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About 1 year ago, I posted on BNC two important pieces by Peter Lang – “Does wind power reduce carbon emissions?” and a follow-up reply. Together, these stirred up considerable discussion (about 500 comments to date) and raised important questions about the ability of wind-energy to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels, when natural gas usage for [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Renewable planet | 56 Comments »
Given the flurry of heated discussion on the topic of ‘peak oil‘ on another BNC post, I invited one of the protagonists, Dave Lankshear (a.k.a. “Eclipse Now” — see here for his blog), to write up a summary piece which described his position on the topic. This is given below, and should provide a good [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Future shock | 73 Comments »
Download the printable 13-page PDF (includes appendix) here. By Peter Lang. Peter is a retired geologist and engineer with 40 years experience on a wide range of energy projects throughout the world, including managing energy R&D and providing policy advice for government and opposition. His experience includes: coal, oil, gas, hydro, geothermal, nuclear power plants, [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Renewable planet | 220 Comments »
I’m about to hit the road once again, this time to take the great American road trip for 13 hours, from Sacremento to Idaho Falls, with Tom Blees, leaving bright and early tomorrow morning. Today I had a fantastic visit to UC Berkeley and the lab of Prof Per Peterson, and will have lots more [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Future shock, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 24 Comments »
Guest Post by Geoff Russell. Geoff is a mathematician and computer programmer and is a member of Animal Liberation SA. His recently published book is CSIRO Perfidy. Have I got a deal for you! I’ll be marketting my new patent-pending sandals in China and if just 1% of the population buy them, then I’ll sell 13 million [...]
Filed under: Ecological impacts, Emissions reduction | 12 Comments »
Here is my side of the ABC Environment ‘debate’ I’ve had with Ian Lowe, based around my book ‘Why vs Why: Nuclear Power“. ————————- In part two of a two-part debate on the prospect of nuclear power in Australia, Barry Brook argues that the arguments against nuclear are hackneyed and wrong. Part 1, “Nuclear Power [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy | 81 Comments »
A new report, Zero Carbon Australia 2020, has been released today. Its aim is to “show how Australia can reach 100% renewable energy within a decade, using technology that is commercially available right now“. From their website: The guiding principles of ZCA 2020 include: Australia’s energy is provided entirely from renewable sources at the end [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Renewable planet | 560 Comments »
Guest post by John D. Morgan. John runs R&D programmes at a Sydney startup company. He has a PhD in physical chemistry, and research experience in chemical engineering in the US and at CSIRO. He is a regular commenter on BNC. A 10-page printable PDF version of this post can be downloaded here. ———————————– Beyond [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 106 Comments »
In the Thinking Critically About Sustainable Energy (TCASE) series — currently up to 10 parts on the BNC blog — I consider the challenges we face in scaling up renewable or nuclear energy technologies to replace fossil fuels. The blog serialisation of TCASE will continue on BNC, but the format is now also moving into a [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet, TCASE Series | 22 Comments »
This post follows on directly from part 1, which you can read here. Here, a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) on climate change and nuclear energy are answered. These are quite deliberately not technical – you won’t find explanations of adiabatic lapse rates, actinide isotopes or Brayton cycle efficiency here! Nope… these are ‘big [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 281 Comments »
A recent BNC guest post, Public advocacy on nuclear power and climate change, stirred up some really useful ideas. In that post’s comments thread, it was discussed how we, as a concerned and engaged internet community (the BNC crowd, and similar groups like Energy from Thorium), could engage more effectively with the broader public domain on the [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 174 Comments »
This is an invitation to BNC readers to join in, at an early stage, an Open Science experiment based around systems analysis of renewable energy. Okay, what’s all this about? Click here (or on the image above) to go directly to the front page, which currently says this: Once upon a time… We all wanted to understand renewables. [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Renewable planet | 120 Comments »
Guest Post by Peter Lang. Peter is a retired geologist and engineer with 40 years experience on a wide range of energy projects throughout the world, including managing energy R&D and providing policy advice for government and opposition. His experience includes: coal, oil, gas, hydro, geothermal, nuclear power plants, nuclear waste disposal, and a wide [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 100 Comments »
The Australian Broadcasting Commission (ABC) has now broadcast my debate with Ian Lowe over nuclear power, on Radio National’s Counterpoint program. The discussion lasts 50 minutes, and includes various questions and answers from the Why vs Why: Nuclear Power book, moderated by Paul Comrie-Thompson. We cover issues of waste management, weapons proliferation, adequacy of renewable energy alternatives, [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy | 67 Comments »
This is part 2 of an analysis of some recent public statements by Santos CE David Knox. If you haven’t already done so, read this first. In Part 2, I address the following statement: One thing I would note about advocates of nuclear is that they often ignore natural gas and its role in power [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy | 89 Comments »
Santos (South Australia Northern Territory Oil Search) is an Australian energy company that’s a commercial icon in my home state of South Australia. It’s a local economic dynamo, with a $2B/year turnover. Its principal focus — today and into the future — is on the exploitation of Australia’s natural gas reserves. In late September 2009, David [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction | 61 Comments »
I’ve talked recently on BNC about various recent energy plans. which seek to replace fossil fuels with low-carbon alternatives. On the whole, I’ve been left dissatisfied. For instance, there was the Scientific American article ‘A path to sustainable energy by 2030‘ (technology = renewables only, critiqued by me here) and the UK Royal Academy of [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy | 459 Comments »
Although the BraveNewClimate science blog has an unashamedly Australian flavour and focus, the climate and energy issues covered herein are very much international problems. As such, I’m strongly convinced that the solutions I canvass will be required for most nations this century. In this spirit, I’d like to present a detailed guest post which provides a [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 58 Comments »
If you ask Jim Hansen to name the single most important thing required to avert catastrophic climate change, he’ll say this: don’t burn all the coal (nor unconventional fossil fuels, such as tar sands and oil shales). Ideally, we would also prefer to leave some of the oil, and much of the natural gas, in [...]
Filed under: Climate change Q&A, Emissions reduction | 92 Comments »
As reported earlier on BNC, Dr James Hansen is currently in Australia (I had the pleasure of taking him out to dinner yesterday evening). Tonight he’ll be speaking on climate change and energy solutions at a public event at the Adelaide Convention Centre. There is still time to reserve a ticket and come along — [...]
Filed under: Emissions reduction, Nuclear Energy, Renewable planet | 89 Comments »
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![[1/5] Fitting the Steam Engine](http://static.flickr.com/4134/4947531347_120a565eaa_t.jpg "[1/5] Fitting the Steam Engine")
