Open Thread 21

I think you might mean the first article is by Duncan Clark, not Flinders University biologist, or Australian author, Duncan Mackay. ;)

It’s a good article all the same – as is George Monbiot’s. It really is a no-brainer. You cannot logically complain about nuclear waste and oppose fast reactors with fuel recycling. And you cannot seriously oppose nuclear development if you are genuinely concerned about climate change, even if you don’t see it as a main part of the solution.

Ed: Right, fixed.

LikeLike

Using sodium for cooling is very risky because of the reactivity of sodium. If there were no alternative nuclear technologies, perhaps the risk would be acceptable. Fortunately, there is an alternative technology which, in my opinion, would be far superior, i.e., the liquid fluoride thorium reactor. Potentially it could circumvent the problems associated with uranium reactors.

For more information, visit the following site:

http://thoriumremix.com/2011/

Although thorium can be used in a reactor which is very similar to our current uranium reactors, that doesn’t appear to be the best approach since it would require forming the thorium into fuel rods thereby increasing costs and complicating recycling the spent fuel.

LikeLike

The following link points to a pdf of an article written by a Dr Gunther Keil . In it he shows why and how the shutting down of the nuclear industry in Germany is a total disaster.Also that wind and solar simply don’t cut the mustard.https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eike-klima-energie.eu%2Ffileadmin%2Fuser_upload%2FBilder_Dateien%2FKeil_Energiewende_gescheitert%2F2012_01_09_EIKE_Germa_energy_turnaround_english.pdf
MODERATOR
This is a better attempt at citation but you should, in future, provide more of your own analysis to ant ref/link.

LikeLike

Proteos, there is one reason why waiting is not really an option: maintenance of the existing Sellafield stockpile costs an astonishing ~£2bn per year.

Does anyone know the cost of the GE-H PRISM bid?

LikeLike

Jagdish,

When we ignore the economics, we are spinning our wheels. The economic case has to stack up or the argument will go nowhere. The business case, with all the costs and benefits, has to be made. And it has to be made on reasonable, conservative grounds. The costs and benefits of the whole package, including the long term benfits you point out in your list, must be presented as a business case.

LikeLike

MODERATOR
Please re-submit your link. Thank you.

LikeLike

(Comment deleted)
MODERATOR
BNC no longer publishes or discusses sceptical comments on the scientific consensus of AGW/CC.

LikeLike

Commentators above have made several assertions which may not be correct:

1) IMO, absenting FOAK issues, it is not obvious that the IFR will produce power more expensively than existing designs – the reverse could ultimately prove to be the case.

2) The suggestion that one requires 20 tonnes of fissile to start a IGW IFR is, I think, a very significant overestimate.

3) I know that it has been reported that the UK’s plutonium stockpile costs £2 billion/annum to store, I have also read that this is orders of magnitude too high.

LikeLike

Thank you Barry. I have added my name to Hansen’s updates list. I think a visit to the Hansen website would help JP to answer his friend’s questions .

LikeLike

In the case of wood products the sustainability depends on the logging rotation (80 years is better than 40 years) and the durability of the product with furniture timber locking up carbon longer than paper pulp and of course direct burning of offcuts or sawdust, The issues are discussed here for example

Click to access Forests,Wood&CarbonBalance.pdf

However a curious omission seems to be the large amounts of diesel used by machines and trucks. The major impact could be we must start thinking long term
1) the person who plants a tree won’t be cutting it down 80 years later
2) oil var. diesel will be gone in 80 years
3) concentrated phosphate will be gone in 80 years
4) the climate may no longer suit that tree species 80 years later.

Forget oilseeds they are a niche. That’s for transport energy but the same goes I think for stationary energy using bagasse or straw. If algae based lipids don’t work then synfuel will have to be made from trash bio-carbon and nuclear hydrogen. E=mc^2 once again. Think dollars per litre of synfuel which will make the EU airline fuel tax look like a pittance.

LikeLike

EN, have you seen the IFR entry at this other wiki? Quite well done, one I like to refer people to as an introduction:

http://www.appropedia.org/Integral_fast_reactor

LikeLike

The Grattan Institute has just produced a large and detailed report on Australia’s clean energy generation options, rather grimly titled

No easy choices: which way to Australia’s energy future?

I’ve just had a quick flick through it, and I think this is a pretty good bit of work. I have some issues with it in places but on the whole I think it is well informed and without obvious bias for or against any of the clean energy generation technologies it covers. There is a lot of data in it, and I think Peter Lang will find many useful reports referenced.

In particular, it includes an analysis of nuclear that is unbiased and seems reasonable. I could quibble with parts of it but I think the authors are to be applauded for doing their research. It is aware of gen IV nukes and their role in the fuel cycle and as the ultimate means of dealing with nuclear waste. The key issues for nuclear deployment in Australia are the high upfront capital, which puts it out of reach of private companies here, and the long lead time – they estimate a lead time of 15-20 years, ignoring the sociological dimension. They do take as the basis for a lot of their analysis just Western regulatory institutions and downplay the Chinese and other asian processes, unreasonably in my opinion.

The report examines:

Wind
Solar PV
CSP
Geothermal
CCS
Nuclear
Bioenergy
Transmission infrastructure

Definitely worth a look.

LikeLike

Because reactor-grade plutonium contains isotopes of plutonium with high spontaneous fission rates, it is more difficult, though not impossible, to produce nuclear weapons from high-burnup spent fuel. This also could be circumvented with isotopic separation, but this is more difficult than uranium enrichment due to the high radioactivity of the plutonium

1. No one has ever made bombs with plutonium with less than 85% Pu239. Reactor grade plutonium has much lower Pu239 content (50-70%).

2. No one has ever succeeded in isotopically seperating plutonium. This is because plutonium has no stable volatile compounds so you can’t make a gas out of it. (isotopic seperation requires a gas – liquids and solids interact too much, making isotopic enrichment impossible). National labs including US national labs have tried, using lasers, and billion dollar budgets, and failed.

3. IFRs keep the plutonium with the minor actinides americium and curium. TThese are horrible materials to have in a bomb, making lots of heat and spontaneous neutrons, and being difficult to seperate chemically from plutonium.

On the con side: plutonium can’t be isotopically downblended as easily as uranium. With uranium you can just add a lot of U238 that makes it unsuitable for weapons. However, it is possible to add thorium to the IFR fuel cycle, which makes three things that resist proliferation further. These are U233 bred fissile that is downblended instantly with all that U238 in the fuel, U232 that makes hard gamma rays hurting would be bomb builders, bomb electronics, and sending off signals to sattelites, and Pu238 formed from neutron captures, that acts as “spike” for Pu239, like Pu241 having a lot of spontaneous neutrons. In fact Pu238 makes a lot of heat making weapons manufacturing even more difficult. So a combined U238-thorium cycle would be even more proliferation proof.

LikeLike

Here is a presentation put together in 2003 on GE Prism reactors being used to ‘burnup’ the US commercial nuclear waste stockpiles.

it has some interesting figures and time frames for a ‘cost effective’ rollout. I.E. for the fuel reprocessing facility to be financially viable there needs to be a large stockpile of waste and a matching 25 year ‘build rate’ commitment for IFR reactors.

Click to access pad0305dubberly.pdf

LikeLike

The point on bombs is that one ‘can’ take 50%-70% Pu239 and make >85%.

Any reactor can be modified to have depleted uranium blanket fuel elements added. This then makes very pure Pu239 – easily >95% Pu239. However this requires a difficult change in the reactor fuel layout and refuelling, that is easily detected (lots of shutdowns, suspicious). Though an IFR with a blanket would be more readily adaptable to make this pure plutonium, the fuel processor technology that is available in the plant can’t make pure uncontaminated plutonium. It’s actually much easier to take some graphite chunks and some mined natural uranium and make a small weapons production reactor (plutonium).

That’s actually the main problem with the nuclear power increases proliferation argument: it’s actually very easy for a country to make a nuclear bomb, with or without power reactors. It’s important to distinguish between national and subnational groups. Subnational groups such as terrorists don’t have power reactors handy, but they could build small graphite moderated natural uranium fuelled plutonium production reactors if they are well funded.

If we close all reactors today, we don’t solve the proliferation problem. If countries need a fig leaf, they’ll have other options than power reactors, notably research reactors (“science is important”) and medical isotope reactors (“we must be able to cure our people of cancer”). You don’t need a big reactor to make a bomb; that’s just an inconvenience.

LikeLike

I have no idea. I was being somewhat obtuse. We can get into the silly proliferation discussion. There is no doubt that a reactor can be built and reprocessing established to out put exactly what one wants in terms of WMD. . .

. . .so what?

My answer is, “then don’t do that”. It’s all about policy. We get the same sort of “issues” that popup in the LFTR community as well with U233. The answer, always, is a political, not technical one. Ugh.

Thanks for the links on costs. I’d still like to see some discussions on costs for the IFR.

LikeLike

unclepete wrote:

The following link points to a pdf of an article written by a Dr Gunther Keil . In it he shows why and how the shutting down of the nuclear industry in Germany is a total disaster. Also that wind and solar simply don’t cut the mustard. https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.eike-klima-energie.eu%2Ffileadmin%2Fuser_upload%2FBilder_Dateien%2FKeil_Energiewende_gescheitert%2F2012_01_09_EIKE_Germa_energy_turnaround_english.pdf

This appears to be a link and little else (which is not particularly helpful to readers on the site). Care to provide some analysis for this lengthy article? Such as … what are the stated goals of Germany’s energy policy, and how do results presented in the paper contradict or confirm these goals? I took a quick look … the article claims: “The fundamental claim used to legitimize “renewables” is the replacement of coal-fired plants, mainly with wind and solar plants.” According to this source, between 1990 and 2010, coal use in Germany decreased from 131 million tonnes of oil equivalent (MTOE) to 76 MTOE (for a 58% reduction in coal use). During the same time period, energy use from nuclear decreased slightly as well (40 MTOE to 37 MTOE), but renewables increased and appear to be filling in the gap (rising from 1 MTOE to 32 MTOE). Data includes all inputs for both imports and exports. If Germany isn’t retiring these old and obsolete coal power plants, are they running them at much lower capacities for significantly less (58%) coal consumption, and associated emissions from coal. Is this operational and energy consumption data mentioned in the article?

In addition, does Germany “legitimize” it’s commitment to domestic renewable energy goals on any other basis besides reducing coal consumption (where it has already achieved significant results): how about economic competitiveness; global manufacturing of wind turbines and solar equipment; regional economic benefits in jobs, skilled trades, and taxes; less long-term radioactive waste; research and development (and any associated spin-offs); leadership in energy storage technologies (such as adiabatic CAES), leadership in smart grid technologies, increased public attention (and global environmental negotiations); coalition building and democratic leadership (by pursuing energy choices that are attractive to local constituents); and more. Has Dr. Keil deliberately overlooked some of these concerns and national policy outlooks in his analysis, or does he intend to look at them elsewhere (and with relevant new insights, data, and analysis)?

LikeLike

Germany’s stated policy goal is to build as many new coal plants as fast as it can, plundering its previous commitment to domestic renewable energy to fund them.

LikeLike

EL, here’s some analysis for you.

Germany’s coal production decreased in the early 90s, very little afterwards. That is to say, not due to wind and solar, which were insignificant even in the 00s. The biggest growth in that period was seen in natural gas – far bigger growth than all the wind turbines solar panels and geothermal wells together. More recently we can see that higher energy prices have chased away industry out of the country and forced people to conserve, reducing primary energy demand. Even today, those costly sources deliver very little energy; it is a mere sliver in the total primary energy supply pie. Most of the “green” energy is actually from burning trash and agriwaste, and ecosystem gobbling biofuels. Oil use is barely reduced at all, those nice efficient cars are not really that efficient when driven on the Autobahn at 200 km/h, stuck full of gadgets. In two words, I’d describe the German energy history as forced paralysis. Fossil lock-in would perhaps be two better words.

Click to access DETPES.pdf

By the way, Germany is the world’s biggest user of brown coal – the dirties type of coal if you recall.

http://www.worldcoal.org/resources/coal-statistics/

LikeLike

Regarding the Grattan Institute report, look at Figure 7.3 here: http://www.grattan.edu.au/publications/125_energy__no_easy_choices_detail.pdf

It shows:

1. Overnight capital cost of nuclear in USA is about twice what it is in Asia.

2. The enormous variation in the overnight capital costs, even within a region

3. The larger range of costs in Asia and Europe than in Asia.

The text states:

Each project is unique, being exposed to local factors, such as political and planning processes, environmental conditions, project management, local labour and regulatory requirements. The closest analogy may be a coal power-plant with CCS capability. But the construction time for a CCS plant is likely to be lower, and safety/quality regulations less stringent, which substantially reduces the project’s financial exposure.

Such conditions can vary significantly between countries with different political systems or standards for labour and environmental protection. In fact, the estimated costs of nuclear power vary significantly by location, as IAEA figures show

Recent experience building nuclear power plants is particularly limited in North American and European countries, where the economic and regulatory conditions for nuclear power projects are closest to what they might be in Australia

A point I’ve been making for a long time is, if we want low cost nuclear in Australia, we will have to investigate what are all the impediments that are making it higher cost than in Asia.

7.6 What are the obstacles to the large-scale roll-out of
nuclear power in Australia?
…

Uncertainty is set to continue until there is a weight of practical project experience deploying current reactor designs

Those who believe IFR and PRISM can be rolled out commercially any time soon should take note of this last sentence. Even Gen III costs are highly uncertain and that is after 50 years of evolutionary development of LWR’s. Why should we believe the IFR will be much faster to reach the same level of maturity, reliability, average life time capacity factor, etc?

See the components of capital cost and Owners Costa at top of page 7-11, followed by this statement:
Published cost estimates for nuclear power do not always make
clear which factors are included in their assessment.

That is for sure! What an understatement.

I’ve only had a quick look at the section on nuclear. It looks good and realistic at first glance.

LikeLike

Bio energy

No mention of “gas turbines running on biofels”. The technologies mentioned are steam plants and reciprocating engines.

Maximum potential 10% of electricity generation by 2020

For Bioenergy to provide 10% or more of Australia’s electricity needs it will have to use the large amounts of energy embodied within cereal crop residues

<blockquote For a 30MW power plant at a 70% capacity factor the land area would be around 240,000 hectares and involve nearly 500 average sized wheat farms. </blockquote

Here we go again (as in ZCA 2020) we’d need electric trains running all over our wheat growing areas picking up wheat stalks and taking them to the local generator unit. I can just see it. Any day now :)

Many barriers to making it commercial in Australia at the scale that would be required

Capital cost estimate: $5,500/kW for 5 MW plants, $3,500/kW to $4,000/kW for 30 MW plants.

Fuel costs about $100/tonne.

Conventional steam turbine combustion power plants can be used to generate power from cereal crop residues and from crops grown on marginal land or for salinity mitigation such as eucalypts. Analysis suggests that such plants could generate power at less than $150 per megawatt-hour, with a capacity factor higher than 70% and fuel delivered on a secure and reliable basis for around $5 per gigajoule). A review of a range of studies and discussions with Bioenergy experts suggests that there is potential to realise large quantities of cereal crop residues and energy crops at this cost, but vastly improved supply chain capabilities will be required.

Note, these plants have to be run with capacity factors of around 70% to be economically viable. They are certainly not ‘peaker’ plants.

LikeLike

The Grattan Institute Report, section 7.7 (p7-24) says:
:

7.7 Implications for Australia

Australia should wait and watch the economics of new-build nuclear power in other countries

Click to access 125_energy__no_easy_choices_detail.pdf

I think they present a strong case for this. I believe this is correct advice. The first we step we need is education on nuclear (especially on the costs of nuclear power, and the consequences and likelihood of accidents). I also believe we need funding for research, much of which should be aimed at investigating how we can reduce the costs of nuclear. To me that means, what do we need to do to remove the impediments that would prevent Australia implementing low cost nuclear generation in Australia. I want nuclear at a cost similar to in Asia, not similar to in USA and Europe. What do we have to do to achieve that. That seems to me to be a task the universities and CSIRO and other research organisations should be funded by government to tackle.

We need to educate the public and get strong support before we should risk money on investment, subsidies, or anything else to do with building nuclear in Australia (or CCS, or solar thermal or any other major winner picking exercise by governments).

LikeLike

Are there any recent, authoritative estimates for the cost of a complete IFR plant?

The most recent LCOE estimate I’ve seen for fast reactors w/ indefinite fuel recycling is an MIT study, here: http://www.mit.edu/~jparsons/publications/FuelRecyclingReprint.pdf

8.7 c/kWh (in US$), compared to 8.4 c/kWh for a new LWR with once through fuel cycling.

I note that Tom Blees pointed out that this estimate is higher than GE’s estimates for mass-produced fast reactors, and that cost of the pyroprocessing facilities are speculative.

LikeLike

It would be good to have complete details on the modeling.

Exactly how did they determine how much electricity would be available at all possible instants if it were derived exclusively from renewable sources? Was the “modeling” based on assumptions or was it based on actual data collected on a CONTINUOUS basis from all locations where it would be practical to instal renewable sources of power? And over what period of time was it done? Six months? One year? Three years? What?

It is common to find errors in studies in multiple fields of endeavor. So, unless modeling, surveys, and studies are carefully reviewed by a number of qualified people, I am inclined to question them. Probably the public would strongly express its displeasure if for a month or so, because of unusual weather conditions, the power fell 25% below demand.

LikeLike

John Morgan wrote:

Germany’s stated policy goal is to build as many new coal plants as fast as it can, plundering its previous commitment to domestic renewable energy to fund them.

Looking at this a little closer, the actual policy commits 5% of climate change funds to replacing older and dirtier power plants with more efficient coal plants. The government estimates this will result in a total emissions reduction of 14% (here). In addition, 95% of the remaining funds are still going towards “reducing carbon dioxide emissions from buildings, developing renewable energy sources and storage technologies,” which is hardly a plundering. Do we want all these coal plants taken off line, yes. But coal politics in Germany are very complex, especially in the east. This looks to me to be a middle ground proposal, one looking at achievable goals and provides for some heavy lifting from energy efficiency and conservation programs in replacing energy from nuclear phase out and meeting Germany’s ambitious goal of 40% reduction of GHG emissions below 1990 levels by 2020). What else is in the mix … lots of CHP, biomass, wind and solar, new production processes in industrial sector, building retrofits, transportation (biofuels, CO2 emissions vehicle tax, expansion of rail), limits on future power plants without CCS, off sets where emissions can’t be improved, new research and development, and each with it’s own carbon budget attached to it (here).

LikeLike

Tom Bond, @ 7 February 2012 at 8:24 PM

That is a very informative comment. Thank you for assembling those numbers and presenting the case so clearly. I’ll be keeping a link to your comment for future use.

LikeLike

Regarding this comment;

“even relatively simple designs would very reliably yield a kiloton-class explosion from reactor-grade uranium.”

Are you saying 5% uranium 235 can produce a 1kt explosion? I do not believe that. Perhaps you meant “even relatively simple designs would very reliably yield a kiloton-class explosion from reactor-grade plutonium.”

The Mark paper claims claims that reactor grade plutonium substituted into the fat man design would produce a minimum yield of about 700 tons TNT. That assumes no deleterious effects from the high heat and radiation of the reactor grade plutonium (a poor assumption).

The fat man design compresses a sphere of plutonium to about twice normal density while maintaining spherical geometry. Any design that does that cannot be described as “relatively simple.”

My guess is that a simple design using reactor grade plutonium would have a yield much lower than 700 tons, but still enough to do a lot of damage and kill a lot of people.

LikeLike

Reactor grade plutonium has a considerable heat profile. Pu238 in particular generates lots of heat. In quantities sufficient for a fizzle bomb of hundreds of tons of TNT, it makes enough heat to melt the plutonium (which has a low melting point) when it is assembled. That’s excellent proliferation protection – and it almost certainly kills the bomb builders as a bonus. Also the minor actinides provide further proliferation protection, increasing spontaneous neutrons and also providing further heat sources. This method can be used for the U-Pu cycle which has less Pu238 protection than the U-Th cycle.

Click to access 32_sagara.pdf

The easiest way to increase the amount of Pu238 is of course to add thorium to the fuel. Thorium is, today, popularly associated with the LFTR, but is also quite attractive as an IFR fuel, having a much higher melting point (no need for zirconium additions) and greater chemical and swelling stability than uranium. The best way to go would probably be a reactor grade plutonium startup fissile charge, and thorium as the main fertile (with enough U238/depleted uranium to dilute the U233 fissile bred from the thorium). Such a hybrid fuel cycle has superb design proliferation resistance.

LikeLike

The USA is also building AP1000s. At Vogtle currently. The NRC has *actually* produced a power reactor license, can you believe it.

http://nuclearstreet.com/nuclear_power_industry_news/b/nuclear_power_news/archive/2011/09/14/new-vogtle-construction-pictures-of-units-3-and-4-091403.aspx

LikeLike

Cyril R,

Vogtle 3 & 4 has not received it’s combined operating and construction license yet. It should receive it… uh… today.

LikeLike

If we want to keep aluminium smelting in Australia the only way we could do it would be with cheap nuclear power.

MANUFACTURING unions are urging the federal government to fund an automotive-style bailout of the aluminium industry to save Alcoa’s Point Henry smelter from closure.

Australian Workers Union … said while Alcoa must reinvest in its 49-year-old Geelong plant to make it globally competitive, there was a strong case for federal and state assistance to ease what he described as a short-term crisis. “It is an ageing plant but it had been making money until six or seven months ago,” he said. “It is not a chronic problem. It is a matter of weathering the storm.”

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/union-says-alcoa-plant-needs-bailout-to-weather-storm/story-fn59niix-1226266223647

But this is nonsense. Aluminium needs cheap electricity. With government intent on shutting down brown coal power stations in Victoria, replacing them with gas and imposing a carbon tax on top of electricity prices, there is no way aluminium smelting can remain viable in Australia. It will have to move to countries where electricity is cheap.

If we want to keep industries like aluminium smelters – or many other industries for which energy is a significant cost driver – AND we want low emissions electricity, the only way it can be done is to allow Australia to have low cost nuclear power.

Victoria should take the lead and say: “OK, we’ll ensure you, Alcoa, can get long term, low cost electricity contracts but only if we can get agreement from all levels of government to allow Victoria to build a nuclear power station near Geelong, and only if we can remove all the impediments to low cost nuclear electricity generation so that the contracted prices will be competitive with coal fired generation.

LikeLike

My reading of the business press is that 4 of the 6 aluminium smelters are thinking of closing. A tonne of aluminum ingot requires 15 Mwh energy input, I presume that’s just at the smelter not mining and transport. I think it would be insane if other countries picked up the slack using Australian bauxite or alumina and Australian thermal coal.

Perhaps the smelters politely refer to ‘input costs’ as a catch-all for wages, electricity and carbon taxes which will include perfluorocarbon emissions (PFC) as well as coal fired electricity. This is where the carbon tariff comes in. Suppose an Australian smelter generates 15 tonnes of CO2 or equivalent per tonne of aluminium. That’s 15 X $23 = $345 hardly a trifling amount on top of recent raw aluminium prices of $850 a tonne. Suppose the alternative supplier (not mentioning China by name) has a $10 carbon tax and uses coal fired electricity. The import tariff should be the difference of $195 per tonne. If they use hydro or nuclear electricity the tariff would be less but an administrative headache to calculate.

I think for security reasons Australia should have at least one aluminum smelter using low carbon electricity. After all we’ve got the most bauxite; it would be like teetotallers owning a vineyard but not the winery.

LikeLike

Aluminium smelting is so energy intensive that even captive nuclear power plants may be worthwhile. There was once a report of Russians setting a NPP for a new aluminium smelter. Australia, rich in uranium as well as bauxite should produce and sell aluminium as a value-added product using both.
Most cost effective reactor for Australia right now may be Indian PHWR. It uses natural uranium as fuel.
Another path, also leading to an integrated nuclear fuel cycle, could start with Russian SVBR fast reactors using enriched uranium as fuel. Enrichment could initially be in Russia and later set up in Australia.. Either could be followed by an integrated fuel cycle.
The effect of CO2 as a greenhouse gas is widely accepted but still debated. Ill effects of suspended matter and other poisons released by coal burning are beyond controversy but quietly accepted. Coal use should be curbed in major industrial activities like power production, aluminium smelting (through use of fossil fuel power) and, to the extent possible, in steel smelting.

LikeLike

It is now looking increasingly likely that the world has peaked in the total amount of energy provided by all three fossil fuels. Especially when declining EROEI is taken into account. The Patzeck study predicted peak coal for 2011, worldwide. Growth has now ended.

Conservation will be key for decades to come as the transition is made to fuel efficient breeder reactors. We will need Integral Fast Reactors and/or thorium reactors after 2020. They are unlimited by fuel supplies, but the rare 235 isotope is finite, and subject to the Hubbert peak logistic distribution phenomenon. http://blackswaninsights.blogspot.com/2011/06/peak-uranium-by-2015.html

So, we are running out of coal, oil, gas, and uranium 235, but uranium 238 and thorium 232 are unlimited. Especially uranium 238, since it can be extracted from seawater.

LikeLike

Zachary Moitoza writes,

So, we are running out of … uranium 235 …

Necessarily true, but its truth is not demonstrable in any currently very impressive way, such as one year’s “Red Book” uranium reserves estimate’s exceeding the estimate of two years earlier by less than a million tonnes, or prospecting costs exceeding a penny per barrel-oil-equivalent, or more than a fifth of average continental crust’s 235-U being required to pulverize the hard parts of said crust.

In short, not true from a thousand-year sustainability point of view. Far from it.

LikeLike

Contrasting views on how Germany has weathered the recent cold snap. This normally pro-renewables site said they paid through the nose and it will get worse

Re-Evaluating Germany’s Blind Faith in the Sun

This article says it can’t have been too bad as Germany won some military contracts http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/02/09/3426757.htm

That article fails to mention the German economy shrank in the 4th quarter of 2011 and 2010 emissions were higher than 2009. That is both a weaker economy and higher emissions, not a good trajectory. I’d say Germany has one or two years left to sort it out.

LikeLike

harrywr2, on 10 February 2012 at 3:28 AM said:

“I find the idea that a ‘carbon tax’ is somehow a ‘free market’ approach somewhat puzzling. If we put a ‘punitive tax’ on a product or service we are ‘regulating via taxation’. Why not just ‘regulate’ directly?”

The attraction of a carbon tax, according to economists, is that it should be more cost-effective than regulation.

Here’s Milton Friedman, writing in 1980:

“Most economists agree that a far better way to control pollution than the present method of specific regulation and supervision is to introduce market discipline by imposing effluent charges.” Free To Choose, p. 217.

LikeLike

I agree with the late Milton Friedman regarding effulent charges. The fact that Friedman suggested them is not a valid reason to oppose them. Moreover, he is not the only economist to assert that that is the most efficient way to control pollution; many other economists have made the same suggestion. The idea is to increase the pollution tax gradually until the amount of pollution is reduced to an acceptable level.

Perhaps even before 1970, economists generally agreed that the most efficient way to control pollution is to tax it. Controlling pollution is not free; it costs money. It can be shown that if it is controlled via taxation, and people behave rationally, the money spent to control pollution will be spent more efficiently. Even if people do not behave entirely rationally, the money spent to control pollution will be spent more efficiently than if regulations require all sources of pollution to be reduced by the same amount.

The objection to a pollution tax is largely emotional; people claim that it is a license to pollute and object to it on that basis.

LikeLike

It used to be that the choice people had was nuclear or coal– and they would choose coal! We don’t live in that world any longer. Now the choice is nuclear or conservation. Indeed, the global economy is in shambles, and the infinite growth paradigm is coming to an end. We will see just how much conservation people can tolerate. http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2011-05-13/peak-coal-year

LikeLike

Hi Zachary,
Great to have another peaknik on board!

You’re convinced we’re already passed peak coal? I didn’t even think Heinberg was at that point. Or has he shifted?

If we are, will geological limits enact a ‘carbon price’ of it’s own in time to stimulate new thinking about ‘unreliables’ and good reliable GenIV power?

LikeLike

John Newlands, something else that latter article about the European cold snap failed to mention was that, as can be seen here (http://connexionfrance.com/France-freeze-ice-Sochaux-hydro-wind-power-13438-view-article.html), French peak demand was at 7 pm. So of the electricity imported from Germany, you can be sure exactly none of it came from their much-vaunted gigawatts of PV capacity. Not that author Matthew Wright didn’t do his level best to imply otherwise (“the country with the fastest growing renewable sector was propping up nuclear powered France”).

LikeLike

Eclipse Now, on 10 February 2012 at 8:57 PM said:

If we are, will geological limits enact a ‘carbon price’ of it’s own in time to stimulate new thinking about ‘unreliables’ and good reliable GenIV power?

I also subscribe to the theory we are on the cusp of ‘peak coal’.
Geologically we couldn’t burn all the coal in the ground if we tried.

Here is a 1997 report on US Coal mining productivity

Click to access RFF-DP-97-40.pdf

Key sentence –
Labor productivity in U.S. coal mining increased at an average annual rate of slightly over four percent during the past 45 years.

Here are the latest figures. Productivity is going backwards. More miners producing the same amount of coal.

Click to access c_trends_mining.pdf

Then some interesting facts on Chinese coal

Click to access coal_bohai_report.pdf

The average depth of China‘s coal mines is 456 meters. Whereas northern China has the most abundant and highest quality coal, Xinjiang province (in far western China) has more than half of coal reserves located less than 1,000 meters below the surface. Only 27% of northern Chinese coal is located less than 1,000 meters below the surface, compared to 40% of total Chinese coal.8 Mines in eastern China are particularly deep, with an average depth of 600 meters.

LikeLike