The IPCC material does not appear to offer explanations of what the CO2 molecules do with the absorbed infrared radiation. An understanding of the energy disposal processes is fundamental to modelling the impact of this energy on climate? As late as yesterday Dr Karl K informed ABC 612 listeners that 50% of the energy simply came back to earth. Is it that simple? This is perhaps the best science communicator we have in Australia. If it is complicated then he should be more than capable of explaining why.

Steve Fielding’s recent questions could not be satisfactorily answered by Penny Wong and her team and were avoided by Al Gore. What does the average citizen make of that? We are being asked to accept fundamental changes to the way we live on the basis of exhortations by leaders (political, environmental,societal etc) who are not able to explain how CO2 does what it is accused of..or worse still are comfortable with promoting fundamental change without fundamental facts.

What appears to be condoned misinformation of the public occurs almost daily. We are shown power station cooling towers belching steam as visuals accompanying reports telling us we need taxes on CO2 emissions. If the debate was fair-minded wouldn’t some of the credible advocates of alternative energy,who would obviously be aware of the error,be pointing out the error?

Climate change is happening but no amount of observation,data gathering or analysis of the observations and data is going to change the behaviour of atmospheric CO2 in the presence of infrared radiation. Such observations highlight the effects of climate change but ,in the absence of fundamental science, as opposed to science observations,the role of CO2 and hence the impact of carbon taxes on climate change are not so clear.I am sure the physics/chemistry needed to understand CO2′s behaviour is well documented.
Surely before we compile a catalogue of CO2 emissions and potential means of reducing such emissions it would be wise to be sure that CO2 is really the culprit?

Perhaps contributors to this blog could provide these fundamentals?

Just to be quite clear, climate change is a fact and needs action but we have scarce resources to expend on such action. Let’s be sure that the action we take and the use of scarce resources produces worthwhile results. At present the debate in this country seems to be more of a demonstration of political expertise as opposed to the public demonstration of the scientific expertise necessary to describe CO2′s role.

Whatever CO2 does it will continue to do it long after the current batch of politicians have cashed their pensions.

So the question is…how does CO2 drive climate…and if you can’t answer this in terms of basic laws of physics/chemistry why waste your time pondering/debating non-CO2-emitting means of meeting society’s energy needs? We may need the energy from those coal-fired behemoths to help us combat the real drivers of climate change!

http://www.springerlink.com/content/t31153532x827857/

The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
Springer Berlin / Heidelberg
ISSN 0948-3349 (Print)
1614-7502 (Online)
Issue Volume 11, Number 4
DOI 10.1065/lca2006.02.244
July 21, 2006

Environmental Assessment of Freight Transportation in the U.S.

Abstract
Goal, Scope and Background

This study provides a life cycle inventory of air emissions (CO2, NOx, PM10, and CO) associated with the transportation of goods by road, rail, and air in the U.S. It includes the manufacturing, use, maintenance, and end-of-life of vehicles, the construction, operation, maintenance, and end-of-life of transportation infrastructure, as well as oil exploration, fuel refining, and fuel distribution.

Methods

The comparison is performed using hybrid life cycle assessment (LCA), a combination of process-based LCA and economic input-output analysis-based LCA (EIO-LCA). All these components are added by means of a common functional unit of grams of air pollutant per ton-mile of freight activity.

Results and Discussion

Results show that the vehicle use phase is responsible for approximately 70% of total emissions of CO2 for all three modes. This confirms that tailpipe emissions underestimate total emissions of freight transportation as infrastructure, pre-combustion, as well as vehicle manufacturing and end-of-life account for a sizeable share of total emissions.

Differences between tailpipe emissions and total system wide emissions can range from only 4% for road transportation’s CO emissions to an almost ten-fold difference for air transportation’s PM10 emissions.

Conclusion

Rail freight has the lowest associated air emissions, followed by road and air transportation. Depending on the pollutant, rail is 50-94% less polluting than road. Air transportation is rated the least efficient in terms of air emissions, partly due to the fact that it carries low weight cargo. It emits 35 times more CO2 than rail and 18 times more than road transportation on a ton-mile basis. It is important to consider infrastructure, vehicle manufacturing, and pre-combustion processes, whose life-cycle share is likely to increase as new tailpipe emission standards are enforced….

After that the author goes on:

“… How is it that new reactors make so little economic sense, even with massive government support? Part of the answer is that the industry still hasn’t solved the problems that led to its initial collapse. A decade on, the standardized plant designs, on which nuclear advocates pinned their hopes of lower costs and greater reliability, have yet to materialize. This is not to say that no one has built a uniform fleet: some countries—most notably France, where the government holds a controlling stake in the main electricity-generating company—have managed to created a degree of standardization among their own reactors. But … the patchwork American utility market, … the new NRC licensing process…. Initially, the industry had hoped to limit the number of reactor models to two or three. Instead, there are eight on offer, half of them certified, the rest awaiting approval (a process that takes years)…. all but one of the seventeen companies that are planning to build new reactors have chosen designs that are either not yet certified or that will need to be recertified because they have been substantially redesigned….”
…
“… we will need to reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 2015, according to the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. The designs for most of the reactors on the drawing board in the United States won’t be certified until 2011 or 2012. Only then can the NRC approve individual licenses—after which the plants still need to be built. Last time around, construction took an average of twelve years.

The other key problem is that, given the enormous expense and the industry’s hunger for subsidies, pursuing the nuclear path can crowd out investment in green energy. …”

This sounds rather like the problem bailing out Detroit — it apparently precludes spending on the new more efficient designs, although the electric vehicles use far fewer parts and less maintenance.

That’s an old type reactor, not the kind Barry’s talking about.
Same for all the others currently planned, near as I can tell:
“… More than 100 new nuclear plants are being built or planned around the world. In the United States, there are thirty-five reactors on the drawing board, with licensing applications for twenty-six of them already under review by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)….”

What will it take to get the 4th Generation plans submitted for actual use?

http://members.sej.org/sej/tipsheet.php?ID=2416
Links there include those below, among others

http://www.sej.org/go/090107-1.htm
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epa_sum.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epa/epat2p2.html

Planned power plants:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/tablees3.html

Publication date: Dec. 10, 2008

SUPREME COURT CASE COULD AFFECT NEARLY 550 POWER PLANTS

… On Dec. 2, the US Supreme Court heard arguments in a case that could decide whether the Clean Water Act (CWA) allows EPA to weigh costs and benefits when determining the best technology available for the cooling water intake structures at existing power plants.

The case, Entergy Corp. vs. Riverkeeper Inc. (07-588), involves the Indian Point nuclear power plant in Buchanan, NY. Like many conventional and nuclear power plants, Indian Point takes in a huge volume of river water daily in its “one-pass” cooling system (1950s-era technology). At issue is whether EPA can require Entergy to pay to upgrade Indian Point’s cooling system, considering the environmental impacts of the existing system. Specifically fish eggs, smaller fish, and other aquatic organisms are destroyed when sucked into the intake. Also, the water returned to the ecosystem is warmer.

Section 316(b) of the CWA, which covers thermal discharges, requires power plants to employ the best technology available to protect fish and other aquatic life. In 2004 EPA established national regulations for cooling water intake systems at existing power plants, which are used in NPDES permit decisions. The “Phase II Rule” applied to over 500 existing power plants that withdraw more than 50 million gallons of water per day…..

Found here: http://www.sej.org/pub/index1.htm

much more information and links to sources there.

Also there’s one window in the infrared still open (except for California’s new favorite agricultural pesticide gas, sulfur something fluoride — which apparently blocks exactly that window). Fix that little problem (the stuff was brought in to replace a known greenhouse gas with a worse one, go figure) and the notion of dry cooling could, perhaps, be tuned to have the grids radiate in exactly the open window temperature.

Of course get an intrinsically safe heat source and all this becomes far more possible because we have lots of uses for low grade heat — they just need to happen around people.

Looking up the type, I came across this:

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.nucengdes.2008.07.018
Nuclear Engineering and Design
Article in Press, Corrected Proof

RPV [Reactor Pressure Vessel] material investigations of the former VVER-440 Greifswald NPP [Nuclear Power Plant]

—–excerpt follows—–

The real toughness response of RPV material can only be determined after the final shut down of the NPP. Such a chance is given now by investigating material from the former Greifswald NPP (VVER-440/230).
…
The comparison … typically resulted in deviations of 50%. Possible reasons for the observed differences are discussed….
In the second part first results of fracture mechanic investigations are reported.
————————-

It’s reassuring to see this kind of study is being done and published.

Note that I don’t support the Pebble Bed style reactor for a simple reason (even though they are very safe and a neat design) – the graphite bound silcon carbide coated fuel elements (nuclear fuel pebbles) cannot be recycled to produce IFR fuel! Their long-lived waste stream truly is forever.

When you strike a bell, it rings forever. After a while, other sounds predominate and it’s hard to tell whether it’s still ringing or not. Nuclear wastes’ “forever” is of a similar kind –

P/P_0 = 0.1*{
(t+10)^(-0.2)
- (t + T_0 + 10)^(-0.2)
-0.87*[
(t + 2e7)^(-0.2)
- (t + 2e7 + T_0)^(-0.2)
]
}

--- G.R.L. Cowan (How fire can be domesticated)

So without the IFRs, the LWRs don’t make long-term sense – mostly because of the high level waste and peak uranium issues. But with the IFRs as the overarching future system, I’m happy to see the current fleet of safe LWR being laid out in a big way over the coming decade in nuclear club countries. Note that I don’t support the Pebble Bed style reactor for a simple reason (even though they are very safe and a neat design) – the graphite bound silcon carbide coated fuel elements (nuclear fuel pebbles) cannot be recycled to produce IFR fuel! Their long-lived waste stream truly is forever. The same applies for the proposed Advanced High Temperature reactors that are incompatible with a closed fuel cycle.

You comment on the lack of production facilities for Gen IV reactor pools. The S-PRISM modular design for an IFR type reactor, by GE, has a standard unit of 380 MW and so, because of their smaller size, do not require the sort of specialised steel forging facility you describe. Also, as you note, if we go at this in a big way, there will be plenty of demand for a ramp up of production facilities – much like the huge number of aeroplane factories in WWII, which six months previously didn’t exist or were instead rolling out motor cars. Just as with large-scale renewables and the capacity need to build 30,000+ sq km of mirrors or millions of huge wind turbine blades – we need a whole new level of manufacturing infrastructure to power the zero-carbon energy revolution.

Nuclear or Renewables, it’s the same deal.

As I see it there were two main reasons why there was no rush to embrace FBRs. First, the economics of Uranium meant it didn’t make sense – U was cheap and abundant enough during the 20th C that there was no real pressure to look for ways to make better (more efficient) use of the fuel, and there was little environmental concern in the 1950s and 1960s about long-lived high level waste – so LWR made sense. Second, LWR were developed for the military first and made sense for domestic deployment, whereas Liquid Metal Reactors had more technical issues to solve (the Argonne project and others have almost completely solved these),and so their development time was longer. It’s somewhat like VCR vs Betamax – the latter was a technically superior system, but the former won the ‘format war’ because it was so quickly adopted (also, in VCR’s case, due to heavy advertising by Phillips!).

Cost overruns from LWR come mainly for long-certification times and non-standard designs – the Gen III+ projects such as EPR and ABWR are designed to solve this problem, as well as introduce new passive safety systems.

I agree renewables storage will improve greatly as demand increases – but it is still an energy inefficient business and the diffuse nature of renewable energy means a lot of area must be used, no matter what – which costs, and will continue to mean massive scale up is challenging. so in my view, it’s worth MAJOR investment, but not SOLE investment, and is easily as far off as large scale next gen nuclear. Possible – maybe, best option – too hard to tell, which is why nuclear must remain viably in the mix.

But this isn’t the main reason to advocate IFRs – they have so many redeeming features that they should be pursed anyway, irrespective of whether renewables also end up being a large part of the future energy solution.

Please correct me if I am wrong however you support nuclear power as long as it is an IFR? If this is correct then I am in the same sort of boat as I would support the LFTR as it is even more proliferation resistant.

My comments were more because I thought you were advocating any type of nuclear including LWRs and the breeder fuel cycle.

On the deployment question wind is deploying at the moment at about the rate that it needs to be to start seriously reducing CO2 emissions. As wind turbines have no specialised parts or fabrication methods that are used exclusively for them and nowhere else, increases in production can be accomplished by the aircraft industry or boat building if we need ramp production up.

Solar PV is already increasing about as fast as it can however new technologies like http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/03/10/printable-solar-cells-demonstrated/ are coming online now that promise dramatic increases in solar cell production with far less materials.

Solar thermal shares the current shortage of steam turbines however these parts are common with almost all power generation so nuclear plants will have the same problems. In fact the new Ausra plant in California is waiting now for its turbine. The reflectors, especially Ausra’s are simple affairs of steel and plastic and can be rapidly deployed with minimal labour. In fact it is not to dissimilar to roofing so out of work house builders could find employment here.

The control electronics for all the renewables are common off the shelf items not. IGBTs are commonly used now in inverters for all sorts of applications.

The nuclear situation however is not so rosy. Gen IV reactors need a single 600t steel forging. There is at present only one company in the world that can do it.

http://bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aaVMzCTMz3ms&refer=home

“Given Japan Steel’s limited capacity, the math just doesn’t work, said Mycle Schneider, an independent nuclear industry consultant near Paris. Japan Steel caters to all nuclear reactor makers except in Russia, which makes its own heavy forgings.

Competitors’ Moves

“I find it just amazing that so many people jumped on the bandwagon of this renaissance without ever looking at the industrial side of it,” Schneider said.

It would take any competitor more than five years to catch up with Japan Steel’s technology, said the company’s chief executive officer, Masahisa Nagata. ”

and shortages of personel:

“The biggest problem, though, is a shortage of qualified scientists, engineers and technicians. Nuclear power’s long unpopularity has left the industry depleted, and many of those who remain are greybeards.”

All of these problems can be overcome however they will significantly slow nuclear growth making it almost impossible for nuclear to grow as fast as renewables that have none of the same shortages as they are far less specialised and demanding.

I realise the Argonne fast breeder can be considered a prototype of sorts for new generation nuclear that appears on the face of it to be successful but I notice there was no rush to build upon it’s success and Light Water reactors have remained the mainstay of the civilian nuclear power industry. I can’t help but wonder, if it was so good, why it wasn’t emulated and improved upon (and admit I don’t have the time or opportunity at present to research such questions and probably won’t get to do the reading suggested any time soon). The time needed to build another Argonne – or many – is crucial if it is to be a major component of energy infrastructure reform. If a lot of development work is needed, how might that compare in time and cost to the development work for technologies that would deal with intermittency in renewables, such as large scale CAES or molten salt storage?

Light water reactors have had a history of major cost overruns, which is considered the primary reason nuclear fell out of favour, although it’s popular to blame environmental and weapons proliferation concerns. In nuclear’s heyday I believe cost overruns averaged 320% for US nuclear plants. Are IFR’s likely to similarly fail to come in on time or within budget?

I’m disappointed that the lack of large scale energy storage (apart from the geographically and climatically constrained pumped hydro) is being use as a primary argument for needing new nuclear when it ought to be used as a primary argument for developing large scale storage. Given that there’s been no need in the past for it, minimal need for it in the present and all the requirements for it are future ones I think it’s sloppy to argue from the current lack of it that it is unachievable. Sure, it’s an enormous challenge but so must be building, deploying and keeping safe hundreds and probably thousands of new nuclear plants. If large scale energy storage had the decades of research and the big budgets of nuclear behind it, would storage still be unachievable? The primary technologies needed for large scale storage aren’t that complex and aren’t new. No essential requirement for breakthroughs (although the possibility for low cost batteries is worth some R&D), just funding for implementation, which probably won’t be forthcoming – because it’s not desperately needed now.. It shouldn’t be presumed unachievable in order to promote the idea that renewables don’t have a future for baseload power in order to promote the nuclear option. It also shouldn’t be used as the catch 22 reason to keep the coal fires burning – don’t build any because we don’t need any now and end up unable to close down coal power stations because we haven’t built any.

First up, coal-fired power stations vent huge amounts of radioactive uranium and heavy metals into the atmosphere that we are all currently inhaling – far, far more than IFRs or any other nuclear power station would (there is some venting of short-lived isotopes such as Xe, Kr and I). So, replacing the world’s ‘fleet’ of coal-fired power stations with nuclear (not saying we necessarily do this, but as an example) would decrease radioactive atmospheric emissions by a couple of orders of magnitude compared to today (in addition to the obvious CO2 benefit). But Blees also has some comments on this here and a solution for IFRs via vitrification of salts in the waste stream and noble gas capture:

“The Inoue/Koch paper refers to LWR spent fuel processing and the voloxidation step for decladding is not a necessary step. The only implication is that iodine in the IFR processing for metal fuel would stay in the salt rather than being released as gas. That salt could be incorporated into the vitrified waste. Nevertheless, Xe and Kr will get released into the hotcell. In a conventional reprocessing plant, the Xe and Kr released into the cell would have to be released through a stack. However, in pyroprocessing, the cell volume is small and filled with inert argon gas, and hence Xe and Kr can be collected cryogenically as part of the argon purification system. The collected gases can be compressed and stored until they decay away: Xe with a very short halflife of 12 days or less and Kr with about 10 years. You are correct in saying gases are not vitrified. However, being able to collect and compress for storage provides an alternative management option to simply releasing them through a stack. Xenon is no problem whatsoever with such a short half-life. It can be compressed and just stored for a few months until it decays. Krypton is a bit more problematic because of its longer half-life, but still very manageable. Rather than storing it compressed for decades while it decays, however, it could more practically be disposed of in the vitrified waste by combining it in a salt with fluorine“

Nuclear power plants routinely vent radioactive gas to the surrounding atmosphere. http://www.nukefreetexas.org/downloads/health_risks_nuclear_power.pdf
http://www.helencaldicott.com/chapter3.pdf

Does the proposed IFR system solve this problem? This is quite relevant given the proposal 11,000 new 3GW IFRs (compared to 440 smaller current reactors).

For instance (just one example) – is there a way to stop those new Chinese coal fired power stations pumping CO2 and aersol gunk in to the atmosphere for the next 50 years (i.e. not just stopping China building more, but persuading them to get rid of the huge number they’ve already got)? And so on, with a hundred other hurdles to overcome. I’m looking for real solutions that have a decent chance of working. Perhaps it’s large scale renewables, but my honest call is that these can’t do the whole job. There is simply no way to ever overcome the diffuse ‘energy supply’ challenge these face in being the total package.

If I’m biased towards next gen nuclear (that is a reasonable characterisation), it’s for two simple reasons. First, it strikes me as the best chance I’ve yet seen to get ourselves completely off fossil fuels, pretty quickly (a few decades), and simultaneously avoid the peak oil crunch (it becomes almost a non-issue). Second, I’ve yet to see any persuasive arguments that an IFR-boron-plasma solution can’t actually be the silver bullet (actually, the depleted uranium bullet, as Blees says) – that is, I’ve read through all the pros and cons (good and bad) arguments I can lay my hands on (believe me, I’ve look as hard as just about anyone for both sides) – and I find the pros greatly persuasive over the cons, with almost all of the cons being irrelevant to IFR or a problem common to any and all energy solutions, renewables included.

If you can think of some killer arguments or find links to them, please do post them here. Canvas away. I’m absolutely willing to be persuaded otherwise, just as I was with large-scale renewables being the full solution (they’re not – at least IMHO).

Points:
1. General Electric’s S-PRISM is ready to build now. A demonstration plant could be built quickly for certification purposes, then deployment begins. ~3-5 yr time frame if the US gov got serious.

2. Based on Japanese experience, 36 months for construction – faster once factory production begins on a large-scale and quicker for the smaller modular units or retrofitting coal-fired power stations.

3. You are talking about multiple one off designs. The large-scale IFR system is about a standardised, factory built turnkey design.

Questions:

1. Public ownership, standardised design, certified production facilities, international oversight via GREAT (or equivalent organisation). Please read PFTP pg 302-317, ‘going global’.

2. Read PFTP pg 263-284 re: international oversight. In addition, pyroprocessing does not result in weapons-useable purified plutonium due to actinide mixture. These nations would therefore have to set up a specially designed PUREX facility – just as they would for LWR. A good summary from Wiki on FBR:

“To date all known weapons programs have used far more easily built thermal reactors to produce plutonium, and there are some designs such as the SSTAR which avoid proliferation risks by both producing low amounts of plutonium at any given time from the U-238, and by producing three different isotopes of plutonium (Pu-239, Pu-240, and Pu-242) making the plutonium used infeasible for atomic bomb use. Furthermore, several countries are developing more proliferation resistant reprocessing methods that don’t separate the plutonium from the other actinides. For instance, the pyrometallurgical process when used to reprocess fuel from the Integral Fast Reactor leaves large amounts of radioactive actinides in the reactor fuel. Removing these transuranics in a conventional reprocessing plant would be extremely difficult as many of the actinides emit strong neutron radiation, requiring all handling of the material to be done remotely, thus preventing the plutonium from being used for bombs while still being usable as reactor fuel.”

3. This is all carefully and meticulously detailed in PFTP pg 263-317 and again, very specifically, on pg 377-382.

4. There will be less waste around than currently via LWR’s generation of long-lived high level waste. Further, IFR fission products can be vitrified in such a way as to render them ‘inert’ for over 1000 years – you can then drop the contents to the sea floor (or a geological repository if you wish). Point is, waste management becomes easy. See PFTP pg 218-220.

5. We shouldn’t wait. We should be pursuing IFRs and expanding the renewable and geothermal infrastructure and pursuing vigorous energy efficiency and conservation. It is not an either/or. To claim ‘…and then have deployment and construction problems that you have not even seemed to think about?’ is unfair – why do you think I have not thought about them? Or Tom Blees. Or George Stanford, etc. etc. What is your evidence for this lack of consideration?

6. Renewables could be suitable for the village. Or a buried 30-year nuclear battery (again described in PFTP and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_battery). No one is proposing to put IFR construction and oversight into the hand of corrupt central energy suppliers. That’s what’s so great about GREAT – see PFTP ch 9 and 10 for details, or here for some brief snippets: http://skirsch.com/politics/globalwarming/ifrUCSresponse.pdf)

7/8. It is not pie in the sky, it is not theoretical, as noted in comment #26.

RE: Comment #31:

“Ted Traynor does not mention the shortage of skilled technicians required to build reactors, the shortage of critical materials and the skills and materials required for the exacting metal forgings that safe nuclear reactors need.”

The optics for solar thermal and the systems control required for an intergrated renewable grid (as just two of many examples) are also demanding. The labour required for large-scale renewables installation and maintenence is high. etc. They may be more or less challenging than expanded nuclear – that’s a difficult question to answer without some learning-by-doing. Point is, there is no need to automatically assume one is feasible and the other isn’t. And if we are serious about implementing the most effective ways to combat climate change, then such matters are simply hurdles that MUST be overcome, whatever techs we pursue.

As above, I’m not suggesting we ‘wait until nuclear is ready to make a difference’ (what, beyond the 16% of power it already supplies?). I’m saying we go hard at all the feasible options.

“Is is ethical to leave waste toxic for 10 000 years around for other people to deal with? Is it ethical to give unstable countries the tools to create weapons that can kill millions of people?”

From such comments it is clear that you have not debriefed yourself sufficiently about IFR (yet you pointed out the 500 year time for IFR fission products to drop below background radition in an earlier question – I’m confused by the incongruety of these two statements). It does not generate toxic waste that lasts for 10,000 years, and it does not create weapons-grade material – far from it – it can consume weapons grade plutonium and the pyroprocessing makes it incredibly hard to get any useful material, except for a dirty bomb perhaps.

“If you can answer yes to these questions then nuclear is OK. I cannot, and many others cannot answer yes to these questions, and that is my opposition to nuclear power.”

I, or specifically, others with the most knowledge of this topic such as Argonne physicists, can answer yes to both of your questions. Please read the material I have suggested above, and like your views on the LTFR, your may find your views changed.

As I was writing this, I saw your most recently comment #35 – thanks for the summary. I think I’ve captured all of those points above, but to briefly recap:

1. It needs a major worldwide mobilisation of effort – no argument there. But so does large scale renewables, or indeed investment in fossil fuel infrastructure (IEA estimates a spend on business-as-usual tech of $26 trillion by 2030 to keep up with projected demand). Any way you look at it, we face a herculean task. So let’s roll up our sleeves and deal with it.

2. You can’t fully do this, but a GREAT like system sure helps. But IFR is a really bad way to make weapons-grade nukes, since the material is horrendously radioactive to handle and you need to build a separate PUREX facility anyway (you can’t do it on-site). So why not take the easier LWR route? Point is, IFR has a high probability of reducing proliferation risks, not enhancing them. Oh, and a good chance of saving the planet to boot.

3. Answered comprehensively above.

Thanks Ender, for staying polite, asking some penetrating questions, and being flexible of mind. The world needs more people like that.

The main unanswered questions are:

1. Given the shortages in nuclear construction materials can nuclear be rolled out fast enough to make a difference.

2. How can you ensure, given the failure of the NPT to prevent proliferation, how do you prevent weapons grade material being made from civilian nukes.

3. Given the lack of power infrastructure in 3rd world countries how do nukes benefit anyone other than rich countries.

Thanks for your limited time.

I’ve noiced an emphasis on this site to ‘hard’ solutions (eg geo engineering, next gen nuclear) to the climate crisis (at least in recent entries). This may reflect Barry’s particular interests, expertise and/or recent readings. And that’s fair enough given that it IS your site, Barry. I suspect it also reflects a realisation of the magnitude of the challenge that climate change poses.

However, I am concerned that in urging the consideration of all possible solutions, including next gen nuclear, that you are expressing a particular bias (apparently heaviliy influenced by your reading of Blees’ book) without giving sufficient coverage of the risks associated with that option. In my view, one of the biggest risks is that next gen nuclear will be seen as the silver bullet by policy makers and others of influence, resulting in significant public funds being directed away from other (hard and soft) solutions.

Geo engineering and next gen nuclear have the potential to swallow trillions of public $’s. Potentially, they also allow us to continue in our profligate ways when it comes to energy and the use of non-renewable resources, and ignore the impacts (climate related and others) that these ways have on the planet.

I think it’s encumbent upon those responsible for sites like this to canvass all of the consequences (good and bad) of possible solutions. After all, you never know who might be listening!