Maybe you need to pose your questions before claiming we have no answers.

Hence it matters not a jot whether individual CEOs run Christian charities or beat their wives or if they don´t, what matters is the macroeconomic impact of the firms they run.

You are of one mind with e.g. Jim Hansen on Gen IV NPPs. But he sees corporate spending in US elections as fatal for the nature of the electoral process: check out the index entries under “United States: fossil fuels use”, in his “Storms of my Grandchildren.”

As you appear to be some sort of Julia Gillard-style “leftist”, a term which has been stripped of meaning by successive AU ALP governments since 1980, you may as a possible Obama admirer be interested in this recent news item from “Democracy Now”:

“Supreme Court: No Limit on Corporate Spending on Elections
The Supreme Court has ruled corporations have the right to spend as much money as they like to influence the outcome of US elections. In a five-to-four decision, the court overturned century-old restrictions on corporations, unions and other interest groups from using their vast treasuries to advocate for a specific candidate. The majority opinion affirms corporations have First Amendment rights and that the government can’t limit their political speech. The decision has sparked widespread outrage amongst progressives and calls to have it reversed. This is Robert Weissman of the watchdog group Public Citizen.

Robert Weissman: “What we really need is to get the decision undone. If the court won’t reverse its own decision, the only course available to us is a constitutional amendment. We have to say the First Amendment exists to protect the rights of real people, of you and me, not artificial creations known as corporations, not for Exxon, not for Pfizer, not for Goldman Sachs.”

In a statement, President Obama called the ruling “a major victory for big oil, Wall Street banks, health insurance companies and the other powerful interests that marshal their power every day in Washington to drown out the voices of everyday Americans.”

No one is saying that uranium/radium mining in the distant past was not carried out under optimal health and safety practices, but things have markedly improved.

I suspect this is what you meant to type.

Also claiming that miners are being harmed by radiation exposure despite the lack of proof is simply your opinion, and that carries no weight in this argument since it is in fact the conclusion you are drawing.

Whistleblowers exposing bad practices at mines is not something unique to uranium mining, nor is toxic runoff from tailing ponds – this is a broad issue in mining and effects several types, and again cannot be used as a reason to halt the development of nuclear energy.

Apologies for the ‘your silence is deafening’ comment.

Regarding the health impacts of working in uranium mines, even in the old days when radiation exposures were relatively high – tens or hundreds of millisieverts annually – there was precious little chance of epidemiological studies demonstrating statistically significant increases in cancer deaths. Partly because of the intrinsic methodological problems and partly because of the lack of monitoring and the lack of epidemiological studies. One exception was the Radium Hill study which demonstrated a statistically significant increase in cancer deaths. With current exposures – averaging 3.7 mSv at Olympic Dam over and above background radiation of ~2mSv – demonstrating a statistically significant increase in cancer deaths would be all the more unlikely but that doesn’t mean those exposures are harmless as your comments suggest.

You say “modern mining companies recognise that the media are quick to report safety breaches and accidents because unions and, for that matter watchful NGO’s, are keen to keep the pressure on, so they make sure the media knows about it.” One example that gives the lie to that claim concerned photos of leaks in a tailings dam given by an Olympic Dam worker to FoE in late 2008. That would never have come to light if not for the whistleblower. BHP’s response was to threaten disciplinary action against any worker taking photos of the mine site.

I’m not on a full-time wage at FoE and most of my work on these issues over the past decade has been unpaid so those arguments are silly.

cheers, jim

Indeed. It really is time for the antinuclear old guard of the environmental movement to roll over and stop playing the spoiler to serious, practical solutions to emissions reduction. A new environmentalism focussed on outcomes and not captured by idealogical fossils is to be welcomed.

I’ll unpack my brief comment a little. Activated carbon has a finite adsorption capacity, which depending on the grade might mean one part co2 requires two parts charcoal. Split the difference and say the co2 produced by burning a kilo of coal requires a kilo of activated carbon to bind.

Now imagine a coal plant with one of those unending coal trains running into it to feed the beast. To bind all the co2, imagine another train the same size rolling in on another track. That should give an idea of the scale, and that it doesn’t scale. I’m assuming your intent is to sequester all the co2 produced by the power plant. (Where does the activated charcoal come from? Trees, mostly, or more coal. Could biochar keep up with this demand?)

You could use some small stock of charcoal as a carrier that doesn’t get consumed – adsorb the co2 from the flue, then drive it off again to collect and compress, and reuse the charcoal in a loop. But that’s not what you’re describing.

The remark that the co2 adsorption is reversible was to indicate that adsorption itself is not stable sequestration. You’ve got to do something with the co2 before it slowly returns to atmosphere.

I’m not sure about the ammonium carbonate idea. Ammonium carbonate’s so fragile its barely a compound. If I had to guess I would say the plant will grab the nitrogen, and the co2 will go straight back to atmosphere. (And remember the material balance requires another coal-train equivalent of ammonia.)

I don’t think the gypsum idea works either. I think you’ll find the equilibria lie a long way towards the gypsum staying as gypsum.

I hope that explains what was going on in my head when I wrote that earlier comment. I hate being Dr No, but there you go, -j.

Thank you for your reply. You suggest that a lot of activated charcoal would be needed to adsorb CO2 and that the process would be reversible. However, biochar is, as I understand it, more or less activated charcoal if produced correctly. If the biochar is impregnated with ammonia (produced with the surplus energy from the pyrolytic process used on the original organic material), the product produced by passing CO2 through it is ammonium carbonate.

If this product is interred in soil, I would assume that it would act as a organic carbon/nitrogen fertliser. Most of the carbon in the original biochar would be sequestered long term. I am not sure what would happen to the carbon in the ammonium carbonate. If it were to be lost to the atmosphere quickly as CO2, then the possibility would remain to react it with gypsum to turn the ammonium carbonate into ammonium sulphate and calcium carbonate. (I don’t know what would happen to the biochar repository while all this was going on!) Assuming that one ended up with ammonium sulphate impregnated biochar (if carbonate no good), one would have a potentially valuable product that was carbon negative two ways (sequestered carbon in both biochar and calcium carbonate).

I really don’t know whether the game would be worth the candle or whether the process could scale sufficiently to be useful. Your comments on this would be helpful.

For Dr Green’s edification I humbly point out that not everyone is paid to devote their working lives to political campaigning, anti nuclear or otherwise.

Some of us have other things to do, as I did when returning to the office from holiday. Well, now with some pressing jobs done, I’ve had a chance to read the commentaries generated my op-ed and thank Barry for posting it.

I am pleased people found it spurred some thoughts and a fine debate… and I guess gave Green something to do.

So, why might a convert to the pro-nuclear power argument believe that miners are in no particular danger mining uranium?

Certainly 30 years ago when I marched on Adelaide’s streets opposing uranium mining I was certain uranium miners would end up dying in greater numbers from cancer when compared with population averages. Indeed, our current Premier, Mike Rann, argued as much in a pamphlet opposing the Olympic Dam mine [“Mirage in the Desert”]. Written in early 1980s and, for all I know, I possibly distributed it on a book stall I ran that had a healthy section devoted to opposing all matters nuclear [we probably even sold and distributed work by Helen Callicott as well – call it my ‘misspent political youth”!]

In no particular order of priority here are my reasons for feeling satisfied that uranium miners will not in face any cruel fate comparable to those hapless souls who mined asbestos.

1] I’ve read no reports in the mass media to suggest miners are at any particular risk, other than the normal risks associated with modern mining. That is important in my asssesment of matters but yes, it is hardly ‘scientific’.
The point is, I once expected to be reading reports high cancer rates among uranium miners. Moreover, I’ve seen no literature by anti-nuclear NGOs pointing to evidence of uranium miners suffering higher rates of cancer or leukemia than is the norm.

2] Australians join strong labour unions to protect their interests. I was raised in a family where unionism mattered so it would come as no surprise to learn that I support unions [ well I do for the most part].

My first job out of uni was working for a large national union. I happen to, unlike, I think, Dr Green, respect their leaders and those they employ. Unions employ health and safety officers and, in my view, these people are honest and diligent at their task of protecting the occupational health and safety of their membership.

Unions have sought to make mining uranium as safe as possible and it’s clear from my conversations with union officials that other areas of mining are of far more concern than that associated with uranium.

3] I assume Dr Green and his fellow anti nuclear brethren hold little faith in the union officials’ judgment?

What then do they think of the average Aussie blue collar worker who chooses to work in a mine? IIn today’s labour markets there is no scenario of hapless out of work working class people seeking any job opportunity. In fact it largely the opposite – pay in mining is good with the main hardship being the isolation, but with fly-in, fly-out, even that has been much mediated.

The point for me is that I do put sway in the capacity of workers to judge for themselves what is safe and what is not. And they’ve judged, in South Australia at least, that working in a mine where uranium is mined is no big risk, probably most think no risk – but I’ve not run a survey that just is hunch, Dr Green. So please spare the, ‘where’s the evidence’ taunt.

Can you imagine, for a moment, Dr Green addressing miners trying to tell the them it is against their interest to work at Olympic Dam or the Ranger mine? For mine, there is an inherent patronizing attitude among some anti-nuclear advocates and possible it’s even the norm among those who are paid by NGOs to propogandise the case. Indeed, one full-time paid anti nuclear NGO official once concluded a discussion/argument with me, walking away saying – ‘I feel sorry for you’. Oh dear for I have sinned, have I? But I was so amused by this rare insight into the pysche of the devotee to a cause.

4] Companies such as BHP are not secretive when it comes to health and safety.

Big statement, can one defend it?

I once held the view that pictured corporations as ‘satanic mills’ and believe it remains the case for many in what is called the ‘Green – Left’ to be overly suspicious of ‘the corporation’ be it mining companies or any other. There is, of course, good reason to hold a healthy skepticism regarding the corporate world, just like there is regarding politicians and there advisors… and might I add, the world of full time paid NGO apparatchiks.

But for mine many in the environment movement and pseudo ‘left’ are unhealthily cynical. [Note: big debate here over what constitutes the ‘left’! The original left, for want of a better word, are skeptical of the inherent conservative and anti-humanist disposition of many who call themselves environmentalist – but I risk a major digression!] . In my view many environmentalists are naïve and fail to appreciate that corporations are directed by many people of great good will, intelligence and commitment to bettering our society.

In my conversations and tour of the Olympic Dam mine I am satisfied that occupational health and safety is not just a matter of concern, but rather, it appears for BHP-Billiton it is actually an obsession. That is certainly what I gleaned and the same when I toured the Ranger Mine. [And for Dr Green’s check list of what matters to him, I should add, I paid my own way for both tours, keen to weigh up the evidence free from the burden of any sense of obligation is how I went about it].

But the significant point here is that modern mining companies recognise that the media are quick to report safety breaches and accidents because unions and, for that matter watchful NGO’s, are keen to keep the pressure on, so they make sure the media knows about it. Thus, the company has an intrinsic interest in making sure things are safe. But they also have employed managers who care about safety because is is the right thing to care about.

5] Finally, in terms of seeking to ensure safe working conditions the matter of risk from radiation associated with uranium mining rests on what medical science has to say about how the human body handles various does of radiation measured, as social scientist me has learned of late, in “millisieverts”.

I’ve talked to health and safe managers at BHP and from the public service [so two separate sources of information] about these matters.

Point is, as I understand it, we can satisfactorily measure radiation levels [the millisieverts] and that is exactly what uranium miners like BHP insist upon before workers start, and when they finish, their shifts [they also leave their mining clothes behind at the end of a shift and shower before departing].

I doubt any of the above will satisfy Dr Green, he has a drum to beat for his employer and that he certainly does.

The pity for me is that he and his colleagues in other environmental NGOs do the environment movement a disservice by being so dogmatic on nuclear issues. And it remains a great puzzle why intelligent people like Green and, for that matter, Ian Lowe [current Australian Conservation Foundation President] persist with their strident opposition to the nuclear fuel cycle.

It was with great anguish that I finally decided to quit, late last year, my many years’ membership and monthly donations to the Aust Conservation Foundation. I could not abide any longer being a supporter when there was no evidence of any likelihood of any shift in the ACF’s anti-nuclear position.

Perhaps the membership of Friends of the Earth and the ACF will soon seek revision of their NGOs opposition to all matters nuclear. As reason seeps its way into conversation over our and other countries’ energy futures many members might ask for a cautious pro nuclear stance, well you’d think so…

But, alas, I am sure the full time paid campaigners like Dr Green will do their best to kybosh that prospect. And that is the problem as I see it with many current environmental NGOs. The answer for environmentalists to be effective and wise lies, broadly, in what Barry Brook has argued for, namely a new approach perhaps best captured by the term, “promethean environmentist”.

The old “priests” of the environment movement don’t like that, they prefer dogma and hackneyed ideology oddly wrapped up as somehow, leftwing. For mine, they are mostly demonstrably without answers to the carbon emission reduction challenges government and society now confronts; many contributors to this website are seeking answers and, along the way enjoying, I think, the occasional joust with these priests.

Haydon Manning

A lot of activated carbon, more charcoal by mass than the CO2 thats adsorbed. And the adsorption is reversible, its not sequestration.

Thanks for your replies.

CCS, I agree, may be greenwash when suggested for coal, provided we deploy nuclear quickly enough.

However, it seems to me that gas will be playing some sort of role for many years to come – for synfuels, peaking power or nitrogenous fertiliser production to name a few of its potential uses. If these uses provide higher added value than that attributable to baseload power, there might be sense in considering removing and sequestering the CO2 from combusted gas.

I have read that activated charcoal will remove about half the CO2 from flue gases in a single pass. Eprida are even advocating the impregnation of biochar with ammonia and its subsequent addition to flue gases to make high carbon/ammonium carbonate fertiliser. This product would have intrinsic value in enhancing crop growth with the virtue of being carbon negative. However, I have no idea whether the Eprida approach scales or make economic sense without offset income.

Hmm. Barry, in the unlikely event that Green accepts this challenge, you might want to be a bit more specific. Are you talking about all nuclear reactors, or just civilian power plants?

Come to think of it, military nuclear reactors are probably going to see an increase as well, given that the Chinese and Indians are so keen on building advanced subs and carriers for their navies. You probably win no matter what. But that’s an awful lot of money you’re talking about. I bet he doesn’t take you up.

On January 1, 2020, I’ll pay Jim Green $1 for every MWe of average capacity that global nuclear power goes backwards between Jan 1, 2010 and 31 Dec 2019 — if he agrees me to pay me $1 for every MWe it goes forward (if that eventuality should instead happen). Agreed Jim?