The arithmetic adds up to nuclear

Yesterday, The Australian newspaper published an Op Ed piece by Nicholson, Biegler & Brook, entitled Emission reductions are not blowin’ in the wind, which discusses our recent paper in Energy. The print (dead tree) version of the article even had the graph shown here included! However, the editor had to cut down our original version […]

Nuclear is the least-cost, low-carbon, baseload power source

This is a press release to accompany a new peer-reviewed paper by Martin Nicholson, Tom Biegler and me (Barry Brook), published online this week in the journal Energy. In subsequents BNC post, I will look at how the media has reacted so far to the story (the good, the bad and the ugly), and also […]

The effect of cutting CO2 emissions to zero by 2050

Guest Post by Dr Tom M. L. Wigley. Tom is a a senior scientist in the Climate and Global Dynamics Division of the US National Center for Atmospheric Research and former Director of the CRU. He is an adjunct Professor at the University of Adelaide. For his list of papers and citations, click here (his h-index […]

SNE 2060 – a multi-source energy supply scenario

In this post, I develop a hypothetical multi-energy-supply scenario for global low-emissions electricity in ~2060. The assumed energy mix is 75 % nuclear fission and 25 % non-nuclear sources, with fossil fuel use virtually eliminated except where it is used with carbon capture and storage. The % annual growth rate (GR) of energy supplied assumes […]

Systems modelling for synergistic ecological-climate dynamics

For those interested in my current science research directions, I’ve just been funded for another 4 years by the Australian Research Council as a Professorial “Future Fellow“, to continue my work on stochastic systems modelling and scenario optimisation. Here are some details on the project: Title: Systems modelling for synergistic ecological-climate dynamics Summary of Proposal: The project aims […]

SNE 2060 – assessment of energy demand

In a previous post on BraveNewClimate – TCASE #The energy demand equation to 2050 — I estimated a mid-century global primary energy demand of ~1000 EJ (see here for definitions). But it may as well have been 2060; the actual date that this global demand will be reached is obviously uncertain, but will likely occur between 2040 […]

CO2 rising – the science of global warming

Below are two climate change book reviews by me; I hope you find them as interesting as I did. I’ve provided an Amazon link to one and a Book Depository link to another — because I’m not out to promote any particular online bookstore (although I tend to find the latter cheapest, and as to […]

Electricity costs exhibits

I note that there has been some interesting discussion here on costs of electricity, especial the comparative value of fossil fuels versus nuclear (and renewables). This is a point I will revisit from a number of perspectives over the next few months, because I agree with commenters like Arthur Dent, Peter Lang and DV82XL that […]

Two nuclear-solar dialogues in Melbourne next week

Back in September, I visited UNSW in Sydney and debated Mark Diesendorf on nuclear and solar power. It was a useful night, with quite a few Sydney-based BNC readers attending. I was pleased with the outcome — I just hope the audio becomes available at some point. Now this “Brain Food” event comes to Melbourne. […]

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