Climate change activists and environmentalists need to see that Hansen's method also includes ditching previous opposition to nuclear energy. We can all learn a lesson from the good Dr. on this.

David Walters

I cannot quibble with the Hansens' science ... I am not qualified to do so. So I shall assume its validity. But their summary action agenda and the claims they make for it are another matter.

Move to terminate coal-fired electricity plants. YES, but the alternatives are not clear ... and many of the renewable alternatives require a new structure for the electricity grid for which the Hansens' proposals make no provision.

Carbon Taxation - fine, but let's be clear on what we're taxing.
   -- We are NOT taxing all carbon generating processes if we tax oil, gas and coal at the port, wellhead, or mine shaft. (Did you ever light a campfire?)
   -- We're taxing fossil carbon. We're also taxing petrochemicals and other industrial materials made from oil, gas and coal, some of which may not be carbon emitting, depending on the production processes involved.
   -- We are NOT taxing biofuels, that some have argued are causing deforestation and thus removing badly needed carbon sinks.
   -- We are NOT necessarily providing a progressive new tax: many of the poor live in badly insulated housing and drive old inefficient cars, so their proportional share of the carbon tax dividend may not cover the tax they pay. (This is especially true if they rent their homes, since their landlords have no incentive to improve the energy efficiency of their buildings. Since those with available capital can spend to reduce their energy consumption while those that do not have such funds available cannot, this problem will get worse, not better, over time.)

The Hansens claim that, "Fourth generation nuclear power (4th GNP) and coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) at present are the best candidates to provide large baseload nearly carbon-free power (in case renewable energies cannot do the entire job)." They then call for a program of investment in those technologies.

I find this a formula for massive risk-taking that could - and should - be avoided.
   -- We know that small scale renewables work, and that wind, water and solar power generating capacity has been increasing efficiency over time with minimal public investment. Why turn away from them? Why not give them funding?
   -- Why assume that technologies that do not now exist, and all of which pose risks of catastrophic failures (or diversion of dangerous products) will be a panacea?
   -- The answer to the first question of why not fund renewables helps explain why the new nukes and CCS are not appropriate objects of public investment: economists' analyses of the efficient ways to spend public resources to address the need to generate non-carbon-based power come to a conclusion based on past experience with subsidizing technologies: it is likely to be very inefficient.
   -- WHY? Simple: how do you pick the right technologies to support when you have no idea what investment and investigation will uncover in the way of approaches to the problem? You can't pick because you don't have the data.
   -- So, I agree that investment in new technologies is badly needed ... but I don't want to see any single group picking the tehcnolgoies ... putting all our eggs in that one basket.    

Let's make sure that we provide a subsidy of sorts - or a guarantee of massive profits in the future - to those who can solve the power generation problem, let's modernize the power grids and transmission lines in the US - and across the globe - to facilitate use of decentralized generation, to transmit from windy and tidal and desert zones where we can generate power but not move it to where it is used, and let's make sure we reward those who might come up with ways to move electricity down transmission lines with less line loss - lower power needs to move those electrons. Then we are diversifying our portfolio of electicity generating options.

But let's also remember that there might be other power sources out there, and leave room for them. (What are they? I don't know ... do you? -- but that's why we need a diversified approach!)

We're going to pull out of the economic mess a failure to remain diversified in financial investments has created for our supposedly smartest financiers. The toxic debts remain and will continue to do damage, but they will gradually dissipate as drags on the economy.

It's not as easy to pull out of the ecological mess we've created by having an undiversified power system, too reliant on fossil carbon.

The last thing we can afford is to risk a similar lack of diversification in our hoped-for alternatives. Let's create massive incentives for invention and innovation - but under no conditions should we bet on any one or two technologies to save the planetary conditions that have nurtured us so far.

Fourth generation nuclear power (4th GNP) and coal-fired power plants with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) at present are the best candidates to provide large baseload nearly carbon-free power (in case renewable energies cannot do the entire job). Predictable criticism of 4th GNP (and CCS) is: "it cannot be ready before 2030." However, the time needed could be much abbreviated with a Presidential initiative and Congressional support.

Kind of a weird statement.

"Best candidates"
"Although they aren't anywhere near being ready."
"But they could be ready sooner if we give them a lot more subsidies than we already do"

Wouldn't that make them "not" the best candidates?

But I guess I can understand couched statements like that as chasing towards the political middle to for the mere purpose of consensus building.

Just kinda of a weird statement coming from a guy who says "We need to act as soon as possible!!!".
When the soonest current 3rd gen Nuclear powerplants are projected is 2020.
And 4th gen and CSS are hardly even in their pilot stages.

-David Ahlport

Energy efficiency, renewable energies, and a "smart grid" deserve first priority in our effort to reduce carbon emissions.

that's very clear support for "repowering america" and other such high-speed plans.

With a rising carbon price, renewable energy can perhaps handle all of our needs.

this statement is carefully worded and highly accurate.

However,

-- since we have one shot at this and one plan alone is not a good idea and massive climate system intervention is very hard to call "practical" or "possible" --

most experts believe that making such presumption probably would leave us in 25 years with still a large contingent of coal-fired power plants worldwide.

particularly in china and india, which do not have enough nuclear and gas plants in current operation to provide baseload power for their wildest industrial dreams, which is what they bring to the negotiating table.

Such a result would be disastrous for the planet, humanity, and nature.

this is a very simple argument of risk abatement. all that's needed is a promise to work on future nuclear and CCS in exchange for doing current clean power now. if they don't pan out, we'll know.

but look again at the opening sentence.

Energy efficiency, renewable energies, and a "smart grid" deserve first priority in our effort to reduce carbon emissions.

there is no doubt what is meant by this statement. but it gets ignored by both sides of the nuclear argument when they see the word "fission."

crazy.

"Energy efficiency, renewable energies, and a "smart grid" deserve first priority in our effort to reduce carbon emissions."

Perhaps because efficiency, renewables, and the grid have small advertising budgets.

I have to believe that many of the pro-nuclear people who post on these forums are a) paid by the industry or b) somehow locked into the industry via their jobs or investments.  'Teh math' tells a rational person that nuclear is not a solution for our 'next 20 year' energy needs and cutting atmospheric gases Now.

I would expect coal executives see a limited lifetime for their plants.  Feels to me that we've entered the 'end of coal' era.  Advertising in the support of "clean" coal probably serves to extend the use of coal and every year further coal plants are allowed to operate means another year of profits for coal companies.

Putting most of your window on the south and including appropriately sized overhangs when you build has no budget for advertising and lobbying.

every time i've seen this letter (and attachment) reviewed, the emphasis on nuclear R&D has completely wiped the letter's clear statement of a need for a gigantic existing clean tech push, from the reviewers' minds.

it doesn't make any sense. hansen was very public in supporting a smart grid and all renewable energy, mid-2008, and the letter endorses that as a first and major priority. i think maybe, in his mind, to say that we need that push now is like saying we need to breathe or drink water, because he's talking about eliminating coal plants in 20 years.

but he comes out with a word of caution not for joe lieberman, not for james inhofe, but for real serious do-it type people, describing a backup strategy, and instead of treating it as a backup strategy, saying something like,

james hansen believes in the next 20 years we need to switch to off-the-shelf efficiency and clean power and, for the farther future, supports researching cleaner use of non-renewable fuel

instead of that, people try to turn him into a pro-nuke denialist fruitcake!!!

Why do You push nuclear?  What is your motivation?

Surely you recognize that we can provide all the electricity we need with non-nuclear, non-fossil fuel methods.

Surely you know that "affordable" nuclear is only a dream at this time.  It's unproven concept and would take decades to implement when we need alternative sources of power now.

Are you capable of sitting down and creating a non-nuclear solution on paper and then doing a cost comparison and time to production comparison?

Glad to see efficiency put first.  When are we going to get around to that?  It's time we recognized it as not only an effective, but vital, strategy.

I love the ants vs. dogs metaphor posted by Pangolin.  Because efficiency, cogeneration, and small-scale renewables are highly decentralized.  That's why they are so difficult to marshal and promote, and all-too-easy to discount.  

Let's march.    

Toad the 12 sprocket

A very insightful comment as fourth generation plants can reduce storage time from 130,000 years to 270 years (page 5).

From what I can tell, "4th generation" seems to be as vague a term as "clean coal".

What I think you're specifically talking about is Breeder Reactors / Fast Neutron Reactors.

-David Ahlport

Plutonium/Transurenics based reactors

-David Ahlport

"Dry rock geothermal, concentrated solar...sun and the heat of the planet right now."

"Possibly true if money and commodities are unlimited and authoritarian governments use eminent domain to confiscate property and bypass environmental studies and permitting."

You honestly think that it would be easier to get the public to buy into the idea of ~400 new nuclear plants (which means new plants in everyone's back yards) than to go along with wind farms in the windy parts of Texas and the Great Plains, small footprint geothermal, and concentrated solar spread across the southern edge?

You gotta quit smokin' that stuff.  

"Frankly, just acquiring the permits, environmental studies and land to build the super grid this vision would require will take decades. With nuclear, especially small modular nuclear, the average distance traveled per kWh will be much shorter."

It might not be the most efficient route, but we've already got the real estate to build HVDC lines.  Everywhere is basically hooked to everywhere else now.  Beef up the towers where needed and add another set of lines.  We probably could convert a lot of our AC transmission lines to HVDC and move a lot more power with a lot less loss with the existing wire.

Certainly the case here on the NW coast of CA.  We had to scale back our upcoming wind farm because the existing grid couldn't carry more surplus to the Pacific Intertie.  Switch our existing AC to HVDC and we could feed significant power to everywhere from Seattle to San Diego.  (Off Cape Mendocino is one of the great concentrations of great wind.)

Pro nuke people seem to think that the public wants more nukes.  Even if someone actually invented a safe reactor the majority of the public would not believe them.  It would take military intervention to build new nukes in a lot of the country.

Intensive conservation along with new nuclear at $0.15+ per kWh and which would not come on line for one to three decades, and leaves unsolved safety and waste disposal efforts, or...

Intensive conservation along with renewable at <$0.10 per kWh which can be installed within the next decade or so with concentrated effort.

(I think Hansen an expert in climate issues.  I suspect him under-informed when it comes to power generation issues.  Same with some of our incoming administration.  But all smart people and will look at the data rather than make "faith-based" decisions.)

'Policies being discussed in national and international circles now, which focus on 'goals' for emission reduction and 'cap and trade,' have the same basic approach as the Kyoto Protocol. This approach is ineffectual and not commensurate with the climate threat.

This really needed to be said, but Barack will go with "experts" who tout cap and trade, the "free" market solution.  The same sort of "experts" who caused the credit crisis and are now failing to deal with it.  Hansen will be deemed to have no expertise in these business matters.

It is still feasible to avert climate disasters, but only if policies are consistent with what science indicates to be required.

The measures he recommends will have almost no effect.  It will not be possible to avoid disaster with any of these, or even with real solutions that are already working, spread as quickly as possible with WW II war production-like efforts.

He seems to have overlooked methane and ice melt feedbacks that have most likely pushed the climate past the tipping point already.

This is shocking and sad if this is the sort of information Obama is getting from our most respected activists on GHG climate disaster.  This is what we had to ignore during the Obama volunteer campaign, the realization that the same old catastrophic conventional wisdom on climate change would inform the new president, even if we won.

Basically the battle has been lost in the transition, the teams of nuclear, coal, ethanol, and auto/oil industry lobbyists have hit the ground running, while we relaxed post election.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

I would assume that manufacturing and construction costs are the main problem now.  But investors sure won't listen to our speculation when they decide wether or not to fund new nuclear plants.  They consult these industry reports.

Here's another huge problem for nuclear fission, a possible breakthrough in fusion.  It looks close right now.  The French reactor has a net energy gain now, and is shooting for 10 times the energy output ratio to 1 part energy input.  At that point they are claiming it will be feasible.

Is that 10 years away?  A new nuclear plant will take over 10 years to actually generate any power, after the financing is obtained.

Roof mounted solar cogeneration will produce power a few months after it's ordered.  Large wind machines in remote locations, free of NIMBY problems, go up in a year or so.  The same for farm biogas operations.  

Smart grid systems are being installed right now in Boulder, no 10+ year wait.  Ground source heating/cooling systems are going in right now, all over the planet.  Likewise plugin hybrids are being mass produced in Europe and China.

Mass produced, modular, waste neutralizing nuclear reactors that replace aging fission reactors are the only possible saviour of the fission industry.  But why even waste money on fission anymore?  Go with fusion, it can produce fast neutrons to neutralize the legacey of contamination left over from the fatally flawed version of nuclear power we have now.

Meanwhile close down coal plants first, then phase out nuclear fission and replace it with renewables or eventually fusion, to deal with the waste problem onsite, no glow trains necessary.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Perhaps.
But not commercially proven.

Saying that you can build something with deficit spending, and then run it as a federal monopoly isn't proving much.

-David Ahlport

If we want to talk about cost overheads.

What about Nuclear Waste, Decomissioning, and Geopolitical/Military cost overheads.

Those keep going up and up and up.
Renewables don't have any of that.

If anything, Renewables would actually lower the Geopolitical/Military cost overhead.

-David Ahlport

modularized mass-produced small reactors

Aka. Easily accessible Nuclear bombs.
Great idea!

-David Ahlport

I should have phrased it
Easily Accessible, Portable, Nuclear bombs.

Even better :P

-David Ahlport

When it comes to the science of climate change, I would absolutely listen to what James Hansen says. He is the expert. But he is not an expert in other areas, namely energy technologies (and he says so himself) or economics. When it comes to deciding what technologies to support, I would go with Amory Lovins -- he's broken down all the numbers in terms of what is the best bang for the buck. No doubt, it starts with energy efficiency, but according to Lovins, nuclear is by far the most expensive technology. It would be easiest to just stop incentives to all technologies, place a carbon tax (or cap-and-trade), and let the market decide what technology wins. Why not? And that way, maybe it will be nuclear, but I would highly predict energy efficiency followed by wind, solar, and geothermal would end up on top.

Environmental Associate Kingston, NY

Let them compete evenly, but only after R&D on some of the more problematic technologies, like nuclear, "clean" coal, and agribizz fuel farming.  The present approach on these is an expensive GHG/contamination nightmare.

I think subsidy diversion is the right way to even the playing field now.  Take the 50 billion per year (at least) from corporate welfare for fossil, nuclear, and agribizz and incentivize home, farm, and business solar, wind, and ground source heating/cooling.

As these technologies overcome the effect of status quo monopoly pressure exerted by lobbyists and policticians at the behest of industry, say 5 to 10 years from now, drop all subsidies and compare the different alternatives on cost safety, climate effect, contamination, waste, job creation, ans so forth.

Then "let the market decide".  once it is a real free market again, rebalanced to allow competition and innovation by careful re-regulation.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

"Easily accessible Nuclear bombs."

These devices would need to be secure from tampering by anyone, especially terror supporting governments, who might buy them to generate power.

Pollonium for dirty bombs can be made very easily by anyone possesing a nuclear reactor.  This makes nuclear power dangerous in a way that is hard to imagine that any security measures could fix.

Terror groups can infiltrate the site and make all the dirty bomb ingredients they want.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Explain how you would keep Al Queda from getting one of their guys a night job at a Pakistani nuclear facility and making all the Pollonium they want?

Dirty bombs forever.  As far as the nuclear proliferation nightmare can be foreseen.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Hansen's letter is the clearest explanation to date I've seen on what we can do to stop climate change, and gives me a lot of hope that we can still avert total climate collapse with some very appealing and concrete proposals. I'm very inspired by his proposals, and dismayed to see all the carping and negativity about it.

I just came back from a trip to India. It was very eye-opening. A number of the criticisms posted above completely lack understanding of the context of these developing countries. If we want China and India to stop burning coal, we need to give them a cleaner alternative that is dirt cheap. I saw lots of people burning trash, including plastic bottles. The air quality was horrendous. People accept it as just the way things are, versus what, not having a campfire to cook your food at night?

The average income in India is less than $800/year. Their standard of living is not even a third as good as ours in the U.S. Most people there own very little, material-wise, and they just don't have ease of access to material resources that we do, while we waste tons of resources every day and toss things out without a second thought. It's immoral and it's no wonder that these countries insist on their right to development, even if it pollutes, because we in the U.S. pollute plenty to support our extravagant lifestyles, while they struggle to obtain basic necessities.

The reality is that it's difficult to begin to even think of accomplishing things in India that we take for granted here. When the average "middle-class" family is surviving on $40/month after they pay for rent, water, sewage and electricity, not to mention the legions of ultra-poor families that get by on even less than that with no household water, sewage or electricity, it's hard to imagine a material reality of solar panels or ground-source heat pumps everywhere.

This was the first I'd heard that there might be a nuclear energy option that didn't create tons of hazardous waste for a bazillion years. That is really exciting news. If it's realistically within technical possibility, I'm all for pursuing it as a backup plan and sharing it with developing countries to get them to stop burning fossil fuels, which is what Hansen is suggesting.

Implementing these major initiatives and policy recommendations will put us on the right track to stop climate change. We can always implement additional policies to deal with any unintended consequences, for example if one is concerned that biofuels will displace forests if we don't tax biofuels like fossil fuels. After all, that sort of displacement is a concern whether or not a Hansen-style carbon tax is implemented. Just work to protect more forests!

I'd like to see a strong grassroots push for a carbon tax as Hansen proposes. Who will join me in this effort?

For the past 40-50 years America's energy policy was run by lobbyists and special interest groups.  I'm hopeful President Obama will listen the to the scientists.  I urge all environmentalists to take a fresh look at nuclear power.  In the large global warming picture, wind and solar energy are sideshows. Only nuclear energy can replace dirty coal.  The 4th generation reactors to which Dr. Hansen refers can essentially provide us with unlimited clean, safe electricity. For useful, objective energy information see Energy Plan USA.com.

R. Moen

Always use the word "Only"?

As if that's their real argument that "No other possible options exist!!!"

Kind of a pathetic argument to make.
(And yet that's the one that they keep using)

-David Ahlport

I"m an environmental leader, I've heard you speak and I've spoken to you.  I admire you. But you're mistaken.

I don't doubt for a second that a carbon tax is preferable to cap and trade.  But an imperfect remedy you can get through Congress is damn sight better than a perfect one you can't.  You underestimate the success that the Republican Party has had in absolutely demonizing taxation.  That success has done great harm, but it's real, we're stuck with it, and I do not believe a carbon tax could pass Congress.  Nor do I believe the public would support it.  In 1992 the Clinton Administration proposed a BTU tax. That trial balloon didnt last a day.

"If you believe in many close calls
and, bafflingly, no hits, you were never pronuclear, nor genuinely pro-renewable-energy."

I grew up close to Oak Ridge Nuclear Facility.  I toured the plant back in the 1950s.  I saw what they projected as the future - "the friendly atom" - and I believed that safe, cheap nuclear energy was the world's future.

But over time I became aware of the lack of "safe".  A lot of it came from living downwind of Rancho Seco in the 1980s.  Then, the more I read, the less I believed in "safe".  As far as I'm concerned there is no safe nuclear.  Only a record of one meltdown (and some close calls) and multiple significant leaks to date.

"Cheap" went away for me within the last couple of years as I began to read cost analyses based on inclusive numbers, not the simple-minded "too cheap to meter" PR stuff spouted by industry shills.

Likewise my feelings about renewables evolves over time.  I once thought ethanol was the answer.  Then I saw the math.  Same with hydrogen.  Math kills BS and false hope.

Now what I see is that wind-generated electricity is coming to market at very affordable prices.  Solar PV and thermal are showing every sign of doing the same.  That's where I am with renewables.  

I'm a fact-based believer.

"Similarly, a belief that nuclear power plant waste presents unsolved problems, despite its management so far having been completely successful in preventing harm to anyone, is never found in anyone who isn't trying to direct attention away from carbon monoxide injuries and deaths that are lucrative for him or her."

That's just pro-nuke BS.

It's nothing more than saying the crackhead standing on the sidewalk firing his Glock in random directions is OK because he hasn't hit anyone yet.

Right now we've got spent nuclear fuel sitting in temporary storage in Humboldt County because there is no safe long term solution.  None.  Period.

The same problem exists around the world.

To blame the problems of nuclear waste on people "trying to direct attention" is highly intellectually dishonest and you should be ashamed of having such a statement associated with your name.

"Would you close down all pharmaceutical companies to prevent a bio weapons attack?"

I think we can take this type of argument as a sign that the pro-nuke people realize that they are badly losing the debate.

Then when we read statements such as this we realize that they aren't willing to be honest in their discussions.

"People who believe that transmitting intermittent wind kWh's 1000+ miles costs no more than transmitting high capacity factor nuclear kWh's 50 miles, are sipping the Lovins Cool Aid."

It's not a 1,000+ vs. 50 mile issue.  It's about the initial cost of the power being shipped.  A small percentage loss of cheap power is very acceptable when compared to somewhat smaller loss of very expensive power.