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Guest Post by Geoff Russell. Geoff is a mathematician and computer programmer and is a member of Animal Liberation SA. His recently published book is CSIRO Perfidy. His previous article on BNC was: Greenpeace’s Plan for India —————— Switzerland. It’s smaller than Tasmania, but rather more famous and never missing from maps of Europe. Cheese and chocolates, pocket knives and […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy | 28 Comments »
A common refrain from politicians and members of the business community is that moving from coal to natural gas is an effective way to cut carbon dioxide emissions and therefore address global warming. This argument is flawed, as I detailed last year in two posts, Santos Chief’s gassy vision (Parts I and II). Yet, gas is […]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Emissions, Policy | 78 Comments »
The Blue Ribbon Commission on America’s Nuclear future was charged by President Barack Obama with recommending ways to move forward with used nuclear fuel in light of the closing of the Yucca Mountain used fuel repository project (details on NEI Notes). They released a 192-page draft in late July report that is currently open for public […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 36 Comments »
Guest Post by Luke Weston. Luke is a Melbourne-based physicist and occasional freelance electronic engineer, with a strong interest in educating the community about nuclear energy and related issues. It is often said by the anti-nuclearists that the commercial nuclear energy industry “can’t get insurance” against the risks of nuclear or radiological accidents, or that it […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 84 Comments »
In the previous TCASE post, I considered how various low-carbon energy technologies meet the following criteria: commercial readiness, scalability, dispatchability, fuel constraints, load access, storage requirements, capacity factor and emissions intensity. Here I consider the next issue: cost of deployment, based on expert consensus. The primary data again come from the work I had published in 2011 […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy, Renewables, TCASE | 91 Comments »
The following is a detailed guest post by Dr Ted Trainer, University of NSW (http://ssis.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/). In it, he provides the most detailed critique I’ve yet seen of the recent IPCC renewable energy scenarios report. Now, I don’t agree with everything Ted says — in particular the conclusion that the only feasible alternative to large-scale renewables is “The […]
Filed under: Policy, Renewables | 96 Comments »
Regular readers of BNC would know that I’m hardly the only climate change researcher to recommend serious deployment of nuclear energy to displace fossil fuels. (Although I’m often portrayed as an isolated [and presumably therefore ignorant?] voice on this point). One very prominent example of a colleague in arms is my fellow SCGI member, Dr […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy, Renewables | 88 Comments »
When it comes to energy and carbon emissions reduction, the devil is always in the detail. So too with Australia’s plans to cut its emissions by five per cent below year 2000 levels by 2020. But first, let’s look at the big picture. Why we need to do this As a scientist who researches the impacts […]
Filed under: Emissions, Policy | 58 Comments »
Most readers of BNC know the story — after the Fukushima nuclear crisis, the German government announced that Germany would phase out all of its nuclear generation capacity by 2022. In almost the same period, Germany also aims to cut its national greenhouse gas emissions to 40% of 1990 levels (by 2020). Their emissions have […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy, Renewables | 108 Comments »
Back in May, I published a critique of an MIT report on the future of the nuclear fuel cycle (MIT FNFC), on behalf of Yoon Chang and the Science Council for Global Initiatives. Since that time, SCGI member Steve Kirsch (a MIT alumnus and benefactor) has been trying to get MIT to engage with their critics, […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 135 Comments »
At the height of the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, there was a lot of discussion in the comments of this blog about the impact of radiation on human health. In particular, there was a debate about whether the linear no-threshold hypothesis (LNT) or the hormetic dose response (RH) was more scientifically robust model for assessing the […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 64 Comments »
[This is an abridged amalgam of writings by me on nuclear power and climate change that I’ve published on BNC and elsewhere over the last two years. It has been updated with some commentary on recent events – the Fukushima Daiichi crisis, Germany’s announced withdrawal from nuclear energy, and so on. I hope you find […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy | 74 Comments »
Australia is set to introduce a carbon tax (details to be released on Sunday 10 July 2011). This post is the place to discuss this policy — the good and the bad. A description, from the Australian Parliamentary Library: A carbon tax is a tax on energy sources which emit carbon dioxide. It is a […]
Filed under: Emissions, Policy | 346 Comments »
Guest Post by Geoff Russell. Geoff is a mathematician and computer programmer and is a member of Animal Liberation SA. His recently published book is CSIRO Perfidy. This article follows on from his previous: What price of Indian independence? Greenpeace under the spotlight —————— In my previous BNC piece I examined the feasibility of two ways of producing a per-capita electricity supply […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy | 97 Comments »
The Equinox Energy 2030 Summit (2011) has now concluded, and I’ve arrived back in Australia. It was an enthralling and exhausting experience, and I befriended a wonderful group of people — members of the Forum (aged ~25 to 30 years), Advisors (including me — for generalist critiques and ), Quorum (advocates for specific technologies) and […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy, Renewables | 65 Comments »
In the 1950s, following World War II, the United Kingdom and a handful of other nations developed a nuclear weapons arsenal. This required the production of plutonium metal (or highly enriched uranium) purpose-built facilities. ‘Civil’ plutonium was also produced, since the facilities for separation existed and it was thought that this fissile material would prove […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Policy | 23 Comments »
MIT (energy initiative) recently released a controversial and well-publicized report on the future of the nuclear fuel cycle. In it, they argue that there is sufficient uranium to allow ongoing deployment of water-cooled reactors for many decades; they recommend that no far-reaching decision be made yet on the ultimate disposal of the ‘spent’ nuclear fuel […]
Filed under: Future, Nuclear, Policy | 154 Comments »
Guest Post by Geoff Russell. Geoff is a mathematician and computer programmer and is a member of Animal Liberation SA. His recently published book is CSIRO Perfidy. To see a list of other BNC posts by Geoff, click here. —————— India declared itself a republic in 1950 after more than a century of struggle against British Imperialism. Greenpeace India however, […]
Filed under: Emissions, Future, Nuclear, Policy | 160 Comments »
The following post is intended as a working paper for discussion. (It builds on work started by Peter Lang back in 2009, Does wind power reduce carbon emissions?) This current work is based on the methods and conclusions from the recently published work by Herbert Inhaber in the peer-reviewed journal Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, entitled: […]
Filed under: Emissions, Policy, Renewables | 355 Comments »
Global warming can only be tackled seriously by a massive reduction in anthropogenic greenhouse gas production. It’s that simple. But just hoping for this to gradually happen — locally, regionally or globally — by tinkering at the edge of the problem (carbon prices, alternative energy subsidies, mandated targets and loan guarantees, “100 ways to be more […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Policy | 39 Comments »
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