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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 […]
Filed under: Emissions, Hot News, Nuclear, Renewables | 97 Comments »
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 […]
Filed under: Nuclear, Renewables, Scenarios | 29 Comments »
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 […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Renewables | 259 Comments »
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. […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Renewables | 95 Comments »
I’m back on my BNC blog tonight, albeit briefly. You see, I’ve been on annual leave since Wednesday, and have spent the last few days on a motoring tour (with my parents and my two boys, Billy and Eddy, aged 11 and 8) around western Victoria — Castlemaine, Ararat, Lake Fyans, the spectacular Grampians National […]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Renewables | 140 Comments »
When I was at UNSW yesterday — prior to my debate with Mark Diesendorf — I met up with Ted Trainer, author of ‘Renewable Energy Cannot Sustain a Consumer Society“. We had a great chat, and I think I even inched him a little towards IFRs (ever the optimist). Anyway, Ted asked me to post […]
Filed under: Emissions, Renewables | 81 Comments »
About 1 year ago, I posted on BNC two important pieces by Peter Lang – “Does wind power reduce carbon emissions?” and a follow-up reply. Together, these stirred up considerable discussion (about 500 comments to date) and raised important questions about the ability of wind-energy to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels, when natural gas usage for […]
Filed under: Emissions, Renewables | 133 Comments »
Download the printable 13-page PDF (includes appendix) here. By Peter Lang. Peter is a retired geologist and engineer with 40 years experience on a wide range of energy projects throughout the world, including managing energy R&D and providing policy advice for government and opposition. His experience includes: coal, oil, gas, hydro, geothermal, nuclear power plants, […]
Filed under: Emissions, Renewables | 229 Comments »
On Friday night, 13th August, I was awarded the 2010 Community Science Educator of the Year. On September 8, 2010, I will be speaking on nuclear and solar energy at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. The BraveNewClimate.com blog is 2 years old! Details below… —————————- I got back from China at midday […]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Nuclear, Renewables | 23 Comments »
‘Zero Carbon Australia – Stationary Energy Plan’ – Critique Download the printable PDF here [An addendum on wind farm and solar construction rates, by Dave Burraston] ———————— Edit: Here are some media-suitable ‘sound bytes’ from the critique, prepared by Martin. Obviously, please read the whole critique below to understand the context: They assume we will […]
Filed under: Renewables | 358 Comments »
I’m about to hit the road once again, this time to take the great American road trip for 13 hours, from Sacremento to Idaho Falls, with Tom Blees, leaving bright and early tomorrow morning. Today I had a fantastic visit to UC Berkeley and the lab of Prof Per Peterson, and will have lots more […]
Filed under: Emissions, Future, Nuclear, Renewables | 28 Comments »
A new report, Zero Carbon Australia 2020, has been released today. Its aim is to “show how Australia can reach 100% renewable energy within a decade, using technology that is commercially available right now“. From their website: The guiding principles of ZCA 2020 include: Australia’s energy is provided entirely from renewable sources at the end […]
Filed under: Emissions, Renewables | 560 Comments »
Guest post by John D. Morgan. John runs R&D programmes at a Sydney startup company. He has a PhD in physical chemistry, and research experience in chemical engineering in the US and at CSIRO. He is a regular commenter on BNC. A 10-page printable PDF version of this post can be downloaded here. ———————————- Beyond […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Renewables, TCASE | 108 Comments »
Below I reproduce our first serious modelling work on Oz-Energy-Analysis.org (see this BNC post for a description of OzEA, including its goals and Open Science methods). The work presented here is high level and abstracted, and will be developed in future rounds.We’re looking for hard-nosed comments/critiques, and suggestions for current and future directions (especially over […]
Filed under: Renewables | 81 Comments »
In the Thinking Critically About Sustainable Energy (TCASE) series — currently up to 10 parts on the BNC blog — I consider the challenges we face in scaling up renewable or nuclear energy technologies to replace fossil fuels. The blog serialisation of TCASE will continue on BNC, but the format is now also moving into a […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Renewables, TCASE | 23 Comments »
This post follows on directly from part 1, which you can read here. Here, a list of frequently asked questions (FAQ) on climate change and nuclear energy are answered. These are quite deliberately not technical – you won’t find explanations of adiabatic lapse rates, actinide isotopes or Brayton cycle efficiency here! Nope… these are ‘big […]
Filed under: Clim Ch Q&A, Emissions, Nuclear, Renewables | 282 Comments »
A recent BNC guest post, Public advocacy on nuclear power and climate change, stirred up some really useful ideas. In that post’s comments thread, it was discussed how we, as a concerned and engaged internet community (the BNC crowd, and similar groups like Energy from Thorium), could engage more effectively with the broader public domain on the […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Renewables | 176 Comments »
This is an invitation to BNC readers to join in, at an early stage, an Open Science experiment based around systems analysis of renewable energy. Okay, what’s all this about? Click here (or on the image above) to go directly to the front page, which currently says this: Once upon a time… We all wanted to understand renewables. […]
Filed under: Emissions, Renewables | 121 Comments »
Guest Post by Peter Lang. Peter is a retired geologist and engineer with 40 years experience on a wide range of energy projects throughout the world, including managing energy R&D and providing policy advice for government and opposition. His experience includes: coal, oil, gas, hydro, geothermal, nuclear power plants, nuclear waste disposal, and a wide […]
Filed under: Emissions, Nuclear, Renewables | 101 Comments »
As I noted in a recent post, my new goal with TCASE posts is for them to be shorter, more targeted and more regular, with the aim being to break big problems in sustainable energy down into very focused questions (each of the new TCASE posts will be a maximum of 1,000 words — my […]
Filed under: Renewables, TCASE | 58 Comments »
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