Open Thread 4 is about to spool off the BNC front page, after 700+ comments, so it’s time to kick off a new one.
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.
To add some grist to the new discussion mill, I provide three interesting extracts:
On scepticism, from Bertrand Russell, extracted from the ‘Introduction to his ‘Sceptical Essays’ (1928):
I wish to propose for the reader’s favorable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.
First of all, I wish to guard myself against being thought to take up an extreme position. … [Pyrrho] maintained that we never know enough to be sure that one course of action is wiser than another. In his youth, … he saw his teacher with his head stuck in a ditch, unable to get out. After contemplating him for some time, he walked on, maintaining that there was no sufficient ground for thinking that he would do any good by pulling the old man out. … Now I do not advocate such heroic scepticism as that. I am prepared to admit the ordinary beliefs of common sense, in practice if not in theory. I am prepared to admit any well-established result of science, not as certainly true, but as sufficiently probable to afford a basis for rational action.
…
There are matters about which those who have investigated them are agreed. There are other matters about which experts are not agreed. Even when experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. …. Nevertheless, the opinion of experts, when it is unanimous, must be accepted by non-experts as more likely to be right than the opposite opinion. The scepticism that I advocate amounts only to this: (1) that when the experts are agreed, the opposite opinion cannot be held to be certain; (2) that when they are not agreed, no opinion can be regarded as certain by a non-expert; and (3) that when they all hold that no sufficient grounds for a positive opinion exist, the ordinary man would do well to suspend his judgment.
On the anti-nuclear movement, from MIT Technology Review:
…asked about nuclear power, Totten invokes the prospect of Chernobyl-style meltdowns and reactors smashed open by terrorist-piloted planes. Reminded that these are technical impossibilities for modern reactor designs, he switches to an economic argument: nuclear plants are so expensive that the industry always requires government subsidies.
But it’s notable that in the 1970s, before regulations made construction costs skyrocket, nuclear energy provided America’s cheapest electricity. Nor should we forget that France gets more than 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear power, emits two-thirds less carbon dioxide per capita than the United States, and is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity—earning $4 billion annually—thanks to its very low cost of generation.
[Stewart] Brand says it’s entirely predictable that many greens neither know nor are interested in educating themselves about recent developments like new reactors or cleaner fuel cycles: “As far as they’re concerned, nuclear had been stopped, they’re glad it was, and now that it’s happening again, they’re confused and upset.” That observation strikes at the heart of the matter. If today Greenpeace and an entire generation of activists simply can not accept that nuclear power might be the most credible source of carbon-free energy, it’s because doing so would entail an almost unbearable recognition: that a very large part of their life’s work has been fundamentally, disastrously wrong, and that by obstructing the transition to nuclear back in the 1970s, they bear direct responsibility both for global warming and for the hundreds of thousands of deaths that have since resulted from coal-related pollution. It is to Stewart Brand’s credit that he can recognize that disturbing truth.
Finally, since we’ve been having plenty of discussion on costs and nuclear safety, I’d like to highlight the comment Tom Blees made here:
Noonan writes: “There are a number of significant inherent weaknesses in the arguments of nuclear proponents in Australia.”
After struggling through his article packed from end to end with weak and misleading arguments, this was a laugh out loud throwaway line. While it would take another full-length article to deal with the weaknesses of his piece here, I’ll comment on just a couple points.
The Price-Anderson Act is the federal law that covers the costs of any hypothetical nuclear accident whose damages exceed the considerable insurance pool already established by the nuclear power industry. Why don’t opponents ever discuss who would pay for the damages from a breached dam? How about an exploding LNG tanker? Major fiascos resulting from such energy system accidents would likewise be covered by the government. To say that utility companies are “unwilling to pay the real costs of insurance” is disingenuous, since they have already amassed a considerable insurance pool themselves. Since federal law is in place to pay anything else, what sensible company/industry would volunteer to dismiss that federal guarantee in order to spend more of their money on insurance?
As for the costs of the two AP-1000 reactors proposed to be built in Georgia, those costs of $6.5 billion per reactor can be compared to the first-of-a-kind AP-1000s being built now in China. The FOAK construction of any such major project is normally considerably higher than follow-on units, and indeed the Chinese expect that this modular reactor cost will soon be lowered to nearly half of what these first reactors are costing them, yet even the first ones are estimated to cost $1.9 billion each. So why should they cost more than three times that much in the USA? No, it’s not because of low Chinese labor costs. Japan was able to build US-designed ABWR reactors for about $1.4 billion per gigawatt, and they import virtually all the materials and pay their workers very well, higher than the USA in general. The truth is that much of the cost built into nuclear power plants in the USA is the cost of uncertainty because of past experience. No company can be sure that a bunch of protestors with signs might not shut down their project when it’s half-built, as happened too often in the past. That and other weaknesses in the US nuclear power arena inflate prices to these ridiculous levels (compared to Japan, China, Taiwan and South Korea). It’s not a weakness in the economics of nuclear power per se. Otherwise we would see it everywhere. Are Australians doomed to create the same sort of dysfunctional climate for nuclear power in their own country? If so, then maybe they should stick to coal. But don’t pretend it’s because nuclear power plants can’t be built economically.
As for nuclear power projects not providing enough jobs compared to renewables, there’s perhaps a point there though I suspect it’s a weak one.
Chew on that, folks…
Brave New Climate 
240 replies on “Open Thread 5”
I think it is worth reminding ourselves that while we talk about 50 grams CO2 per kwh for local electrical generation we merrily export vast amounts of fossil carbon. Recalling a Crikey article to which Peter Lang referred I think the figures were coal exports ~ 260 Mt , domestic thermal black coal 50 Mt (which seems low) and brown coal 70 Mt. I believe LNG exports are now around the 20 Mt figure. Future fossil fuel exports include liquefied coal seam gas (surely not called LNG but LCSG) and pelletised brown coal. I understand we also export refined fuels to the Pacific islands and elsewhere.
My point is why do we analyse domestic emissions at excruciating length then ignore the bonfire foreigners make with our fossil carbon? I note Chinese coal imports have doubled in the last year, see today’s TOD Drumbeat. Surely Australia is complicit in emissions by proxy the same as selling alcohol to minors. Those countries who put their hand up to cut emissions must be the same countries buying more coal and LNG.
Thus I propose that future fossil carbon exports be capped on a net CO2 basis. That is less coal in future but maybe a bit more LNG. Note that could also affect iron ore demand. Subject to nonproliferation checks sell other countries all the yellowcake they want. If Australia has to show carbon restraint then other countries should as well. If capping carbon exports is too vexing then we should revise our emissions figures to include proxy CO2 with adjustments for amounts embodied in manufactured goods. I suggest Australia’s complicit CO2 will be double the official figure.
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A reminder, if you’re in Adelaide, the first in the Thinking Critically About Sustainable Energy seminar series kicks off tonight at the RiAus. There are still plenty of seats available, so come along and bring your friends.
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A recent article in Quadrant by Kathy Russell :
The Great Renewable Energy Rort
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2010/7-8/the-great-renewable-energy-rort
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A question folks:
How long have the “Ads by Google” been appearing at the bottom of my posts? I only realised this was happening tonight, when I went to BNC without being logged into WordPress — when I’m logged in, they do not appear!
I don’t get any revenue from these ads and indeed, on principle, refuse to make any money out of this website, so I find this unrequested intrusion very offensive. My question is, has anyone else seen this happen on other wordpress.com blogs and do they know what the fix is?
I note that Corey Bradshaw over at ConservationBytes also seems to be suffering from this problem. This post, for instance, has the ads and this one doesn’t. All of mine seem afflicted. Weird.
Update Seems like the answer is here.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/no-ads/
Just let it be known that I don’t make any money out of this — indeed, it is a net cost to me to run it, and I’m doing it out of a sense of giving to the community (and because I enjoy it).
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quick question for Peter Lang, Eugene, Barry, whomever:
I have read several times about wind’s great EROEI. articles pushing this position usually offer numbers around 36 for wind and 5 for nuclear. Now I know the nuke numbers here are low. The studies I have looked at (thanks to Peter Lang’s sources) suggest more like 16 EROEI (obviously orders of magnitude higher with gen four).
That aside, and questioning the meaningfulness of the relatively hi EROEI of wind due to the problems it encounters that have been examined here, IS THIS REALLY TRUE? How can wind have a high EROEI if backup and transmission costs are included? or massive amounts of dumped power (are they included in arriving at this number?)
so in short: is the number true? if true, does it have the slightest significance? any articles addressing the EROEI claim directly? wouldn’t useless power still push the EROEI number for wind higher, thus pointing to the uselessness of the concept of hi EROEI in this context?
I may need to revisit some old BNC articles on this. which ones?
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greg meyerson, the EREOI thread on BNC is here:
TCASE 8: Estimating EROEI from LCA
Nuclear power is about 100. EROEI is a different concept to backup — it usually refers to the embodied energy and direct fuel use etc. The backup for wind, in the EROEI context, would be assigned to the gas turbines. Still, your point about dumped/used power is a good one, I’m just not sure how to work it properly into the EROEI. Maybe we need a new concept — NEREOI (that is ‘net’ added on the front).
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to put the above point another way, isn’t there something awfully suspicious in claiming a high EROEI number for a form of power that gives you a capacity credit (if scaled enough to make that number meaningful) of 12 % or so?
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It is ridiculous for pro nuclear advocates to write as if the type of reasoning the Bertrand Russell quote comments on is not a common thing to be found in their own ranks.
Take a look at Rod Adam’s display of ignorance about ozone depletion. http://questioningattitude.blogspot.com/2010/06/it-is-probable-that-atmospheric.html Rod is a very prominent pro nuclear advocate in the US and on the internet.
If you drop in on Rod’s ozone blog, you’ll see he invokes the name of Rickover, who Rod says instructed his “leaders” to maintain a questioning attitude, which, we must assume, Rod thinks his rejection of ozone science is. (Rod was interviewed by Rickover and was accepted by Rickover on his way to becoming an engineer on a US nuclear submarine, which in the US is a badge of honor.)
If any group of scientists could ever be said to be “unanimous” in the sense Bertrand Russell is using in the quote you are using, atmospheric scientists who studied ozone are that group.
Rod asserts that they all didn’t know the most elementary thing about what happens to gases in the atmosphere, citing his observations inside a confined space, i.e. a submarine. He rejects the thousands of actual observations made in Earth’s open atmosphere by many groups of scientists from all over the world published in the peer reviewed literature as either in error or as lies. He states that the Nobel prize awarded to Rowland, Molina and Crutzen for their work on ozone science was awarded in error. (Incidentally, this is the only Nobel prize ever awarded to anyone for studying the atmosphere, including the study of climate change).
Scientists are suspect in Rod’s mind – why Amory Lovins calls himself a scientist, Joe Romm is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, why, people who call themselves scientists lie about what is known about nuclear power all the time. Therefore….
Rod has bought into a number of lies, such as the ozone hole was discovered by Dobson, well before it was first announced to exist in 1985 by Joe Farman of the British Antarctic Survey, that CFCs can be destroyed in places other than the stratosphere in meaningful quantities such that they can not be responsible for any ozone loss, that CFCs can’t in fact be transported to the stratosphere, because they are heavier than air, in quantities sufficient to cause any problem, that the members of an entire scientific discipline worldwide, i.e. scientists studying the atmosphere who had an interest in ozone depletion, are all corrupt or stupid, no one ever attempted to measure CFCs in the atmosphere, etc., etc., ad nauseum.
Rod digs up scientific papers published in the peer reviewed literature about the behavior of gases in confined spaces and presents them as evidence that backs up his assertion that everyone who ever studied the behavior of CFCs in unconfined spaces, i.e. the open atmosphere, got it wrong, but it fails to dawn on him that because he offers nothing to guide anyone else in their search for non stupid non lying scientists who publish in the peer reviewed literature along with all the stupid liars, whatever he says he finds in the literature must be suspected as well.
For a discussion of the lies Rod has bought into, delivered by the discoverer of ozone depletion, Sherwood Rowland, given in a speech he delivered as “The President’s Lecture: The Need for Scientific Communication with the Public”, when he was President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, look up Science; Jun 11, 1993; 260, 5114; Platinum Peridicals pg. 1571. For a detailed, extensively footnoted history of the campaign to undermine public perception of ozone science, (as well as climate, acid rain, cancer caused by tobacco), see Merchants of Doubt, by Oreskes and Conway.
In the US, pro nuclear types tend to be of the right wing political persuasion, and it is elements of the right wing establishment that have been conducting a decades long serious campaign to discredit any scientific discovery that might cause civilization to restrict the activities of private industry in any way. Hence, the attack on ozone science and climate science, and science itself. This campaign has had a significant effect on stopping meaningful US action to put a price on carbon. Pro nuclear types in the US have bought into the attack on climate science in some numbers.
It is a bit astonishing to see pro nuclear types staunchly backing up the claimed right of their chief competitor, i.e. fossil fuel users, who wish to continue to freely emit the wastes their fossil fuels produce no matter what the scientific evidence that civilization itself is at risk as this continues, even as the nuclear industry has had to contain all its waste from day one.
This assumption in pro nuclear circles in the US and elsewhere that pro nuclear people understand what science is, that their beliefs are backed by scientific discoveries, that they argue using facts and logic based on science, as opposed to their opponents the anti nuclear people, is ridiculous.
Just look at the way Rod Adams argues to defend the lies he’s bought into. He’s very far from being alone among nuclear advocates. I used to post comments on his The Atomic Show blog, until I was repeatedly ridiculed as some kind of religious freak for pointing out, for instance, that the President of the National Academy of Sciences in the US published an editorial in Science that “our understanding is undiminished”, in the wake of the “climategate” affair. Rod “moderates” the blog – I was astonished, and stopped visiting.
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David Lewis, if you want to attack Rod Adams, go and do it over on his blog — he is quite able to defend himself, but I won’t have BNC used as a platform for attacking the motives of others who are not engaging here and therefore are not in a position to defend themselves.
Further, I don’t see why you are bothering with this rant here, unless it is that you are particularly rankled to see that there are pro-nuclear people who ARE scientists and ARE deeply concerned about anthropogenic climate change. As such, I refer you to the 2nd quote, from Brand, which it seems applies to you.
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@ greg m an article discussing problems with wind EROEI is here. You’d think the EROEI for an integrated system could be approximated by a weighted average. Suppose the figure for wind was indeed 36 but at 25% capacity. If that was exclusively shadowed by gas turbines (open cycle) with an EROEI of 8 then we get
(.25)36 + (.75)8 = 15 much lower than wind alone. A whole system approach would include investment in new transmission to get life cycle (energy out)/(energy in).
Wind enthusiasts say that when gas is gone then physical or chemical energy storage can compensate for lulls. The low return on storage will weight that average even lower.
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Well, we don’t have an exact quote of Rickover in re questioning attitude. Maybe, after “Maintain a questioning attitude”, there was a stern injunction: And don’t listen to
the answers. Maybe Rod got laterally promoted out of the navy after a boat under his management had only six inches of non-freon near the ceiling, and everyone had to stand on tiptoe.
The promotion of famine, bloodshed, and the extinction of liberty aren’t all that left-wing, so progressives would do well to abandon it by ceasing to prefer natural gas, sorry, renewablesandconservation, over nuclear energy. A pro-nuclear stance is very attractive to those voters who don’t keep their puppies and kittens in the freezer. Progressives can make the issue their own.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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thanks john for that example:
so wind EROEI numbers are as misleading as wind nameplate numbers.
I’ll read that article.
David Lewis: you’re overgeneralizing about “pro nukes.”
“merchants of doubt” is a great book, though.
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John Morgan,
I’ve posted a copy of my letter to Julia Gillard at comment no.718. on thread 4. Have you seen it?
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Greg Meyerson, the EROEI for nuclear is somewhere in the tens to hundreds.
E.g. here’s the Environmental Product Declaration for Forsmark NPP in Sweden: http://www.environdec.com/reg/021/; it’s representative of the other swedish nuclear power plants. Click EPD content-> 3.4 Environmental Information – Results from LCA to get the resource(including energy broken down into sources of energy).
I’ve said this before and I feel obliged to do the drudgery of repeating it again; EROEI is ill-defined and near meaningless.
Different forms of energy; e.g. potential energy, chemical energy, electrical energy or heat; have vastly different ability to perform some function for a particular task. The fact that humans are so eager to convert chemical energy in the form of coal to 1/3 as much energy in the form of electricity should serve as a sufficient demonstration that a lot of information is lost when you sum different energies, of different kinds, at different times and in different places into a single number.
There’s also the problem of drawing system boundaries. In a gas turbine something like a third of the mechanical energy produced by the expanding gas is used, via a shaft, to compress air into the combustion chamber. If this all happens within the system boundaries the EROEI of a gas turbine can be very high, and is primarily limited by the use of energy to get natural gas. If the system boundary is drawn such that the mechanical energy is the output, then the power required to compress the air incomming air is suddenly taken from the output of the gas turbine and the EROEI cannot exceed ~3.
Similarly, in coal and nuclear plants something like 5-10% of the electricity produced is used to drive the various pumps that move coolant around the coolant loops. This is why gross and net capacity differ slightly. Whether the EROEI of a coal or nuclear plant is at most 10-20 or much higher depends on whether you count the gross or net production as the output of the system.
EROEI tells you nothing about carbon intensity, cost, scalability, geographical availability, suitability for any particular task, resource constraints, aesthetics, environmental damage of some specific kind(mercury pollution is qualitatively different than leveling a patch of desert, spraying binder and pesticides and putting up arrays of solar panels or creating an artificial lake to serve as coolant pond for a nuclear plant), geopolitical stability(if Russia has yet another of their semi-regular political and economic hick-ups can I assure myself of a stable gas supply when I can’t store appreciable amounts of it?). EROEI is almost entirely useless.
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Here’s a great little video of what can happen to a Wind Turbine in a storm.
http://www.youtube.com/user/failblog#p/search/1/Ty-vH42H_7k
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Tom Blees said (above) “As for nuclear power projects not providing enough jobs compared to renewables, there’s perhaps a point there though I suspect it’s a weak one.”
The information on the jobs issue is coming in and it seems pretty clear that renewables tend to kill more jobs than they create. Take a look at a recent draft report by Dr. Gabriel Calzada Álvarez at the Rey Juan Carlos university:
Click to access 090327-employment-public-aid-renewable.pdf
This report concludes that 2.2 jobs are lost in Spain for every “green” job created.
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GC
While I accept the substantive proposition that renewables are not a feasible solution for an industrial scale energy system, I think we should be cautious in advancing claims that are the subject of serious demur. The study you cite is of at best, doubtful worth.
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Has anyone read In Mortal Hands by Stephanie Cooke? I had a quick flip through it in the bookshop but did not judge it worthy of my money.
It seems like it’s 20% of excellent, rich historical content cited from Richard Rhodes’ brilliant works, and 80% Helen Caldicott style crap.
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At the risk of appearing insufferably egotistical, let me explain to those that are expressing concern that I am taking a break from commenting in all nuclear forums on the net for at least a few months.
In general I feel I need a break from the nuclear debate, as it seems as if we are going in circles at the moment. This is not something particular to BNC, but it seems to be the case in most forums that I have been posting in. I’m just getting a bit tired of rehashing the same topics, with the same people over and over. I need to stop and look at my own focus, and ask myself if my time and efforts would be better spent elsewhere than the on the net, advancing the cause of nuclear energy.
I’ll probable return to commenting again, but not for awhile. Please don’t take this as a criticism of any of you on BNC; it is me that needs to think about other things for a bit.
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thanks barry and soylent:
it was my sense that EROEI was a concept only to be used with much scrutiny–easy to manipulate depending on your assumptions.
barry: here, do you draw the boundaries around the concept a bit differently from how it’s drawn in the EROEI article you cite (thanks. read it before but needed the reminder)?
your definition includes indirect energy inputs (so why exclude backup from wind eroei, attributing the backup to natural gas only?) and in your discussion of wind, you note that the wind number excludes backup, as if to suggest this is misleading, which indeed it would be if we include “indirect” input, a category, it would seem, especially open to abuse so I appreciate Soylent’s comments about drawing system boundaries (if I understand that idea).
Soylent, I went to the Swedish site and followed your instructions, but couldn’t get all of the relevant info.
anyway, thanks again. as I said, the other day, and I forget the site (it wasn’t obviously pro renewables), I came across these EROEI numbers of 4.5 and 36 for nukes and wind and knew something was fishy.
How do we get in touch with DV if we have an important question only he can answer? DV needs to put up an FAQ on his website for concerned citizens like myself.
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Good one DV8. I’ve done very little by way of posting on BNC but I’ve done a hell of a lot of badgering the public and the politicians, in fact 12 years of it. My hard copy file is 60cm high. I’ve made a bit of progress over that time but a break from that could be a good thing to do. Perhaps I should make a return visit to Canada and you and I could “chew the fat” DV8. Thanks for all of your past very helpful comments. Cheers, Terry.
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David Lewis – – The consensus among most knowledgeable scientists familiar with nuclear issues is that nuclear is a valuable option for dealing with energy, air emissions, and climate challenges. A good number believe it is the most valuable option and some have become passionate about it.
The consensus among most scientists who have studied the ozone depletion problem is that CFC’s have been definitively implicated as the key cause.
Rod Adams is aligned with the consensus on one issue, but apparently not the other (I don’t know what his current view is). In this characteristic – – seeming to pick and choose among scientific consensus’ – – he is no different from environmentalists who accept the general scientific consensus on climate change and reject the one on nuclear energy.
Now, picking and choosing which general scientific consensus one will accept or reject seems to me to be unwise unless one has made a really deep study of the subject and is equipped to understand it.
Supporters of nuclear energy run the ideological gamut. As Bernard Cohen noted in his writing in the 1990’s most Scientists who he knows tend to have a liberal bent, including the nuclear ones. This is my experience as well. Rod Adams, btw, characterizes himself as being on the left of the political spectrum, as do many pro-nuclear bloggers.
You write that “pro nuclear types tend to be of the right wing political persuasion.” I think a fairer statement is that right-leaners tend, as a group, to be reflexively pro-nuclear, without the level of thought of most participants on this blog. Similarly, left-leaners tend, as a group, to be reflexively anti-nuclear, also without very much thought. People are unable to be masters of all subjects and consequently form opinions by looking to the norm among people with whom they generally identify. This is a problem for nuclear, but is becoming less so, I hope.
This blog, in my experience, is about moving beyond reflexive responses and into thinking responses through an iterative and thoughtful process. Doing that – – moving beyond reflexive thinking by reading and evaluating the statements and analyses of knowledgeable scientists – – moved me from the anti-nuclear to the pro-nuclear side.
Last, Barry is right. This is really not the right location to argue or vent about Rod’s excursion into thought experiments about research on CFCs/Ozone.
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“I think a fairer statement is that right-leaners tend, as a group, to be reflexively pro-nuclear, without the level of thought of most participants on this blog. Similarly, left-leaners tend, as a group, to be reflexively anti-nuclear, also without very much thought.”
Excellently summed up, Frank.
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Under a blog post claiming to have room for a comment from anyone to talk about “anything they like”, it seems odd to read that according to Barry, “I won’t have BNC used as a platform for attacking the motives of others”.
Perhaps Barry could explain to me, just this once, where I did that, before he “moderates” my comments right out of existence, as this statement seems to indicate he will. I don’t see where I attacked Rod’s motives – what I attacked was his denial of science. I supplied links to Rod’s own published words for reference, as well as describing where in the peer reviewed scientific literature anyone could look to find a Nobel laureate going over the arguments Rod has used in his denial.
Because I commented here, under the “anything you like” section, on a perceived tendency to deny climate science among pro nuclear advocates and nuclear industry insiders in the US, Barry seems to have decided that I must be opposed to nuclear power in the way that Stewart Brand describes in the second quote above, i.e.:
” because doing so would entail an almost unbearable recognition: that a very large part of their life’s work has been fundamentally, disastrously wrong, and that by obstructing the transition to nuclear back in the 1970s, they bear direct responsibility both for global warming and for the hundreds of thousands of deaths that have since resulted from coal-related pollution”
In fact, I have been advocating in favor of the most rapid nuclear power expansion possible for some time.
I was formerly an activist in what many think they understand as the “environmental” movement, on ozone depletion in the late 1980s, climate change from 1988 to now, and in politics, I was a leader in Canada and British Columbia in the Green Party for a period in the early late 1980s and early 1990s, remaining a voice some pay attention to to this day. One founder of Greenpeace told me, around 1990, I was the strongest voice to that date the Green Party had seen in Canada.
I have been arguing for decisive action on climate change since I discovered the issue in 1988. I called for restoring the composition of the atmosphere to the preindustrial composition at that time, putting a clause to that effect into the adopted policy of the Green Party of British Columbia.
I then went out into politics, committing political suicide most political observers would say, by staking my political success on trying to lead public opinion on what I saw as a fundamentally important issue, rather than only proposing policy calculated to play to what public opinion would support. I didn’t see how civilization could expand from its then 1 billion people using 80% of all resources available to the projected by 2050 ten billion people all aspiring to that same standard of living without drastic changes in almost all areas of life, and said so and called for such changes everywhere I went. Obviously, I went nowhere.
I note that this call I made to stabilize and return the atmosphere to a previous composition, predates that of James Hansen, who first publicly called for stabilizing the composition of the atmosphere at a CO2 level of less than it is now in December 2007.
I first decided to educate myself about nuclear power after reading one of James Hansen’s trip reports http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20080804_TripReport.pdf where he described himself as “agnostic” about nuclear, but changing his mind as he digested what he had read in Tom Blees’ book. I immediately read Blees book myself, and many more besides.
I would describe my nuclear views, up until I started educating myself after being inspired by Hansen’s example, as perhaps similar to Hansen’s – agnostic. Although I had been advocating action on climate for a period of time almost as long as he has, I too had not twigged to the idea that nuclear advocates might be right that their favored power source was the answer to climate change.
I also went to the trouble of visiting an operating reactor.
It has become increasingly apparent to me that a large number of nuclear advocates and industry insiders in the US at least, are climate science deniers.
This is the crucial debate of our times, I feel, i.e. should civilization respond to the evidence that climate scientists are presenting to us, and I find it very strange that the industry that claims to be the solution to the problem is so full of deniers that there is a problem in the first place. Again, I speak from the U.S., as an observer of the American scene.
After having spent so much energy educating myself about nuclear power that I now feel myself to be part of the nuclear community in my own tiny way, I am speaking out as a pro nuclear advocate about this disturbing tendency to deny climate science that I am seeing in some fellow nuclear advocates.
It is from this perspective that I view arguments such as Cohen’s who tells anyone why they should accept what science has discovered about radiation and nuclear power in general, i.e. basically because in a scientific discipline, a strong consensus eventually develops about basic issues such as how dangerous radiation is, which are periodically assessed by such as the National Academy of Sciences, and people should feel comfortable in trusting what these authorities say. I say, nuclear advocates can’t point to such as Cohen, or to Russell as you have done, as long as there are so many who ignore the wisdom Cohen and Russell express when it comes to climate science. At least, there should be room for someone like me who says, duh, what about your denial of science?
How can you expect opponents of the nuclear industry to accept the findings of science when you refuse to accept what you don’t want to believe yourself?
I find it preposterous that some of the same individuals who point to Cohen saying everyone should believe him about radiation, then point to entire scientific disciplines such as ozone science or climate science and say its all junk.
Because I sometimes read what is in your blog, I then post periodically what I think about what I’ve read. I used Adams as an example of the kind of thinking I’m running into in the nuclear community because he put his thoughts on a discipline of science other than anything to do with nuclear in public view that I could refer people to easily to illustrate what I’m concerned about, because you posted the Russell quote about how it is that anyone should decide what to believe when it comes to scientific information.
I find your reaction unwarranted. I will be happy to refrain from posting my thoughts here if this suits you.
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PS. a very recent example that illustrates my observation that there is widespread denial of climate science among US nuclear advocates and US nuclear industry insiders is seen in this open letter to President Obama, which calls on the President to clear away obstacles and support the rapid development of the nuclear power industry:
http://theenergycollective.com/rodadams/39203/independence-day-letter-president-obama-re-nuclear-energy-summit
(Unfortunately, a Google search on this shows Rod Adams’ presentation of this letter at the top of the list, and digging down didn’t reveal any other source for it, so there it is. Rod is a signatory to this letter, but that is somewhat incidental to my observation at this moment.)
I state my thoughts on why this letter says something about widespread denial of climate science among US nuclear insiders and advocates as a comment on Rod’s post the above link goes to.
Here, I would point out that these nuclear advocates and nuclear industry insiders couldn’t bring themselves to mention the issue of climate change in their open letter to Obama.
The nuke advocates wrote in support of the so called Nuke Group of 11 US Senators who also wrote to the President recently.
Now the Nuke Group of 11 Senators includes the notorious to all those who want to see action on climate Senator Inhofe. This is the dismaying Senator who once stood on the floor of the Senate to proclaim that climate change is “the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people”.
Yet the Nuke Group, when writing to Obama, called on him to act to help the nuclear industry because: “as nuclear energy supplies more than 70 percent of the electricity generated by sources that do not emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, we agree with you that safe nuclear power must play an increasingly important role” blah blah blah. Inhofe had to sign this.
My point? The Nuke Group of 11 Senators which Inhofe wants to be a part of, wouldn’t let him get away with censoring all mention of climate change out of their appeal for support for nuclear power, yet the Independence Day letter, signed mostly by nuclear industry insiders and pro nuclear advocates managed to completely avoid the topic of climate. Yet Obama, when setting up the Blue Ribbon panel on America’s Nuclear Future, specifically named climate change as his number one reason for backing nuclear expansion.
The nuclear insiders and advocates even dug up and included as one of their co signers, Fred Singer, well known for decades for his opportunistic science denial which has extended to ozone science, climate science and whether tobacco causes cancer, who is continuing to provide the “intellectual” cover for people such as many in the news media who want to pretend there is some great big debate over fundamentals in the scientific community studying such questions, such as will the Earth warm up in response to a rapid accumulation of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.
Rod Adams even described all the signatories to the Independence Day letter, i.e. Fred Singer, as “distinguished and dedicated energy experts”.
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David Lewis doth protest too much, methinks.
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In 50 or fewer words, what does David Lewis want me
to do about it? He has managed to get the questioning-attitude thing to be one of BNC’s “Top Clicks”.
I commented there that I wasn’t on top of the extent to which a system of dense gas pooled underneath gas of lower molecular weight reduces its energy through the upward diffusion of the dense gas, but according to this, I was.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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I’m not sure why you raise this here David.
The blog host and the vast majority of contributors here regard the IPCC consensus as a starting point for discussion of these matters.
Fred Singer is, as is well known, a charlatan for hire by some of the most pernicious and venal elements in the US boss class, and if people are citing him, it is to their discredit.
Why you need to point that out here is hard to say.
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I get the impression the underlying motive for all Fran’s activism is to try to impose her Marxist beliefs on Australian society. She gets involved in any activist cause that she can use as a platform to propogate her beliefs; this is a typical example of what she espouses:
If this is typical of the reason Lefties are advocating for “nuclear to stop climate change”, then a lot of people will be turned off. There will be a real push back.
I think others here should take this seriously.
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Peter Lang:
Read Naomi Oreskes and Conway’s’ book Merchants of Doubt on Fred Singer.
Their description is not far from Fran’s. They are liberals, though their argument is a good one, whatever their politics.
Now, if david is questioning rod adams’ motives, peter is certainly questioning fran’s.
btw, the claim that some people want to impose their views on others is almost always offered with no evidence; worse, it’s not even clear what is meant by the claim. it’s built into the very concept of a public belief that you think it ought to be shared. what is the difference between holding a belief in the ordinary sense and wanting to impose it? how is it that fran wants to impose her beliefs but others do not?
david L: in the u.s., there is a definite tendency for pro nuke views to align with denialism and for those concerned about climate change to be anti nuke. we have to change that and i share your urgency.
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David L.: I appreciate your journey from anti- (my presumption) to pro- nuclear, but I think you make a mistake when you posit, for example, the following:
“I say, nuclear advocates can’t point to such as Cohen, or to Russell as you have done, as long as there are so many who ignore the wisdom Cohen and Russell express when it comes to climate science.”
My response: sure we can, AND, if we believe we are right on climate AND nuclear, then we certainly will.
We can point to scientists who express the generally shared consensus (among knowledgeable scientists) on nuclear energy while, simultaneously, working to advance nuclear with people who share our general views on nuclear (we like it) but not on climate.
In my view, pro-nuclear people who find no convincing reason to reject the general scientific consensus on climate cannot delay forming pro-nuclear coalitions with people who share our views on nuclear but not on climate. To do so would be foolish because it is important to bring about change in nuclear energy policy in the developed world that has so much influence on energy policy and climate impacts.
We do not have time to convince everybody on everything we believe before we move forward. It is a messy, complicated world, and we have to navigate forward within its messiness. To insist on full consistency across the coalition with which one is willing to work is to make oneself, as a practical matter, irrelevant.
If the climate crisis is as serious as the general consensus of knowledgeable scientists indicate it is, then I would submit that requiring all potential allies on nuclear to also adopt our views on climate is an indulgence that we cannot responsibly accommodate.
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While I agree with you Frank — that we shouldn’t insist everyone agree with us on everything that is kind of relevant to nuclear power. There’s lots of reasons for having nuclear power that don’t have anything serious to do with climate change.
‘Course that’s not the same thing as saying that guys who say stupid stuff about cliimate change and other environmental things should be presented as if they weren’t stupid. Maybe we just don’t mention them?
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Tom Keen – Thanks for the kind words (forgot to include with the previous post).
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David Lewis said
“It has become increasingly apparent to me that a large number of nuclear advocates and industry insiders in the US at least, are climate science deniers.”
I know, isn’t it great! We can get on with fixing the climate problem without further opposition from the people who have delayed climate action the most. Everyone wins.
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Fast charge is here! The Better Place battery swap system has a real contender.
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/07/07/2243236/Company-Builds-Fast-Charging-Station-For-Electric-Cars
As the video below demonstrates, it’s far cheaper than oil, and after a bacon-buttie and cup-o-tea, you’re back to full charge.
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EN the driver of the electric car asked why there weren’t more fast charging stations. Perhaps this is the reason. When EVs routinely drive from Sydney to Perth we’ll know they are making progress. As someone who drives on biodiesel my tip for the vehicle fuel of the future is natural gas, a hydrocarbon Australia currently has in plenty. That’s unless we flog too much of it overseas or burn it in baseload power stations.
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James Hansen is listed along with Fred Singer as a signer of the “Independence Day letter to President Obama” I mentioned previously. I wrote Jim mentioning this, on the off chance he is not aware.
I suggested to Jim that one day, those who spread lies and disinformation about climate science will be regarded as as socially acceptable as those who spread hatred toward Jews now are in Germany. This will be because, after it is too late, it will be seen that the deniers and disinformers share a great responsibility for what by then will have happened, and after the fact, as in Germany for Jews today, it will not be possible to pretend that free speech rights should allow activities and speech that lead where all this is going.
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Greg Meyerson said:
Quite right with one amendment. Anyone who thinks public policy is important wants to have others share their views about public policy and having achieved the requisite consensus impose these policies on others. Peter Lang certainly does. He says he wants to ignore the anti-nuclear fringe so that what needs to be done can get done. That’s imposing his view onto them, if he is successful. That’s implicit in the idea of democracy.
My Marxist views will probably never be accepted by most people in my lifetime. Merely arguing for them is not an imposition on anyone. People can and mostly do ignore them. But if most people came to find them persuasive and sought to instantiate them in public policy, then that would be no greater an imposition than anything Peter might have public policy do.
I should add that it is not and never will be my intention to force anyone to share my view of any matter, whatever direction public policy takes. And as to what lawful activity consenting adults do within their own private lives, I will always regard that as none of my business, however offensive I might find it, were I to know of it.
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Eclipsenow,
I had previously put up some posters that didn’t have tabs, but I’ve just today put up the ones with tabs. I’ll let you know how they go.
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@ John,
that stupid Energy Bulletin piece ignores the fact that most cars can and will charge from home and at work.
Most cars just sit still 22 hours a day and can be plugged in sucking down juice where-ever they are.
So put just one fast-charge point in each servo because I won’t be using them, I’ll just be driving to a friend’s house, plugging in while BBQing there, and then driving back home on a full tank.
And if fast-charging isn’t good enough, what about the Better Place battery swap? Electric transport: it’s all good.
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@ Marion,
cool, let me know if any go. At North Epping shops none tabs have gone, and it’s been over a week now!
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Green is the Color of Money :
See their website here :
http://www.endciv.com/
nice to know they have a sense of humour too, see the Star Wars – The Environmentalists Version.
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Another example of government intervening in the market to try to pick, or make, winners. The government;s $1.1 billion subsidy to the car industry to get Toyota to make a hybrid car in Australia. They reckoned they’d sell 10,000 this year, but so far have sold 2950, of which most are to government departments or registered by the car yards as ‘demonstrator’ cars; i.e. they haven’t been sold at all.
This is another example of the incompetence of governments who think they can pick winners or make winners. Meanwhile they prevent the real winners, for example by banning nuclear power. Even if they did remove the ban, they’d probably want to impose “safety” regulations the most restrictive in the world. What how do we have with this sort of ongoing incompetence by our elected government?
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I forgot to add the links for my previous post:
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/buyers-browned-off-with-hybrid-green-cars/story-e6frg6nf-1225890001019
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/for-the-average-driver-its-four-years-to-recoup-extra-cost/story-e6frg6nf-1225890009525
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FYI, my letter to all MPs today
No ETS, stop wasting tax payer funds on renewable energy. Here is how to cut CO2 emissions …
Dear MP,
Other countries are realising that renewable energy is a massive waste of tax payer funds and has no, or negligible, effect on CO2 emissions [Note 1].
Just when Australia decides to increase giving consumer and taxpayers money to the wind industry, governments around the world have decided enough’s enough and are cutting or eliminating subsidies to the grossly inefficient green power generators. Here are some recently reported examples:
Spain cuts subsidies to wind and solar
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE6611YR20100702
Italy cuts subsidies to wind and solar
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704629804575324282074870288.html?mod=WSJ_Tech_LEFTTopNews
Germany cuts subsidies to solar
http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2265976/germany-poised-phase-solar
Denmark to cut subsidies to wind
http://www.ref.org.uk/PressDetails/163
France to slash solar subsidies
http://seekingalpha.com/article/182530-european-solar-subsidy-slashing-bad-news-for-investors
Ontario cuts incentives for solar
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/ottawa/story/2010/07/07/ottawa-solar-rate-drop.html
If we want to cut CO2 emissions, renewable energy is not the way to do it. Nor is an ETS or price on carbon.
What we need to do to cut CO2 emissions is to remove all the impediments on nuclear energy. If we did remove all the impediments, electricity fro nuclear would be cheaper than from coal. Yes! Even in Australia.
This article describes the sort of regulatory impediments that make nuclear expensive where the regulatory environment is inappropriate. These are what we must avoid.
Add to this list the many Australian Government imposed impediments and market distortions such as:
• Bans on nuclear energy
• Renewable Energy Target
• Renewable Energy Certificates
• Feed in Tariffs
• Direct government subsidies for renewable energy
• Tax incentives and other incentives for coal, gas and renewable energy
• Cost of enhancements to the electricity grid that are needed to accommodate the disruptive, erratic renewable energy generators is shared by everyone instead of being attributed to the renewable energy generators
• Sovereign risk caused by the government’s signals that it is opposed to nuclear, and also that when governments change, they renege on previously made agreements with investors (e.g. Telstra, Gunns Pulp Mill, Resource Super Profits Tax, intention to shut down, or in other ways disadvantage, coal fired power plants without fair compensation for the investors, and many others examples)
Note 1: Wind power does not reduce CO2 emissions:
http://www.masterresource.org/2010/06/subsidizing-co2-emissions/
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David Lewis, Everyone, including both you and Rod Adams, makes mistakes. I certainly have my disagreements with Rod, but I regard him as a generally reliable source of information. You – well you seem to have caught the Stalinist bug.
http://www.anesi.com/east/stalin.htm
You want to turn scientific consensus into a party line, and anyone who disagrees with even a single scientific consensus is guilty of rightest deviation.
i am not saying that Rod right, most likely he is not. Does being wrong on a single issue make Rod a right winger in your book? If you do, think you sir that you might be mistaken.
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Well said Charles. But the prize for well said in this thread certainly goes to Tom Keen — brilliant, and something we should all bear in mind:
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As a lay person I am pretty confident that climate scientists know what they are doing. Climate models, though highly imperfect, are based on sound physics and give us a reasonable sense of how GHG emissions are likely to impact climate. (I read The Discovery of Global Warming by Spencer Weart.)
But, when it comes to mitigation efforts, I do not see why I should have any confidence in what the economists say. By and large they argue that a carbon cap and trade system would have only a small negative impact on economic growth. If they are right, then this cost is small compared to the likely costs of climate change even if the odds catastrophic climate change are modest. But, why on earth should I accept the results of economic models? What principles are they based on and how are they validated? Any references aimed at the general reader would be appreciated.
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Sorry all, with sick kids and holidays etc we didn’t get to the next poster. Marion’s idea for a nuclear V renewables poster was very simple and easy to read, and really works. But we got busy.
One thing I did enjoy on the weekend was watching this TED talk on the growth of New Urbanism.
As I say on the blog post:
“The best thing about this talk is that it shows how it can happen in small stages. New Urbanism can grow in pockets without bulldozing the whole suburb first. Thinking about it after the talk, it occurs to me that this is only logical. Suburbia is characterised by vast areas of wasted space. New Urbanism is incredibly dense. Pockets can grow which soak up the populations of suburbia, and then suburbia can be gradually replaced through the normal household life cycle. Suburban blandness is gradually transformed into dense and diverse urbanism with forests and farmlands.
I can’t wait to watch it unfold!”
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Eclipse … I was passing North Epping shops so I took a look at the ntoice board there. The poster was being partly obscured by another (on dog grooming I think) so I repositioned the rival. Two tear offs were there.
It’s not an exceptionally prominent location, despite being a notice board. Somewhere directly opposite where most cars park — and perhaps in that bottle shop across the road adjacent to the service station would be better, probably. Amidst all the other clutter, it doesn’t stand out much. It needs clear space around it in a context where people who have already decided they aren’t interested in notice board items aren’t averting their eyes. It doesn’t cost much to laminate these days, and if you did that and punched a couple of holes in it and stuck it somewhere at eye level where people aren’t expecting to see it, maybe that would work better. The tear-offs don’t really help because all they say is “bravenewclimate.com” and people can recall that without a tiny chit which will get lost. Just some thoughts, from a marketing POV.
According to Mike:
Well the Garnaut Report was a good discussion of these matters in an Australian economic context, so you could start there. In the US, cap and trade worked well for Bush snr. for SO2 and in fact the targets for reductions were realised ahead of time, even though they only applied to a limited number of states. The sky didn’t fall in as a result.
The principle is simple enough. One sets a quota and allows people to bid for portions of it. Those who cannot achieve reductions in ways that are too expensive to be justified or too disruptive buy shares of the quota at the going market price. If after they have bought them they discover ways to avoid emissions for which they have already paid for the rights that are cheaper than simply using their entitlement, they sell the entitlement to offset the costs of the measures and wind up ahead, or less behind. So they have a market incentive to keep looking at ways to reduce emissions that is not disruptive. Overall, the total emissions of industry are capped at a precise level. Those holding adequate permits have an interest in others not free-riding, or the cap being raised or in free permits being issued, since this diminishes the value of their asset in the market. In fact, if they become less Co2-intensive, they have an interest in a more ambitious cap and tighter enforcement, since this pushes up the value of the asset.
At the same time, an increased commercial interest in CO2-efficiency spurs business innovation and various kinds of BPR (business procfess re-engineering), and the funds raised can be used to compensate the end users of products who purchase products and services with these new CO2 costs internalised.
Of course, at the base of the system, if we are to get cheap CO2 reductions, we need cheap low carbon energy. Simply encouraging householders to buy less stuff (including energy) or choosing stuff with low CO2 intensity isn’t going to get us there. Hence our focus on nuclear power here. This is absolutely the cheapest way to get low CO2 intensity energy everywhere in the quantities we need it.
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Hi Ewen,
thanks for your feedback. I might talk to Darren at the bottle-shop about putting up a poster. Although he’s a climate sceptic he also loves the idea of nuclear power.
(We chat about peak oil and climate change. He introduced himself to me years ago as “Crazy Darren” and I of course replied, “Great to meet you, because I’m crazy Dave!”)
Now to remembering the BNC address. I think some people would remember it if they saw it frequently enough, but others just visiting the area might not. The tab is also about reminding them that they were going to look it up. The tabs also tell people that others are interested in this topic, and so once the first few tabs go others tend to go faster.
But I agree that a well positioned and attractive poster without tabs is worth more than a poorly positioned poster with tabs.
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@ John Newlands (and all interested in Electric Vehicles.)
Is this a good test of electric vehicles? I don’t think so. I think EV’s will cater to 95% of our city driving.
A busy enough highway route like Brisbane to Melbourne might have enough fast-charge or battery swap stations to make the trip doable. I’m just not convinced that Sydney to Perth is a fair request. Surely people who actually drive the Nullabor are doing so for reasons other than ‘normal’ commuting.
I wonder about that trip anyway. Anyone hear the old news report about the truck of tomato’s driving from Melbourne to Perth, and the other truck of tomato’s coming back the other way? There was a bush fire somewhere in the middle that held up the trucks for a few days. In the end, all the tomato’s spoiled. It was all in the name of ‘free trade’. Is that the kind of nonsensical ‘free market’ messing about that we want to encourage?
No, I’m not convinced Melbourne to Perth is a fair test.
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Ewen: Thanks. I have read CBO reports. I just wish I understood the economic models they use.
On nuclear power: I am generally pro-nuclear power. I am also a member of the Union of Concerned Scientists and have been disappointed in their analysis of nuclear power. I mention this here because they are hiring a Energy Analyst. See: http://www.ucsusa.org/about/jobs-at-ucs.html#Energy_Analyst
Maybe someone here would like to apply.
BTW, my area is pure math, nothing directly applied.
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hi Mike,
what’s it like being a member of UCS? It’s worldwide right? Do they have a good budget in the USA to pay a good salary for an Energy Analyst?
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Let’s not call them climate sceptics, Crazy Dave. They aren’t the least bit sceptical of any slander hurled at well-credentialled scientists. They don’t even understand what it is they declare themselves to be sceptical of. They don’t understand and can’t explain radiative forcing. Ask them about radiation budgets and what ERBE measures and they look at you blankly. Mention stratospheric cooling and they think you are supporting claims about a coming ice age, and can’t see why saying that and asserting that warming will be good for us are in conflict.
These people are the intellectual heirs of the kids at the back of the classroom who understand no more than that what they are supposed to be learning is of no value to them because they are going to get a job with their uncle selling tyres, and who, accordingly, spend their time making fart noises and wondering how long it will be before they can play Halo.
By the time they have become chronologically, adults they have decided that the world is not to be trusted, and that what is true is local and certainly, that anyone using big words is to be treated with extreme caution.
They are not sceptics. They hold the truths of their tribe to be self-evident. They are reactionary culture warriors, uttering any nonsense that eases the pain of feeling perpetually marginalised and denied access to the benefits acquired by those who sat at the front of the classroom and paid attention.
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I agree with everything you say Fran. Well put. I guess I was just being polite, which is unlike me when it comes to this subject!
I’m not that technical, but even I understood most of what you were referring to because I bothered to read what the climate scientists were actually publishing and saying, rather than limiting my reading to the likes of “Durkin just jerkin his gherkin!” (My favourite line against the so called “Great Global Warming Swindle”).
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[…] “routinely drive from Sydney to Perth”. I answered with the following comments. (via Open Thread 5 « BraveNewClimate.) Is this a good test of electric vehicles? I don’t think so. I think EV’s will cater to 95% of […]
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Is this the way most people see jet fuels and maybe agricultural fuels being manufactured?
****
Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a low-risk, transformational concept, called Green Freedom™, for large-scale production of carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuels and organic chemicals from air and water.
Currently, the principal market for the Green Freedom production concept is fuel for vehicles and aircraft.
At the heart of the technology is a new process for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and making it available for fuel production using a new form of electrochemical separation. By integrating this electrochemical process with existing technology, researchers have developed a new, practical approach to producing fuels and organic chemicals that permits continued use of existing industrial and transportation infrastructure. Fuel production is driven by carbon-neutral power.
via Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL): Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air.
http://www.lanl.gov/news/index.php/fuseaction/home.story/story_id/12554
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eclipsenow, on 12 July 2010 at 11.01 Said:
hi Mike,
what’s it like being a member of UCS? It’s worldwide right? Do they have a good budget in the USA to pay a good salary for an Energy Analyst?
—————–
I just pay $15 a month and get the newsletter. You can get their budget here: http://www.ucsusa.org/about/financial-information.html
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EN re synfuels I think it may be better to start with already concentrated CO2 that is free of nitrogen and sulphur. Like 99% pure not .04% as in air. Then for example combine with nuclear hydrogen under pressure and catalysts to get methane. That methane will work in any engine or device that runs on natural gas and is easy to store and distribute. The cost of a premium hydrogenated synfuel either gas or liquid would need to get down to say $2 per kg, have low toxicity and not add to net fossil carbon extraction. Thus if concentrated CO2 chemically recovered from coal flue gas was converted to fuel then two revenue streams (stationary generation and vehicle fuel) could pay for any carbon tax. Better still start with carbon from biomass.
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You must be doing something right Barry.
As I regularly do, I visited crikey.com, and today found this article by Bernard Keane:
No carbon price? You’re being conned
Most odf the article was pretty good — a fairly straightforward defence of carbon pricing. It did however contain the following claim:
Naturally I set about responding, but while I was doing so, three other posters: John Bennetts; ShowsOn; Mark Duffett; replied rejecting the claims. Two of them besides me mentioned this blog specifically. I offered a link to the TCASE series.
I promise I didn’t know that that would happen, but I daresay that Bernard probably thinks we’re spamming his site.
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Interesting, that pile of Labor party propoganda is what Fran thinks is
So much for her credibility.
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It’s rather odd that a pile of “Labor party propaganda” (typo corrected) is attacking the ALP position on carbon pricing, which is to defer puttng a price on carbon, and is affirming the Turnbull position, which was to have one.
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It’s clear which parties have been blocking real action to reduce CO2 emissions – Labor and Greens! And they have been for decades!
No matter how obvious it is, some who are blinkered by ideological beliefs, just can’t accept the obvious. “They turn their heads sideways and clamp their teeth like a child refusing to swallow medicine”.
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I’m glad that you have remembered at least one thing I pointed out to you. As a teacher, I count that as a success.
Now it’s time for you to take the next step and relegate your ideological baggage to a place where it doesn’t get in the way of thinking straight.
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Peter,
I wish you could show a little more respect to another pro-nuclear campaigner. I’m really sick of discussing politics on BNC and seeing other nukies under attack, especially when it gets personal.
I think we should try to stick to promoting what we know the science to be, and being fairly tolerant of various political approaches as to how to get there.
EG: I can tolerate people arguing for some sort of ETS, if it eventually gets the job done. But I’m no fan of an over-complicated ETS. It could be prone to all the financial wizardry of derivatives trading and who knows what other pyramid schemes of unaccountable money making on the market?
Yet other political persuasions talk about a straight tax on carbon. Again, if other cheaper means could get the job done I’d be for that, but hey? A carbon tax might kick start the stuff we need to get done, so I’d rather vote for that than against action, if that were the choice at the next election.
Now if we move into extreme lefty territory and I ran the world, maybe I’d be tempted to OUTLAW any new coal plants. Maybe I’d also outlaw any aging plants being renovated for a longer life, and give all ‘newish’ plants a maximum 20 year lifespan while looking to ramp up an incredible S-PRISM production line. I can dream on about running the world.
My point is that not everything has to be achieved through market mechanisms. The blunt hammer of law can change things, and has changed things in the past.
EG: Witness the war-time switching of something like 4% of the economy to the military to about 40% of the economy, with American motor industry being ordered to produce ONLY tanks. In a climate emergency, anything can happen. Your fears of safety talk driving up prices would vanish along with the need for nukie activists. The job would get done.
I’m sick to death of nukies indulging in character attacks over who they vote for. Society oscillates from the left to the right and back again from the right to the left, and who can tell the difference most of the time?
Ironically sometimes we see smaller lefty governments swinging to right big-government in times of war! “Right” does not always equate with small government! Witness which governments have run wars. Witness the incredible stuffing up of the American economy by arguably the worst government intervention in that economy EVER by George W Bush. Whether or not it was officially a ‘big government’ based on various welfare department statistics, the intervention in the economy was enormous as they shrunk the taxation base while borrowing to fund the ‘war on terror’ on 2 fronts!
So unless you really want to get into debating the political economy of the welfare state, Max Weber, Karl Marx and the whole kit and caboodle, can we leave politics out of it? I’m so OVER it! I mean, next thing you know we’ll have Peter Lalor in here hyperventilating over something totally incomprehensible and off topic.
Fran is a fellow nukie. Try and tolerate her leftiness and I’ll try and ignore your recent right-wing diatribes.
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EclipseNow, you are displaying your bias.
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As this says: http://johnhumphreys.wordpress.com/2010/06/05/benefit-cost-analysis-for-the-ets/comment-page-1/#comment-79
an ETS is an irrational policy. I tend to believe this analysis. It makes sense to me.
If we want to cut emissions we have a rational, ‘no-regrets’ way to do it. But it does required removing one hell of a lot of irrational, ideologically based polices. I’ve pointed out how to achieve it on several other posts including:
and many others. And this is a short ten point description of why:
Following on from this are the international consequences of rolling out clean electricity to the world, faster and thus reducing world CO2 emissions faster. I must have posted it a dozen times, but those with their heads cricked to the left and teeth clenched shut just don’t want to consider it.
Get over your ideological obsession with Marxism, and get some realistic understanding the real world we live in. Otherwise, stick with coal, gas and CO2 emissions. It is the policies of the ideologues you support that prevent forward progress on just about everything.
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I don’t think you have a clue what my political orientation is. I indulged the game of being ‘world dictator’ to illustrate how the blunt force of legislation concerning power sources can affect markets overnight, in contrast to messing around with ETS or taxation schemes.
(Let alone positively scandalously BAD ETS schemes like the CPRS. I’m with Barry on that one: may as well wave the white flag now).
I was listing a policy menu that, in best case examples, could see the same objectives achieved by a variety of political persuasions. Yours is not the ONLY means of getting to a low Co2 economy. EG: How did France get there? Please do tell! ;-)
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@ all on COSTS:
It seems the UCS has been affected by the myth of expense.
“Nuclear Power: A Resurgence We Can’t Afford (2009)
A new UCS analysis finds that the U.S. does not need to significantly expand its reliance on nuclear power to make dramatic cuts in power plant carbon emissions through 2030—and that doing so would be uneconomical.”
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/nuclear_power_and_global_warming/nuclear-power-resurgence.html
Other negative articles here.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/
If we can’t influence the likes of the UCS, surely that means game over?
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It can be expected that UCS would come out with a negative Nuclear report.
http://depletedcranium.com/desceptively-named-groups/
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Check this debate out at TED
If only he’d had my Nuclear waste worth $30 trillion? poster! He could have presented nuclear waste as running the world for 500 years and nuclear waste being the SOLUTION not the problem.
Anyway, it’s frustrating to see the renewable guy gain a few fans, but in California it seems the nuclear guy still won at *about* 65% of the vote.
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Here’s a poster idea for you eclipsenow. Poster dominated by large, stark image of wind turbine. Caption at base: “These things don’t work.”
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A bit blunt. ;-)
Most people ‘know’ that they DO work, that they DO produce power at or below the price of coal. People like Lester Brown have told them so.
What they don’t know is how stuffed the grid would be if they were ALL we had. ;-)
So I’m looking for a quick easy way to explain that. “These things don’t work” might form the heading, but it needs a bit more than that. ;-)
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Re wind poster. How about :
Utility Scale Wind Energy : A Summary for Policy Makers
Increases GHG emissions
Requires Fossil Fuel Backup
Intermittent
Highly Volatile
No security of supply
Destabilises Grid
Increases electricity cost for consumers
Huge resources required for construction
Divides communities
Health Risks
Noise Pollution
Loss of Visual Amenity
Loss of property value
Loss of tourism
Environmentally destructive
Mangles the birds that cats can’t reach
Kills bats
Alters local climate
No decommissioning funds = future problems and potential bankruptcy for turbine hosts
Gag clauses for turbine hosts
etc. etc. etc. might require a very tall poster…
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ps : would suggest this picture of a turbine ablaze in Germany while the fire crew watches on helpless for the poster background :
http://www.windaction.org/pictures/18139
or select from the many pictures here :
http://www.windaction.org/search?module=search&q=fire&x=0&y=0
Or for an Australian bush fire flavour this $2m turbine fire in Adelaide :
http://www.windaction.org/pictures/1527
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eclipsenow asked: “If we can’t influence the likes of the UCS, surely that means game over?”
I think the Union of Concerned Scientists is open to dialog on the nuclear power issue. They are an important part of the environment movement is the U.S. and one of the few run by scientists. I wasn’t joking when I suggested someone here apply for their Energy Analyst position, but you can probably find other ways to engage them. Read their anti-nuclear stuff and write up a response – maybe a few of you could get together to do this. I did a quick search of this site and only found two posts that mention U.C.S.
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Or maybe with John’s idea …
one good turn deserves another … but when will that be?
;-)
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With apologies to The Bard … (The Tempest)
Blow blow thou winter wind
thou art not so refined
as energy forgot
and power delivered not
So say heigh ho, heigh ho unto the green holly
Most solar is feigning
Most wind but mere folly
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Electricity – Social Service or Market Comodity?
Read the report here: http://www.chathamhouse.org.uk/files/16899_0610pp_grimston.pdf
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For a back drop for a poster, one of these of the abandoned renewable energy projects might get the message across – e.g. Tehachapi Wind Farms – Southern California, USA, or one of the solar farms.
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Woops,
Here is the link to the photos of the abandoned renewable energy projects.
http://webecoist.com/2009/05/04/10-abandoned-renewable-energy-plants/
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Some classic photo’s of abandoned renewable energy projects left to rot & pollute, which highlights the issue of the requriement for proper decommissioning laws (*currently not in place for renewables) :
http://webecoist.com/2009/05/04/10-abandoned-renewable-energy-plants/
http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/02/wind_energys_ghosts_1.html
(note in this story the bit about California turbines being shut off for 4 months of the year because of their atrocious bird kill rate…)
http://www.windaction.org/pictures/4147
http://www.windaction.org/pictures/4146
http://www.windaction.org/pictures/4145
http://www.windaction.org/pictures/4144
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http://www.wind-works.org/articles/TehachapiTourGuide.html
this is the tour guide of the Tehachapi area, note this part of the tour guide :
Throughout the Tehachapi-Mojave area look for turbines without nose cones, turbines without nacelles (blown off and not replaced), oil leaking from blade-pitch seals, oil leaking from gearboxes, road cuts in steep terrain, erosion gullies, non-operating turbines, and “bone piles” of junk parts.
http://www.wind-watch.org/video-southpoint.php
http://www.pond5.com/stock-footage/596829/hd-abandoned-wind-turbines-farm.html
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How about this for a poster image – not to mention the accompanying headline…
http://www.life.com/image/73870230
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Marion,
You may have suggested that with tongue in cheek, but my take on that photo is “David an Golliath”; i.e. David (the wind turbine” trying to battle Golliath (the coal plants). It reinforces the message that wind power is good.
I might mention that in German, nuclear power is being taxed a super tax to subsidise wind power AND coal mining.
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**WARNING : some of the pics / vids linked below may well upset the sensitive.
This is a video of something a cat couldn’t ever do, taking out a large vulture. however, with a wind turbine its easy :
http://www.wind-watch.org/video-vulture.php
the next time somebody says that cats kill more birds, ask them what species of bird does a wind turbine kill, and whether a cat has ever killed a single bird of that species. then go to your favourite windustry site and see what they have to say on the matter…
Here’s what scientists have to say about Spanish vulture deaths :
Carrete, M et al (2009) “Large Scale Risk-Assessment of Wind-Farms on Population Viability of a Globally Endangered Long-Lived Raptor”, Biological Conservation doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2009.07.027
Recent research paper looking at effects of wind turbines on endangered long-lived raptors. Calls for more research on long term effects of wind farms on wildlife populations. Research in this particular study shows that wind farms decrease survival rates and hence significantly increases extinction probability. This research also suggests that short term monitoring of wildlife impacts is not adequate to assess actual impacts of wind farms on wildlife. The negative effects of wind farms could result in major impacts in a few decades and jeopordize wildlife conservation worldwide. Requests that turbines in risk zones should be located further than 15km away from nests.
***Remember, the wind industry continually denies this a problem, and they try and perpetuate the cats & birds nonsense… what does this tell you about their environmental credentials….***
More on eagles and wind farms here :
http://www.iberica2000.org/Es/Articulo.asp?Id=3071
I highly recommend this link for anyone who wants to see the reality of windfarms and eagles. For Australia and the Wedge-Tail Eagle this is a major concern.
A useful conference on wind and wildlife is here :
http://www.kutztown.edu/acad/geography/wildlife&windconf/conference_program2.htm
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Comment on Woolnorth eagle mortality by Stephen Debus, raptor specialist, PhD in zoology, University of New England
Click to access Yaloak_South_Debus_comments.pdf
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bryen when the coastline is dotted with NPP-desals people will complain that warmer and saltier water is harming the marine life. Therefore we may have to accept some wildlife mortality. Conceivably natural selection could favour raptors who keep well away from wind farms if other factors help survivors to breed up. I note ‘wedgies’ can also be rebound roadkill; recall TV footage of David Attenborough nearly running over a WTE feeding on a skittled kangaroo.
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John,
Fair comment, and I agree with your comment re wildlife mortality, some will have to be accepted. NPP-desal’s will be just as accountable for any environmental problems they may cause.
My point really though is that the wind industry sweeps it under the rug as if it doesn’t happen. There are many wildlife professionals around the world who are really concerned. Its a legitimate issue, and something most renewables advocates choose to ignore or put down with the cat kills comment, or are completely unaware of.
The truth is that with proper planning and honest environmental assessments by the wind industry much of it could easily be avoided. But avoidance costs money, which they dont like. Instead, as Save the Eagles International have pointed out, they falsify environmental assessments and put out industry spin.
I just want to make people aware the issue is real , some of these birds are endangered species after all, not your run of the mill crow (sorry crow’s).
This comment you made : “Conceivably natural selection could favour raptors who keep well away from wind farms if other factors help survivors to breed up.”
This doesn’t really happen. You should read the comments on Woolnorth, and the other links. The hills, ridges and mountains are their natural habitat. Wind farms are an intrusion on their existing habitat, which is becoming more and more fragmented. The wind farms currently in planing or mooted by such plans as BZE are truly enormous areas of land. Avoidance of large scale areas, such as wind farms also contributes to reduction in mortality, because of extra energy expended in habitat avoidance, **its not just being hit by turbine blades**. I cant emphasis this last point enough. The other issue is that raptors and other long lived birds have smaller reproductive cycles, hence mortality becomes significant a lot quicker.
Also bats are being killed in alarming and significant numbers. They are actually attracted to turbines, no one knows why definatively, cause of death is from barotrauma from the air around the blades.
Baerwald et al (2008) “Barotrauma is a Significant Cause of Bat Fatalities at Wind Turbines” Current Biology Vol18 No.16 pages R695-R696
Arnett, E, et al (2008) “Patterns of Bat Fatalities at Wind Energy Facilities in North America”, Journal Of Wildlife Management 72(1) pages 61–78
Kunz, T et al (2007) “Ecological Impacts of Wind Energy Development on Bats: Questions, Research, Needs, and Hypotheses”, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment Vol 5 No:6 pages 315-324
Kunz, T et al (2007) “Assessing Impacts of Wind-Energy Development on Nocturnally Active Birds and Bats: A Guidance Document”, Journal of Wildlife Management 71(8) pages 2449–2486
Kuvlesky, W et. al. (2007) “Wind Energy Development and Wildlife Conservation: Challenges and Opportunities”, Journal of Wildlife Management 71(8) pages 2487-2498
A case in point in Oz, the Yass Valley wind farm : a section of the windfarm was cut from the application & environmental assessment because they found that endangered species of bats nest within the section (Carrolls Ridge). They didn’t want to bugger up the chances of the entire wind farm being refused permission, so Epuron/Origin are going to apply for that section separately, perhaps… In my opinion Yass Valley windfarm shouldn’t be built at all anyway, it is situated in an area of national & internationally recognised critically endangered Box-Gum Grassy Woodland eco-system. The “development envelope” is about 7000 hectares, to give you an idea of how far and wide it will stretch for eagles trying to avoid the area. Of this area about 24 hectares of critically endangered woodlands will be removed (doesn’t sound like much, but there ain’t much left in NSW!).
The environmental assessment for Yass Valley WF really is a shocker, and I’ve seen some pretty bad ones by wind farm developers. If you can, take some time to look at the extensive environmental assessment documents the public had 30 days to prepare submissions on :
http://majorprojects.planning.nsw.gov.au/page/project-sectors/transport–communications–energy—water/generation-of-electricity-or-heat-or-co-generation/?action=view_job&job_id=2765
Anyway, flora & fauna, thats just one issue with windfarm’s, there are plenty of others of course. I’ll be looking forward to reading the Beyond Zero Emissions Zero Carbon Australia plan tomorrow and seeing where they intend to put the 48GW of wind farms their plan proposes, and how they have addressed the flora, fauna and other environmental issues that such a large scale plan throws up. Not to mention the technical / planning / timeframe aspects I mention on the TCASE 12 thread.
Sorry for the long comment / reply John, but I felt the point I was making did need to be clarified.
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eclipsenow, I like blunt. Blunt confronts. Blunt cuts through. One of the single greatest advertising slogans of all time is “Raid: Kills bugs dead.” You can’t get much blunter.
Most people seem to believe these things work. A direct, graceless challenge to that idea might be just the slap in the face they need.
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I thought this was interesting. May not be that useful… but it’s the last Japanese gen II reactor that will be built, 912MW, estimated at costing $2.5 billion, or 2700 per kilowatt.
http://www.power-technology.com/projects/tomari-3/
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Correction: Above I stated that UCS was “run by scientists.” After going through their “Meet our UCS Experts” page (http://www.ucsusa.org/news/experts/) I see that this is not so. Most of them seem to have degrees is policy fields and although some do have PhD’s in science, they went into policy anaylsis early in their careers. You might look up their Nuclear Power experts.
The UCS, to its credit, has long been very active in non-proliferation efforts. I think this may color their thinking. But I do think they are open minded. One thing to keep in mind is that in the U.S. the nuclear power industry was entangled with the nuclear arms industry via their suppliers of enriched uranium and their was always been a strong overlap between the peace and environmental movements.
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$7,000 per kilowatt of installed capacity for this useless solar plant:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jul/12/egypt-solar-power
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I just noticed Barry has put a link in the top left corner of the home page to vote for hiim as Australia’s “Best Science Blogger”. Since he’s obviously too modest to do so, I’ll pimp it for him. Go vote!
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Thanks John, though I abashedly admit I’m not too modest — just too busy today to do a post about it… until now!
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A first go at the FAQ page is now up:
https://bravenewclimate.com/faq/
I still need to do some final edits, and hope to add more relevant posts in due course. Then there’s still that plan for the site’s ‘storyline’, or at least a Table of Contents. Still working on that.
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It surely won’t be long before this story on South Korea wanting to pyrprocess will start doing the rounds.
It has some interest for us here in a positive sense.
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FYI, this letter sent to all Members of Parliament and Senators today:
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There’s a slashdot on nukes that could use a little support and backup.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/07/14/010205/Nuclear-Power-Could-See-a-Revival
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This is great: just have to share. It will probably drive Peter Lang nuts, and make Peter Lalor start foaming at the mouth about *something* (but what we all ask?) But here goes.
**********
Say No to Socialism
This morning I was awoken by my alarm clock powered by electricity generated by the public power monopoly regulated by the US Department of Energy. I then took a shower in the clean water provided by the municipal water utility. After that, I turned on the TV to one of the FCC regulated channels to see what the National Weather Service of the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration determined the weather was going to be like using satellites designed, built and launched by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. I watched this while eating my breakfast of US Department of Agriculture inspected food and taking the drugs which have been determined as safe by the Food and Drug Administration.
At the appropriate time, as regulated by the US congress and kept accurate by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the US Naval Observatory, I get into my National Highway Traffic Safety Administration approved automobile and set out to work on the roads built by the local, state and federal departments of transportation, possibly stopping to purchase additional fuel of a quality level determined by the Environmental Protection Agency, using legal tender issued by the Federal Reserve Bank. On the way out the door, I deposit any mail I have to be sent out via the US Postal Service and drop the kids off at the public school.
After work, I drive my NHTSA car back home on the DOT roads to my house, which has not burned down in my absence because of the state and local building codes and fire marshall’s inspection, and which has not been plundered of all its valuables thanks to the local police department.
I then log on to the internet, which was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration and post on freerepublic.com and fox news forums about how socialism in medicine is bad because the government can’t do anything right.
http://www.plunderbund.com/2010/03/24/say-no-to-socialism/
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You’re not Sheldon from The Big Bang are you?
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On solar storms and the grid
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lawrence-e-joseph/the-solar-katrina-storm-t_b_641354.html
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CON WITH THE WIND :
Con with the Wind is a passionate and inspirational look at the myths, facts and lies surrounding big business interests in the Wind Farm Goldrush.
Filmmaker and director Nigel Spence’s gripping documentary, shot in 15 countries over 3 years, exposes the truth and the real human, environmental and subsidy costs of wind turbines; a cost that the youth of today will be paying for the next 25 years.
http://www.conwiththewind.com/
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Anyone pro-nuke I can vote for?
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