.png)
The Open Thread 21 has passed 500 comments and is getting a little bloated, so time for 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 general content of this blog.
The sort of things that belong on this thread include general enquiries, soapbox philosophy, meandering trains of argument that move dynamically from one point of contention to another, and so on — as long as the comments adhere to the broad BNC themes of sustainable energy, climate change mitigation and policy, energy security, climate impacts, etc.
You can also find this thread by clicking on the Open Thread category on the cascading menu under the “Home” tab.
———————-
There was quite a bit of discussion in the previous OT on radiation levels and the Fukushima evacuation zone. Relevant to this is the recent announcement that Japan will lift the entry ban on some cities within the prefecture. To quote:
In areas where annual radiation measurements are below 20 millisieverts per year, a government safety guideline, residents will have free access to their homes during the day and will be allowed to return permanently at the earliest opportunity post-decontamination. Where readings are between 20 to 50 millisieverts annually, evacuees will also have unrestricted access during the day although their permanent return will come later. In areas where measurements top 50 millisieverts, residents will not have free access and they will not be allowed to return for a minimum of five years.
A past BNC guest poster, engineer Chris Uhlik, analysed the situation a private email distribution list, and I thought his summary with respect to LNT (linear no-threshold hypothesis of radiation damage to living organisms) was very useful. With Chris’ permission, I reproduce it below:
———————-
The official position of every regulatory agency & scientific body, and even the people who will tell you “we don’t know what’s going on under 50 mSv”, the weight of the evidence favors LNT.
Here’s what I think is going on:
Under 50mSv/year we can’t find any epidemiological data to support LNT. There is simply too much noise and other effects to see sub-0.5% changes in cancer rates in populations where the variations from other effects (smoking, stress, chemical exposures, etc) are in the range of 20-45%.
The rates of different kinds of cancers are affected differently by radiation. Some kinds appear to increase while others decrease. Some kinds of cancer are more treatable than others and thus result in different mortality rates, even if the occurrence rate increases. Simple statements like “cancer death rates show a LNT response to radiation exposure” are way too simplistic to be true, but such statements are easy to base regulations around. When regulators feel a need to support a regulation with some math, they’d rather choose simple math than more-correct, but difficult to understand and explain math.
We can find biological data from cell culture experiments that DNA disruptions are linearly related to exposure. However, most of these experiments are not with healthy, normal, human cell cultures. Bacteria and yeast might have different DNA repair mechanisms than humans. Some human cell culture experiments show hormesis. (example)
In the absence of unambiguous scientific evidence for a simple dose response model, regulators choose a conservative, simple model. They (and the scientists) agree that the model is simple and conservative, i.e. over-estimates the number of deaths. But what gets me riled up is that we ignore the opportunity cost of being excessively conservative. For example, we’ll spend $billions to avoid tens of theoretical deaths counted by the conservative model while not spending similar amounts on things that would much more reliably save thousands of lives. And, at the same time, we take the opposite point of view with global climate change. There, we have good models that show massive disruption, but we take business-as-usual actions because changing would be inconvenient. We are totally inconsistent about what sort of inconvenience is acceptable.
All risk-avoidance regulation should take a years-of-life-lost approach where the best available model (not simplest model) of years of productive life lost are counted against a standard value for a year of productive life. If we did this consistently, we’d spend lots of money developing cures for disease and less money treating disease because treating saves just one person’s life while a cure saves thousands or millions. Likewise, coal air pollution takes thousands (maybe millions) of years of life from asthmatic children while an accident like Fukushima requires extreme assumptions to reach ~1000 years of life lost and where the evacuation has already claimed >500 lives which is at least 5000 years of life lost.
Local optimization results are often extremely sub-optimal relative to global optimization, especially for complex systems. These piecemeal regulations that ignore the greater context can be extremely harmful. The conservative LNT assumption is one such unfortunate local optimization that protects the regulator while harming the populace.
———————-
Footnote: More here from Depleted Cranium blog: Evacuation Policy Versus Radiation Level Measurements In Japan
Filed under: Nuclear, Open Thread
Folowing.
A few of my references became lost in transcription.
A study of radiation hormesis in human breast cells
http://newscenter.lbl.gov/news-releases/2011/12/20/low-dose-radiation/
An article claiming 573 certified deaths due to evacuation-related stress
http://www.beyondnuclear.org/home/2012/2/4/japanese-authorities-recognize-573-deaths-related-to-fukushi.html
Ed: Thanks, I added these back in to the main text
Here’s a rational proposal for a very limited, voluntary exclusion zone in Fukushima
http://depletedcranium.com/evacuation-policy-versus-radiation-level-measurements-in-japan/
Thanks Chris, I added this as a footnote to accompany the main posting.
Where I can find an estimate of what the compliance cost of the CO2 tax and ETS will be when fully implemented to the standard that will eventually be required? (I have not been able to find such an estimate, including on the Treasury, DRET or DCCEE web sites).
Expansion of my question and some thoughts follow:
What would be the compliance cost for the ETS once it is fully implemented and running at the level of accuracy required for trading the commodity (CO2-e) and at the level of financial security from fraud that will be expected? For example, what will be the annual cost for:
– Public servants in DCCEE, Treasury, ATO, Australian Federal Police, state police forces, state bureaucracies, Attorneys’ General Departments, Federal Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism, ABARE, BREE, the equivalent state departments of energy, resources, agriculture, forestry, environment, Prime Minister and Cabinet, State departments of Premier and Cabinet, the law courts, High Court, goals, any others I haven’t thought of?
– The businesses that have to report their emissions – what is the cost to implement and maintain the monitoring equipment and to report? What is the cost to update and replace equipment, reporting systems and legacy data each time the rules change (as they do every few years)?
– Farmers and all the upstream and downstream industries (farming will be included eventually if the tax and ETS remain)
– Accountants, lawyers, accounting firms, law firms, courts?
– Firms that use the data, analyse it and report? What is the cost for them to have to maintain and continually update their systems and legacy data?
– What about the compliance cost for purchasing overseas carbon credits?
I understand some of the costs involved in doing what the US legislation requires the US EPA to do (clearly we would have to move to that level of accountability and beyond it eventually), would be in the order of $21 billion per year. These two links provide some insight into the current requirements in the USA http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/business/ecmps/docs/ECMPSEMRI2009Q2.pdf
http://www.epa.gov/airmarkt/emissions/docs/plain_english_guide_par75_final_rule.pdf
We can only guess what the costs would be for the businesses involved and all the organisations who take this data and analyses it. Notice that the rules have been changing (for emissions other than CO2) every few years for about the last three decades (roughly); think of the compliance cost that imposes.
The EPA recently stated in a court submission that the cost to the EPA alone to implement and manage in accordance with the existing laws would cost $21 billion per year. That is not a typo. They estimated they would have to increase their permanent staff numbers from 17,000 to 233,000 permanent employees. The cost to business could be expected to be at least ten times the EPA’s cost, and the other departments who have a role to play would probably double the EPA’s cost.
What does this mean for Australia? Well, initially Australia does not intend to monitor or measure its emissions. It will simply estimate them (very crudely). The system set up by AEMO to estimate electricity system emissions is very crude. It is nowhere near the standard the USA or even the Europeans are doing. I am sure we will have to get up to best practice eventually. That means big increases in compliance cost as time goes on. And this is for electricity emissions only. What happens when the compliance requirements are extended to all businesses emitting CO2 emissions, as will be required eventually.
To repeat my question, where can I find an estimate of the compliance cost for the ETS and for emissions monitoring at the level of accuracy and accountability that will ultimately be required for trading CO2-e emissions?
Gotta watch those assumptions, indeed! In fact, there’s one you might like to check on of your own. Seems that coal emissions are not at all correlated with childhood asthma, nor is air quality. Asthma has been rising while air quality improved.
Oops! WCS!! (Wrong Cause Syndrome)
MODERATOR
Although not essential on the Open Thread, refs support your assertions and enable others to check out what you claim.
Peter Lang compliance vigilance has been studied for the US NOx and SOx trading schemes
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2012/03/taylor-20120319.html
As I said in a comment federal govts are as tough as a TV wrestling referee in that they will probably look away when dodgy behaviour goes on. In fact they almost seem to invite fraud as in the case of our Carbon Farming Initiative. For example if a carbon sink woodland catches fire the offset sold for cash doesn’t have to be refunded just noted for later. It follows that they probably won’t measure Hazelwood’s CO2 emissions to the last gram. Bear in mind they just gave them a cheque for $266m. Put it this way, Hazelwood are not trembling with fear.
A tough compliance scheme would have frequent flue stack sampling cross checked against coal tonnages. If carbon tax was underpaid serious penalties could be imposed under threat of plant closure. That seems unlikely I agree. Yet the the renewables regulator ORER apparently has no hesitation in slapping a ‘shortfall charge’ of $65 per Mwh on electricity seller who doesn’t buy enough RECs.
The upshot of all this is that carbon tax may be in effect semi-voluntary whereby big emitters pay what they feel like. I’d put a military man like Cosgrove in charge. Another serious glitch to add to the list.
According to this page there are various areas in the world with high chronic natural radiation levels, but it doesn’t lead to increased cancers.
http://www.ecolo.org/documents/documents_in_english/ramsar-natural-radioactivity/ramsar.html
Areas in Brazil, Ramsar and India have natural radiation rates of 35 to 260 mSv/year. According to Japan’s evacuation criterium, these areas should be evacuated. Yet that seems absurd without any evidence for bad health effects!
People actually go to beaches in Brazil and sit right on source 265 mSv/year sand, to bask in the sun.
http://www.degroenerekenkamer.nl/node/1663
Amazing.
Brian H:
http://www.epa.gov/mats/pdfs/proposalfactsheet.pdf
Another
http://www.epa.gov/airquality/powerplanttoxics/pdfs/overviewfactsheet.pdf
Here is one on asthma:
http://www.newcastle.edu.au/research-centre/card/news.html
They have tons of references and studies they can steer you too. In fact, the challenge here is for YOU to find a single study that doesn’t link coal to and of the mentioned respiratory disease you noted (hint: they all do).
More important than asthma is lung cancer. Fine particulate matter from coal combustion is the real killer. More recent findings are that nitrous oxides, which form also in high temperature combustion, increase the effect. Since coal plants produce lots of both they are very dangerous. Even with modern deNox and baghouse filters they still fling tonnes per year into the air. Brian Wang from Next Big Future keeps track of the size of the killzone:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/lifetime-deaths-per-twh-from-energy.html
Compared to burning stuff (including biomass) Fukushima is a joke. In fact compare it to road accidents death rate: 1.19 million deaths/year. Indeed pretty much anything you can imagine is more dangerous than nuclear accidents. Drinking, smoking, being fat, using stairs, cars, trains, and even eating peanut butter is more dangerous than a nuclear powerplant.
Combusting stuff kills over a million a year – from the normal operations of such combustion. Nuclear plants can kill betwen 0 and 100 – and even that only when they have accidents. When fossil plants have accidents they can kill many more. Thousands of coal miners die every year in coal mines. Working on roofs, say to install solar panels, is more dangerous than generating electricity with nuclear plants. Mining for iron and cement and such is not safe either, and solar and wind use 5-20x more of those mined commodities than nuclear on a per kWh basis.
Chris Uhlik, on 2 April 2012 at 4:48 PM said:
Here’s a rational proposal for a very limited, voluntary exclusion zone in Fukushima
http://depletedcranium.com/evacuation-policy-versus-radiation-level-measurements-in-japan/
A very pragmatic approach. I wonder why the Japanese government doesn’t do something like this. It would cut costs to the government and at the same time result in a happier citizenry.
Also, if some citizens wanted to reoccupy in a high radiation zone why not just distribute dosimeter badges??
If citizens want to remain in fossil fuel polluted Tokyo and greatly increase their risk of lung cancer and related diseases, ashtma, infections etc, they can. So why are they removed from Fukushima?
If we were more rational we would recognize the scientific fact that there is no evidence for bad health effects from cesium-134 and cesium-137 in people that live in and around Chernobyl. And that evacuation zones for cesium make no sense.
The most rational criterium for evacuating an area is: does letting people stay kill more than evacuating them? So far 500+ have died from the evacuation (if you are in the intensive care of a hospital and the hospital has to evacuate… you consider your chances!). Would letting people stay have killed more than 500? No. Based on the scientific evidence, it would not, if milk was banned for 3 months and people were given small doses of prophylactic iodine pills in stead of evacuating them.
Sorry for off-topic post: could someone please recommend a good book on climate change? What I am looking for:
– something objective and without agenda (from any point of view), i.e., nothing that either supports c.c.denial or has something like “Climate Cover-Up: The Crusade to Deny Global Warming” in the title qualifies
– focused on the science of climate change and its consequences, not on politics of dealing with it or the debate surrounding it
– as technical as possible (i.e., I am not afraid of differential equations) while still self-contained
A South Australian wind farmer with extraordinary claims.
There is a fellow named Robert Brak who is making all kinds of wonderful claims about Wind power in South Australian over at David Robert’s Grist.org site.
Perhaps one of you Aussie experts might want to correct or expand on some of those claims.
http://grist.org/energy-policy/more-on-ramping-down-baseload-power-and-ramping-up-storage
Regarding the issue of the linear no threshold (LNT) adoption, here’s what I think is one of the most important errors.
The data to support the LNT is almost exclusively based on the Japanese bomb survivors. The nature of this radiation is very prompt. You receive almost all of the radiation in 1 second, and afterwards its barely above background.
Sure, I’m willing to believe that receiving 100 mSv in one second is not good for you.
This does not mean 100 mSv neatly divided over the course of one year is equally bad for you. That is like saying, taking one aspirin a week gets you a dose of 52 aspirin a year, which is just as bad for you as taking 52 aspirin in one hour.
The strange thing about LNT is that they use an anti-science fudge factor to handwave this grave error away. They call it the dose and dose rate effect factor, DDREF. Basically divide chronic exposures by 2 to compensate for the damage being healed up by the body immune system. Now apart from the fact that this is completely arbitrary and a rather pathetic attempt to frame a complex issue, there is also the point that assuming anything like a DDREF means admitting the effects are NOT linear !!!
In the aspirin analogy, it is saying that taking 26 aspirins in one hour is just as bad for you as taking one a week for a year. Fundmentally flawed conclusion; what we see here is no arbitrary fudge factor, it is a scientific (even biologic) variable. The body has various enzyme repair mechanisms. We know how fast these can work. We know they can’t work as fast as to deal with 100 mSv in one second and damage will be done. We know that they make mistakes when pushed for speed. We know they work well if the damages per second are low. We know they can repair chronic exposure of 100 mSv a year.
It is very much like Einstein’s cosmic constant. The bias of the time required this constant, but it was nonsense. The universe really is expanding; Einstein’s original formulae were correct. It was the bias of his time – that the universe is never growing or shrinking – that conceived the cosmic constant. Einstein later repented, and referred to the cosmic constant as his biggest mistake.
It is time the LNT users start pondering like Einstein.
@seth South Australia gets 26% of its Mwh from wind power but also 44% from gas. Their gas baseload plant (Torrens Island) is Australia’s largest gas user. Allegedly they have the world’s third highest electricity prices behind Denmark and Germany if I recall.
The problem is that both SA’s developed coal and gas are fast running out. One estimate gave their Cooper Basin gas field 12 years production left. That was in 2009 since then the miracle of fracking promises to extend that. If there is any anxiety it is being hushed up.
The other egregious fact about SA is that it is has huge uranium deposits with Olympic Dam mine able to produce 19,000t a year of U3O8 when expanded. Without a dispatchable power source that’s not going to happen nor will SA wind power get its needed backup.
John Newlands @ 2 April 2012 at 6:42 PM
Thank you for your comment.
It seems that neither Treasury, DRET, DCCEE or anyone else has looked seriously at what the compliance cost for emissions monitoring will be when it is implemented to the standard that will be required for emissions trading or taxing or regulation. That is a disgrace, IMO.
What level of precision and accuracy will ultimately be required for measuring CO2-eq emissions? Will we need to measure all emissions caused by man to a level of precision of 1 t or 1 kg (value say $50 or 5c)? If not what level will be required? And to what level of accuracy, e.g. +/- 1%, 5%, 10%? At 10% accuracy the total amount readily available for fraud would be 10% of 600 Mt/a @ $50/t = $3 billion per year.
I am influenced by recollection of many inquiries into the petrol distribution and retailing industry. Petrol station owners and consumer groups were both concerned they were being ‘ripped off’. For example, there was concern that the petrol delivered at the petrol bowser was less dense (and therefore contained less energy per litre) than when it was loaded into the petrol tanker because it would warm up along the way. So people reckoned they were getting less than they were paying for. There were many inquiries over the years.
This suggests to me people will become concerned about the accuracy of measuring CO2-eq emissions once trading is well established. That implies we will be forever having to tighten the regulations on emissions monitoring. That suggests ever increasing cost of compliance at a rate well above inflation.
And all sources of emissions will eventually have to comply. It strains credulity to believe only some sources (businesses, people or organisations) would have to participate in emissions trading while other sources of emissions will not. We can foresee the fuss and cries of “Why me, but not him?” if that situation was allowed. Eventually, emissions measurement and reporting will have to apply to all sources, even down to cow farts. How can this be done sufficiently accurately from all emissions sources? What will be the total cost of compliance ultimately?
If we assume Australia’s compliance cost would be 10% of USA EPA’s cost (eventually) that means $2.1 billion per year for DCCEE. If we assume the cost for the other government departments involved is roughly the same, we add $2.1 billion. I’d expect the total cost to all businesses and industry would be say ten times DCCEE’s costs – i.e. about $21 billion per year.
Total about $25 billion per year.
I realise this is a very high number. But, what is the correct number? Where has it been estimated and documented?
Given that background, what I really want to know is whether or not there is any official estimate of what the compliance cost will be ultimately? Has anyone done the estimating properly? I am beginning to suspect it hasn’t because if it had someone would be able to point me to some official documentation.
Zdenek — Have you read Mark Lynas’s “Six Degrees”:
http://www.marklynas.org/2007/4/23/six-steps-to-hell-summary-of-six-degrees-as-published-in-the-guardian
? Recommended.
MODERATOR
DBB – your link is broken – can you please fix it?
The reason I am pushing the issue of the compliance cost of CO2-eq pricing is because I believe there may be a better alternative. I believe those who follow BNC may recognise this alternative is worth serious consideration.
CO2-eq pricing is pushed by economists, finance industry, banks, etc. The alternative is an engineering and technology alternative. Engineers do not have the same influence with policy makers as economists, financiers, banks, NGOs, etc. So the alternative does not get as much play where it counts.
Economists genuinely believe CO2-eq pricing is the least cost way to reduce emissions. They are not being dishonest, they just genuinely believe it
CO2-eq pricing necessarily requires accurate measurement of CO2-eq emissions and will eventually require it for all countries and all organisations that emit CO2-eq. It will be required all over the world (think of the practicalities of implementing it, to the standard required, in Eretria and Mogadishu for example).
So what is the alternative to pricing CO2-eq emissions?
The alternative is to remove the impediments to low-cost, low-emissions energy sources. I am particularly thinking of removing the impediments to nuclear power to allow it to be cheaper than coal.
Once we do that, nuclear will replace coal and gas all over the world (over time of course).
That is what needs to be done to make real progress on cutting global emissions.
I suggest the solution is technological. It is a matter of removing the impediments we’ve placed on nuclear power as a result of 50 years of anti-nuclear scaremongering. The scaremongering has caused widespread radiation phobia. Radiation phobia is mainly a disease that inflicts rich people in western democracies. It can be fixed. Education is the key.
PL I don’t know whether compliance cost will be onerous or not for CT but I suspect the public’s respect will diminish for several additional reasons. These include
– coal export hypocrisy
– double dipping by renewables
– questionable offsets such as carbon farming
– spending billions on foreign offsets
– the manufacturing exodus and loss of jobs
– throwing cash at big emitters
– prohibition of nuclear.
All predictable in my opinion so if it blows up the architects have themselves to blame. A quite plausible scenario is that CT is repealed with a change of government at the same time Blind Freddy can see low carbon is the way to go. The public will say in effect we know we should have carbon pricing just we don’t like the way it’s done.
Zdenek, it’s not off topic. Try Climate Change: Science and Solutions for Australia.
But really your best source is the IPCC. The Fourth Assessment Report and others. They’re kinda the gold standard.
http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml
tialsedov, I would imagine that asthma, cancer etc rates would be very easy to study in Victoria. All of the power plants are concentrated in one area. Traralgon and Morwell would have easily distinguishable rates compared to the general country Victorian population.
Not saying I know where this data is, but the fact that two decent sized towns are smothered in brown coal exhausts means that if a signal exists, it would have to be found there.
What Peter Lang said – “The EPA recently stated in a court submission that the cost to the EPA alone to implement and manage in accordance with the existing laws would cost $21 billion per year. That is not a typo. They estimated they would have to increase their permanent staff numbers from 17,000 to 233,000 permanent employees.”
The actual truth – “Sources needing operating permits would jump from 14,700 to 6.1 million as a result of application of Title V to greenhouse gases, a 400-fold increase. … Hiring the 230,000 full-time employees necessary to produce the 1.4 billion work hours required to address the actual increase in permitting functions would result in an increase in the Title V administration costs of $21 billion per year.
Based on this analysis, EPA found that applying the literal statutory thresholds (100/250 tpy [tons per year]) on January 2, 2011, would ‘overwhelm[] the resources of permitting authorities and severely impair[] the functioning of the programs …’ After considerable study and receipt of public comment, EPA determined that by phasing in the statutory thresholds, it could almost immediately achieve most of the emission benefits that would result from strict adherence to the literal 100/250 tpy threshold while avoiding the permit gridlock that unquestionably would result from the immediate application of that threshold. This phase-in process would also allow EPA time to develop streamlining measures that could eventually ease administration at the statutory thresholds. Thus, EPA promulgated the Tailoring Rule to ‘phase[] in the applicability of these programs to GHG sources, starting with the largest GHG emitters.’” [EPA brief, 9/16/11]”
http://mediamatters.org/research/201109270014
The actual truth is that the EPA estimated the cost of not bringing in a tailoring rule to avoid regulating each and every greenhouse gas emitter. As our carbon tax ONLY applies to large emitters then the administration charge would be in line with the estimated EPA costs with a tailoring rule.
Peter Lang is repeating a distortions of the truth.
Zdednek “Sorry for off-topic post: could someone please recommend a good book on climate change? What I am looking for:”
Not a book however there is a tremendous series of lectures by David Archer teaching a basic class on climate:
http://forecast.uchicago.edu/lectures.html
I have not read the accompanying book however I have watched the lectures and while they are technical, if you have high school maths you can easily follow them.
They are free from politics as the science is non-political it is just science. What to do about climate change is political. There is no science in majority of the denier ‘case’ as it is usually cherry-picked and distorted climate science so I cannot recommend a science book for you to read. There are a couple of fantasy books available by people like Plimer or Ball.
In a science book there is only the science and that is clear.
Clearly the administrative costs of regulating every small-scale emitter of CO2 is large. But doing it that way is unnecessary. The number of fossil carbon extraction sites is much smaller than the number of fossil carbon users/emitters. Just tax the carbon extraction at the source and let the costs flow to the users/emitters. The number of coal mining companies, oil pumping companies, gas drilling companies, and ports where these materials are imported are very small compared to the number of automobiles, stoves, industrial furnaces, home heaters, etc, etc. The EPA’s approach is stupid. That doesn’t mean there isn’t a better, much more practical way.
If and when large scale sequestration gets going, you can use the same tax in reverse to pay for re-fossilizing carbon atoms. Until then, essentially all fossil carbon ends up in the atmosphere eventually, so the excess tax collected at the source will be an insignificant cost on things like plastic synthesis. To the extent that plastics can be made from bio-sourced carbon, they won’t have to pay the fossil carbon tax and relative to fossil carbon source plastic, they will enjoy the same advantage as carbon sequesterers.
JN
You comments suggest you may have misunderstood the implicatiosn of a potentially high compliance cost. The latest Nielsen poll shows the public reject CO2 pricing 60% ‘against’, 39% ‘for’. If they realised what the compliance cost may grow to, I expect the proportion ‘against’ would be much greater.
Compliance cost is a cost with any type of CO2 pricing or CO2 tax. Changing the scheme would not avoid the compliance cost (nor the many other major practical flaws in the concept).
Chris Uhlik,
GHG emissions come from many thousands of sources (or millions of sources if you count each domestic animal as a source) in a country like Australia, not just from coal mines, oil wells and gas wells.
Eventually, we will be required to measure the emissions from all of the sources, and to a level of precision and accuracy that is good enough for trade (as pointed out in a previous comment). Furthermore, the whole world will have to doa so. Is it really practical? What is the cost?
The costs may be very large. It is incumbent on government to have analysed this and tell us before implementing schemes based on partial analysis. We depend of governments to tell us the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth about what we are getting ourselves into before the legislation is passed. It appears this has not been done.
PL my guess is Joe Public will want carbon pricing yesterday when we have $2 petrol and a severe El Nino. I suspect we’ll get both within 2-3 years. Carbon pricing has to be done in a way the public respects. I dread the return of the TV ads with the happy people wearing yellow hard hats walking next to solar panels. Perhaps the panels weren’t bolted down properly. It’s irrelevant and the public knows it. Alas the politicians don’t.
It can’t be too hard to police the 500 biggest emitters. Where I think they’ll stuff up is getting the principles wrong. For example I recall a major company wanted a carbon credit for a secondary heat recovery system. If it saves emissions it saves carbon tax which is exactly how it’s meant to work. If the CO2 saving gets credited elsewhere the net effect is zero.
The carbon cops are going to work themselves into a tizzy with all these irrelevant side issues. Meanwhile I strongly suspect genuine villains like Hazelwood will continue to spew the same 14 Mt a year of CO2. If the carbon cops are hard on them the cheque for $266m they just got from the Feds must ease the pain.
@sgloor: Thanks, the Archer’s book seems to be about what I was looking for.
JN,
You keep repeating on thread after thread:
And I keep stating, clearly, it will not be just 500 emitters. That is the honeymoon rate to suck us in. Eventually it must expand to include all emitters. You cannot have some emitters included and others not. That is not fair. People will complain “why me, but not him/her?”.
Some carbon capture and storage news from the UK:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17586596
I’ve never really fancied CCS’s chances, but if a Government is going to fund R&D, best not to do it with the on-again/off-again approach demonstrated in this case.
Looks like the Japanese government has allowed early returns to Fukushima:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Early_returns_to_Fukushima_0204121.html
Emission trading… well let’s look at Europe’s experience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_Emission_Trading_Scheme
Almost zero impact is too kind; Europe’s EU ETS traded emissions actually INCREASED by 3%!!!
http://www.euractiv.com/climate-environment/europes-co2-emissions-growing-economy-news-502537
That’s what you get when people think that we can close nuclear plants and not worry about the growing economy, because “we have an emissions trading system”. Gee whiz. Don’t worry about the dirt burners, it’s traded.
Just imagine what 287 billion dollars in nuclear plants, LED lights, building insulation and heat pumps would have bought. It would actually reduce emissions and infuse the installation and energy sector with big investments, rather than creating subprime mortgage type bubble hysteria.
This reference has a nice graph (figure 1) that shows Europe’s complete standstill on CO2 emissions reduction, while Asian and South American countries rapidly increased CO2 emissions.
http://edgar.jrc.ec.europa.eu/part_CO2.php
For some reason the European Comission isn’t bothered by the utter failure. In stead it keeps setting ever more ambitious CO2 reduction goals!!!
The disconnect from reality is stark.
An interesting thing to note about the early returning residents in the evacuation zone:
In the area that has 20 msv/yr or less they are allowed total access but they CAN”T STAY OVERNIGHT. I wonder what the logic is on that.
Cyril R, on 3 April 2012 at 11:54 PM said:
“That’s what you get when people think that we can close nuclear plants and not worry about the growing economy, because “we have an emissions trading system”. Gee whiz. Don’t worry about the dirt burners, it’s traded.”
Just imagine what 287 billion dollars in nuclear plants, LED lights, building insulation and heat pumps would have bought. It would actually reduce emissions and infuse the installation and energy sector with big investments, rather than creating subprime mortgage type bubble hysteria.
I’m sure wall street would LOVE this system. Think of all the money they could make!!
I’m glad we are not doing it in the USA!
Cyril R I understand the poor performance of the European ETS can be attributed to the over issuance of permits and generous use of offsets. Permits were ‘grandfathered’ or given for free on the basis of historical patterns. Offsets under the questionable Clean Development Mechanism are used to ‘neutralise’ up to 50% of emissions in some EU countries. Problems easily solved by auctioning all permits and disallowing offsets.
Of course mandates and feed-in tariffs cost more and have negligible CO2 impact. They also contravene the very point of carbon pricing of not picking winners. With carbon tax we have additional issues with partial exemptions and phase-in periods. There needs to be some kind of carbon tariff on goods imported from Asian countries that are getting a free ride on the carbon restraint of the West.
Thus if carbon pricing fails here and isn’t fixed in Europe we have ourselves to blame for not being tough enough. Already I have major problems with giving $1bn to brown coal generators before CT has even started. While we are supposed to be ashamed of our domestic emissions of 540 Mt of CO2e for some reason we should be proud that exported coal and LNG creates 780 Mt.
An ideal situation would be if renewables subsidies were dropped and nuclear began here as a result of carbon pricing with no giveaways. The public will see that it evolves naturally without being dictated. Until that happens we will just muddle along like Europe.
Cyril, the article you linked above is from February 2011
this year, things look much better, with several countries ready to reach targets .
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-03-29/global-warming/31254214_1_greenhouse-gas-emissions-rise-carbon-dioxide
MODERATOR
sod – your second link repeated the first so did not demonstrate what you claimed. Please re-submit with the link to the article re German CO2 reductions.Thankyou.
I want to introduce a new topic, not yet discussed in detail in BNC.
This is the topic of urban slums, that are growing rapidly in the 3rd world. A good reader will be the book by Mike Davis “The planet of slums”. The massive expansion of 3rd world urban population, often into poorly serviced shanty towns, is also a critical environmental problem.
Although cities are generally good for the environment than suburbs, malfunctioning cities without infrastructure may well create severe environmental problems and health hazards – often due to poor sanitation, drinking water availability and electric power availability. Industrial pollutants like smog (very often from coal-fired power plants) severely endanger the health of the occupants of these shantytowns.
This issue has largely escaped discussion in the global environmental circles due to the relative remoteness of the problem, but this is becoming more and more a severe issue as the world’s population is urbanizing, but without any planning.
There is no logic at all in the entire evacuation business. It’s not risk based, and its arbitrary (the contaminated zone is NOT shaped like a circle at all!!).
Requiring people to not stay overnight increases car travel. Car travel is very dangerous. Much more dangerous than 20 mSv of ionizing radiation. 1.19 million people died last year from car accidents. Evacuating an area is dangerous business. It has already killed over 500 people, far more than would have died if the area hadn’t been evacuated.
It is, sadly, another example of the radiophobia and risk-delusion. With the best of intentions, the proponents of the evacuation say – but some of the worst things in history have been done with the best intentions. I blame the Japanese government for snapping to the drum of fear in stead of using an alternative risk based model. Even today, the Japanese government and regulatory agencies are using rediculous area decontamination standards like 1 mSv a year targets – which is less than the natural variation in natural background levels, for Pete’s sake! It is currently also illegal to export ordinary granite from Fukushima region. That is because granite contains over 1000 Bq/kg of naturally occuring radioisotopes, while only 100-500 is allowed. Ordinary brick is still allowed but you must ask a radioactivity exemption from the government (!).
http://energyfromthorium.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3453
It seems that we haven’t reached the bottom of the radiophobia pit we’ve flung ourselves into.
Cyril R., on 4 April 2012 at 7:00 AM said:
“There is no logic at all in the entire evacuation business. It’s not risk based, and its arbitrary (the contaminated zone is NOT shaped like a circle at all!!).”
Oddly it is a hybrid. They use the constant radius bit they modify that based on the plume.
wnn map:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/RS_Early_returns_to_Fukushima_0204121.html
@Cyril R.
Do you have a direct reference for the limit of 100-500 Bq/kg for materials shipped from Fukushima?
This is all getting beyond ridiculous. The Japanese authorities are making big trouble for themselves in what could at best be described as attempting to be responsive to public concerns by setting absurd limits that will be both impossible and unreasonable to achieve.
From Tom Blees:
GE’s Eric Loewen is back in the UK pushing the PRISM, and this article in The Independent from yesterday sounds really good.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/plans-to-build-a-nuclear-fast-reactor-at-sellafield-come-a-step-closer-7608840.html
Here’s the money quote that I think the UK public will find hard to ignore:
After too many years of GE treating the PRISM like a red-headed stepchild, this is a huge step for them, for which I applaud Eric and all the guys who worked hard to put together the UK plan. This could be quite a game changer. We shall see. Certainly encouraging.
here is the link i messed up above:
http://www.sueddeutsche.de/wissen/positive-bilanz-des-bundesumweltamtes-deutsche-industrie-vermindert-kohlendioxid-ausstoss-1.1324744
less CO2 equivalent produced by the industry than in 2010, even though 7 nuclear power plants got switched of and the economy was growing.
It’s too early to tell if Germany can sustain this. They are currently in a GDP dip
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/germany/gdp-growth
Virtually the whole of 20th century economics shows strong correlation between GDP and energy consumption. A minor exception was the 70s oil price shock when people drove their gas guzzlers less but kept working away.
Rather than GDP which is essentially the sum of all transactions new economic measures are being proposed such as ‘genuine progress’. That is you have fewer dollars but more cancer cures. My guess is that Germany will have lower total economic activity and higher energy costs. That needs another year or so to gel.
Solar energy is used by nature and farmers for growing bio-mass for food and other uses. It may be useful to develop it further just like past generations did for farming. The greenhouse effect of CO2 and higher temperature can be used for higher and faster growth of bio-mass for food, fuel, fiber and other uses by selection and development of crops to match the conditions. In off-grid places, solar energy can be stored in molten salt/metal eutectics and used when required through thermo-electric devices.
Wind energy can be used to compress air mechanically without going through electric route and used for forced ventilation with or without heat pumps for climate control. Later, pneumatic domestic devices and pumps could be developed to use compressed air. Gaint windmills and related transmission lines spoiling the environment should be avoided.
Following on from my comment about the UK PRISM build, here is the press release which has more details:
GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Signs MOU Agreement with National Nuclear Laboratory to Work on Tackling UK Plutonium Stockpile
WORKINGTON, U.K. —April 4, 2012—With the U.K. government looking at ways to address its growing stockpile of civil plutonium, GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) today signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with National Nuclear Laboratory Ltd. (NNL). NNL will provide expert technical input to the potential U.K. deployment of GEH’s innovative PRISM reactor, which would be specifically designed to disposition the U.K.’s plutonium while generating 600MW of low carbon electricity. GEH also spent the day meeting with a number of the skilled nuclear workforce in West Cumbria to learn how they could work with GEH on PRISM’s potential deployment.
The country is currently storing more than 87 metric tons (and growing) of plutonium at the Sellafield nuclear complex in West Cumbria, England. The U.K. Government has confirmed its intention to reuse this plutonium in December 2011 declaring that it “remains open to any alternative proposals for plutonium management that offer better value to the U.K. taxpayer.” The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has recently announced in February 2012 that it is seeking proposals for alternative approaches to manage the U.K.’s plutonium stocks.
“We are excited for the potential opportunity to utilize the expertise of NNL and help the U.K. continue to take a leadership role in the reuse of plutonium,” said Danny Roderick, senior vice president of new plant projects for GEH. “We believe that PRISM is the best way to manage the U.K.’s plutonium stockpile efficiently, securely, and safely while generating low-carbon electricity at the same time.”
“With our recognized technical capability and long experience in fuel cycle analysis, we are pleased that GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy has looked to NNL to provide independent and authoritative input to the potential U.K. application of a PRISM reactor,” said Paul Howarth, managing director of NNL, which operates a number of research facilities in the U.K. including the flagship Central Laboratory on the Sellafield site. “We look forward to working with GEH as they develop their approach to helping the U.K. address its plutonium legacy.”
Today, GEH along with leading U.K. engineering firms Costain, Arup and Pöyry, (GEH’s “CAP Alliance” partners), met face-to-face with the number of highly talented and experienced nuclear sector suppliers in West Cumbria at the ENERGUS centre in Lillyhall, Workington. GEH is committed, to the greatest extent possible, to utilizing U.K. companies and workers. Currently, General Electric Company, one of GEH’s parents, has approximately 18,000 U.K. employees countrywide.
Should PRISM be approved for construction, in addition to creating about 900 permanent jobs and thousands of expected indirect jobs for the local community, this multi-billion pound investment would stand to create a range of opportunities for suppliers while continuing to develop the country’s nuclear energy skills base and reaffirming Cumbria’s position of nuclear excellence with “Britain’s energy coast.”
GEH is convinced that its PRISM technology provides an innovative solution to the objectives set forth by the NDA – the quickest disposal of plutonium at the best value – while providing substantial environmental and economic benefits. GEH is currently working closely with the U.K. government, including NDA, to detail why it believes PRISM technology is the best choice for the U.K. taxpayer.
About GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy
Based in Wilmington, N.C., GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy (GEH) is a world-leading provider of advanced reactors and nuclear services. Established in June 2007, GEH is a global nuclear alliance created by GE and Hitachi to serve the global nuclear industry. The nuclear alliance executes a single, strategic vision to create a broader portfolio of solutions, expanding its capabilities for new reactor and service opportunities. The alliance offers customers around the world the technological leadership required to effectively enhance reactor performance, power output and safety.
About NNL
NNL provides the experts and technologies to ensure the U.K. nuclear industry operates safely and cost-effectively today and for the future. The company is owned by U.K. Government and managed by an appointed contractor (a consortium of Battelle, Serco and the University of Manchester). NNL is run as a commercial business and receives no funding directly from U.K. Government. It has an annual turnover of around £80M and employs around 750 people (mostly professional scientists and engineers) across six U.K. locations. NNL’s Central Laboratory includes state-of-the-art facilities which can handle plutonium and other highly radioactive nuclear materials, and these could play an important role in future fuel cycle work on PRISM or similar systems.
About PRISM
PRISM is based on technology that was demonstrated in a fast reactor in the U.S. called the EBR II (Experimental Breeder Reactor) that operated successfully for 30 years. Last year, GEH completed the commercialization of PRISM, which began in 1981. Calculations have shown that PRISM technology would use practically all the stored plutonium at Sellafield. This is very different from other competing proposals, including turning the plutonium into mixed oxide fuel. Mixed oxide fuel (also known as “MOX”) simply puts the plutonium into a complex form that is highly radioactive while not actually eliminating any plutonium. In contrast, the PRISM reactor consumes much of the plutonium as a true fuel.