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…
240 replies on “Open Thread 5”
Not sure if this has been posted before, but you can view how much each generation source is producing in France throughout the time of day here:
http://www.rte-france.com/fr/
Shows Nuclear load-follow…
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From Scott’s link, midday yesterday the contribution of coal to French electricity production was 4%, wind 1%. And here people are still trying to shut down coal plants with wind.
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The Con with the Wind main site is down for some reason.
The trailer is here :
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There’s a new form of wind turbine that compresses air first, then uses the compressed air to generate electricity. It reminds me a bit of CETO, only instead of compressed sea-water it compresses air. These turbines float out in the deep ocean and when there’s peak wind supply compress extra air into balloons deep under water, which can be built far cheaper than metal tanks to store compressed air on the surface. (The balloon uses the ocean).
Links are provided here. For what it’s worth I made a few comments on my blog to the effect of building out nuclear now until such time as a demonstrated new power source arrives, and not delaying nukes on rumour and whimsy and wishful thinking.
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I hope you all read between the lines above that the balloons were about cheap storage. It’s costed at about $1000 per mWh! But no commercial scale models exist yet: they’re due next year.
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I made a few comments on my blog to the effect of building out nuclear now until such time as a demonstrated new power source arrives
I think this is a very sensible approach to responding to the renewable energy advocates. Positive and non-threatening.
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Oh, most important bit about this ‘baseload wind’ story is that it aired on the Science Show. So it must be true! ;-)
http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2010/2952227.htm
Aussies listening to the ABC Science Show will be persuaded that we don’t need nuclear power.
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eclipsenow@13:26
An excellent question. I can’t remember ever finding the voting options so unsatisfactory as at this election, and not just on the climate/energy issue.
However, I did see this reported today:
Sorry the original source is behind a paywall; hopefully I’m staying within the bounds of copyright in posting these slightly edited excerpts.
Is this enough to warrant an editorial endorsement of the Coalition from BNC? Or would this be a step too alienating for someone like Fran Barlow? (In light of the above, Fran, I’d love to know how you’re voting, if you don’t mind me asking).
The only other alternative I’m aware of is Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy – Australia”, but sadly they seem to be struggling; I don’t know that they’re even fielding any candidates.
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I know passionately Labor people, as in life-time members of the party, who are planning to Donkey vote in protest.
I used to vote Green but now that I’m pro-nuclear… ?
Being the ‘Watermelon’ that I am, I’d only vote Liberal if they were definitely going to roll out a large nuclear plan overnight. I haven’t heard anything that strong from them yet, so I’m not voting on a whimsical statement.
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There does seem to be some movement in the right direction, according to these stories in The Australian:
Political parties urged to face up to nuclear power issue
Nuclear power plants ‘by 2025’
Thanks to Finrod for drawing my attention to these, via the Nucleus 92 facebook page.
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Further to John Morgan @ 21.38, when something like this excellent piece, Tassie should turn nuclear appears in the Hobart Mercury, the tide may just be beginning to turn.
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The article in the Mercury suggests that dwindling hydro should be reserved for peaking power, not baseload. It should also be pointed out that since the Basslink underwater HVDC cable commenced in 2006 over 25% of the State’s electricity needs have been imported, probably attributable to brown coal. However the cable can only import or export 500 MW at a time.
I live in the southern part of Tas and I’d happily have an AP1000 next door rather than logging. I’m not sure about the argument for heat co-generation for the Bell Bay aluminium smelter. Gas for the nearby Bell Bay combined and open cycle plant comes from wells just off the Victorian coast. When they run out we’ll be in strife. Ditto climate change.
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Mark
I see no reason for giving effective preferences to either major party. I will be giving both the same number on my ballot, which will probably make my vote informal. In short, my voting practice will be what it has been in every (local, state and federal) election since 1977.
I will vote 1 to the Greens despite being seriously opposed to ther policy on nuclear power. On every other issue (asylum seekers, Afghanistan, carbon price, mining resource sharing, environment general, IR, education, infrastructure, urban planning, welfare policy, tax policy general, civil rights, internet filter, gay marriage, euthanasia) they are positively distinguished from the majors.
Self-evidently, I could not advocate a vote to the coalition unless they were to at least become a liberal party in these other areas.
It’s just a shame that our system makes voting for one of the majors compulsory if you want it to be counted.
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As to the possibility of BNC endorsing one of the majors (or indeed any party) I think this would be most unwise. The strength of this site is its focus on policy and its desire to avoid becoming entangled in partisan argy bargy.
One cannot serve two masters and were this site to see its interests in backing one party, the question would inevitably arise — what does Professor Brook believe about [list other policy areas]? What mkind of policy tradeoffs for supporting Party X is he willing to make? That would take the focus of this site off what it does most usefully.
If one of the parties were to explicitly endorse a viable transition timeline and policy for the roll out of nuclear power, then it would be appropriate to endorse that policy. I certainly would argue earnestly for it, even if it were the coalition proposing it. Just recently for example, when the coalition proposed abandoning funding for global carbon capture, I endorsed it. If the coalition were to propose abandonment of MRET and FiTs and subsidies for rooftop solar or other renwewables, I’d back that too. Mind you, I’d be wanting to see other subsidies for fossil thermal removed as well. I’m against subsidising LPG conversions for cars too.
People have to make up their minds about these things and vote accordingly.
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So, Scott Ludlam likes to carry on with scary-nooklear rhetoric, even when we’re discussing nuclear medicine.
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/breaking-news/researcher-denies-radiation-spill/story-e6frea7l-1225789447285
So, okay, a vial of Mo-99 was dropped inside the hot cell, but it wasn’t even broken. This has nothing to do with the HIFAR reactor and certainly has nothing to do with nuclear power, it occurred during packaging or processing of the Mo-99 to be sent to a hospital where it would be used as a source of Tc-99m.
Perhaps Ludlam would like to clarify his position on radiopharmaceuticals or nuclear medicine?
Even if such radionuclides were imported (which burdens other countries with the supposed grave risks and dangers associated with research reactors while we take the benefits), such radiochemistry, processing, packaging and handling of the radionuclides still needs to be done in Australia.
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“I will vote 1 to the Greens despite being seriously opposed to ther policy on nuclear power”
I agree. While I disagree strongly with their energy mantra, at least a vote for them might get the major parties (mostly Labor, who end up getting the Green votes anyway) at least TALKING about climate and energy again. Both of these issues have dropped off the radar in this years election campaigning. Pretty disheartening.
I think Green’s stance on GM is a bit neo-luddite too…
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Tom said:
I agree. There’s nothing wrong in principle with GM crops. Whether any particular GM crop ought to be taken up is something one should decide having regard to all the salient data in context.
It seems to me that the most troubling generic problem with GM may be a commercial one — that those producing non-GM crops remain able to sue when harmed by cross contamination, instead of themselves being sued for patent breach.
Another indirect problem (which goes to competitiveness) is about tailoring crops to resist application of particular pesticides, which obviously puts agricultural producers at a disadvantage when new and perhaps better pesticides emerge.
Still … slightly off topic …
More on topic, if The Greens could be persuaded to drop their anti-nuclear mantra in favour of “a level playing field based on sound evidence” we would have taken a huge step forward in this country. I think we are some way from achieving this, but the people I talk to are now a lot less unsympathetic and hysterical. Some Greens I speak to say they think the case can be made. I always get a better hearing when I point out that the big coal and petro-chemical companies would hate it and that electric vehicles would then become a lot cleaner.
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A Greens vote this time around could be regarded as work experience or probation. Screw up and they’ll never get hired again. For all I know the Greens might be right about policies like free heroin. The idea is to punish the Liberals for denial and Labor for dithering.
A couple of times in recent weeks I’ve dropped in on the logging protest camp in Tasmania’s Florentine Valley. Some of the bedraggled protesters living under tarpaulins strike me as more rational than their city counterparts who never move an inch outside their mental or physical comfort zone. It seems some greenies do have an open mind. If not it may be a long wait to the next chance. Deniers and do-nothings have already had their chance and blown it.
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CSP with molten salt heat storage opens. The fan-boys are chatting.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/07/23/0125235/Worlds-First-Molten-Salt-Solar-Plant-Opens
Their excuse for the price is fair enough: first of a kind: prototype. We use that!
But annual and seasonal performance will be where the rubber hits teh road.
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Heads Up All!
Attention: Enigma, John Morgan and Ewen especially
I have a family commitment in Newcastle, so sadly, I can’t make it … but others might.
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I suppose I shouldn’t need to add this but I will anyway …
If some of us do attend, I think we should be determined to stay on message and not become frustrated, rise to bait or allow any reasonable person to see us as ranting trolls with an agenda. Above all we should resist personalising the issue or attacking the Greens or calling their supporters “woolly headed” or similar. Nobody can accept that, and the onjly people we will impress will be ourselves and the one or two others that might already dislike the Greens.
BNC folk should go there apparently to seek a satisfactory answer to one basic question:
What suite of solutions is most likely to provide Australia and the world with cost-acceptable, timely, irreversible, low environmental footprint, industrial scale and quality energy?
We are keen to move beyond slogans and feel good. The sitation is too urgent for that. We want solutions that can meet these criteria in an acceptable time frame.
Just my opinion …
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Huw Jones asks,
If Blees were to choose to respond, he probably would refer the question to me.
The heavy alkanes, IIRC approximately C10H22 through C20H42, that are burned by existing jet engines can be provided for them by nuclear kerosene plants. If coastal, these might extract CO2 from limestone and disperse the leftover CaO into offshore winds, so that it reuptook CO2 from the air and the surface waters.
The CO2 might be reacted with hydrogen produced by water electrolysis. Look up Fischer-Tropsch, which turns synthesis gas — CO plus H2 — into any desired linear alkane and water, and methanol-to-gasoline, MTG, since with appropriate catalysis H2 and CO2 go to methanol and water in one step, and the methanol can, like synthesis gas, be further turned into liquid hydrocarbon and water by well-developed methods.
Since this would be carbon-neutral, the only remaining climate-related difficulty would be the deposition of water vapour in the stratosphere, which in its natural state is very dry. Pure liquid hydrogen propulsion seems to offer some advantages, but is at a disadvantage with respect to sogging up the stratosphere, since of course it yields more water per joule than a hydrocarbon does.
For boron to serve in aircraft propulsion, there would have to be advantages that would justify trailing large amounts of B2O3 in the air behind the craft. This may be all right, over the ocean anyway:
That’s mostly natural, and works out as 25.6-to-34.1 million tonnes of boric acid annually. (A B2O3 dust trail would quickly take water out of the air it was in, forming boric acid.)
The boric acid concentration in the ocean is such that the theoretical minimum energy cost of extracting this oxidized boron is 0.05 of the energy that can then be stored by deoxidizing it. Real energy costs of extraction tend to be much higher than theoretical minima, but if an exception can be developed for B, it may yet fly. (One always spends several units of primary energy at a fuel-making plant to get one unit in the fuel. Another few-times-0.05 units might be OK.)
These considerations of the energy cost of recovering B2O3 from dispersal in the environment don’t apply to land transport, where there is no need to let it disperse in the first place.
(Who has a job for me?)
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Thank you very much G.R.L. Cowan! I had studied the Fisher-Tropsch process before, and was unsure if it could be used in conjunction with Nuclear Power – I’m very interested to hear that it can.
Do you know if this has ever been tried?
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I suspect it has not. But a nuclear reactor takes cool fluid in and sends hot fluid out. If you tell it you’re putting the hot fluid into a Foscher-Tripsch cyclone, it won’t know any better.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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Thanks Fran … I should be able to get to at least some of it …
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Okay BNCers, time to get some comment over here on ABC Environment:
Nuclear Power – No Thanks!
My “Nuclear Power – Yes Please!” post will appear tomorrow, and I’ll reproduce it on BNC soon after.
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Comment on Keith Orchison’s post here: http://www.businessspectator.com.au/bs.nsf/Article/power-energy-Deloitte-base-load-pd20100721-7K8VP?OpenDocument&src=kgb
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Here is a job for someone – critique this:
http://new.dpi.vic.gov.au/energy-future/what-is-government-doing/info-library
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@a Barlow: your Growth Cornucopian support of GMOs, supported also by the now defunct Canadian Rye Drinker AKA DV8XL is at variance for economic incentive reasons with the “terra preta” biochar and other similar Soil Carbon Sink arguments.
As propounded by Australia’s own Bill Mollison and David Holmgren (permaculture) and Vananda Shiva, the Indian radical ecologist who as atomic physicist worked inside India’s CANDU (sic), enriching soil C02 content via biochar or permacultural no-till soil building counteracts global warming.
Irrespective of whether Shiva’s recent claim that such methods can absorb 40% of current atmospheric C02 inside 3 years stands up in its entirety, your naive agribusiness-friendly support of GMOs counteracts all this.
Because no farmer planting GMOs has any incentive to enrich soil quality: he focusses on yield, his whiz-bang farm machines and his pesticides/fungicides.
Your GMO Brave New Worldism reminds me of the Soviet scientists who wanted to reverse the flow of the rivers in the USSR: check out the Aral Sea cotton-growing disaster.
Are you related to Lysenko by any chance?
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peter lalor: take a look at stewart brand’s book.
he’s got an interesting discussion of gmo/organic farming convergence.
He cites a book, Tomorrow’s Table: Organic Farming, Genetics and the Future of Food by Pamela Ronald and Raoul Adamchuk.
The latter is an organic farmer who thinks genetic engineering (which is pretty much what crossing plants is, btw) can and should be integrated into sustainable farming practices, and prized apart from corporate ag.
It seems to me reductionist to associate a technology with the social relations embedding that technology. GMO is not intrinsically “corporate” anymore than nuclear is intrinsically tied to “free markets” or solar is tied to peace and love economies.
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Perhaps he has just become more Lysenko-like over time.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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Exactly.
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And one might add, Greg, that the reductio ad absurdum is to see all instantiations of bourgeois rule as anathema and to iterate Year Zero, Democratic Kampuchea, (post-April 1975)
Rational humans take from the past that which is valuable.
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Yes, Fran. Among other things, I’m okay with the traditional calendar.
As Ben Kiernan shows, the KR gang actually looted and sold off C’s natural resources.
GRL, if the Lysenko comment is a Lamarck joke, good one.
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On the series of papers on Victoria’s clean energy future I’ve looked at some of the smaller pdf files and they appear to be mostly platitudes. On ABC ‘Q&A’ last night the issue was raised of replacing Hazelwood brown coal fired station with gas so I looked at the paper on gas. Well duh it said it would be more expensive. I believe the fuel cost could be 10X as expensive as brown coal even without CO2 penalties.
The other issue completely overlooked in the smaller papers is the longevity of Victoria’s gas reserves. Note that Adelaide’s 1.28 GW baseload closed cycle power station draws on Victoria’s Otway Basin as well as the Moomba SA pipeline. Tasmania’s increasingly necessary gas fired generation draws on Bass Strait. Note Tas hydro dams are just 34% full as of mid winter.
Not that I want to be critical of Melbourne but it got by for nearly 200 years before drawing water from the Murray Darling system. Add Australia’s largest desal at Wonthaggi with no pretence yet of a windpower ‘offset’ . I guess you can’t help progress. Right now it looks like Victoria will keep Hazelwood going until retirement in 2030. Just keep bamboozling the public with platitudes.
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That’s about it isn’t it John? Where’s Derrin Hynch to say “Shame shame shame!”
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USA electric power statistics —
Gneration by type:
Coal 22.87-2.01
nuclear 8.13
natgas 5.99
hydro 2.71
biomass 0.53
geothermal 0.28
wind 0.15
solar 0.006
petroleum — not stated
totaling 38.0 of which 25.54 goes to electrical generation, transmission and distribution losses, leaving but 12.46 for distributed electircity.
That a lotta loss!
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I forgoet to do the subtraction for coal generation: 20.86
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David Benson,
You’ve misunderstood something there. The loss would be around 3% for transmission and 5% for distribution – ie around 8% total.
By the way, the losses would be higher with distributed generation.
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@Leftoids Meyerson and Barlow:
http://www.zcommunications.org/haitian-peasants-march-against-monsanto-company-for-food-and-seed-sovereignty-by-la-via-campesina
So it is time for you two to get out to Haiti to lecture the peasants on their “false consciousness”. Good luck, watch out for the machetes, y’all hear me now?
Meyerson, your comprehension of genetic plant engineering is less than zero. Quit citing me ex- US paratrooper and Californian liberal corporate shill Stewart Brand, check out Vananda Shiva instead.
Your appreciation of global power relations is lamentable: GMOs, which are annuals, are de facto a rich US man’s cash-crop-for-export weapon to destroy food security in the South based inter alia on permaculture-style perennials. But do you know what a perennial is? Did you ever read Marxist Mike Davis on the 19th century famines caused by the British cash-cropping in South Asia?
Roll on US agribusiness and its local GMO compradors (joke).
In closing it is striking that you and Barlow ignore the postulated short-term carbon sink benefits of rebuilding global soils. That rebuilding is utterly inimical to the agribusiness for which you are apologists.
@Barlow: your farcical insinuation that anti-GMO = “Pol Pot anti-urbanism anno Cambodia 1975” is naturally refuted by the millions of organic food security farmers in the world who you and your (presumably ) Leninist ilk need to destroy for your democratic centralism. Time to collectivise the kolchose again, Ukraine 1930s?
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Peter Lang, on 27 July 2010 at 12.24 — Perhaps you are right, once you have electricity. Now include the loss in going from thermal to electricity.
Considering my reference source, the numbers have to be % of total in joules.
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Here in the PNW there is currently installed about 3 MW of wind with trasmission capacity of 4 MW; more transmission lines are in the works. The power so produced costs 8–12 cents/kWh (retail I assume).
That is expensive since my electirc utility bill consists of a US$6/month basic change plus 6+ cents/kWh. That consits of about 50% jydro and the rest some natgas and lotsa coal.
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And tiny fractions from one regional nuclear and one more local wood burner. No geothermal yet.
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Two items on stationary vs transport demand for natural gas in the Rod Adams blog and the 2010 Gaseous Fuels Conference. Bottom line is that it is short sighted to rely on gas for electrical generation when it is the most affordable replacement for petroleum.
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I’m having a debate on fuel reprocessing on another website…
I seem to remember a link posted here a while back that linked to a study showing the overall public dose caused by La Hague and Sellafield. If anyone can link that to me that would be great…
Thanks.
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Apologies if this has already been pointed out elsewhere on BNC, but this analysis of the current prospects for solar thermal on Climate Spectator today (free registration required) is well worth a read. It uses phrases like needing to ‘shave costs’, but reading between the lines and joining the dots, you get a picture of a technology that is still a very long way from commercial practicality.
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scott:
from Lovelock, quoted in Brand:
“Sandy and I stood on all the French high-level nuclear waste at La Hague in Normandy. The radiation level on my own monitor was only 0.25 microsieverts an hour, which is about 20 times less than you’d find in any long-distance passenger plane.” (106, Brand)
so that’s 6 microsieverts/day; 2190/year, which means 2.190 millisieverts, which means 219 mrems.
Right?
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Found this gem:
http://www.nucleartownhall.com/blog/townhall-qa-nuclears-dr-no-on-china-syndrome-nrc-new-build/
Apparently the reason investors don’t invest in Nuclear is because of the reliability of the plants… [/sarcasm]
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yeah Peter Lalor:
I’ve read Mike Davis’ Late Victorian Holocausts (and every other book he has written) and Vandana Shiva (water wars etc). You act like you’re 25.
You’re conflating a technology and the social relations under which it would operate. You don’t think, Peter. You engage in guilt by association. I’ve known and made your arguments about corporate export ag for 30 years.
Organic farming can be, has been and will be corporatized. It’s still a good idea.
Developing flood resistant rice thru genetic engineering seems like a good thing to me. can it be used by agribusiness to drive small farmers out of business? yes, of course. It’s not inevitable that technologies be used by Monsanto, ala “terminator seed” infamy.
Your political description of Brand is fairly accurate. But he says many true things (and many false things–as do you), as does Peter Lang when he does energy budgets.
No one is ignoring rebuilding soil, you idiot. I do it in my own garden. Just because we didn’t discuss it in one single post does not mean we’re “ignoring it,” or it’s a “blind spot.”
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scott:
that’s a good article. surprising. tells us to keep an open mind about people we might be inclined to demonize (Lochbaum).
g
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Calling all Sydney NUKIES! Just got this in my email. Anyone up for some Sydney Argie-bargie at this event?
*****
Dear All
This is an Epping event that you may be interested in attending (sorry about the short notice).
Ryde Epping Greens – Climate Solutions Forum http://rydeeppinggreens.org.au/2010/07/19/climate-solutions-forum
Saturday 31 July, 12.30 – 3.30pm
Join us to discuss the Greens’ carbon tax proposal and solutions to climate change.
12.30 to 1.15pm – Showing of the film ’The Future Makers’
1.15 to 1.30pm – Jonathan Jutsen – on tackling energy efficiency
1.30 to 2.00pm – Break for tea, coffee & sandwiches
2.00 to 2.15pm – Lee Rhiannon – on why the Greens opposed Labor’s CPRS and the Greens carbon tax proposal etc.
2.15 to 2.45pm – Mark Diesendorf – on why there are no technical barriers stopping Australia from making the transition from a fossil-fuelled economy to a 100% renewable energy economy within a few decades.
2.45 to 3.30pm – Q&A session with Lee Rhiannon, Mark Diesendorf and Jonathan Jutsen
Venue: Boronia Grove Function Centre, 49 Rawson St, Epping 2121. (Behind the Epping Club — parking next to Coles)
Speakers: Lee Rhiannon (Greens Senate candidate), Mark Diesendorf (Institute of Environmental Studies, UNSW) & Jonathan Jutsen (Energetics). RSVP for catering. For more info call 0429 872 525 or http://rydeeppinggreens.org.au/#
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@ Greg
Either that or taken over by the State if GreenLeft get their way and usher in a socialist utopia. ;-)
But I take your point: it will have to become large scale and systematised as only 5% of the western world work in producing our food. Peak phosphorus and peak oil are on the way, so the challenges to traditional big-ag are on. The pressure to change is there.
My concern is that Departments of waste management and sewerage need to be co-ordinating everything from where our sewerage goes to what happens to our green-bin biowaste, and how is it all going to get back to our farms? Because it needs to. Somehow, someway, it needs to. If I ran the world I’d put all council green waste through biochar cookers and train it out to the farms, and have departments of waste and town planning talking to each other about how to produce food more locally.
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Something completely off topic: My review of Inception
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I don’t think I can make it EN. Just as well since I’d probably start a fight. And since I’ve just spent the last hour bare knuckle fighting and have a couple of dislocated fingers strapped, its probably best that way.
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What that? You into CAGE fighting or something?
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eclipse, my point, a small one, was that practices like organic farming and even GE take their meaning from their context. we should be careful not to condemn a practice or technology outright, unless there’s good evidence that it is harmful.
and right now, coal is harmful. On the other hand, GE that confers “submergence tolerance” is not a bad thing, though as I noted even this can be used to drive small farmers out of business or to suicide.
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that’s “GE rice that confers ‘submergence tolerance'”
g
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Or something. Never fought in a cage though, my time has probably passed for that. Sadly.
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Here’s a dreamer for you! I wish his dream all the luck in the world.
From Sciam
***
“Hoff, an impassioned climate evangelist, published a book in 2008 titled “CO2: A Gift From Heaven,” which argues that policymakers should leave the climate debate aside and focus on planting trees. Planting 5 billion acres of trees — about 2.5 times the surface area of Canada — would be enough to offset annual emissions of 10 billion metric tons of CO2, he calculates.”
http://tinyurl.com/33alvua
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@eclipsenow, I hope Mr Hoff has done his homework, starting with this. Unless the new trees go in the tropics, they will actually make the planet hotter, because their albedo reduction outweighs their carbon capture.
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I went along as an observer but there wasn’t a lot of scope to ask questions. I got a chance during the break to chat to a few people and at least some did seem open to nuclear being on the table.
Diesendorf and Jutsen made much of energy efficiency and Diesendorf of CST. Some guy there was going on about Australia being a “coal mule” and another older woman seemed to be fussed about how useful her CFLs were.
Typically, nobody on the panel talked installed or connection costs and seemed to be arguing that connection costs ought to be borne by the state.
Hmmm ….
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I think Scott is referring to the maximum dose contribution that an outside member of the public could possibly get – this is a very small figure, and it’s related to how much radioactivity could be released into the air and water.
Nobody stands in the rooms where the entirety of France’s vitrified fission product waste is stored for a whole year, certainly not a member of the public.
Unfortunately, no, I don’t have any relevant data on possible off-site public dose from La Hague.
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Shameless plug:
http://www.youngausskeptics.com/2010/07/does-nuclear-energy-have-the-answers-we-need/
:)
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right luke:
but working out the numbers even for standing on top of the “waste pile” is worth doing. 219 mr ain’t much. and it would translate to near nothing for ordinary members of the public.
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to luke weston:
terrific piece rebutting Ludlam. I hope it’s read widely.
and barry, you’re posting great material in twitter.
I’d like to hear your response to the smil piece you posted:
which makes many of the arguments (albeit from a different political/economic perspective) that I have tried to make about speed of energy transition.
Smil takes world markets for granted:
This is useful for it raises a huge challenge for any market based energy transition.
If smil is right (and Robert Bryce bases his argument largely on smil), what implications does this have for addressing climate change in time?
g
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Yes, fantastic piece Luke.
I just posted a link to the article on the Greensblog website discussion of Ludlum’s article. The anti spam captcha text I had to enter to register my comment was:
“curses Luke”
Spooky!
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Why such high cost estimates on the nuclear cost wiki?
April 2008 — Georgia Power Company reached a contract agreement for two AP1000 reactors to be built at Vogtle,[17] at an estimated final cost of $14 billion plus $3 billion for necessary transmission upgrades.[18]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economics_of_new_nuclear_power_plants
VERY depressing! If I limit my reading diet to only here, I get the picture that every-thing’s rosy on costs.
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greg, I think the implication of Smil’s piece, accepting it as basically correct, is clear:
1. We are in for pain, climatically speaking, as the transition away from fossil fuels will take decades even in the best-case scenario.
2. We must build HUNDREDS (or 1000s) of Gen III thermal nuclear plants NOW (within the next 2 decades) whilst also actively pursuing Gen IV so that it is the principal option by about 2030.
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EN, the Georgia AP1000 estimate is inflated by US risk uncertainty. It is extreme FOAK pricing. But even at that cost, which includes full balance of plant costs and transmission upgrades (usually left out of price quotes for solar and wind), the cost is about $8,000 / kWave, which is cheaper than wind with backup and far cheaper than CSP or PV.
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As a Christian, I just wanted to apologise for the way some of my fellow-‘Christians’ are behaving this election.
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IEEE Spectrum has a nice overview article on a number of current and new nuclear reactor designs. Rectors covered:
Conventional PWR
AP1000
EPR
Nuscale
Hyperion
Toshiba 4S
Pebble Bed
Terrapower
Missing from their list:
CANDU
IFR
LFTR
Reactors Redux
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Sorry, ‘reactors’. Nothing clerical about that list.
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Malcolm Fraser, in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning:
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Malcolm Fraser, in the Sydney Morning Herald this morning:
The same article appeared in the Age on Friday:
http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/without-a-global-ban-nuclear-conflict-is-only-a-matter-of-time-20100805-11kmm.html
With the difference that the Age has a comments thread atttached.
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A couple of questions about global warming still stick out in my mind. I’m pretty sure it’s true, but I haven’t able to find any way to explain this… What caused the warming between 1900-1940 and why did temperature drop from 1940-1970 when humans started to burn hydrocarbons in vast quantities?
Thanks in advance.
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Short answer: global dimming.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_dimming
Global dimming started to decline as clean coal laws came into place back in the 1970’s. Clean coal is nothing to do with greenhouse emissions but rather sulphur emissions. Acid rain and pollution was a real problem.
The interesting thing is this is a geoengineering solution if global warming starts to run away from us. The wiki explains it would only cost $50 billion a year to fly jets full of sulphur 10 k up, dump it up there, where it would ‘shield’ the earth of a tiny fraction of the sunlight, effectively cooling the earth. See more here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_sulfur_aerosols_%28geoengineering%29
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Here they go! The official launch of the Renewable energy plan occurs this Thursday night in Sydney.
It’s one great big credible sounding promo, and if I was just an outsider to the energy discussion looking in, it would make sense to me. Anyone going? (Thursday nights are out for me).
Or does anyone get a right of response in various media situations this might throw open?
http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/45022
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Scott, on 9 August 2010 at 21.34 — eclipsenow, above, provided part of the answer. The other part is that the AMO was in decline, indicating a speed up of MOC rate.
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Review of the German press, eg ww.google.de has 500+ News stories on this at present:
There is currently the fact that Greenpeace Moscow among others is warning against playing down the effects of Russian wildfires having reached the Brjansk region contaminated in 1986: German Weather Service has been monitoring wind direction from Russia to the order of German Federal Ministry of Radiation protection and Ministry of Interior for days.
Russia Ministry for Catastrophe Protection apparently addressed this last week.
BNC geeks are called upon to go into anti-Caldicott mode so as to explain that even if Caesium bound up in Russian birch bark has a half life of 30 yrs, it doesn’ t mean Chernobyl II.
By the way, compare also T Blees statement about not needing a nuclear accident at present.
Thinking further: if extreme AGW dryness mean more bushfires of this type, the relationship of NPPs to such fires needs review, not that countries that could roll out NPPs have 1986 fallout lying around the “bush” like Russia does.
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You are an idiot, Lalor. Why do you persist in insulting the people on this blog? All you’re doing is showing yourself up as a judgmental wanker.
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Hi guys, would someone on BNC please read this report and tell me what your opinions are?
http://offshorevaluation.org/
Thanks,
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The following slashdot will probably need some follow up. Seems like there’s some big claims for how Portugal’s doing.
***
“It appears that some countries in oil-poor Europe are making a successful transition to renewable energy at a fast and steady pace. This article talks about the small country of Portugal on the West Coast of Europe, known for its white sand beaches, oranges, fish, and wines. Portugal has no oil, but lots of sun and wind. Five years ago, the government decided, against many dissenting voices, to invest massively in taking advantage of the country’s natural resources in clean energy. The results are here. It used to be a heavy energy importer, but now it exports it.”
http://hardware.slashdot.org/story/10/08/12/0055225/Portugal-Gives-Itself-a-Clean-Energy-Makeover
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I think I’m already seeing where the answer to this conundrum is: the kind of renewbles. Their lights stay on when the wind dies because they have hydropower! Most good sites for large scale hydro-power have been used, and the ones that are left probably have more value as national parks and ecosystem services.
***
In making the shift, Portugal has overcome longstanding concerns about reliability and high cost. The lights go on in Lisbon even when the wind dies down at the vast two-year-old Alto Minho wind farm. The country’s electricity production costs and consumer electricity rates — including the premium prices paid for power from renewable sources — are about average for Europe, but still higher than those in China or the United States, countries that rely on cheap coal.
Portugal says it has kept costs down by focusing heavily on the cheapest forms of renewable energy — wind and hydropower — and ratcheting down the premium prices it pays to lure companies to build new plants.
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Re: Portugal’s renewables
The lights stay on when the wind stops because nearly all of Portugal’s renewables come from hydro.
Click to access renewables_pt_en.pdf
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I wonder how much they buy in from nuclear France?
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eclipsenow it could be Portugal has learnt something from Basil Fawlty namely ‘don’t mention the energy imports’ which are a mere 83.6% of consumption. Source. Could be the special deals they offer to heavy industry are based on repackaged coal and nuclear imported from neighbouring countries perhaps wangled with a few carbon credits.
The fudges don’t end there since they don’t split ‘renewables’ between wind, solar and hydro though we may suspect the latter predominates. The key question is whether they increase electricity consumption without importing any more.
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According to Crikey the new baseload power plants for NSW will be air cooled and ‘carbon capture ready’. The hot bits will be either black coal heating supercritical water or combined cycle gas. The gas presumably will be from coal seams not natgas.
Given that I recall ACIL Tasman said that air cooling erased the 20% efficiency gain of supercritical at Kogan Ck Qld (now solar ‘boosted’) I wonder just what the effect would be of the triple whammy of new burning technology, air cooling and CCS. In the case of supercritical coal the CCS energy penalty is 24-40%
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
Does that mean we can add another 20% for air cooling? That is for supercritical coal with air cooling and CCS the energy penalty could go as high as 60%?
It’s not gonna happen. If/when these new fossil power stations are built they will remain ‘capture ready’ for decades and somehow never get around to actual CCS. Another stalling tactic by Big Coal and their partners in crime the Federal and State governments.
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Ian Macfarlane (Liberal) canned carbon capture at the Liberal mining and resource announcement today, saying it had taken too long and simply not produced results. These links doesn’t have the transcript but it lays out some of the details. I listened to the announcement on ABC News Radio.
http://www.liberal.org.au/Latest-News/2010/08/14/Real-Action-on-Mining-and-Resources.aspx
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/08/14/2982935.htm
Macfarlane had been well known as a climate skeptic and coal supporter but seems to have had conversion on the way to Damascus some year in the last couple of years.
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Carbon capture and sequestration as part of a coal-fired plant are, as John Newlands says, sham. However, the energy cost of capture from air is significantly less, and unlike electricity plants, a peridotite strewing plant can be scaled up far beyond 1 GW.
Finely divided M2SiO4 (M=Mg, Ca) is the only thing that has been demonstrated to take large amounts of CO2 from air permanently and cheaply, but if, during the construction of a coal-fired power plant on peridotite terrain, a huge pit were made in the peridotite, with the waste pipe being laid so as to dump at the pit bottom, and the removed rock put back in in coarse chunks and heaped up above, the much higher concentration of CO2 in the waste, compared to air, would make the reaction quicker, and its heat could accumulate under all the gravel and eventually be used. n
That is to say, the electricity yield per unit coal could be more than if the waste gas were just dumped. Some of my recent notes on this:
(How fire can be domesticated)
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@Cowan: you state that M2 Si 04 is the only thing demonstrated to take large amounts of C02 from the air cheaply.
James Lovelock and Indian ex-CANDU worker and physicist Vananda Shiva refer to terra preta/biochar as an effective carbon sink. No-till agriculture/permaculture of any variety is a carbon sink.
While this is admittedly not a technofix such as may provide jobs to power engineers made redundant by the move away from FF, it appears tried and tested, unlike CCS.
Only land ownership by monoculture and GMO corporate pushers (favoured by BNC by default or explicitly) appear to stand in the way of this.
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GRL Cowan as it happens I just got back from a ramble over large piles of crushed peridotite excavated in the 1970s in the search for platinum group elements. The geology report says it is layered harzburgite-dunite with 87% forsterite. My impression is that the reaction rate is far too slow to absorb significant atmospheric CO2. Cracks in the rock show minor infilling of carbonate minerals like magnesite some of which may have been washed into the creeks. When I can quantify the reaction rate I’ll report back but my impression is that even rain affected pulverised peridotite won’t weather quickly. Whether flue gas with 13% w/w CO2 would react quicker I can’t say.
FWIW I don’t think much of biochar either. I think a good way to reduce CO2 is to not burn coal.
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See Air Capture, especially the comments. There are about 237 of them. I did a noise-reduction and got my copy down to 58. Email me if you would like me to send it to you.
Lalor quotes me inexactly, and leaves out the significant word permanently. The “Blockquote” tag is your friend.
(How fire can be domesticated)
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Election rant: there’s no one to vote for!
The “L’s” are almost exactly the same. They’re 6 of 1, half a dozen of the other. Sickening. There’s no choice. They’re running to the cowardly middle so fast that they are are sickeningly similar. What a cowardly election this is! Spend a bit here, save a bit there, it’s all the same rubbish to me.
The Greens don’t support nuclear power, and don’t talk about peak oil or population anywhere near as much as they should. At least Dick Smith stirred up the population debate last week!
With peak oil bearing down on us, I just feel sick in my guts when I look at the sheer blandness of this election. It’s like grabbing that coffee you’ve been looking forward to, taking a sip and gagging because it’s cold.
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Great, now some nutter at Online Opinion has put up a nuke-sceptic site.
Anyone got a reply to this site?
http://www.theleaneconomyconnection.net/nuclear/index.html
The reply needs to go in here: I’ve already used my 2 posts / day limit on this thread.
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=10827&page=2
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Sometimes doomers are just too funny! I’ve had a bad run in with doomers lately, but this book just makes me laugh. The cover looks like Eric Bana dressed as a caveman.
Thing is, I probably should get this book sometime as I’m thinking of writing a Steampunk post-apocalypse novel for kids. Kind of like Harry Potter meets Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang 20 years after the super-virus wipes 98% of the population out.
But I can’t say any more… it might give away my trade secrets! ;-)
Now, over to “Be ready when the Sh*t goes down!”
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One of my anti-nuke buddies sent me this link:
http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2010/2010-04-26-01.html
which is a press release for a new book claiming 1,000,000 were killed as a result of Chernobyl. I’d love to hear what some of the experts around here think of this.
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Someone has posted here a while back on the load following ability of the French power reactors. Possibly it was DV82XL. Can anyone locate that post or inform me what the ramp rate is?
(For the purposes of dealing with this argument from an editorialist at Climate Spectator.)
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@ John, try http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html (scroll down almost half way).
The upshot seems to be that nuclear can load-follow. It appears the reason for exporting 30% of French output overnight has much more to do with meeting German and Danish shortfalls (and we all know why that is) than a need to offload capacity.
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The editors at Climate Spectator have deleted my following post:
‘Jeremiah Blogger’ has misattributed some of John Morgan’s commentary to me. A forgivable error, but interesting, as the same habit of misattribution of a debate opponent’s quotes has also been one of Carlo’s idiosyncrasies.
Dude, if you’re going to employ a sock puppet, you need to look out for giveaways like that.
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Sorry, that should be:
The editors at Climate Spectator have deleted my following post:
‘Jeremiah Blogger’ has misattributed some of John Morgan’s commentary to me. A forgivable error, but interesting, as the same habit of misattribution of a debate opponent’s quotes has also been one of Carlo’s idiosyncrasies.
Dude, if you’re going to employ a sock puppet, you need to look out for giveaways like that.
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I have no idea even now who I am going to vote for. This is probably the first time in my life I’ve been in this position. I don’t like it. Here is my proposed alternative:
We are poorly served by our present political class. We need very large decisions to be made. This is most effectively achieved by a benevolent dictator. We do not have a dictator now, and our Constitution does not allow for one. Therefore, we should invite tenders from interested nations for invasion. There would be a number of serious proposals, probably China and Indonesia, and others as well. To ensure the widest range of possible submissions we should therefore make available our own armed forces on contract to assist the invading party if they cannot field their own invasion force in this theatre. That way New Zealand, for instance, should be able to present a competitive tender. Or Switzerland.
I will not entertain any suggestion that this is worse than the way we propose to do things tomorrow
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