbaugh. A friend of mine canceled her membership in Natural Resources Defense Council because of the three big actions they could have supported over decades -- more nuclear, greater efficiency for cars, and greater efficiency in appliances and buildings -- they only did one, and then they ran a campaign bemoaning the plight of the polar bear.

Re engineering society -- pretty much everyone in policy sees a transportation system which is a mess, a population that will dramatically increase by 2050, increasing per capita driving, and reaches the conclusion that we have to find ways to make driving more unpleasant and other alternatives more pleasant. Actually, policies in many cities (Houston) discriminate against people who want to live in small dense housing near transit hubs.

Again, re peak oil, climatologists pretty much feel that we will run out of atmosphere before we run out of fuels, eg, coal to liquids. There are overlaps between peak oil and climate change solutions, but there are differences as well.

Re electric vehicles -- the electricity either comes from coal or nuclear. No one is going to waste natural gas on cars. Wind blows at night, so it can be used, but solar + wind can't displace both coal for electricity and coal for cars.

Re 80% reduction by 2050 and what it will accomplish -- if we are successful, we reduce chances of a 2 C increase in world temperature over pre-industrial time to 50%. Lots of people will die, lots of species will go extinct, even if we are able to avoid triggering some of the larger changes.

Jon, thank you for your interesting posts and your willingness to post and support people whose ideas are different from yours!

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

Why can't we have all renewables today?

Any nuclear plant we don't build today means one more coal plant (possibly a natural gas plant) that will last decades.

Let's be clear, though, that this is a description of a political problem, not a technical one. There's no practical reason that a non-built nuclear plant can't be replaced with efficiency, energy storage, and distributed renewables.

There's the argument that things take time: we can't tear down all our houses and put up condos and tear down our roads and build railroad tracks. Not immediately. The switch is to be encouraged, but it can't happen immediately.

If wind is ever going to be more than 15 - 20% of our electric supply, which won't happen before there is a large GHG tax (direct or through cap and trade), there will have to be a massive infrastructure upgrade so that wind can be schlepped very long distances. Even today, wind generally blows in regions that have low capacity power lines, and after a few windmills are built, the grid must be upgraded. NIMBY.

Germany is building 1,700 miles of power lines, and it still has limited wind power. It's useful to read about Germany's experience. One reason Germany can have such a large amount of wind power is because it is part of a larger grid, but even so, there are deleterious effects to other countries. German wind operators receive more/kWh than we in the US pay for electricity (this doesn't count transmission and distribution costs). The wind doesn't blow on particularly hot or cold days, so not only does wind require inefficient natural gas backup, this is especially required when electricity is most needed.

Steve Chu (Lawrence Berkeley Labs is doing a series in downtown Berkeley) points out that photovoltaics (solar panels) would need to come down in price by a factor of 3 to be sold without subsidy, and by a factor of 10 to be sold in large quantities. Meanwhile, there is not sufficient infrastructure to build PV's in any great quantity. As I said earlier, we in CA will add billions to federal subsidies and only end up with 0.4 nuclear power plant worth of solar by 2017.

Both wind and solar technology must improve (fund more R&D, legislators!) and utilities must figure better ways to work with intermittent sources of energy. I correspond with someone involved in Iowa wind power -- not only does the wind blow at night, when it's least needed, the utility must adjust its natural gas plants every minute as wind speeds change during the day.

Much more could and should be done in terms of subsidizing various technologies, R&D, and so on. Here in CA, most incandescent bulbs may be prohibited in a few years, thank goodness. This kind of efficiency saves money, but sometimes greater efficiency costs money: the Prius is a good example. Nevertheless, I along with many others would not mind seeing many more car drivers voluntarily or with subsidies paying more for efficiency. Around the country and the world, programs are being instituted to help businesses and residences know what changes to make, and to give low or zero-cost loans. We could do much more of this.

Nuclear is nowhere near the only answer. But once a sensible efficiency program is put in place (buildings, bulbs, appliances, power lines, industry, and vehicles), once we begin paying even more for electricity by subsidizing renewables (solar and wind cost more than nuclear, especially if you count the intermittancy, but we need them, so we subsidize them), once we begin saving even more energy at home because electricity prices have gone up, we still will need lots of electricity.

Part of the problem is that most people in the developed world will only slowly accept living with less as a way to live more richly -- most houses have more than one TV, often large. We have big refrigerators, we air condition when we're hot instead of sleeping outside. People in the developing world have been listening to arguments that they should not live like rich people (the Chinese, for example, aspire to live like the Portuguese or Spanish), but the arguments appear not to be working.

Recently, energy use has been increasing 3%/year. The most rapid increase in renewables will not be that large for years.

People in policy say we need to use every solution. What if we run into problems taking technologies which together supply less than 1% of the world's electricity to half or more of the world's electricity even while we are doubling electricity production? First, we still have as much electricity produced by other methods as we had before, and second, there may be a glitch on the way. We ran out of margin years ago. The world will continue warming even if we add no more GHG. The time when we could have moved leisurely to new energy sources is long past.

See this in a little more detail in How Many Wedges Do We Need?

People in policy are working hard to reduce our GHG emissions as rapidly as possible -- find and improve techology, make good policy, etc. Many say that 550 ppm atmospheric GHG would be hard to achieve, even with nuclear power. How can you take nuclear power out of the possible technologies and keep GHG levels below 450 ppm?

Every ppm we can lower atmospheric GHG probably means lives saved.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

The fuel is free

for renewables, but the tool to use it is not. Not only do photovoltaic panels have huge energy needs (payback is about 2 - 5 years depending on where PV is used, and method of construction), but they last a relatively short time, about 30 years. Windmills last about 15 - 20 years, and use lots of steel and concrete. Then the windmill/PV is thrown away and a new one is built. I haven't heard the whole talk by Alivisatos -- apparently the current designs of photovoltaics are limited because there is not enough of one or more elements on Earth.

If we run out of uranium, what's the problem, were you saving it for something else? That said, uranium plus thorium supplies are larger than coal supplies, and we definitely have enough uranium for some time to come. There's an amusing web site somewhere that predicted in 2000 that we would run out of high quality uranium in 2002; in 2005 they rewrote it to say we would run out this year.

It's easy to say no coal or nuclear, but in practice, "no nuclear" is said only in countries with boucoup coal power (and Norway which is all hydro).

Maybe because I live in CA, the huge funding pressure is to build solar. We could build solar and wind even faster, and do way more R&D (also for geothermal, carbon capture and storage), but it will be a long time, if ever, for solar to compete with nuclear during the daytime, and there are problems with wind power as well.

Not counting hydro and geothermal, it's either nuclear or fossil fuels for the rest. It will take incredible amounts of material, incredible infusions of money (up to 65 - 70 cent/kWh for solar in Germany, talk about subsidies), too-rapid buildup of infrastructure with uncertain technologies, and a massive buildup of the grid (for wind power) and utility infrastructure (for the intermittents). There's a reason why people in policy don't see everyone immediately making the switch.

Just imagine how easy it would be to get everyone to stop flying and driving, instead taking the train and bus. There would be a period of time for us to get the tracks and buses built, and you just have to convince pretty much everyone to spend less money and more time. Wind and solar are expensive, but Greyhound is pretty cheap. If we're going to make a wholesale change immediately, that's the one I favor. It would make life easier for those of us who have already made that change.

A better example is let's all move to condos or apartments. They are smaller so there's fewer demands on land, electricity and natural gas, water, and so on. It's a great idea, but it takes a while to change the infrastructure.

When people in policy look at rapid shift to solar and wind, they imagine that by 2050 we might be able to get half? of our electricity from solar and wind by 2050. Some believe this might occur earlier, some later. But no one in policy sees us getting so much of our electricity from these sources that we can forget ever building a nuclear or fossil fuel plant again.

A Musing Environment

Karen Street

lower stabilization targets

I agree with Bill on the general point that 550 ppm is way too high a target.

The Economist is referring to a GHG concentration that leaves little chance that the temperature increase since pre-industrial times will stay below 2 C. As the article states, cost assumptions include nuclear power, a relatively cheap (if you count the cost of human life, otherwise coal is cheaper) source of electricity. I mention this because many people on Gristmill still oppose nuclear power.

To reduce chances to 50% of a dangerous 2 C increase (and Hansen and others would like to see the increase stay below 1.9 C), we need to aim for 450 ppm CO2e. The Stern Review believes that this is the smallest GHG concentration that we can achieve. The IPCC report suggests that 445 ppm may be possible.

All of these levels are dangerous.

Re positive feedback: GHG concentrations were more than 320 ppm in the 70s, that's where CO2 was. Eg, now CO2 is at 382 ppm and CO2e is at 430 ppm. We don't know how important positive feedbacks will be, but SPM WGII gives a range.

I am also struck by the tone of the report: even where cheap, actually changing behavior will be like turning the Titanic. Changing the behavior of lots of people, at least in the industrialized world, China and India, changing lots of policies. Change often leads to time-consuming arguments (one reason why fossil fuels were de facto the preferred source of electricity) -- but we don't have time. A lot of the analysis doesn't work as well if the growth in different sectors -- transportation, people -- continues on its current path.

Just think how many people we all know who are passionately interested in the environment, yet drive low mileage cars, use inefficient light bulbs and appliances, and fly frequently. Add in a vested interest or two, and we're talking delay.

According to SPM WGIII, to max at 445 ppm, we need for CO2 emissions to peak close to 2000, and for GHG emissions in 2050 to be 85% below 2000 levels (about 95% reduction from Business as Usual). Maybe Stern is too optimistic in believing that 450 ppm is an achievable goal.

With wind + solar + increased geothermal unlikely to keep pace with the increase in electricity production in the US over the next 15 years, we pretty well need to build nuclear power plants at least in that time frame. I've heard some people say let's wait to see if renewables and geothermal together can solve our problems, but waiting increases minimum GHG concentrations. Those who argue against nuclear power extend the time for CO2 emissions to peak, and raise substantially both the level of committed atmospheric CO2e and temperature increase. And environmental devastation. There is no environmentally friendly technology we can reject. (Some technologies, such as cellulosic biofuels, may be friendly at one level, where they benefit marginal lands, but may compete with food on better land at higher levels. Thank goodness we have created so much marginal land, cellulosic biofuels have a solid niche.)

While no one in policy will depend on voluntary reductions in GHG emissions (we have given them no reason to), it appears that if enough of us make enough changes in our own lives, we can reduce the chances of a 2 C temperature increase.

Karen Street

Storing solar with pumped up hydro?

It's a little hard to take Smith and Makhijani seriously with this kind of analysis:

Still, intermittency remains a challenge. For instance, there are many times when the wind falls off after sunset, but electricity is still needed. The problem can be overcome in two ways. The first is to invest in some form of storage....

The most immediately available form of storage is pumped hydropower. Wind and solar electricity can be used to pump water into existing reservoirs, from which hydroelectricity could be generated during periods of insufficient sunlight or wind.

First, there is big energy loss in that process, so it is generally limited to cheap energy (eg, nuclear at night). Second, it's hard to imagine the time this half century when a glut of solar electricity means spare capacity.

It's also startling to read in their analysis that efficiency always has a negative cost. Yes, compact fluorescent bulbs cost less over their lifetime than do incandescents, but many of us are sort of hoping that society will pay for efficiency even when it costs us. Even if a hybrid car, for example, costs more than (dirty, filthy fossil fuel driven) regular cars over their entire lifetime, cap and trade or greenhouse taxes could encourage us to pay that extra cost.

I also wonder about claims that nuclear power is too expensive. If that were true, then no more of these articles need be written. Nuclear is more expensive than dirty coal, which produces 8 Chernobyls/year, just in the US, many, many times that around the world. But so are wind and solar. There are other ways to subsidize wind and solar: mandating renewables. We may want to do this, but please, don't keep telling us that wind with inefficient (dirty, filthy) natural gas backup (in most locations, hydro in others) and solar are cheaper than nuclear.

Yes, they used the pro-nuclear numbers -- the before in the before and after analysis.

Why is nuclear waste only a concern when it comes from nuclear power? Coal power produces much more nuclear waste while the plant is operating than nuclear does over its lifetime.

Why assert that if any more nuclear power plants are built, really it needs to be much more than 1,000 GW (adding 700 GW more means building about 500 new plants)? More is better, but why insist on it? Where is the comparable analysis for all other methods of reducing GHG?

There is more that could be said. But geez, storing solar with hydro.

Karen Street

problems with cfl's

I'm not clear why there is so much concern about the mercury in cfl's, but among the writings people have sent me is an article written by a "scholar" from the Competitive Enterprise Initiative. So I have some suspicions.

Basically, the mercury from the current mix (coal + natural gas) used to light incandescents puts more mercury out in the environment than cfl's do. And mercury is way down the list of coal's sins. Mercury is OK to worry about, but much, much better are particulates, ozone, and coal miners. Oh, and climate change.

I am surprised (and appalled) that disposal plans have been created to encourage people to drive their old bulbs somewhere. Someone missed some important detail or other when they produced that plan.

So drive and fly less, switch to compact fluorescent bulbs, and stop heating and cooling and lighting unused rooms. Try some of the other suggestions. And good luck!

Karen Street

Cap and Trade

With cap-and-trade, you know the emissions but don't know the cost. With a tax, you know the cost but don't know the emissions. This sets up the divide: policy academics prefer cap-and-trade, economists less than 100% committed to reducing GHG as fast as possible prefer taxes.

Europe is going the way of cap-and-trade, and it makes sense for the US to sign onto an existing structure. For some sectors, for some countries, a tax may make sense, but the cap-and-trade system will predominate.

The developing world will not sign on to working with the developed world on tax/cap-and-trade until systems are in place. I hope that we in the US can sign onto cap-and-trade for at least some sectors.

Cap-and-trade is not currently being applied to some sectors in Europe -- all transportation, I believe. The current proposal is to tax flying. Let us hope this starts earlier rather than later!

Karen Street

Cheapest, fastest

Amory Lovins has also stated that the large power plant is no more. China built 100 GW in coal power plants last year. China will be building 100s of GW over the next decade, and then again over the succeeding decade. Then there's India. (The US has 100 GW in nuclear power plants, which provide 1/5 of our electricity.) Lovins also opposes greenhouse gas tax, but that's another topic.

The article is misleading in that it cites "energy experts" on both sides of the GHG emissions argument, as if an interest in and writing about an issue makes you an expert. Experts cited by policy people reached a different conclusion on GHG emissions from nuclear power, and one is cited in the article. The world governments and businesses will be using GHG data for their analyses, and you can bet that the people committed to reducing the world's GHG emissions as rapidly as possible are not going to be using the work of "energy experts" whose work has never been peer reviewed.

The second part of the quote refers to lower cost methods of displacing coal. These exist: greater efficiency and conservation are the primary ones. According to an analysis by Joseph F. DeCarolis and David W. Keith (2006). The Economics of Large Scale Wind Power in a Carbon Constrained World, the carbon tax needed to eliminate new coal power plants is half the carbon tax needed to bring wind power on line, and solar power is even more expensive.

Many improvements can be made in efficiency, mandating high efficiency bulbs in most applications, etc. More research dollars are needed, more mandates are needed. But improvements in efficiency work only to a point, and then become expensive -- can we really get to 0 using improvements in efficiency alone? Conservation is a great one, and one I process with students, a lot, but I'm going to wait until I see a bigger change in public behavior before I count on it to provide a wedge. And we need some dozen wedges, maybe more.

We in both the rich and developing countries need to reduce GHG emissions a lot, and now. China built 100 GW in coal power last year, one year. It's hard to believe, that's why I repeat it. Texas still plans to build coal power plants. Worldwide, coal is a big ticket item.

Recommendation: people who advocate renewables might not want to use the "nuclear power costs more than coal power" argument. Nuclear power no longer costs more than natural gas power, at least in the US, though deregulated utilities favor low capital cost, high fuel cost projects such as natural gas over cheaper sources of electricity like nuclear power.

I support solar power, etc, though solar power may not be as cheap as nuclear power by mid-century. My state has undertaken a massive subsidy of solar power, which I and everyone I know supports wholeheartedly. The goal, with billions spent on subsidies from both the US and California, is to have solar provide as much electricity in 2017 as 40% of a nuclear power plant could.

If your goal is to reduce GHG emissions by renewables only, we can probably get a 60% reduction using only renewables, efficiency, and some voluntary cutbacks. But how long will this take? And how many lives will be lost? How many species will go extinct?

It seems to me heartless to not include humans and other species when making these kinds of decisions. WHO estimates that more than 150,000 people are dying each year from climate change, and many more are dying from direct coal pollution. Climate change will soon be killing at a higher rate. To me, simple love of people and other species would require us to reduce GHG emissions as rapidly as possible.

Karen Street

Regrets about opposing nuclear power

Regretting opposition to nuclear power after 2015, or even after 2010, may be too late; reconsidering nuclear power today can still alter the future.

One of the questions I ask people in my class on climate change, in the section where we dicuss nuclear vs fossil fuel power, is this:

Assuming current technology and current plans to monitor over 200 years, how many are expected to die over the next trillion years from US nuclear waste that will be generated in the next decade?

The answer is approximately 0.

Explanation: During the first 10,000 years, maximum exposure per year from nuclear waste for any one person is expected to be 0.000 1 mrem/year. Cumulative lifetime exposure for a 100 year old person living out his life anytime throughout those centuries next to Yucca waste storage would be 0.01 mrem. Average annual American exposure to radioactivity is 300 mrem/y (much higher in some areas). After 10,000 years, as protection decays and radioactivity begins to migrate, exposure increases, so that maximum annual exposure could be up to100 mrem/y, for a person drinking water near a waste site like Yucca Mountain, where waste is leaked into such a small body of water that it remains undiluted. Over many centuries, exposure increases as the protection wears away and radioactivity begins to migrate. Real world evidence from a natural reactor in Oklo, Gabon indicates that models may overstate the migration speed, so current models may overstate future exposure.

For comparison: Just looking at radiation from soil and bedrock, ignoring cosmic rays and other sources of exposure,  "(s)cientists have determined the NORM terrestrial doses in many parts of the world. These doses vary depending upon the geology of the area. Regions with high amounts of uranium and thorium in the soil and bedrock also have higher radium and radon concentrations. The US average is 30 mrem. The highest US terrestrial dose is 88 mrem. The highest measured terrestrial dose, 26,000 mrem/yr, occurs in Ramsar, Iran. Other high annual terrestrial doses occur in areas of Brazil and India (3,500 mrem), China (1,000 mrem), Norway (1,050 mrem), and Italy (438 mrem). The areas in Iran, India, and Brazil are associated with high concentrations of uranium and thorium in the soil. Epidemiological studies of the people in these areas have been made to determine, what, if any, affect these high radiation dose levels have on health. To date, no radiation related health effects have been found." [UNSCEAR 1993; NCRP Report #94]

For more information on Yucca Mountain, see Nuclear waste, National Academies Press, from the National Research Council Disposition of High-Level Waste and Spent Nuclear Fuel: The Continuing Societal and Technical Challenges (2001)

Karen Street

Solar vs. Nuclear

I don't understand the solar vs nuclear discussion. It's (almost) everything vs coal. And oil. And natural gas.

One of the speakers in the China US Climate Change Forum said that if solar power continues to grow at 35%/year, as it has been doing, then by 2015 it will supply less than 0.5% of the world's electricity. Subsidies must continue, the federal government must continue to underwrite research (and to a greater extent than is currently the case). Solar power will be important in the future (but the "too cheap to meter" people may not see their goals met) and is already important in areas that are far from the grid or/and have a very small energy use.

Higher efficiency is crucial. Pretty much everyone participating in this discussion can cut their energy use 10% over the next year by driving and flying less, turning off the lights and heat and air conditioner in unused rooms, and changing to higher efficiency appliances, light bulbs, and cars. And insulating. Investments in higher efficiency at this point help the economy by reducing wasted spending. They certainly can save the individual money. At some point, gains will be harder to come by, but we are far from that point now.

Other technologies for both the short and long term deserve investment.

But if we are going to reduce carbon emissions, we need to invest in and support a variety of technologies. Solar power could turn out to be more important more quickly than we imagine. Or there could turn out to be more problems than people today imagine. But if we call it wrong, or run into problems scaling beyond 20%, and it was one of very few eggs in our basket, we're in trouble.

Nuclear is appropriate for base load, where solar supplies peak load. They currently aren't even competing for the same niche in our electric supply.

Right now, it's all other sources of electric power vs coal, or at least everything vs coal without geological storage. Should we get rid of coal (in my lifetime?), then it will be most other sources of power vs natural gas. We need to reduce carbon emissions some 60 - 80% while energy demand doubles, in other words, reduce the carbon percentage per unit energy by 80 - 90%, over a period of perhaps 4 or 5 decades, though much, much, much faster would be much, much, much better. And because we in the US emit way more than our share today, and because the US has produced 28% of carbon emissions from 1850 - 2004, there are some in the world who feel that Americans (and other rich people) should reduce our carbon emissions by a much greater amount.

My friends are paying for solar even though the amount they save is less than the interest on a 30-year loan (at which point the panels may be defunct). I may not be willing to do that much, but I am willing to up my electric bill to heavily subsidize solar power, and my federal tax bill to subsidize solar research. Ditto for paying for better efficiency. But I am not willing to give up all other low-carbon energy sources. When people make that recommendation, I always hear that they are more interested in their solutions than in solving the problem.

Karen Street

Running out of uranium?

Y'all do know that the temperature has increased 0.8 C, and is committed to 0.6 C more. At 1.5 C, the polar bear is committed to extinction and the coral reefs to widespread bleaching. At 2 C, we may have triggered catastrophic sea level rise of 3-4 m/century. At 2.5 C, there will be a loss in food productivity everywhere, rather than regionally as is now the case.

And yet some people sound as if they more worried that nuclear power will be part of the solution than in limiting the damage from climate change.

Rule #1 -- if nuclear power really makes no economic sense, you don't have to blog on it.

To answer the points and comments above.

"Too cheap to meter" was a comment of a pro-nuclear power enthusiast, Admiral Lewis Strauss. It was never a belief of scientists.

No one knows how much uranium there is because as long as there is enough for the next generation of plants, there is no incentive to go looking for more. Other technologies, such as extracting uranium from sea water, will only be studied for economic feasibility when other cheaper sources are exploited.

Nuclear power does not have to be THE solution for now, nor does it have to be A solution past the next generation of nuclear power plants. Perhaps solar power will be able to supply half or more of the world's electric or/and heating needs in 2050, no one knows today. But for those who worry about every few tenths of a degree C, no solutions can be rejected.

Policy analysts from the national labs and universities and such are recommending massive improvements in efficiency, huge funding for research into renewables and subsidizing of solar power, such as is happening in Canada and elsewhere. Locally, the amount of money saved on electric bills, according to friends who are enthusiasts and who have bought solar panels, is less than the interest payment on the loan they took out, and that's with subsidies. Obviously, subsidies will need to continue for a while.

But there's no way to keep carbon emissions sufficiently low without nuclear power and carbon geological storage.

As a previous post mentioned, the majority of Americans now favor nuclear power, and the percentages are higher near nuclear power plants. This is true even in cities where there was initial resistance to building a nuclear power plant.

I am surprised to read so many objections to nuclear power, but relatively little mention that even without climate change, fossil fuel waste kills hundreds of thousands of Americans each decade. But of course, the climate change numbers are likely to be of more importance when looking ahead to this century, and the next.

If nuclear power is too expensive and there isn't enough uranium to last the life of a nuclear power plant, someone will figure this out even without your help. But if nuclear power is part of the set of policies and technologies and behavior changes that can keep the increase in temperature below 2 C, and you are at all successful in fighting nuclear power, people my age who expect to be alive mid-century may be very upset with the people who did this.

Karen Street

Getting to carbon reductions from here

Much thanks to David Roberts for pointing out Judith Lewis' interesting article -- see also the comments to her article.

In order to stabilize atmospheric levels of carbon, we need to reduce carbon emissions 70% even as population and per capita consumption continue to rise. After that we need to cut emissions even further to protect the oceans. Europeans and the Japanese would cut consumption some 85% to achieve carbon fairness, with each person on Earth allotted similar amounts of carbon. Americans would need to reduce carbon emissions closer to 95%.

The International Climate Change Taskforce suggests that we limit atmospheric carbon to 400 ppm, which we're on track to reach by 2015.

I've never seen analysis that indicates that we can come anywhere close to achieving this even with nuclear power. If we cut out any part of the solution, our chances are even less likely. This means sizeable investments in efficiency, solar, wind, biofuels, and yes, nuclear.

I'm not clear how nuclear power vs coal is a case of Sophie's Choice. There  have been two accidents that have resulted in deaths from radioactivity from commercial nuclear plants. (A Japanese reprocessing accident killed two people.) But before we ask how many Chernobyls equals one abrupt climate change, ask how many Chernobyls equals one year of US coal power particulates and coal mining. Ask how many years of US nuclear power equals one year of coal particulats and mining. And the new generation of nuclear power plants look to be much safer.

I hope that we will concentrate on the really large issues facing us: Earth's degraded ability to supply food and clean water, climate change, and biodiversity loss. In other words, overpopulation and overconsumption, overconsumption of fossil fuels in particular, and bad land polices.

Karen Street