Time for a new Open Thread (the last one has more than 500 comments and is about to spool off the end of the BNC frontpage).
The Open Thread is a general discussion forum, where you can talk about whatever you like — there is nothing ‘off topic’ here — within reason. So get up on your soap box! The standard commenting rules of courtesy apply, and at the very least your chat should relate to the broad theme of the blog (climate change, sustainability, energy, etc.). You can also find this thread by clicking on the Open Thread category on the left sidebar.
One point of interest for possible discussion. Dr. Eric P. Loewen is Chief Consulting Engineer, Advanced Plants, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas. He was recently profiled in the excellent Esquire article “Meet the man who could end global warming“. Last week, Eric gave testimony before the Subcommittee on Energy & Water Development Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate. You can read his 8-page written testimony, Advancing Technology for Nuclear Energy, here. His presentation was followed by a Q&A session with senators, and is well worth checking out (video, with Eric’s presentation starting at 106 minutes [Steven Chu also presents, at 40 min]).
Eric has previously briefed Congress on GEH’s “Generation IV” PRISM reactor technology — a commercial blueprint for the Integral Fast Reactor.
Brave New Climate 
718 replies on “Open Thread 4”
Charles Barton – Of course the industry won’t pay attention to us (mores the pity) and no doubt they have their reasons for keeping still. However I am more inclined to think it is more because the large nuclear energy operators also have FF interests in their portfolios, then because of any developed PR strategy.
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dv82xl, the nuclear industry is an heir to mistakes that were made 50 years ago. it cannot move forward until it corrects the mistakes. People Like Kirk Sorensen and David Le Blanc know how to move forward, and they will move forward with or without the rest of the nuclear industry.
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Peter Lalor, it’s interesting that you mention Brent Spar. Since that event, I always assume that Greenpeace are being deceptive, if not outright lying, whenever they make any statement. And they haven’t done anything to make me change my mind.
All this musing on pro-nuclear publicity makes me think it’s time to write to a few editors.
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Hi DV8 and all,
I’d love to take a snap poll on the views here regarding peak oil. Who thinks it is imminent (next 5 years), soon (next decade), or later, and why?
If Nuclear power is THE answer, and it hasn’t been marketed aggressively enough to influence policy makers and inform the general public, AND if peak oil hasn’t been ‘marketed’ enough either… what does this say about our society and preparedness for the years ahead?
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The thing with peak oil is that we can and will deal with it. This is one area where market forces will come up with a solution, and the decline will come slowly enough that those forces will have time to act.
Most oil-based fuels have been way under priced anyway given the burden they have placed on the environment. But real shortages are a long way off, given coal-to-liquid, gas-to-liquid, tarsands, and shale bitumen deposits.
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I wonder if, Peter Lang, you could repost that link to the image of that nuclear waste repository in (Toronto?) Canada (IIRC 440MW for forty years).
I wanted to post it over at Quiggins before he shuts the thread — just to emphasise how modest the mass of hazmat we are talking about is.
You posted it just the other day and I failed to save the link in favourites …
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DV82XL, on 9 May 2010 at 10.10 — Rant away, but more effective to take your important meesage o those who can affect solutions; politicians and generral public, …
eclipsenow, on 11 May 2010 at 8.56 — Plateau oil is here now; which year will be the actual peak is somewhat uncertain.
In general it seems that society has a “close the barn door after” attitude. Hard to convince people to build tornado shelters until after their neighbors are blown away.
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Sure Fran, pleased to help you. Its godd to hear from you. Here it is:
http://www.nukeworker.com/pictures/displayimage-5205-fullsize.html
These containers contain all the once used fuel from 44TWh of energy produced by the Yankee power plant before it was decommissioned. It ran for 31 years and was decommissioned in 2007. Here’s more:
http://www.yankeerowe.com/info.html
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Once used nuclear fuel can be reprocessed to use again. And again. And …
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Charles Barton, This is what the other side is doing to us:
Cancer-stricken … teen puts a face behind nuclear plant issue
“OUISVILLE, Ky. — As research scientists and federal regulators gathered in Washington, D.C., recently to discuss a new study of cancer rates near nuclear power plants, Sarah Sauer, Corydon, Ind., asked them for a favor.
Don’t forget the people behind the numbers, said Sarah, 16, a sophomore at Presentation Academy in Louisville.
Moments earlier, as she spoke to the National Academy of Sciences panel, the teen brought some in the room to tears, standing on a stool to reach the microphone as her high-pitched and strained voice told as much about her cancer battle as her words.
Linda Modica, a Sierra Club member from Tennessee who attended the panel meeting, said Sarah was a brave girl.
“It came off in a very poignant and powerful way,” Modica said..
It was a moment for which Sarah and her family had waited years — a chance to put a face on a study that will examine whether youngsters and adults who have lived near nuclear power plants suffer from higher rates of cancer.
This is what we are up against, and leaving bullshit like this unanswered is not going to win us any converts. This is the lowest the opposition has stooped to date. While it is indicative of how much of a threat nuclear energy has become to them, it is also the type of fight we are going to face.
The industry should demand that similar studies be done around coal plants, and scream loudly that they are being unfairly targeted, and if their PR firms are telling them to keep a low profile, then I would start to wonder just who those firms were working for.
This is outright dissemination and mendacity of the worst kind. It is a calculated character assassination being carried out at the highest levels. Unless everyone starts understanding that this fight is not going to be won by proffering new designs in reactors, or showing how competitive a NPP can be cost wise, we are just taking a knife to a gun-fight.
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Sorry I meant to post the link to the story I quoted from:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20105100322
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Tim Flannery in “Weather Makers” quoted a study in which the NSW Hunter Valley, one of our wine growing districts, has lung-cancer rates 3 times that of ‘the big smoke’ down here in Sydney.
And people go up to the Hunter Valley to ‘get away from it all’ and enjoy the ‘healthy’ countryside!
If the medical science and statistics are behind you guys, then I’m all for open, honest, public debate on this: and that’s speaking as a father whose son nearly died from Leukaemia in 2004.
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Thanks Peter …
I’ve posted some info there now.
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A study released in 1991 by the Ontario Cancer Treatment and Research Foundation, commissioned by Canada’s Atomic Energy Control Board, found no statistically significant increase in leukemia among children born to mothers living near five nuclear sites in Ontario province.
Researchers examined data for 1,894 children, aged 14 years or younger, who died from leukemia between 1950 and 1987 and who lived within 15 miles of five Canadian nuclear facilities. The facilities were Ontario Power Generation’s Pickering and Bruce Power’s Bruce nuclear power plants, the Elliot Lake uranium mines and mills, Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd.’s Chalk River nuclear laboratories, and a former 20-megawatt nuclear station at Rolphton. Near the Chalk River laboratories, childhood leukemia was one-third of the expected rate. Near the Pickering power station, there were 33 childhood leukemia deaths between 1971 and 1987, more than the 25 statistically expected. However, the rate also was elevated during the 20 years before the station entered service. (emp. add)
A study by two French researchers—reported in the Oct. 25, 1990, issue of Nature—found no increase in childhood leukemia near six nuclear installations in France between 1968 and 1987. The facilities included four nuclear power plants and the nuclear fuel reprocessing plants at La Hague and Marcoule.
More than a dozen other major health studies have found no link between cancer and people living near NPP and other nuclear related facilities.
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One more thing Peter.
I was looking at a report Yankee Atomic did on their decommissioning issues. According to them,
If my maths is right, then this means that the plant and the customers have paid between them about 40 cents per KwH for waste storage alone while the government has dishonoured its part of the bargain for 20 years, imposing substantial further costs. I don’t know if this is typical but if it is roughly similar to industry experience, then anyone who says that nuclear power is externalising the costs of waste storage to the state or is in receipt of a net subsidy is simply talking through their hat.
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Yet Helen Caldicott goes around asserting evidence from other studies (she has her own radio show called “If you love this planet”. It’s easy to access through iTunes).
This is the sort of thing I’d love to see more discussion about in the public arena.
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Isn’t that rather expensive electricity?
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It’s also kWh, not KwH!
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I still want to know why studies of this sort are not called for near coal plants, and I’m furious with this grandstanding of a sick girl at the start of a hearing into this issue.
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Well yes Eclipse, it is, but then, Australia has access to far cheaper stationary energy than do the people of Massachussetts.
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My apologies Barry … I always mix this one up. The “W” is, after all, in place of someone’s name.
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DV82XL, public exposure to radiation coming from fossil fuel related sources, has always been greater than public exposure to radiation from nuclear plants. Epidemiological studies indicate that there are adverse health consequences for populations living in close proximity to coal fired power plants. In addition to toxic substances like arsenic, coal fired power plants emit radon and other uncontrolled radioactive substances. Coal fired power plants also emit particulates that are known to both cause and aggravate lung disease. Natural gas, piped into American homes for space and water heating contains significant amounts of radioactive radon gas. Radon found in natural gas used for electrical generation is simply released into the environment.
in contrast, power reactors are designed with a system of barriers designed to prevent the release of radioactive materials into the environment. These barriers are very effective. The annual exposure to radiation from nuclear power plants to people living close to them, is far less than the average exposure of those people to radiation coming from medical and dental sources. Millions of people routinely undergo medical procedures, that involve the direct injection of radioactive fission products into their bodies. These procedures are deemed safe and are rarely questions by people who make claims about the health problems caused by accidental exposures to far less radiation from fission products coming from nuclear power plants.
Millions of people are exposed to above average levels of natural background radiation that are far higher than the average emissions form nuclear power plants. Epidemiological studies of these populations do not demonstrate adverse health consequences from high levels of exposures to background radiation.
Commercial Aircraft crews and frequent passengers are exposed to high levels of background radiation coming from cosmic rays. Again there is no evidence that these high levels of exposure lead to adverse health consequences.
Finally Epidemiological studies of populations living close to american nuclear plants fail to find evidence that exposures to radioactive material coming from American power reactors leads to adverse health consequences for people living in their vicinity. Epidemiological studies of populations living in near the reactors of the Savannah River Project, where high levels of radioactive tritium were known to have occurred, did not shown that they had suffered from adverse health consequences.
The fact that cancer and other illnesses occurs near nuclear power facilities is neither frightening nor in itself reason for concern. There has to be some evidence that health problems are are linked to radiation exposures triggered by proximity to nuclear facilities. Arguments that move from proximity to causal relationship without demonstration of causal link are examples of the questionable cause or Harvey Wasserman fallacy. Mr. Wasserman assumes that the death of people living near the Three Mile island accident died from causes that were directly related to that accident. In fact repeated epidemiological studies of populations living in the Three Mile Island area have failed to demonstrate any adverse health consequences from radiation exposures from that accident.
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Charles Barton – you are preaching to the choir (as I’m sure you know) but you have to look what is being done in government forums:
http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20105100322
This is an outright smear campaign carried out at the highest level. Parading that girl in front the board, before it begins deliberations is outright attempt at biasing of the worst sort. This must be answered by the American pronuclear community in the loudest voice possible.
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http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20105100322 <— They lived FIVE MILES from the plant?!! I swear to god people will believe pretty much anything.
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TeeKay – Of course it’s BS, but this girl was invited to address this group who will be looking into the issue. If that isn’t a sign of serious bias, I don’t know what is. This is political grandstanding of the worst kind.
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How about this:
http://www.france24.com/en/20100511-obama-medvedev-russia-us-cooperation-nuclear-civilian-energy-research
Any hope for IFR development by this cooperation?
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No, the nuclear waste tax is 0.1 cents per kWh. If New England has paid $1.4 billion, that has been for 1.4 trillion kWh. I would guess New England has averaged 10 nuclear GW-years per year for the last 20, 200 GW-y, 200 million kW-y, 1.75 trillion kWh, so that comes out about right.
Presumably that was the point ‘eclipsenow’ was making. No-one believes nuclear electricity is expensive, least of all the people who most loudly say so.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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No only can Eric’s vision solve both the CO2 problem and the nuclear problem, its the only path that can solve these problems. As we proceed forward along this path of new nuclear development, there are many new ideas nuclear scientists have that need to be tested and implemented. The field of nuclear science is just at an infancy stage. Lets get the show on the road.
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Gene Preston, on 12 May 2010 at 4.44 Said:
“As we proceed forward along this path of new nuclear development, there are many new ideas nuclear scientists have that need to be tested and implemented. The field of nuclear science is just at an infancy stage. Lets get the show on the road.”
Fission can no longer be called “in its infancy.” It is a fairly mature technology that has been around for sixty years. Yes there are other designs that need development, but even they have their roots in prototypes that ran as far back as the Fifties, and might have gone mainstream then had the politics had allowed.
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charles:
nice summary of the “radiation issue.”
I am collecting useful links to studies on these questions. if you have some links you could provide that I can add to my collection, I would be grateful. I have links for studies done in Kerala and Ramsar showing no increase in cancer incidence despite far higher background radiation, especially in the latter instance. and I have links to various studies cited as evidence for hormesis.
and speaking of radon, what do you think of bernard cohen’s studies showing a robust inverse relation between incidence of lung cancer and radon levels (higher the level, lower the incidence) in households (from something like 1600 counties)–all levels low enough to be considered “hormetic”??
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So was the 17 billion an all-industry figure, GRL?
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Yes, it sounds about right for an all-USA figure. I’ve heard higher, 27-ish ones, but they pay ~$800 million a year, so at the turn of hte millennium it might have been 17.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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Fran,
I understand that nuclear power plants are required to collect about 0.1c/kWh which goes into a government managed fund to pay for centralised management of used fuel. The US governments have continually delayed the Yucca Mountain project and the Obama administration recently stopped it altogether. Now they are reconsidering this decisions (sort of). So the nuclear generators have been paying this fee for decades but the US Government has not met its side of the bargain. Now the NPP owners have to pay to extend their onsite management of the used fuel. This is not fair, but it is typical of what governments do. As you know, there is no equivalent requirements of any of the alternatives. See these photos for examples of what the renewable energy generators are allowed to get away with regarding decommissioning: http://webecoist.com/2009/05/04/10-abandoned-renewable-energy-plants/
Regarding your calculation of 40c/kWh, I suspect the $1.4 billion is the total collected from all the NPPs in the state, not just Yankee Rowe.
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Woops, Fran, I see others have already answered your question.
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Peter Lang writes,
“Woops, Fran, I see others have already answered your question.”
If only I were “others”, perhaps some of them with money, and we could merge, Dr. Manhattan-style, and then we’d none of us be broke.
If anyone knows of a job — a paid job — that my postings here suggest I could do, please email me at the address given at the top of the PDF paper linked, with the words “free download”, at the top of my web page.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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Woops again!. Sorry, G.R.L. Cowan, I shjould have given you credit. I was rushing – again.
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Heads up
Some green is discussing green issues in the Budget and the disappointments of the green sector. I’ve raised nuclear power and there’s a bit of to and fro going on.
We might like to participate
Dan Cass at The Drum
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I just posted this on the John Quiggin site, to (hopefully) give Fran a bit of a hand:
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Nice list of prices there Peter. I was wondering if anyone had a ‘Radiation for dummies” chart?
Maybe we need to do a poster.
“Rad’s you take from…
* lying on the beach
* preparing a meal at a granite bench top
* living next to a nuclear power plant
* Having an x-ray
* lying on top of a cask of depleted uranium for 1 hour
* living in the Hunter Valley NSW (and other coal power station regions)
* emerging from a bunker 2 weeks after a few nuclear bombs were dropped nearby
* etc…
… to illustrate that maybe having nuclear power in your State is not a “BAD” thing!
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How is this for irony? Expansion of Olympic Dam, the world’s largest uranium deposit, depends upon approval of a desalination plant at Whyalla SA. At the moment the go-ahead looks doubtful. However a nearby solar project in Whyalla has been given the go-ahead with generous Federal funding
http://anz.theoildrum.com/node/6455
They mention 40 MW output and quick completion but it is unclear if energy will be stored.
The other big funded project is a concentrating solar steam generator to supplement the air cooled supercritical coal plant at Kogan Ck, Qld. The builder is Areva-Ausra.
I suggest giving the projects all the cash they want so they can finish quickly and we can review the results eg average costs, capacity factor and so on.
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ACT Government is progressing with a 22MW solar plant in the ACT. The cost is $140 million, according to ABARE. I don’t know if any storage is included.
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I agree.
Basically I’m in favour of funding anything that in the popular mind might substantially replace fossil fuels, even if one suspects they can’t.
What we don’t have is time, so if that means spending more now to settle the question early, then I’m for that.
I’d like the state to say … look … I’m willing to pay $US 4.2 billion per GW (minimum nameplate 250 MW) providing you can supply at least 8000 hours at full rated capacity to the grid in your first full year of service at a cost reflecting coal + $35 per tonne of CO2. You pay loan service until a determination is made.
Nuclear would obviously be in the mix.
We will give you a line of credit at the OCA. If at the end of your first full year of operation you have met the standard, you get to keep the full proceeds of your sales, we pay you a 5% commission on your outlays, get the plant and deem your loan discharged and we offer tenders on the plant operation going forward. You get first refusal at beating any rival bid.
If you fail the 8000 hours we get liquidated damages at the extent of the failure and if you fail by 20% or more we charge you commercial interest and you forfeit your tender preparation allowance.
This, in addition to due diligence, should weed out unserious proposals and put to bed argument s about what might work. They have a budget, we pick the best proposals and we move forward.
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I’ve been following the thread at Quiggins Peter, as you know. be careful of Freelander’s latest post … he is trolling you …
You are doing a good job of staying with the facts of the matter, which seems to be annoying the anties …
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I’d be happy enough just with a properly done comparative study of illness rates near NPPs and coal burners.
I suspect that would be sufficient to make a strong case.
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David B. Benson,
If you want a properly comparable study, conducted by researchers in most of the EU countries, in a properly comparable way, and looking at the overall health effects, risks and costs of the various electrcity generation technologies, you might be interested in the ExternE study and specifically in the ‘NEWEXT’ project which was a component of ExternE.
http://www.externe.info/
http://www.ier.uni-stuttgart.de/forschung/projektwebsites/newext/
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All these studies should be collated and put on a summary “NP & Health” page.
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Peter Lang, on 13 May 2010 at 8.51 — Thanks for the reminder, but I found the pdf rather indigestible. In addition, it proclaimed that the percieved risk of a serious nuclear accident has to be assesed by the local populace. Fine, I suppose, if they are actually informed and rational.
Well, what about the risk of a fly ash slurry pond giving way? What about the anti-safety effects of that? (Not to mention enviornmental, hence long term health effects?)
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David B Benson,
You’ll need to do a bit more than seek out one line and take it out of context. If you are going to try to dismiss the ExternE study with five minutes of work, then I doubt that anything you vae to contribute has any value whaatsoever. Make an attempot to understand the charts showing that, taking everything into account, throughout the OECD, nuclear is some 10 to 100 times safer than coal for generating electricity. In other linked papers you can see the effects translated into fatalaties per unit of electrcity sent out. If you don’t have time to reead these studies, perhaps the second and third charts here https://bravenewclimate.com/2009/08/13/wind-and-carbon-emissions-peter-lang-responds/ might provide you with what you want more quickly.
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Peter Lang, on 13 May 2010 at 9.36 — Yes, you Figure 3 is a first approximation. Once environmental hazards are properly figured in (I don’t know how to do that), I suspect that 100 times “better” is an understatment.
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Three points to consider:
1) Exposure to Naturally Occurring Radioactive Material (NORM) accounts for most of the radiation we all receive each year.
2) The nuclear fuel cycle does not give rise to significant radiation exposure for members of the public because of the level of monitoring that is mandated by regulation.
3) Radiation protection standards, based on the LNT hypothesis, assume that any dose of radiation, no matter how small, involves a possible risk to human health. This deliberately conservative assumption makes sure that radiation releases are detected and dealt with, at far lower levels than any other pollutant from any power generating system.
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David B. Benson,
The basis of the statement that nuclear is 10 to 100 times safer than coal is from Figure 2, not figure 3.
If you dig into the figures in the NEWEXT study you will see that that ratio is even more favourable to nuclear in China because coal is far more hazardous in China than in the OECD..
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Peter Lang, on 13 May 2010 at 11.15 — Thanks again. Your Figure 3 is much more easily understood by the general public. Takes some time to understand Figure 2.
Either way, that is not the curent perception of coal versus nuclear risks in the USA. Thos better at persuation than I need to go to work…
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I just found the NPCC Newsletter from last autumn. While applicable strictly only to the PNW and the about 140 utilities which purcahse poser from BPA (mostly dams), there are a few matters of general applicability.
Foremost is the energy efficiency measures which have been taken starting in 1980 CE. In those 30 years, planners estimate that 3.7 GW of new capacity has been eliminated via energy efficiency measures (nough power for Seattle, Portland and Boise combined) and there is at least another 3.1 GW to go. Furthermore, energy efficiency as promoted via BPA and the ultilities it serves is, on average, one-third the cost of new generating plants, including wind power. (It should state only one-half for geo-thermal for which a modest amount is regionally available.)
Snohomish County PUD is emphasized; here is its current supply mix:
BPA 81%
WInd 7%
Hydro 4% (small dams)
biomass 4%
Market 3% (from other utilites over BPA transmission lines)
Landfill Gas 1%
Here is the 10 year power growth plan (MW is average):
Conservation 96 MW
Geothermal 90 MW
Wind 60 MW
Biomass/Landfill 20 MW
Small Hydro 5 MW
Tidal 5 MW
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Scientific American has a short blog piece positive about Nuclear Power written by John Horgan who apparently has had a “Road to Damascus” conversion from anti-nukes to nuclear advocate. It’s an interesting read, and highlights some of the information we all know and are pushing through various media.
One thing I didn’t know (and others will probably groan and smack their foreheads at my ignorance… sorry guys) is just how successful the “Megatons to Megawatts” program has been… the claim is that 10% of American energy has come from Russian warheads!
http://tinyurl.com/3yxerel
I mean, this statistic has ‘activist poster’ written all over it!
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Why don’t we take a look at what someone with real world experience in renewables says about the prospects for “renewable baseload” (and specifically) “solar thermal. Bear in mind this someone who is keen on renewables.
Reliable base-load sustainable energy sources still long way off
Cahen goes on to say the the country that is doing best on renewables is … China … a country that one pro-renewables poster would surely be forced to describe as having a “dictatorial resource allocation system”. That gives the lie to the linkage between market democracy and renewables.
There’s a link at the PM site to a more extensive interview.
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Why 9/11 wouldn’t work against a nuclear power plant. This is GREAT fun, and even the Mythbusters guys would be impressed.
Plane go boom.
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hi all:
someone on one of my green lists posted a comment about thyroid cancer incidence up 124 % since the late 70s in the U.S. due to ionizing radiation.
I critiqued this pretty thoroughly; the best rebuttal was to reference the BEIR VII report defending LNT. No further argument.
any good ideas in response to this sort of defense of LNT?
Thanks,
g
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gregory meyerson, on 14 May 2010 at 9.12 — LNT?
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gregory meyerson, on 14 May 2010 at 9.12 Said:
“someone on one of my green lists posted a comment about thyroid cancer incidence up 124 % since the late 70s in the U.S. due to ionizing radiation.”
The normal incidence of “occult” thyroid cancers is very high in most countries. Although such cancers do not cause any visible clinical disturbance, they are histologically malignant, aggressive, and are usually discovered in the course of a post-mortem pathological examination, or by imaging studies.
Better imaging, usually involving some sort of ionizing radiation, is uncovering more of these lesions earlier, and thus bettering the survival rate from this sort of cancer.
Thus it is dissemination of the worst kind to imply that ionizing radiation is the cause, but typical of the sort of logic that we are now seeing in this debate.
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thanks dv:
I forgot about the problem of “occult” cancers.
david: Linear non-threshold Thesis. sorry for abbreviating the acronym.
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dv: dissimulation?
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dissemination – never trust a spell-checker to make the right choice
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Dissemination, spreading seeds.
Disinformation, spreading lies.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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gregory meyerson, on 14 May 2010 at 10.20 — Better would be “linear no-threshold hypothesis”.
Anyway, I find this hypothesis to be not very credible, based on what is known about cellular level repair. A damaged cell (damaged by any means, including but not limited to ionizing radiation) proceeds to under a rather delicate repair process. It is delicate in that whille undergoing repir the cell is in a state where further damage can either kill the cell or possibly causing it to become cancerous.
The conclusion is that low leels of ionizing radiation are not particularly harmful. For example, measure cancer rates in Denver with its much higher level of background radiation.
What’s makes this all quite, quite difficult is the effects of longlasting chemical damage, such as nasty chemicals but also heavy metals such as lead. Lead, at least, causes (fairly) permanent damage and then I don’t know what happens to the cellular repair processes. Ugh.
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just read charles barton’s piece on “voids” in the coolant of IFRs that could produce runaway reactions.
any response from IFR defenders? isn’t the thermal expansion of the metal fuel the first passive safety feature? If this works to shut down any chain reaction, how would the voids operate?
and: while I have asked for summary pieces of LFTRs, can anyone recommend pieces that compare LFTRs and IFRs?
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G.R.L. Cowan, H2 energy fan ’til ~1996, on 14 May 2010 at 11.09 Said:
Dissemination, spreading seeds.
dissemination
1. The act of disseminating, or the state of being disseminated; diffusion for propagation and permanence; a scattering or spreading abroad, as of ideas, beliefs, etc.
Root: disseminate
disseminate
to disseminate
1. (transitive) To sow and scatter principles, ideas, opinions, and errors
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charles barton suggests that IFRs, unlike LFTRs, carry a weapons proliferation problem.
I am surprised to hear Charles say this since he normally debunks the charge, whatever the reactor. I have even used his arguments in talks.
so it sort of looks like Charles is dismissing the charge when leveled by anti nukes but resuscitating it against a rival gen four reactor.
what’s going on?
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Good question Gregory, I’m not sure what’s going on in Charles’ mind at the moment. You are also correct about the -ve feedbacks inherent in the metal fuel technology. Nothing could better demonstrate this than the two experiments of the safety of the passive feedback system in 1986 at the EBR-II.
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Is Sydney’s trigeneration push fair dinkum?
http://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/2030/thedirections/projects/EnviroPerfProj.asp
While it might work at sites like the airport that are not hemmed in I’m not sure about refitting too many buildings in the CBD. Another issue is future gas prices. I note the go-to person did Woking UK but now a lot (25%?) of UK gas comes from Siberia that looks vulnerable. I understand a member of the NSW Premier’s family is also behind Better Place battery swap cars.
Trigeneration may work out well for selected sites but after that I see diminishing returns. They even hint at that by mentioning methanol as a gas alternative. Their point about saving waste heat could also be addressed by attaching desals to large out-of-town thermal plants.
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For all those that still believe the myths that the general public doesn’t want a nuclear generating station near them, and that private money will not have anything to do with new nuclear plants, I offer this:
Full article here: The Best Nuclear Energy Stock
As I have written before, there is a great deal of difference between what we are told about the public’s mood on nuclear energy and what is the real truth on the ground.
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gregory meyerson, i do not believe that the IFR is a very good proliferation tool. I do think that convincing the public and the anti-proliferation community is going to be really difficult. I was trying to point to that problem. It is going to be a lot easier to convince people about the LFTR simply because we don’t carriage a piece of baggage marked plutonium. But if i were going to build a plutonium based weapon, I would sure prefer a graphite pile to an IFR to produce the plutonium That is sort of like buying a racehorse for stud, and then using it to plow a field.
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Nice metaphor Charles, I’ll use that one.
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on energy for thorium, there was posted a rebuttal to an IEER publication “debunking” thorium fuel.
the fact that thorium fuel ain’t plutonium isn’t going to stop the anti nuclear people, as the IEER piece on TF attests.
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greg meyerson, a whole lot more people know or at least think they know what plutonium is than people who know about thorium good or bad. PR people will tell you that you have a whole lot fewer image problems if you don’t have a reputation verses having a bad reputation, even if that reputation is undesirved.
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Hi DV8,
interesting article. It raises another question though. When we come to modular nuclear power plant factories that will contain most of the jobs, which state gets them? There will not be the same excitement over the jobs being associated with the plant if the whole thing is coming pre-fabricated off the back of a truck. But I guess the important thing by this stage would be the speed of deployment, and reliability of cheap power, that will be the overall boons to the broader economy generally.
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DV82XL,
Thank you for that very good news at https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/05/06/open-thread-4/#comment-65401
I agree money talks. All you have to do is look at the windmills sprouting up all over the place in NSW. Each farmer gets paid something like $10,000 per wind mill and ongoing income. That’s a lot easier money than shearing sheep. So no wonder the desperate farmers want all the windmills they can get.
Money talks. But it would much better for all of us if the money was spent on projects that make sense – like the Idaho example.
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eclipsenow – For the time being modular reactors are some time down the road. Unlike many in the pronuclear camp, I am focused on the very short term, and that means getting NGS built now, with existing, type-approved designs and technologies.
I am also more interested in showing that many of the reasons given by the media as to why the public doesn’t want nuclear power are constructs and that local feeling can drive as well as stop a project.
It’s about putting our efforts where it will make the most difference, instead of trying to change things globally. I know this doesn’t apply to Australia right at the moment, but you should be looking at locations now where the public is on-side.
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DV82XL,
I can’t open the link to the Idaho article. Could you please post it again. I’ve found this link: http://commoditiesreporter.com/alternative-energy/the-best-nuclear-energy-stock/
I notice that it is the APR-1400 from Korea. That should really set the competitive juices flowing in the USA.
But I expect the USA will protect their own nuclear manufacturers, perhaps with tariffs or some other protection measure. If the USA does decide to compete rahter than protect, then this could be the start of getting nuclear down to the cost it should be. I envisage a lot of anti-nuclear regulations being shredded. If this could get going like a snow ball, ther is no end to what we could do to get the cost of nuclear down to well below the cost of coal.
I really hope this gets rolling.
DV82XL, do you have any more information on the schedule and/or costs?
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eclipsenow, on 15 May 2010 at 9.27 — Factory built helps lower cost, but there still well be plenty of local construction work for site preparation and assembly. In addition, of course, there are the ongoing operations personnel, who are usually rather well compensated.
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Here is the link again raw:
http://www.energyandcapital.com/articles/the-best-nuclear-energy-stocks/1147
But here is a better one:
http://www.alternateenergyholdings.com/
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DV82XL,
You are influencing my thinking. I am coming around … but slowly.
My initial reaction is you are correct, … but.
Then the buts start. Here are some that pop into my head.
1. I think the anti nuclear sentiment in Australia is fairly consistent across the whole continent. There may be small pockets where the sentiment is supportive, but these locations are not where we most need nuclear power first. We most need nuclear power first, in my opinion, in Victoria and NSW. Those are the tow largest states (by population) and have the main manufacturing base. The places where nuclear would be most acceptable would be in the mining areas, but that is not where the manufacturing base is.
2. We could argue for Ceduna to be our first NPP, but I suspect it will have trouble getting support. I may be wrong.
3. The first power plants are going to have to be on sites where they can grow to be large multi-unit power plants. It will make nuclear a higher cost option than it needs to be if we are thinking of just one or two units at our first site. Another reason I am not yet persuaded Ceduna is a good location for the first NPP.
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Peter Lang – Do you know this about public opinion in Australia, or is it something you have read and been told so often that you have grown to accept it without question?
Finding supportive locals is a boots on the ground survey, it is difficult to project what is and what isn’t, at such a fine level of resolution, from national metadata.
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Payette County, Idaho map
http://maps.google.com/maps/place?oe=utf-8&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=Payette+County,+Idaho++map&fb=1&gl=us&ftid=0x54af9ea099bfd537:0x8caca92739b17bc3&ei=YvftS4HaI4GIsgOjnJToDw&sa=X&oi=geocode_result&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBcQ8gEwAA
Conservative traditional farming area with considerable irrigation; ever expanding manufacture, especially high tech, in Boise to the southeast.
Impressive that the locals are in favor. This might be the beginning of a sea change in the States.
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DV82XL,
I’ve seen many surveys of the level of support for, and (hatred of) nuclear amongst Australians. I don’t have links to hand so it would take a lot of work to go and find the ones I would consider reliable. I understnad that the last governments support for nuclear was very unpopular in the electorate and this was shown in poling during the last election campaign and as a reason for not voting for the Coalition in exit poles. Labor certainly ran a successful scare campaign during the election asking people “would you want a nuclear power plant in your suburb?” The fact they ran that campaign shows that their poling demonstrated that nuclear is a real turn off for the electorate. The fact that the last primeminister had to back pedal (somewhat) during the election campaign on their support for nuclear, also shows that being pro nuclear is an electoral liability.
So we have a way to go in Australia.
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Peter Lang, – I will bow to your better knowledge of what things are, and are not in your country. I only wished to bring up the possibility that at least some of the stated opposition to nuclear is a media construct. If that is not the case there, then at least you can cross this off, and look to some other tactics.
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Labor certainly ran a successful scare campaign during the election asking people “would you want a nuclear power plant in your suburb?” The fact they ran that campaign shows that their poling demonstrated that nuclear is a real turn off for the electorate.
This scare campaign was orchestrated and assisted with help from a pro-labour ANU think-tank which intervened in the public debate at a critical time with a list of likely locations for nuclear power plants under a re-elected Howard government. I wonder if there were anti-nuclear campaigns focused on those electorates ths identified?
Based just on my personal experience of talking to people I realise that there’s plenty of opposition to nuclear power in Australia, but I’ve also learned that there’s a lot of unstated support as well. I believe that a well-targeted publicity campaign could rapidly switch the balance in this country.
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If my memory serves me correctly, no great effort was made at the time to go on about why having a local NPP would be so bad. I think they just coasted on people’s default assumptions about nuclear power without opening themselves up to the ridk of being debunked, and unfortunately there was no real organised vocal pro-nuclear movement at the time to take them to task.
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DV82XL, I do agree with you that the media generally doesn’t like nuclear. They love pictures of solar and windmills. The ABC nearly always says things like “save the climate with renewable energy, such as wind and solar pwoer” and shows pictures of these in the background. It is heart wrenching publicity and emotion, and its shown frequently. Has been for 20 years. No wonder the population is brainwashed.
Finrod,
True, but very difficult. We don’t have the resources. We’d need enormous resources.
I wonder if our best route migh not be to try to change the mind of the people who control the policy of ACF.
If we could get ACF to change its mind, I think the flood gates would open. Then we could change the opinion of several union leaders and ALP policy. We’d be on a roll.
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This is what they are finding in Europe – the general public’s antinuclear sentiments are apparently a lot softer than was original thought, and are very amenable to change.
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Finrod,
If the coalition could ahve gained votes by running a pro-nuclear policy in the targeted electorates they wouild have. But it takes far too long to change the opinions of people who have been receiving incessant anti-nuclear propoganda from the media for decades.
We can see from the long slow change of the converts who blog on BNC, that it takes a very long time to change those deeply held beliefs.
So I reitterate, if we could change the mind of the leaderrs in the ACF, I suggest that is a best shot for a quick change of the levle of support for nuclear.
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DV82XL,
I agree that the Europeans are much more open to nuclear power. But that is very different to here. The Europeans have been living with nuclear power for 55 years. We have none.
I remember in Canada that the Eastern states were much more supporting of nuclear than the Western States. BC hated the idea. The further you get from where it is already running, the greater the fear and resistance.
I do believe that if we could get a breakthrough with one of the groups that has political influence and is currently strongly anti nuclear, we could get a very quick change in sentiment.
When Labor was negotiating support for their ETS. it was the ACF that was most flexible, best able to make sensible compromises and therefore had by far the most influence with government. That is why I see the ACF as the most likely to be able to change and the most powerful influence if they did change.
They’d have to sell it to their members of course. And they would lose many. I am hoping that if they did it will, they could win more members than they would lose. If they did it right they could attract a lot of people who want a real solution to GHG emissions and are agnostic on technology. The people who just want a result that will work.
I have zero influence with ACF. But I suspect there are others here that may have.
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Peter Lang – I tend to stay out of political discussions of other countries, mostly because I don’t know enough detail, so I can’t comment on the Australian situation.
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If the coalition could ahve gained votes by running a pro-nuclear policy in the targeted electorates they wouild have. But it takes far too long to change the opinions of people who have been receiving incessant anti-nuclear propoganda from the media for decades.
I respectfully suggest that the strategic and tactical calculations of an incumbent government under electoral threat with only a few months to go before an election may well indicate a withdrawal from a controversial long-term policy goal and a redirection of resources to issues which could give it more traction in the short term in an attempt to reverse their fortunes.
We can see from the long slow change of the converts who blog on BNC, that it takes a very long time to change those deeply held beliefs.
There may be a selection effect at work here. The kind of people likely to comment on BNC probably start out with positions they are passionate about and engaged with from before BNC existed. They may not be good indicators of the depth and harddness of sentiment in the wider community one way or the other.
So I reitterate, if we could change the mind of the leaderrs in the ACF, I suggest that is a best shot for a quick change of the levle of support for nuclear.
If so, Barry is probably in a better position than any of us to assess this path and utilise it.
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DV82XL,
I started off answering your point and then drifted over to talking to everyone. Sorry. My final paragraphs weren’t really meant to be addressed to you. It was just me thinking out loud.
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Possum Comitatus has good aggregate data on polling on attitudes to nuclear. I think the most recent was from October last year:
An Updated History of Nuclear Polling
Over the last 3-4 years, we have seen both support growing, and opposition dropping. Right now, total support (49%) outweighs total opposition (43%).
1 in 6 strongly support nuclear. Thats been flat over time.
1 in 3 generally support NP. That number has been growing strongly.
1 in 5 generally oppose. That number has been dropping slowly.
1 in 5 strongly oppose. That number has been dropping rapidly.
I’ll quote Possum’s general summary:
The only category that hasn’t budged is the “strongly support” group. I see the work Barry is doing could definitely add to that group, as could a group like ACF. These are the people for whom it is an “issue”, and its important to grow that group.
Possums looked at this question several times. I wonder if he’d be open to a guest post here?
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John Morgan,
Thank you for that. Numbers trump adjectives every time.
A Possum post would be great. I wonder if he could offer it to John Quiggan too :)
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John, I suggest that if these numbers can be used as a basis for action, then optimal results will be gained by targeting the general support demographic for conversion to strong support.
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John Morgan,
The comments here: http://blogs.crikey.com.au/pollytics/2009/10/13/an-updated-history-of-nuclear-polling/
lead me to believe that it is invalid to conclude anything about trends from those polls. They asked totally different questions in each poll.
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Peter, this is true, but there are quite a number of different polls here, and the questions are in good measure surrogates for each other. Possum responded to this point in the comments, so I will quote him again:
I think you would ignore the trend at your peril.
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I remember hating Howard for wanting to force that on us. Wow… look how far a little bit of information can change someone’s political stance on a very important subject!
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John Morgan,
I agree “I think you would ignore the trend at your peril”.
I agree the trend is happenning. If it was a faster, stronger trend we’d recognise it because both political parties would become pro-nuclear. We’re not there yet, but moving in the right direction.
I doubt either party will run with a pro-nuclear party to this election. But I expect whichever party is in government will be pro nuclear during the next term of government.
Then our problem is to try to convince them and the public that we must ain for low cost nuclear power and try to avoid as much of the cost imposts as possible.
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Eclipsenow,
Yes. I suspect what you are describing is probably a microcosm of what is going on for many people. Fran Barlow said similar here: https://bravenewclimate.com/2010/01/09/emission-cuts-realities/#comment-65319
People like you are at the fore-front of the change. The rest of the population is moving more slowly, but they are moving. There are early adopters, late adopters and retards.
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I’d point out that the RET still commits us to expensive electricity even without the ETS. See the 4th dot point in
http://www.energymatters.com.au/carbon-trading/recs/index.php
In 2020 the RET will require the purchase of 45 million Renewable Energy Certificates each of 1 Mwh. At the current spot price of $45 that would be worth about $2bn. If it was physically possible to achieve a frugal energy mix of say 5 GW renewable 20 GW fossil fuelled we may be able to reduce electrical generation caused CO2 from 200 Mt (per Grenhouse Inventory) to say 180 Mt. Ignoring the additional cost of compulsory renewables that saving of 20 Mt of CO2e will cost $2bn in RECs or $100 per tonne of CO2 avoided. Whatever the actual set of numbers I don’t think Joe Public will like it.
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