UN Climate Chief: "There is no credible emission strategy without nuclear power."

It's sort of late in the game to be forced to state the obvious, but for what it's worth:



http://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=10034

As for M. Doucet's claim about the end of debate, it depends on what you mean by "debate."

If you listen to some definitions, there is a "debate" about the reality of things like, say, evolution.

Similarly there is a "debate" about the absolute essential role that nuclear must play in any serious approach to climate change.

It must be said that even the most serious approaches to climate change are at best, long shots. The question is no longer one of avoiding huge losses from climate change but has switched to mitigating the severity. Every day spent in "debate" lessens the ability to mitigate.

:kick:

what these people say is meaningless,
even when I sorta agree with it

Sorta.

but it sounds as if your "stating the obvious" is that we must have nuclear to mitigate climate change. This makes no sense to me since we would be attempting to mitigate one massive fuckup by using another method for which we have no real exit strategy (what do we do with the waste? and what about meltdowns?) without serious evidence that the alternative (nuclear) would actually mitigate the fuckup. All because we have no other options for energy replacement.

If I misunderstood, forgive me. But if this is the scenario you are suggesting, might I suggest just using less energy? If we scale back on unnecessary energy items, we probably won't make it in terms of mitigation, but at least we won't have climate change PLUS nuclear waste and Chernobyls. Or does that make too much sense?

Do you have any idea what carbon dioxide is?

Could it just be uncontrollable dangerous fuel wastes?

About 4 million people die every year from air pollution on this planet each year. How many Chernobyls would that be exactly? Any idea.

Oh wait. I see what you mean.

Deaths from dangerous fossil fuel wastes don't count because they only occur during normal operations! It has to be an accident for a death to count!

I know that you are in deep, deep mourning over the 100 Russian coal miners who died this spring and the tens of thousands of Ukrainian coal miners who died in coal mine collapses in the Ukraine since Chernobyl.

It may interest you to know that the Ukrainians will be building (and have built) more nuclear power plants because well, get this, you'll never believe it, they think coal is a fuck up.

I personally think that renewables are fuck ups since they are next to useless in displacing dangerous fossil fuels or preventing the unrestricted release of tens of billions of tons on dangerous fossil fuel waste each year.

As for so called "nuclear waste," it would be interesting if you could find a case where someone in this country has been injured by it.

Your attitude is appalling. If you want to be a proponent of nuclear energy, you should stop acting like you're a petulant 13-year old with just enough information to be dangerous. Which is how you just came across.

The fact is, no amount of alternatives to fossil fuels will produce the amount of energy we get from them (fossil fuels) in a safe manner. So, it is a better idea to cut back on our species wide use of energy, starting right here at home in the USA, than to introduce more bullshit into our biosphere.

And this is your idea of an argument? Declare the debate over, then ridicule the other side of the debate with tangential facts and insults instead of addressing their points? Nice try. Might want to take some public speaking classes, or, better yet, leave the debate to people with skills beyond math.

Cheerio!

I've been here about 4 years now, and I've seen your exact points posted, and then debated, dozens of times at least. After a while, it becomes maddening to keep having to repeat yourself on a daily basis.

"Before you dive into our multi-year bar fight, please read the FAQ posted above each toilet in the men's and women's restrooms."

environmental problems. It becomes maddening to see the latter suggested over and over again, without any suggestion that the former can be resolved.

In fact, nuclear energy alleviates environmental problems, too. The greenhouse gas "carbon footprint" of nuclear energy is small, and will be reduced further. Each nuclear power plant will reduce greenhouse gas and other pollutants by millions of tons per year. Some of these other pollutants include mercury, cadmium, lead, and arsenic. Nuclear energy will dramatically reduce them.

And, as has been frequently pointed out, both coal and petroleum-based power releases a huge amount of radioactive pollution in the form of uranium and thorium fallout.

What we call "nuclear waste" today is not a trivial problem, but the amount produced is very small compared to what we dump into the atmosphere during normal operation of fossil fuel power plants. In the future, we will be able to recycle and transmutate that "waste" into non-radioactive metal at low cost.

We exaggerate just how "hot" nuclear waste is; within a few hundred years, depending on the fuel mix, the radiation emissions decay to background level. But fear of radiation has led us to adopt regulations that demand it be stored perfectly for thousands of years. The ceramic and metal casks used for the purpose may not be perfect, but they are far better than anything used for any other pollutants we generate. "Nuclear waste" has killed nobody. If you find anyone it has killed, by all means, let me know. (But, please, don't take a "kitchen sink" approach and cite everything you can find no matter how remotely connected to radioactive material. I mean the reactor fuel "once-through" waste from these casks, the stuff we supposedly can't store because it's too dangerous. One issue at a time! I can discuss others separately. And I DON'T defend incompetence, negligence, or corruption -- ever. My position on crime in the energy industry is "off with their heads". Or at least "off to prison"!)

But you would be correct to point out that nuclear energy is not perfect, either. It's merely better than anything we've got, or likely to have for at least half a century.

I do not expect you to read this message and have a sudden quasi-religious conversion to "nuclearism". But I do hope you will seek out more information on the true risks -- and benefits -- of nuclear energy. There are non-biased sources of information available -- the Department of Energy`s Energy Information Administration (EIA) is an excellent resource for all kinds of energy information. Although you may suspect them of being completely biased, you will also find trade associations like the Nuclear Education Institute offering links to critical information as well. If for no other reason, access to information about nuclear energy will allow you to cross-check claims made by proponents and critics alike. And even me.

Good reading!

--p!

I know that the carbon footprint of nuclear is tiny. I understand those arguments. I just am stuck on the fact that we are proposing an alternative energy source with problems that we will allegedly solve in the future as we are going into a future of economic recession. Based on the fact that all hell is likely to break loose in the coming decade due to the combination of problems we have created, albeit unconsciously, I am deeply suspicious of building new energy production with inherent flaws when the reality is that only radical, radical conservation will get us where we want to be. Basically, pro-nuclear people sound like they think we can solve it all with nukes, and pardon me if I got that wrong, but I don't buy that premise. And you are right, I won't actually read much of your links because I just don't trust them; I have made up my mind about the probable future habits of my species.

Again, thanks for the civility, though. And thanks for admitting that waste is not trivial. I know it hasn't been a fatal problem yet, but having lived downstream from Hanford for 17 years, it is clearly not trivial. I definitely wouldn't protest so much about nukes if the proponents acted more like you. My history in DU is clearly one of calling assholes assholes more than anything else. On any topic, I always seem to gravitate towards the uncivil amongst us ... I don't quite understand that tendency, but it obviously exists.

Ciao.

...believe we should be getting all our energy from nuclear power, although that would actually be an option. all of us welcome developments in geothermal, wind, wave - even solar: If you look at the whole life-cycle of PV it's actually quite "dirty", but solar thermal is quite nice. And hydro, although I'm probably the only one who gets over-exited about large-scale hydro like Itaipu or the Three Gorges - I figure a little a destruction in a confined space is better than a lot of destruction over the whole planet.

What we do think, in general, is that we shouldn't be waiting around until we can tackle the problem without nuclear. Greenpeace, for instance, seem to think that reducing the use of fossil fuels by about 50% over the next 40 years is somehow going to make a meaningful difference, even though we'd still be producing gigatons of carbon dioxide year after year. Me, I disagree.

If there's a way of ditching fossil fuels in a reasonable time-frame without using nuclear power, we'd all be up for it. Problem is, nobody has come up with one.

We are not going to fix any of this. We may mitigate a little, here and there, but our bed is made. Trying to make humans stop burning fossil fuels is like re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic. It's over, folks. I know everybody is so excited about their pet solution, be it nuclear, PV, ethanol, wave, wind, what the fuck ever, but I am here to tell you: climate change is one storm in many! Add in water depletion, fish stocks, agriculture returns due to petroleum drawbacks, overpopulation - and bingo. We are in for a hell of a shitty ride, and I am losing patience with you who think we can fuck just a little more shit up to solve the whole thing.

Look, the carrying capacity of the Earth is, according to the most radical estimates I have seen, somewhere between 1 billion and 100 billion humans. My analysis of those estimates places the capacity much closer to 1 billion, and certainly less than the number we have right now. Why have we exceeded the carrying capacity? Because of petroleum. Not just gas for our cars, but fertilizer and automated agriculture. I don't think anyone from the "pro-nulear" gang thinks nukes or other alternatives will fill the gap as our population continues to increase and our petroleum supplies dwindle.

In this scenario, with the Earth likely giving us a plunging population curve (anyone recall the fox-hare curves from elementary school?), why on Earth would we build up an energy source which won't change the population curve dramatically AND which we have yet to solve the environmental problems for? Does anyone understand the Precautionary Principle?

Plus, while we have created too many peoples on the planet, and kept them alive just long enough to have huge problems with water and food supplies, we are also spending oodles of cash on weapons of mass destruction. How is this supposed to play out? We have bad, bad, bad problems with water supplies not just here in the good ol' USA but also in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and China. Hmmm, where have I heard those names before? Two of the three have nuclear weapons, and the other is in the hotbed of instability in the world.


Why do you people insist that just ditching fossil fuels is going to fix our problems? It will not, and nothing will. Live with it, and try to figure out what will give your life meaning in that scenario, because it is on.

That's why nuclear makes sense. It yields the most energy per unit of resources spent on deployment. By a wide margin.

problems how? I see that it helps with heating and general electricity, but how can it fix those other issues?

My guess is it doesn't. And it creates its own problems. That's why nuclear doesn't make sense. Throwing good money after bad.

In theory, enough reactors could be used to scrub CO2 from the atmosphere, and chemically fix it. I doubt we have enough time to really do that. Mostly what I hope for is building enough reactors to preserve "islands of civilization," or some such.

I think an awful lot of demand destruction is now going to occur only thru population collapse. Building as many nuclear plants as possible is a way to mitigate that as much as possible. However much that is.

That would be some good reading.

I write that completely non-sarcastically, fyi. I am ignorant of such a benefit of nuclear power. If true, I would be very interested to read.

I propose nuclear because it's cheap per Joule, and is itself CO2-free.

At any rate, if you google "CO2 scrubbing," it comes up with several methods just on the first page. I'm definitely no chemist. For me, it is sufficient to observe that lots of known scrubbing processes exist, and all of them require energy, so if we were to attempt CO2 scrubbing on a terraforming-like scale, it would take some kind of large scale energy source. Very large scale.

Truthfully, I doubt we will have the time or total economic resources to build enough nuclear reactors to both replace losses due to peak fossil and the additional reactors to power planet-scale CO2 scrubbing. But it's interesting to ponder. It's do-able in principle.

yeah, we probably couldn't get up to scale with any sort of rapidity. Might be better to plant trees.

Here's an interesting graph I just made:



What it tells me is that having more energy won't solve a population problem.

First off, I'd dissagree with your carrying capacity figure: I'd put it at around 3 billion, which is where the population was before the green revolution. I'm not claiming this is right, it's just by way of a disclaimer so you know where I'm coming from. :) It's a thread in itself.

Yeah, whatever we do at this point we're fucked to an extent: We've already wiped out tens, probably hundreds of thousands of species, killed a hundred million people from pollution: We'll probably loose a billion more from peak oil, and another billion will die from hysteresis without even knowing what it means.

But this is still the "if we're lucky" scenario: We could easily loose millions of species and an extra 4 billion people. I'm afraid I'm one of those people who thinks biodiversity has a value in it's own right, whatever happens to our (cough, cough) "civilisation": And the billions who are getting it in the neck are invariably those who are the least responsible - the poor. Imagine NOLA scaled up to the size of a country or a continent and you get the idea: Those of us in the developed world will be the last to go, even though we're the ones causing the damage.

No, ditching fossil fuels isn't going to fix our problems. The corpses are already stacking up: But it will make the difference between a mass extinction, coupled with a climatic clusterfuck and the deaths of billions, and something really bad.

I just smell the inherent arrogance of humanity all over this nuclear push: we feel that we need it, so we'll do it even though we have to work out the kinks later. We've done this before, it's just that this time we can see that there are issues we'll deal with later. If humans could somehow instantiate the Precautionary Principle under any circumstances, we wouldn't be in the mess we are now.

That arrogant human tendency makes me think we will go ahead and build a ton of nukes, then have some as yet unknown climate feedback loop change our doomsday scenarios to not so bad, and THEN we'll have a big fucking nuclear accident. Or six. That would fit right in with the history of mankind so far.

At some point, I'd like to see our species work out the kinks in advance.

I wish the guy who invented the wheel had sat down and thought about it for a bit longer. Ah well, too late now...

I've remained agnostic so far in the nuclear debate, because I've taken a "pox on both their houses" position. While nuclear is pretty safe and clean compared to other large energy technologies, I remain unwilling to endorse it for a couple of reasons unrelated to its relative safety.

The first is that I am unconvinced that developing more nuclear power will result in a reduction in fossil fuel use. I think it will instead merely be added to humanity's overall energy budget, allowing us to beaver ahead destroying more and more of the biosphere while not bringing down CO2 levels one iota. My second reason is that as I hinted in #33, having large amounts of concentrated energy at our disposal is what got us into this mess in the first place. I think it's unlikely in the extreme that humanity as a whole will suddenly start factoring the externalities of our actions into our decision-making and magically become fully rational decision makers. Einstein once said that you can't solve a problem with the same tools that created it. I think we're genetically unequipped as a species to change the decision-making tools that have led us to the massive "Tragedy of the Commons" we are now experiencing.

My research has led me to a similar conclusion to yours about the earth's human carrying capacity: it's probably one billion over the long haul. The reason I cannot stretch to two or three billion as others hope is that humanity's extended residence in Overshoot City has severely degraded the biosphere on which we will have to depend as our one-time gift of oil and natural gas run out. The fact that we will switch to coal as that happens in a desperate attempt to forestall the inevitable ensures that the degradation will continue as long as we have the industrial capacity to mine and burn it.

I've been a proponent of human dieoff for a few years now, both because it's inevitable and because I think it's the only way we can pay the physical and moral debt we owe the rest of Gaia. I actually find great hope in the prospect of such a population level. Given the knowledge we have accumulated, if we can get there with the right value set (and I now believe we can) then humanity actually has a shot at developing a sustainable civilization that doesn't destroy the biosphere any further and may even give it a chance to recover over the next few millenia. It's not guaranteed but it is at least possible with one billion people, while with our current population we haven't a hope of achieving it. For a more extended look at why I think this is the path we will follow, you can read http://www.paulchefurka.ca/Population%20Decline%20-%20Red%20Herrings%20and%20Hope.html">Population Decline - Red Herrings and Hope.

At least one of the inmates of this asylum thinks your analysis is exactly correct.

Paul Chefurka

The argument that the most morally-responsible thing humans could do is die always strikes me as strange. Whenever I read an argument along this line, it immediately makes me wonder: "if that is what you sincerely believe, why have you not taken your own life as an example to the rest of us?"

I always cringe at posing that question, because it comes off as being sarcastic and mean-spirited, and that isn't how I feel. It's more of a internal-logical-consistency issue for me. But it seems like an important question to grapple with, so there, I've gone and done it.

It's a reasonable question. My answer is that the urge to survive transcends morality (that's one of the reasons we're in this mess), and that extinguishing oneself voluntarily for what is essentially an abstract notion is a very hard thing to do. The furthest I've been able to go is to ensure that I will never contribute any consumption units to the population.

I regularly email links to your articles to my friends and family. Your site is a well-written collection of pieces that have crystallized my concerns far better than I have been able.

I wouldn't call myself a proponent of die-off, but I agree on the inevitability. "I think it's unlikely in the extreme that humanity as a whole will suddenly start factoring the externalities of our actions into our decision-making and magically become fully rational decision makers. Einstein once said that you can't solve a problem with the same tools that created it. I think we're genetically unequipped as a species to change the decision-making tools that have led us to the massive "Tragedy of the Commons" we are now experiencing." Couldn't have said it better myself. In fact, I have tried over and over and I didn't say it half as well. Of course, that doesn't give me ton of hope for humanity post die-off, but that worry is a long way off.

Take care,
Matt.

"I've been a proponent of human dieoff for a few years now, both because it's inevitable and because I think it's the only way we can pay the physical and moral debt we owe the rest of Gaia."

You're talking about the deaths of six billion human beings to satisfy a superstition, an atavism, a sacrifice to an ancient pagan demon-god reborn to again infest the mind of the world.

Do you have any idea how much suffering and misery a die-off would involve? It would be one thousand Holocausts, all at the same time. Three full WW2s each year for 20 years. Hiroshima and Nagasaki repeated, daily, for 110 years. I have seen individual people die of malnutrition, of gunshot wounds, of physical abuse, of influenza and cancer and Creutzfeld-Jacob Disease. To imagine the vast majority of the world's people going through that simultaneously is simply impossible.

If it happens, it will be a scream of unending agony that will echo throughout all time, to every corner and hidden place in the universe.

The die-off is a threat beyond mortal imagining, not a tonic to restore the spring in the loins of a nature goddess. It may indeed be inevitable, but if so, the only worthwhile work remaining for any of us is to prevent it from taking place.

The Earth does not require the blood sacrifice of her children in propitiation for some imagined sin. That is a human idea, the fever of madness induced by a festering conscience. A die-off would be a preventable mass suicide, not a righteous genocide.

Say it ain't so, Paul!

Join our effort to make certain that it never happens. Ever.

--p!

I know precisely how much suffering and misery will be involved in a die-off. I'm also convinced it's inevitable, and that there is at this point no way to prevent it. From the point of view of every being except us it's a matter of supreme indifference.

No, our screams will not echo to every corner of the universe, any more than did the screams of the passenger pigeon, the Labrador duck, the Javanese lapwing, the White-winged sandpiper, the Rodrigues pigeon, the Heath hen, the sabretooth tiger, the megatherium, the wooly mammoth, the wooly rhino, the quagga, the Red Colobus Monkey, the thousands of species of dinosaur, the trilobites, (deeeep breath....), the Yunnan box turtle, the Tonga ground skink, the Marbled toadlet, the Vegas Valley leopard frog, the mountain mist frog, the golden toad, the Gastric-brooding frog, the thicktail chub, the phantom shiner, the stumptooth minnow, the Maryland darter and all the other millions of uncounted, unknown, unmourned species through the eons.

The only reason we think it natural that these these species can go extinct but object that our numbers should not even decrease is because of our anthropocentric viewpoint. Well, that viewpoint has been under attack since Copernicus. the modern proponents of its environmental incarnation, the Deep Ecologists, recognize that we are similar enough to all other animals that anything that can happen to them can happen to us. But more than that, they understand that our capacity for conscious self-reflective thought has conferred on us a responsibility towards those who share our biosphere - a responsibility we have casually dismissed when it conflicted with our own desires.

My wording may have been a bit hyperbolic (but hey, it sure got your attention didn't it?) but the underlying message remains. We are a part of nature, we have abused the other inhabitants of our planet mercilessly in our scramble to the top of the food chain, and it may now be time to face the consequences of our actions. It's a very uncomfortable thought, but there it is.

I tend to take my morality pretty seriously, and so when it comes my turn to be part of the first wave of payback, I will be personally regretful but I will understand the ineluctability of the event. Until that moment comes I will put my effort where it can do some good - planting and nurturing the seeds of value systems that can survive the bottleneck and make the next cycle of civilization one our species can be proud of.

Paul Chefurka

1) billions die.
2) billions don't die.

I know it's looking unlikely, but speaking with my environmentalist hat on, option 2 scares the shit out of me - while there's still coal left to liquefy.

The longer we put off reductions in our numbers and our consumption, the deeper and less recoverable the inevitable correction will be.

In order to bring about the value changes we need to create a just, harmonious, sustainable society we need to rid ourselves of the structures, values and ideas that hold us in thrall to over-consumption, while putting in place the seeds for those changes. The latter change is already under way. the former is going to take a while and will not be painless.

****************

Now a comment on carrying capacity. Because of its roots in traditional (i.e. non-human) ecological research, the definition of carrying capacity is usually couched in terms of population numbers. I always wondered why that made it such a slippery concept when we tried to apply it to human beings. Well, last night my mental hamster finally generated enough power to turn on the light bulb.

Carrying capacity applies to a population with a specific resource consumption profile. For plants, animals and insects this works well for one simple reason. None of them consume beyond their individual needs. Having windfall resources in their environment may increase reproduction (as happens to yeast in a vat of grape juice), but each individual still consumes only as much as they need.

When you try to migrate the concept to human beings you run into the fact that we can and do consume far beyond our metabolic requirements. Worse, the level of consumption varies dramatically from one population sample to another. The usual approach is to aggregate resource consumption over our entire species, and compare that to the aggregate resource availability of the planet. That has limited usefulness, because it ignores important regional characteristics of our situation and reduces the prescriptive capability of the analysis.

Because there are two elements to the calculation - population and per capita consumption - it has allowed each of the two parties to the debate to frame it in such a way that the burden for action is passed to the other. Rich nations tend to frame the debate in terms of population numbers, and look to the high-fertility but less developed (and less consumptive) regions of the world for action on that dimension. Poor nations legitimately frame the debate as one of per-capita consumption, and look to the rich nations to address the problem on that axis.

Is it possible to bridge that disconnect? Maybe, once the revolution in values I talked about first comes to pass. We should all assume it will eventually be possible, and work toward that goal. Simplify your life, reduce your own consumption, join an environmental or social justice organization or two, support the education and empowerment of women at every opportunity. Become one of Gaia's antibodies.

NNadir is usually the one called out here for being a bad guy -- THE bad guy. I see that you have had several encounters with him, and posted a number of replies that are likely to get cut when the mods come 'round to prune back the flames. But here's something he posted recently that explains the existence of some of us "assholes" pretty well: I reckon you reckon so. (I will send you a copy if it is deleted, though it seems to fall within the DU Rules.)

It is a magnificent screed, on the plane of an anti-nuclear polemicist like Harvey Wasserman. Even better than Wasserman's philippics, NNadir can back his assertions with facts that anyone can check independently.

But that's NNadir, for whom I do not speak, and like whom I do not argue, but to whose technical and historical knowledge I defer. And, yes, I do disagree with him from time to time. The man may not be a cuddly teddy bear, but he is a master of the subject. Even if I was an anti-nuclearist, I would be taking notes.

I can't speak about the pronuclearists in the Hanford area, but I myself get tired of the constant accusations that I'm a shill, I'm "taking money", I'm "Dick Cheney's butt-boy", etc. I find most anti-nuclearists are extremely emotional and fire quickly; "First Blood" is usually drawn by them. I can't tell you how many people with peace-sign avatars have called me out, called me names, and flamed me in all caps. Many antinuclearists proclaim it's their passion that drives their rage. They are defending "our Mother", so they are allowed to forgo civility. The pro-nuclearists are not given that privilege. And no matter. I try to understand the nature of my opponents as a group and individually. I consider antinuclearists more like sparring partners than enemies. And I make it a point to not abuse my partners -- but I still fight hard.

I consider myself an excellent flame warrior. But flaming is worthless unless it's done very well and used very sparingly. I made two careless one-liners this week, and both were scrubbed within hours. I know the rules, I served as a (crappy) mod for a term myself, and it does not bother me. I re-posted and corrected my excesses. But if you read through the archives (not that I recommend it), you will see post after post of accusations of bribes, shills, and Cheney.

I've decided to keep it civil -- mostly. I nearly posted an excellent flame about an hour ago (to someone else) but decided against it; the time for it is not opportune, so I posted a lesser zetz that addressed the immediate insult alone (the "work for the nuclear industry" libel -- again). Within the rules, I hope, but that's not my decision to make.

There are assholes on all sides of any debate, and one's own compatriots (or oneself) may be as hot-tempered as all comers; "one" means me and mine as well. The stakes are as high as we have ever faced in recorded history, and failure will result in universal misery and mass death. The hour may arrive soon enough that we all may die lonely, hungry, sick, and cold.

A morbid thought? Indeed. But it keeps me from thinking that I am special, blessed by God and by Mother Nature, and the center of the universe. And even more, it keeps me to the task at hand -- human survival.

While our individual methods and ideas may greatly diverge, I would rather we argue these issues here, at home on the left side of the spectrum. Even if you would banish the method, keep the issue alive. The Right has proven itself incompetent to handle anything demanding seriousness. Ceding control of energy to the Right is literally and UN-arguably the worst mistake we ever made. Whether or not nuclear energy succeeds, the Left should control it, pro-, contra-, and from every other perspective.

It is the (modern) Right that must NOT succeed if the world is to survive.

--p!

He appears both what you say and what the anti-nukes say: he knows a ton, but he is an asshole, not just an aggressive proponent. He can prove that nuclear is cleaner and more efficient than anything, but he can't explain why we shouldn't just use less energy.
B. I know of which you speak regarding being called a shill: I suggested we cannot leave Iraq once. We are still there, and we will be, but I will not speak of it anymore, because frankly it's not that important as long as we have the political and media structure in this country. Anyway, it sucks that you get called that shit, but that is not where I am coming from. I don't care if any of you all is a paid nuke shill. I won't buy the nuke line under any circumstances, for the reasons I have laid out, and will lay out again in one moment.
C. As far as keeping energy away from the right: it's over. The right won. Our political establishment has moved so far right that all important energy decisions will be made by a group of politicians under their sway. Including our own. We lost this debate back in 1980, and our side really can do nothing anymore but try and claw back some power. Perhaps in another twenty years we will have enough of the populace on our side ... but that's really too late.

Which leads me to why NNadir pisses me off so much, and why I won't sign on for nukes. This whole thing, our biosphere, is too inertia-bound. We've been dumping fossil fuel based carbon dioxide into the atmosphere for 160 years, and now you all think we can suddenly switch to nuclear and turn the Titanic, with the iceberg in sight? Wake up. There's only one way off this population curve, and I don't think it's up. Look at China. Look at India. Look at our government. We are going to burn up all the fucking petroleum we can get our grubby little human paws on, and there's not a goddamn thing you or I or NNadir can do about it. And then the chickens will really come home to roost. So you want me to sign on to another shitty form of energy delivery so we can develop a whole new set of problems, once our greatly diminished offspring begin to get forceably weaned from petroleum?

Hey, I know humans. I know what we're capable of. We will sell anything for a little convenience - it's part of our genetic makeup. We're gonna roast everything on a greenhouse gas grill, then stew it in nuclear waste. Just don't expect me to get all excited about it.

And generally I just keep my piehole shut. But I can't resist an asshole. If we're all screwn as I know we are, why does somebody with a skewed sense of logic have to be such a dick? It's an urge as old as humans - I'm gonna decide what I think is right, and then I am going to piss off absolutely everyone I can find to show I'm right. And it has never worked. NNadir defies everyone to find one example of a death from nuclear waste (a complete red herring; just because it hasn't happened doesn't mean it won't, and the half-life of radioactive waste almost guarantees that once it starts happening it'll keep going for a long, long time): I defy anyone to find me an example of a completely aggressive dickhead who actually got anything done.

A) Yes, NNadir is hardly the most modest or humble of people. He would make a crap Pope, for instance, or a crap president of the US, but AFAIK he's not running for either. It's probably more useful to focus on the information rather than the delivery.

As for using less energy, NNadir is well aware that there are over 2,000,000,000 people with no cars or mains electricity: Rather than asking them to cut down, it would be nice if they could get a bit more. Here's a fun statistic: If you (as Mr A. Joe American) were to cut back your energy usage by 60%, you'd use as much as a typical Slovakian. If we decided to give everybody as much energy as a Slovakian, we'd have to produce twice as much as we do now - 940 EJ/year, counting on my fingers. It all depends on if you're taking a global view or a "local" one. Plus, we need to switching to something renewable for industry & transport (ethanol, DME, hydrogen, electric, whatever) which will need more electrical generation, not less.

B) It keeps DU fun. I suggested letting NOLA sink, on the grounds that a rebuilt NOLA would just get wiped out again in a few more years (and again after that, and again...) Went down like a French kiss at a family reunion.

Think I did C in #25. :)

that given the situation we agree is happening, NNadir being a bit rough around the edges really isn't that big a deal. It's just that if he and you all are right, we need to convince people, not piss them off.

I know about the energy savings necessary for this thing. And believe me, I am trying. I could surely use some market incentives, though: I feel like if we could get the price of gas up around $10 a gallon we might start getting somewhere. But then most of our DU compatriots would be pissed because oil corporations would still be making money. Most people here still think the highest calling for a politician is to make sure we all get to live like A. Joe American.
:wtf:

The anti-nuclear crowd can be just as, err, rough around the edges: I think everyone remembers Chernobyl, but it seems nobody remembers Aberfan, Piper Alpha or Banqiao, to the effect that I've been called a murdering nazi more times than I care to remember. I'm amazed NNadir still uses the internet, although I'm glad he does.

I know what you mean about gas prices, BTW: whenever I see someone on DU complaining about the price of gas in the US, I want to beat the computer to death with a used oil drum. Although I think you've pitched low - at the current exchange rate the average price in the UK is $7.52, but they're still not even pausing for breath.

I am completely unsurprised that some anti-nukers would make such a ridiculous comment. Give an idiot a keyboard and an anonymous account, and you know what follows: somebody gets called a nazi. Doesn't mean I belong in that camp just because I don't want to throw good money after bad.

I am done commenting on NNadir. My last response directly to him says all I have to offer. I think if I had been following this group more closely it wouldn't have happened - at least not when it did. I'll pay more attention from now on, and next time I won't be surprised when he, apparently predictably, acts like that. I do think you folks would have more luck, though, with honey than vinegar. And when the morons call you nazis, just let it roll off your back - you weren't going to get through to them anyway. If you all are right, humanity needs you to take the high road. We shall see.

The "straw man" strategy. That is one of the reasons why he is useless and that I only give his posts a cursory scan.

quality declines.

More fossil fuel will be required to mine uranium - much more - as lower grade ores are mined, transported and processed.

GHG emissions will *increase* accordingly.

And. no one can tally the number of deaths caused by spent nuclear fuel until the last atom of 137Cs, 90Sr, 239Pu et al. has decayed away.

That will take 600 years for 137Cs and 90Sr and 480,000 years for 239Pu.

Nobody *here* will be around to do that count...

High levels of frustration and anger can release hormones that trigger heart problems.

of these pro-nuclear arguments is that they never take into account the environmental and public health costs of mining the uranium and enriching it.

Uranium mining is one of most destructive practices on our planet. If we sign on to a nuclear future it will lead inevitably to more Iraqs in the countries that hold the last uranium deposits. Like oil, it is a finite resource, and we would soon be discussing "peak uranium." If we live that long...

It's more of the same medicine that's making us sick.

is full of innumerate nonsense on this subject, just as they are on all subjects.

Uranium mining is the most destructive practice on the planet?

You never heard of coal mining? Do you have any idea how many river systems have been destroyed and how many lives were lost?

Geeze...

Coal has no place in a sane energy future and neither does noclear power, and for many of the same reasons. I'm not going to compare two out-dated dangerous technologies that I don't support, but yeah, uranium mining is at least as bad as coal mining...

Either way, your side wins. Either way, our energy future is dependent on an extractive industry that poisons our environment, destroys our last wild places and makes tons of simolians for Cheney and Haliburton, Exxon and all their cronies.

In a sane energy future, we phase out the internal combustion engine, break up "The Grid," and generate our electricity from wind, sun, waves, and rivers-- all of which are eternal, none of which pollute, and all of which are free. Sorry, no money for Haliburton after the infrastructure is set up. And none of these sane energy sources cause cancer, destroy ecosystems, displace indigenous peoples, give anyone cause to go to war, or have any utility in a weapons of mass destruction program.

And also, there is no "anti-nuclear power industry," my friend. There is no money to be made from opposing nuclear weapons and nuclear power. People who want a safe and sane future for our children and andour planet are not selling anything.....

Five seconds of googling...



http://newsfromrussia.com/accidents/2005/12/04/69118.html

Let's see if there's any country on earth - any country - that produces 16 uranium mining deaths per day.

The real problem is that you are willing to arbitrarily ignore coal - which is why you know zero about the subject.

If you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up.

I'll bet too, your going to tell me it's not either/or too.

You will, of course, not be able to show a fantasy source of energy that produces the same 30 exajoules of energy produced each year by nuclear energy, never mind the 120 exajoules produced by coal.

In general the antinuclear argument is pathetic, but this is pretty much a new height.

There have been to date 16,500 claims that paid a total of $1.1 billion.

And please tell us all about the Navajo experience with uranium mining.

http://www.ajph.org/cgi/content/full/92/9/

Something the assholes at the Nuclear Energy Institute wants you to ignore...

And note that 16,500 claims doesn't mean 16,500 dead bodies. In China alone 6000+ people die in ONE YEAR mining coal. Even a conservative estimate would yield over 100,000 dead Chinese in the past 60 years from coal mining.

Then there is the rest of Asia.

And Europe (the Soviets weren't known for their high safety standards).

And Africa.

And South America.

Even here in the United States.

In the past 60 years it wouldn't surprise me if 500,000 people have been killed in coal-mining accidents worldwide.

Not to downplay what happened to the Navajo or uranium miners, but just looking at the numbers, coal mining has killed far more people than uranium mining ever has.

and thousands more that were declined.

And they are paying claims to (barely a)live folks - not dead uranium workers from the 50's, 60's, 70's, 80's the 90's...

And again, the assholes at the Nuclear Energy Institute don't want you to know about any of this.

Because that's approximately the number you'd have to reach just to rival coal deaths.

death toll from spent nuclear fuel.

That will take tens of thousands of years.

There's a lot of "everything-including-the-kitchen-sink" arguing going on.

Isn't there some index that can be tracked for ANY given agent, in deaths/illnesses per 100,000 per year? Figuring in a nuclear decay time constant should not be too difficult.

Of course, we still have to count radioactive and non-radioactive effects. Mercury, cadmium, arsenic, etc., are major pollutants, too, and they never decay. No time-constant math is needed, and those molecules will just keep killing people and/or whatever we evolve into. We should compare similars.

All this arguing can be fun, but we need a common method to determine how much disease and death occurs. Ultimately, we are going to have to figure out what to do and how to stay as safe as possible while doing it. The "assholes at the NEI" have their counterparts in most advocacy groups. It was statistics, not assholes, that convinced me about nuclear energy. If those statistics were wrong, I will adjust my ideas accordingly. But I avoided unverifiable information from the NEI to Greenpeace. It doesn't seem to be a weak case.

--p!

It sucks the oxygen out of one of the best forums on DU.

Here's a fun bit of homework: Find out what solar panels are made of. Clue: It's a metal, begins with Si. Find out where the largest Si-- smelter is in the US, and how much energy it uses. Hint: It's more than the entire output of every PV array in the US. Find out how they get that energy. Big hint: the plant is in West Virginia.

Do the same for the cement used for dams and wind-tower bases. Does it grow on trees? How about the steel?

I won't try and convince losthills to look anything up - anyone who you can produce a stunner like All your so called "evidence" and "facts" may be interesting, but they are irrelevant to that issue. is probably not going to be swayed by mere numbers. But I figure you might manage it.

Try looking around www.externe.info or www.ecoinvent.ch if you want to skip the math and get straight to the figures. Let us know what you find out.

I'm for a sensible balanced energy portfolio with a heavy emphasis on clean, renewable and inexhaustible forms of energy. However, I'm not going to let the nuclear promoters bully people around here.

Your post is just condescending as are alot of Nnadir's posts. You aint winning any friends here or persuading anyone either.

If you'd bothered to follow the links, you'd find that nuclear and hydro are the two cleanest forms of energy we have: Cleaner than Solar, cleaner than wind, even cleaner than biomass.

But clearly you're here to talk, not to listen, so I'll leave you to it.

And yes, it overall has achieved a great deal of success without very many mishaps. However, you cannot count out what happened at Chernobyl and you cannot assure that something like that would never happen again.

I come to this part of DU to learn actually, not to spout off. I've only become riled as of late because of what I see as a bully attitude by a handful of people that will not tolerate anything but utter adoration of nuclear power. I've seen people be berated as stupid and ignorant for questioning nuclear power. This has recently gotten worse and has really made the quality of this forum go down.

Also, I followed the links and they were just websites, not specific articles or studies. I'm not going to learn the machinations of a whole new website to satisfy you. If you have a specific link to a specific article, table, or study, give it and I will be happy to look. Just giving a website and handing me an assignment (as if I were your student) is not good enough.

In which case, my apologies for being overly grouchy. Just tell me when I'm being a ass-clown. :)

Here's a quick http://ec.europa.eu/research/news-centre/en/env/02-10-env02.html">press release on externe to see if your curiosity is piqued: If it is, try this PDF, and flick to page 18 (a bit psychedelic, but interesting): If you then go through the whole thing and still want more, go through the 333-page monster here.

We're not fans of nuclear to exclusion of all else, BTW: I'm a bigger fan of hydro than nuclear, and would like to see more of the stuff - It's fairly benign, and can make a great back-up for wind-farms on those still days. And if you haven't seen it, check out NNadir's idea for the Salton sea...

It's when people go for renewables backed up by natural gas we get an attack of chronic belligerence. Or come up with things like "but what about the waste?" when talking about nuclear - when nuclear waste is the only enregy waste that is contained... (unlike the waste from all that cement in the containment building, of course. No-body seems to care about that, though... :shrug:)

Hydroponetics is KKKorpr0ate Death P0wer!

It has killed MILLIONS of innocent PUPPYDOGS, KITTYCATS, FLOWERS and RAINBOWS!

TOM CRUISE LIKKKES HYDROPONETICS!!1!

OJ SAMSON LIKKKES HDYROPONETICS!1!!

DICK CHENEY LIKKKES HYDROPONETICS!!1!

But AL GORRE IS ANTI HYDORPONETICS!1!!

Take it back! Take it back NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

:mad: :web: :banghead: :donut: :cry: :puke: :headbang: :redbox: :blush: :hide: :grr: :argh: :yoiks: :weekly: :spray: :bluebox: :grr: :nuke:

--p!

you are just a shill for teh evil nukkkular industry of death you work for cheney and bush and kim jong il and and exxon and hitler and cheney and ming teh merciless and and and nnadir and cheney and the cia and the PC guy from that mac advert and cheney and i bet you got a radioactive golf shirt and a seaborgium t-shirt and teh death-ray you killed karen silkwood all hidden in your basement along with your mummified mummy and a big knife and a shower curtain and what about the waste it lasts for a billion billion years and a single molecule of plutonium can kill you i know because helen caldicott told me and she used to be a doctor so she knows more than you and i think you should stop killing everything with your tritium and buy a solar panel coz my mates got one on his cabin in teh woods and he says it's grate and he hardly has to burn any gas at night except when he wants heat or light or electricity or when he is at home coz he dunt have one there yet but its ok coz greenpeace says we don't have to stop using coal and gas and oil just stop using a bit of it by 2050 and all teh trees will be saved and nukkkular is teh evil so there

:toast:

...but I'm just an editor: I'd be nothing without my _{(seemingly endless)} team of writers.

The Keystone Center got a group of experts from all sides to see what they could agree on.
Here's who funded it - the nuclear power industry and a bunch of electric companies:
American Electric Power
Constellation Energy
Duke Energy
Entergy
Exelon
Florida Power & Light
General Electric
National Commission on Energy Policy
Nuclear Energy Institute
Pew Charitable Trusts
Southern Company

So if there was any bias - you would expect a pro-nuke bias, right? Oops...
Here's a short article about it - read the whole article:
"Everything you could possibly want to know about nuclear power — and its (limited) potential as a potential climate solution — can be found in the new Keystone Center Report with the less-than-captivating title “Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding.”
http://climateprogress.org/2007/06/18/nuclear-power-no-climate-cure-all

You can download the full Keystone report here - it's about 2 megabytes:
http://www.keystone.org/spp/documents/FinalReport_NJFF6_12_2007%281%29.pdf

Also essential reading - an interview with a co-author of the Carbon Wedges study:
he discusses solutions, and says "I personally think nuclear is a non-starter."
http://theclimategroup.org/index.php/viewpoint/stephen_pacala/

And of course - Al Gore's policy address - he discusses solutions, and says,
"As a result of all these problems, I believe that nuclear reactors will only play a limited role."
http://nyu.edu/community/gore.html

"Uranium mining is one of most destructive practices on our planet."

More so than coal mining?

There is a fairly easy way to determine whether that's true or not -- data are kept on these kinds of things.

U.S. Department of Labor Mine Safety and Health Administration
National Mining Association Safety Statistics
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

All have search tools. You'll be looking for coal mining vs. metal/non-metal mining (uranium mining is a subset of metal/non-metal mining). There are also links to studies on Navajo health issues, the most recent antinuclearist talking point.

Just a word of warning: Coal mining is FAR deadlier than metal/non-metal mining, and uranium mining is only a part of metal/non-metal mining. This is not my opinion -- by every criterion, coal mining is more deadly than uranium mining, it's been researched for over a century, and the work has been scrutinized in every detail.

Since you may then be tempted to claim that the radiation from mined uranium is much more lethal than greenhouse gases, organic and metallic coal pollutants, and even the uranium and thorium naturally present in coal, you may want to look for the table of metals in coal fly-ash posted by philb and myself. For each GW-year (8760 GW-hours) of electrical energy produced by burning Appalachian coal, 49.5 tons (99,000 pounds) of uranium and thorium are put into the atmosphere. That means that a modern coal power plant puts about 11 lb. 5 oz. of uranium and thorium are put into the atmosphere each hour or 271 lb. 1 oz. per day -- multiply by 250 for the entire coal industry in the USA alone. (FYI, it's about 67,750 lb. or 33+ tons -- of airborne radioactive ash. Per day.) You should also note that philb is much more critical of nuclear technology than I am.

For reference, we get almost three times as much of our electrical energy from burning coal as from nuclear energy; you may want to use that as a rough guideline for comparing absolute numbers.

"Like oil, it (uranium) is a finite resource, and we would soon be discussing 'peak uranium.'"

What would happen if we had a nearly unlimited supply of uranium that could be gotten with much less risk -- even remotely, by machine?

In a few years years with the current market trends, it will be economical to extract uranium from seawater by mainly automated processes. We will then have a multi-millennium supply. At that point, mining will become a financial loser, and it simply won't be done. The mines can close.

This isn't theoretical -- we already extract a little uranium experimentally from seawater. The barrier is the marketplace. At about $120/lb U3O8, the investment picture changes. (U3O8 was $133/lb the last time I checked a week ago. Reference for uranium prices.) So if that price stays stable, extraction plants will be designed and built. ~$300/lb U3O8 is the estimated price where the process will start being a compellingly attractive (i.e. high-profit, low-risk) investment to the energy financiers, who are historically timid. Here is a recent article about it from The Oil Drum.

I assume that within 1000 years, it will be possible to move all heavy industry and ecologically damaging work "off-planet", into habitats in space, where the processes can be isolated. I also assume that we will develop a much greater respect for our home planet by then. I may be over-optimistic, though.

Anyway, if you spend a few hours looking at the data and following the links, you can see just how damaging different mining practices are -- with no punches pulled, no bullshit, and no politicking. If you DO find any, get a lawyer and sue them; you'll get a cut under the recent Federal Watchdog Act.

Good luck!

--p!

EPRI water power generation projections (conservative)


Wave and In-Stream Tidal Energy and other Ocean Energy Sources are potentially important energy resources and should be evaluated for adding to our energy supply portfolios

–Indigenous–keep the wealth at home and increase energy security

–A balanced and diversified portfolio of energy supply options isthe foundation of a reliable and robust electrical system

–Clean, low greenhouse gas emissions and minor aesthetic issues

–Economics appear to be close to other options in spite of much less Government research support


Existing Capacity/

Technology Potential By 2010By 2025

Conventional hydropower 62,300; 525;10,000

Capacity gains at existing hydro 4,300; 375; 2,300

New small & low power hydro 58,000; 125;2,700

New hydro at existing dams (16,700);25;5,000

Hydrokinetic 12,800; 115;3,000

Ocean Wave energy 10,000 -20,000;84;10,000

TOTAL 85,100 -95,100

Projected

724(2010)

23,000(2025)


http://www.hydro.org/EPRIEESITheFutureofWaterpower060807.pdf

www.epri.com/oceanenergy

There are a number of places around the world where hydro capacity is being reduced because of river flow reduction.

Hydro power is by far the world's largest renewable energy resource.

As a free river advocate, it disturbs me, but I fully concede that with the 200,000 + people who died a Banqiao excepted, hydro is one of the cleanest and safest technologies known.

The vast majority of rivers on earth are now, for better or worse, tied up with hydroelectricity. Some of these rivers, the Murray Darling system in Australia, the Ganges, the Yangtze, the Sulaween and a few others are considered threatened and dying rivers, but again, given that the alternative is fossil fuels, it cannot be said that hydro is unduly dangerous.

I suspect that tidal power will not prove to be a major source of energy, or that if it does, the effect on near shore ecosystems will be rather large. On the other hand, the effect of offshore oil rigs is almost certainly higher. In any case the seas themselves are threatened far more by dangerous fossil fuel waste than they are likely to be threatened by tidal dams.

I'll bet a zillion dollars that Robert F. Kennedy will oppose any tidal systems near Nantucket though. He's big on renewable energy, but only in someone else's backyard.

Sad...

I love the guy, and his contributions far outweigh his shortcomings, but I'm an atheist, not a Hindu - there are no sacred cows in my universe. If he does something inappropriate, especially environmentally, he deserves to be called on it as much as any Joe Shmoe.

Does his opposition to Cape Wind fall into this category? I'm tempted at first to say yes because of his emphasis on the aesthetic degradation it will cause as well as the risks it poses to other uses of the area. Such concerns do seem a bit frivolous in the face of Peak Oil and Global Warming. However after thinking about Gregorian's complaint the other day I'm less inclined to dismiss that rationale out of hand. Utility or beauty? We do need both for a whole, healthy world. It's not just the rich who have the right to insist on the preservation of some of our rapidly shrinking beauty. It is of value to us all.

I can't stand the man if you must know. He reminds me of his father.

In my view, myopia like his - that middle class head in the sand attitude - is one of the main causes of global climate change.

For the record, I can't think of a member of his entire family who was worth much. They're all long on rhetoric but very short on meaningful action.

If the most important thing in the world is a reverential attitude toward RFK Jr, that's one thing. If the point is to solve the most important problem facing humanity in post-literate times, that's another.

Frankly, the last time I was into Kennedy worship, I was a child. Since I was a child, I'm excused. The reward for Kennedy worship in those years - the reward of every human being on the planet was the terrible threat of a global nuclear war, a threat stumbled into by a lightweight President working closely with his lightweight amoral brother. The amoral brother - the cold warrior and red baiter - was RFK Jr.'s father.

It's not appropriate in general to visit the sins of the father on the child, but as we are seeing in the Bush administration, one should nonetheless at least consider the idea that "the apple doesn't fall far from the tree."

John F. Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy liked to talk about Civil Rights, but they mostly watched Martin Luther King on television (even though he was making the "I Have a Dream" speech blocks from the White House) and they did almost nothing to work for or actually produce civil rights. In modern times Robert F. Kennedy likes to talk about climate change and renewable energy but the first major off shore wind project in this country he opposed.

People like to ream me all the time for saying that renewable energy is insufficient to address climate change - even if it's true. I have never deviated from that position but this is not the same as opposing renewable energy. I can say that there is not ONE, there are zero, wind plants that I have ever opposed. Thus RFK has opposed infinitely more wind power than I have. No one can say that I am trying to stop renewable energy anywhere. I'm perfectly willing to let it be tried. My problem is with people who think that their fantasies about how this experiment solve the problem of global climate change. Having fantasies does nothing of the sort.

Although there is NO evidence that renewable energy will be able to replace dangerous fossil fuels or prevent the unrestricted release of dangerous fossil fuel waste, whatever it can contribute is welcome to me, because I'd be happy to be proved wrong about renewable energy. It if produced 50 exajoules instead of 2 exajoules (not counting hydroelectric), no one would be happier than I.

World demand remains at 470 exajoules.