"Climate Control is Not a Morality Play"

Jeff Sachs says we need to cut our fossil-fuel based emissions by one third:

Change after Bali, by Jeffrey D. Sachs, Commentary, Scientific American: Last December’s agreement in Bali to launch a two-year negotiation on climate change was good news, a rare example of international cooperation... Cynics might note that the only accomplishment was an agreement to talk some more, and their cynicism may yet be confirmed. Nevertheless, the growing understanding that serious climate-control measures are feasible at modest cost is welcome.

The arithmetic is becoming clearer. If the rich nations continue to grow in income and the poor ones systematically narrow the income gap with successful development, by 2050 the global economy might increase sixfold and global energy use roughly fourfold. ...

Roughly speaking, ... to arrive at 440 ppm [CO2] by midcentury—a plausibly achievable “safe” level in terms of its likely climate change consequences but only 60 ppm more than the current one—cumulative emissions should be kept to roughly ... 21 billion tons a year on average until 2050. This goal can be achieved by ending deforestation (on a net basis) and by cutting our current fossil-fuel-based emissions by one third.

So here is the challenge. Can the world economy use four times more primary energy while lowering emissions by one third?

A promising core strategy seems to be the following: Electricity needs to be made virtually emission-free, through the mass mobilization of solar and nuclear power and the capture and sequestration of carbon dioxide from coal-burning power plants. With a clean power grid, most of the other emissions can also be controlled. ...

The Bali negotiations will succeed if the world keeps its eye on supporting the speedy adoption of low-emissions technologies. Issues of blame, allocation of costs, and choice of control mechanisms are less important than rapid technological development and deployment, backed by a control mechanism chosen by each country.

If the less polluting technologies pan out at low cost, as seems possible, the rich countries will be able to afford to clean up their own energy systems while also bearing part of the costs to enable the poor to make the needed conversions. Climate control is not a morality play. It is mainly a practical and solvable technological challenge, which, if met correctly, can be combined with the needs and aspirations for a growing global economy.

It's only a small part of the article, but the turnaround on attitudes toward nuclear energy from a few decades ago still surprises me when I see it. Instead of being viewed as a potential environmental disaster, nuclear power is now hailed as part of the solution to our environmental problems. So I'm curious, how do you feel about nuclear power? It's probably a result of all that conditioning decades ago, but I'm still wary.

Comments

[reason]

Marginally off topic... But brilliantly cutting - worthy of a post on its own:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/19/climatechange.carbonemissions

[reason]

Mobiot above, argues against the idiocy that is currency based cost/benefit analysis on environmental issues.

[reason]

For those that don't or won't follow the link:

...Yet the government has calculated the economic benefits to Britain, weighed them against the global costs of climate change and discovered that sacrificing foreigners - especially poor ones - is a sensible economic decision.

I can accept that a unit of measurement that allows us to compare the human costs of different spending decisions is a useful tool. What I cannot accept is that it should be scrambled up with the price of eggs and prefixed with a dollar sign. Human life is not a commodity. It cannot be traded against profits or exchanged for convenience. We have no right to decide that others should die to make us richer.

[JMWatson]

I'm a pretty big proponent of nuclear energy. A large study conducted in the late 90s by the EU tried to quantify the external costs of different forms of electrical generation (you can find the full series of reports at externe.info). The conclusion of this study, as it relates to nuclear energy, is that when all external costs are factored in (they had no way to assess the costs of nuclear proliferation), the external costs of a kWh of electricity produced by nuclear energy is around half of a euro cent, which is approximately the same as for hydro, solar PV, and wind.

[reason]

I don't think it scales. It buys us time that is all.

[reason]

But this article also ignores another issue. Global warming could occur even without a growth in green house gases. Energy use (especially if lots of the energy flow into water) could itself be a form of pollution.

[reason]

To spell it out (imagine we collect a large amount of solar energy and generate large amounts of nuclear energy and a significant portion of this flows eventually into the oceans (rather than being radiated back out to space), warming (and expanding) the oceans and changing their ecosystems (by for instance reducing the oxygen content).

[reason]

P.S. For those Monbiot haters out there.

Monbiot is a mixed bag, sometimes infuriatingly biased and polemical. But he sometimes states blandly truths that others sweep under the carpet. He is worth reading as a reality check.

[Elvis]

France seems comfortable with it. Japan, too.

Compared to sequestering carbon from coal plants, nuclear seems pretty straightforward. Keep it simple.

[hammerhead]

Nuclear energy powers my home. My house is 4,200 sq ft, and I've never had a winter bill over $180. The average January low in this area is 35 degrees. Now, if they could just figure out what to do with that nuclear waste.

[Zero]

Nuclear power is okay as long as Homer Simpson isn't running the plant. So that spells trouble for organizations like Ontario Hydro.

[Naim Matasci]

Much more work needs to be done before nuclear can be reasonably used as a valid source of energy.

For one thing, nuclear is not a renewable source of energy. Uranium ore deposits will become more and more inaccessible and thus uranium mining will necessarily increase its carbon footprint (The Sydney Morning Herald: Just how clean is nuclear?).

In addition there are environmental and social issues related to uranium mining that still need to be addressed and taken into account (Areva, 2008 receipient of the Public Eye on Davos "award")

And finally, of course, the safety issue. And safety is a serious issue not only in debt ridden 1986 Ukraine, but in wealthy 2008 UK as well (The Independent: Sellafield in crisis again).

So, maybe nuclear will be ripe in 50 years or so, and I hope that by then, we will have other, cleaner and safer ways to obtain energy.

[robertdfeinman]

I'm against nuclear power in principle, but I'm expecting it to expand anyway because for some period of time it may be the lesser of evils.

There are several real issues with nuclear. How people view them tells you more about the viewer than the issue.
1. Safety
2. Cost
3. Waste
4. Environmental impact

1. The safety record for nuclear is not good. There are many small disasters and one huge one. Proponents skip over the small ones and try to minimize the continuing effects of Chernobyl. When I was in grad school I came across a book which discussed nuclear accidents in the industry from a health point of view (this was in the 1960's). Most of the accidents had occurred in Uranium processing facilities and the results were usually death for the workers involved in the accidents. I don't think this sort of information is readily available anymore.

Proponents say that another Chernobyl type event can't happen, it was based upon a poor design, the facility wasn't managed properly, etc. But as nuclear spread to more regions the chances for similar neglect and under training multiply. Optimism is not a good basis for policy.

2. When the cost of the entire nuclear cycle is factored in the results aren't that promising from an economic stand point. This is without assigning a value to the environmental degradation caused by mining. A simple example is the subsidizing of disaster insurance by the federal government. This is where the lesser of evils may come in. Degradation by coal may be worse. Uranium prices have already shot up in the past several years to the point where nuclear fuel is becoming a real cost factor. This means that sooner or later the industry will have to transition to breeder reactors and the use of plutonium. Plutonium is harder to manage, has more bomb potential and is a deadly poison just as a chemical compound even without considering its radioactive aspects. Just look at what a bit of polonium did when used as a poison and imagine what a plutonium spill might do.

3. The fact that the industry (world wide) has not been able to come up with a viable waste disposal system makes one leery of allowing an expansion in the amount of waste generated. Most people don't realize it but there are huge quantities of spent fuel rods sitting around existing plants decades after the government promised to remove them, just because there is no place to put them. It's never discussed, but targeting these storage pools and concrete bunkers would be a much easier task for saboteurs than the reactors themselves. See if you can get an answer to how much spent fuel is stored on site at your nearest nuclear plant. I doubt they will be forthcoming with the information.

4. The environmental impact includes not only the waste but the mining, refining, transporting of fuel, as well as the resources needed to build the plants and operate them. Many local populations have experienced health problems caused by mine tailings nearby. Plants require cooling and there are already concerns about adequate water supplies for this purpose. Again the cost of these externalities is not included in the discussions.

If the nuclear industry was really serious about providing a better solution than coal they would be addressing these issues head on. Instead they are vying for government subsidies and ignoring the environmental and health issues.

[Lee A. Arnold]

Government should subsidize the research and development of wind and solar to the same dollar amount that it subsidized nuclear development, and continues to indirectly subsidize nuclear plant owners by the Price Anderson Act. I don't have my calculator handy, but I'm guessing it's in the low trillions.

[trainsnotcars]

Sachs is too complacent: a safe upper limit for CO2 levels is at most 400 ppm, and achieving this requires that global emissions are reduced to about ten billion tons per year. The US needs to cut its emissions by more than 90%, not by one-third. This means relying on mains electricity (generated from a mix of renewables and nuclear) as the main source of energy for industry, ground transport and heating.
Modern reactors are designed to be safe even when operated by Homer Simpson. With breeder fuel cycles, there's enough uranium in the oceans to supply the world for 1000 years. And when that runs out, we can use thorium. The social/environmental costs of uranium mining and ignore hardly compare with the thousands of lives lost every year in coal mining.

[ken melvin]

Would it be better to spend the money on a renewable?

[reason]

Trainsnotcars
I generally find your post sensible but this rather shocked me:

With breeder fuel cycles, there's enough uranium in the oceans to supply the world for 1000 years.

ummm... Yea nice. Why didn't you say there is enough hydrogen in the oceans to fuel cars for the next 1000000 years? Getting it out might be a bit of a problem - or am I missing something?

[anne]

Mark Thoma:

"It's only a small part of the article, but the turnaround on attitudes toward nuclear energy from a few decades ago still surprises me when I see it. Instead of being viewed as a potential environmental disaster, nuclear power is now hailed as part of the solution to our environmental problems."

I know nothing of the science and would like some references, but I know there are important physicists who are sharply critical of the push to increase reliance on nuclear power. Also, I wonder whether France is more energy efficient and less greenhouse gas emitting than Germany since I am told that the producing of nuclear fuel rather than producing power from the fuel is highly inefficient while nuclear fuel is limited in supply and breeder reactors are troublesome.

[Alex Tolley]

Apart from the safety issues, there is the problem of proliferation and use in nuclear weapons.

Currently most reactors use U235 which can be used in bombs with more processing - the argument we are having with Korea and Iran. We can switch to breeder reactors which use more 238, but that generates Plutonium, which can make even smaller bombs.

The Thorium cycle would be a better choice as it creates very little fissile material for bombs (and there is more of it). India is particular is moving ahead with reactors that use Thorium.

If we do go decide to use more nuclear as a solution, we have to solve the problem of waste disposal on a global basis. The thought of a lot of spent fuel being moved around the globe for disposal and the possibility that crazies will get their hands on some materials for dirty bombs is not a pleasant one. Too many possibilities for Murphy's Law to operate.

[anne]

"With breeder fuel cycles, there's enough uranium in the oceans to supply the world for 1000 years. And when that runs out, we can use thorium. The social/environmental costs of uranium mining and ignore hardly compare with the thousands of lives lost every year in coal mining."

Please set down precise and scientific references, independent and understandable scientific references.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/16/opinion/lweb19navajo.html

Uranium Mining Isn’t Safe

To the Editor:

As a physician who has spent a decade working with Navajo communities in one of the epicenters of uranium mining, I applaud “The Cold War Threat to the Navajo,” which sheds light on proposed uranium mining on Navajo lands.

The editorial also provides reason for pause as our nation considers a dramatic expansion of nuclear power production in the name of curbing global warming. There is haunting familiarity to nuclear proponents’ claims that nuclear power will somehow meet rising energy demands while providing safe, clean, low-carbon electricity.

The Navajo people were told this same story 50 years ago. In the 1950s the federal government and multinational energy companies stated repeatedly that uranium mining was safe, but history has shown otherwise.

Thousands of Navajo miners have died from their exposures, and hundreds of communities still contend with abandoned uranium waste that contaminates water supplies, grazing lands and air quality.

To anyone who touts nuclear power as being a clean energy solution to global warming, I heartily invite him or her to take a tour of Navajo Indian country or surrounding communities in New Mexico and Arizona.

John Fogarty
Santa Fe, N.M., Feb. 13, 2008
The writer is a board member of Physicians for Social Responsibility.

[Sarah]

If it's nuclear fusion, sure...

As for the debate on using current nuclear technology, I'll just note that I have never seen the issue of nuclear waste or decommissioning of nuclear plants addressed in a way that seemed to me adequate. For the most part there is no real attempt to add in the probable cost of either waste disposal or decommissioning, either, so cost comparisons are misleading.

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/12/opinion/12tue3.html

February 12, 2008

The Cold War Threat to the Navajo

It is alarming that the nuclear power industry is talking about resuming uranium mining near a Navajo reservation. A mining company has applied for permits for a new mine on privately owned land in New Mexico just outside the reservation's formal boundaries but within what is commonly known as Navajo Indian Country. Regulators must not allow this to proceed until the enormous damage inflicted by past mining operations has been fully addressed.

Residents of the Navajo Nation are haunted by radiation threats from more than a thousand gaping mine sites abandoned after the cold war arms race. After decades of uranium mining — and accumulating evidence of spikes of cancer and other diseases — mining companies walked away from their cleanup responsibilities.

The federal government has also shamefully failed its tribal trust obligation to deal with what Representative Henry Waxman has aptly termed "an American tragedy."

The California Democrat is investigating a history of shocking neglect that would not be tolerated elsewhere. Among the horrors: shifting mountains of uranium tailings; open mines leaching contaminated rain into drinking water tables; wind-blown radioactive dust; home construction from uranium mine slabs; and even the grim spectacle of children playing in radioactive swimming holes and ground pits.

Tribal elders finally forbade mining, alarmed at the sudden rise in cancer deaths. Federal help across the years has been sporadic at best, with only half the mines ever sealed. Prodded into action by Congressional hearings and detailed reports in The Los Angeles Times, a half-dozen agencies are now vowing stronger remedies, including the resumption of long-stalled toxic testing. Far greater resolve is called for. The House oversight committee is rightly demanding a coordinated five-year remediation plan from the agencies most involved.

The government must finally honor its obligation to seal the mines and deal with their myriad dangers. Talk of opening even one new mine — which could, of course, lead to others — adds grave insult to the severe injury already done.

[JMWatson]

The articles regarding extraction of Uranium from seawater are on a pay-per-view basis, but the Japanese have been working on this for several years. Here's a link to an article you can buy if you'd like
http://www.ans.org/pubs/journals/nt/va-144-2-274-278

Essentially, you suspend cages containing a uranium absorbent material into the ocean, wait half a year, and come back for your uranium. The reason it's not done at the moment is that its not currently economically feasible-uranium is relatively cheap.

With regards to uranium mining, along with the treatment of nuclear waste during the cold war, there were many many mistakes the US made when starting its nuclear program. This doesn't mean that no one has learned anything about mining uranium more safely in the last 60 years. Many mines in Canada and Australia carry ISO 14001 certification for environmental management.

[trainsnotcars]

A process for extracting uranium from the oceans (using adsorbent polymers) was developed a few years ago by a Japanese company: cost is estimated to be higher than current price of mined uranium, but this doesn't matter as raw fuel costs are only about 2% of the cost of nuclear-generated electricity.

It's extremely difficult to get weapons-grade plutonium out of a reactor unless it's been designed for the purpose: otherwise the spent fuel is too heavily contaminated with Pu240 to be usable for bombs.

Nuclear reactors can be designed to run without a water supply.

anne: for references, see this free online draft book by a UK physicist: www.withouthotair.com. More than just citing references, he shows you how to do the calculations yourself.

[jean]

Well then, we can bury the waste in YOUR all backyard. I'm sure a low electric bill is worth a million years of exposure to radioactive substances. Of course if it gets into the water sources....drinking it is an entirely different thing. Bottoms up.
Does Chernobyl enter into your world view at all?

[JMWatson]

We don't really need to bury it. Sit it inside a concrete bunker and let it sit for 5000 years. I'd really have no problem with it in my backyard, except it need to have fairly tight security which my backyard can't provide.

In 5000 years, the radioactivity (beta, gamma, and neutrons) has decayed to essentially the same level as the uranium ore it came from. You could hold it in your hand without a problem.

There is leftover plutonium, which has a half-life on the order of 25000 years, and hence will still be radioactive 250000 years from now or so. However, plutonium (alpha radiation) by itself is toxic primarily only through inhalation, where it will, over time, possibly lead to cancer.

[Robinia]

Well, my grandmother died from a cancer probably caused by living in proximity to a depleted uranium munitions plant, and my uncle did, too, and my aunt just had surgery for her second cancer.... So, I guess I think that having a lot of depleted uranium around is a bad idea, as it will give impetus to more production of weapons of unknown evil capability (both for those they are used against, and those who use them in the armed forces or work or live near where they are manufactured).

Zero's comment is interesting-- Homer Simpson is, of course, intended to represent Everyman. So long as regular-humans will be working in it, an industry based on very-dangerous substances like uranium and plutonium is a continual threat. We should harvest sunshine-- it is cheap and safe. Written today (a cold sunny February day in Central NYS) from my passive-solar-and-woodstove-heated family room, where it is very cozy.

[anne]

TNC, thank you.

"In 5000 years, the radioactivity (beta, gamma, and neutrons) has decayed to essentially the same level as the uranium ore it came from. You could hold it in your hand without a problem.

"There is leftover plutonium, which has a half-life on the order of 25000 years, and hence will still be radioactive 250000 years from now or so. However, plutonium (alpha radiation) by itself is toxic primarily only through inhalation, where it will, over time, possibly lead to cancer."

Say what, where, who, when? Can I sprinkle uranium ore on my oatmeal along with chocolate syrup? Remind me not to inhale radium though. What is such undocumented stuff about?

[Robinia]

Oh, yeah. And I think that everyone who is a proponent of establishing more nuclear power should have a given proportion of their progeny (.02%? How many would it take?) in perpetuity pledged to serve guard duty at nuclear waste dumps or production facilities. Well, maybe not in perpetuity, just whatever they use for the half-life these days. No reason to think that somebody else's kid will want to do it, so, as long as you are comfortable burdening the future with that job, you should be plenty comfortable having some of your own personal descendents signed up. No-nukes proponents could have an opt-out for their progeny, as they were not in favor of setting up the in-need-of-guards facilities in the first place.

Reminds me of a Roman Times version of Sim City I once played-- no matter what you tried to build, the thing kept telling you "Plebes are needed! Plebes are needed!" Some projects (like a Roman road) use plebes to create infrastructure that will last centuries beyond the energy of the people who build it. Other infrastructure (nukes) provide energy to people in the short term, but require guard-plebes for centuries thereafter, with no additional value created. What a pleasant economy that one might be, eh?

[anne]

RNC, sorry the reference is not suitable. There needs to be specific balanced scientific discussions that are readily accessible. Supplying precise accessible references is the obligation of advocates of such an important energy issue.

[Alex Tolley]

Mining and waste disposal issues.

As has been previously alluded to, waste from uranium mining is a long term health hazard, that has been poorly addressed. I would have thought that the history of mining, especially in the US, would have provided ample warning of the hazards. Diamond has a nice chapter in "Collapse" about metal mining in Montana and the huge publicly borne costs of abandoned mines. The costs of cleanup are greater than the value of the metals extracted. Why should we assume that this won't occur with uranium mining (it already has)?

Disposal of high level waste from reactors is still not solved. There are many different plans from different countries. These all attempt to solve the problem of isolating the waste from the environment, and human intervention, for tens of thousands of years. This is longer that all recorded history. There has been no human structure that has remained un-looted for even a few thousand years. We are making huge assumptions about global civilizations in a distant future. Scenarios always seem to be either civilization continues or we have a dark ages and the sites will be safe from more primitive technology. Far too simplistic and almost certainly wrong.

And we're doing this, why? Because nuclear has been sold as the only economically viable, high density energy system that has a very low carbon footprint compared to fossil fuels; and is "ready now". (Electricity from coal fired plants is considered the economic gold standard for energy costs). Economists should be shouting "externalities" at the top of their voices on this one.

[calmo]

Robinia clonks me out:

Zero's comment is interesting-- Homer Simpson is, of course, intended to represent Everyman.

not Everywoman...who would never consent to operating a plant based on Everyman's arguments that it was so much improved upon Cherynobl...any man could do it...and any woman could too, if they just weren't so willful.
So Everywoman will just have to shop less...is the Everyman retort.

[Alex Tolley]

Sachs: "Carbon capture and sequestration at coal-fired power plants might raise costs for electricity as little as one to three cents per kilowatt-hour, according to a special report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."

Although I am not in favor of burning even more coal and sequestering the CO2, that approach has got to look more attractive as a stopgap than nuclear, assuming it actually works.

Sachs: "Issues of blame, allocation of costs, and choice of control mechanisms are less important than rapid technological development and deployment,"

Much of the US rhetoric was that China and India would be getting a free ride while the US adopted expensive technologies to reduce carbon emission. So it is somewhat ironic that with the cancellation of FutureGen, the US is now behind Europe and China in carbon sequestration development.

[anne]

Alex Tolley reminds me that South Africa is finally struggling with secondary mining costs in which mining as such is polluting surrounding areas with radioactive wastes even though the mining is not after radioactive minerals. I do not understand the issue, but my sense is that uranium ore is environmentally dangerous even when uncovered as a secondary mining product.

I am completely open to nuclear power generation, but do want advocates to completely and understandably make their case.

[Ted]

It's only a small part of the article, but the turnaround on attitudes toward nuclear energy from a few decades ago still surprises me when I see it. Instead of being viewed as a potential environmental disaster, nuclear power is now hailed as part of the solution to our environmental problems.

Going into Iraq, something like 75-80% of US population, when asked, supported the action.

Make the argument rosy enough, silence enough dissent and any marketing lies can go pretty far. Since I'm not hep to change my lifestyle, anything that keeps me at my present comfort level is just dandy.

As long as it's NIMBY.

says...

It doesn't scale really. Uranium from mining on land
runs out in no time, if we don't use breeding technology,
and even that wouldn't carry us nearly to 2050. Also
if plutonium fuel from breeders is used all over the
world, then anybody with a chemistry set can make
a nuclear bomb-- no need for centrifuges.

Uranium from the oceans?? Well, it's there, but so
is energy from the sun. Getting the technology to harness
the latter efficiently enough (which still hasn't been done)
seems to me to be many times likelier than getting
it for the former. An excellent source for
scales, prices, and impeccable science at the same
time is a lecture by Nathan Lewis of Caltech that can
be found at the Kavli Institute (in Santa Barbara)
website. He covers fossil, bio, and solar very
thoroughly-- nuclear somewhat dismissively, but
the numbers are there.

http://www.kitp.ucsb.edu/activities/public/auto
/?acronym=lewis07

Lewis mentions fusion only in response to a question at
the end. But if anyone brings it up, I can fulminate on
the subject, independently of his talk.

[The Baron]

anne, you can buy your own Uranium Ore and see for your self. Straight from Amazon.com.

"Radioactive sample of uranium ore. Useful for testing Geiger Counters. License exempt. Uranium ore sample sizes vary. Shipped in labeled metal container as shown. Shipping Information: We are always in compliance with Section 13 from part 40 of the NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission rules and regulations and Postal Service regulations specified in 49 CFR 173.421 for activity limits of low level radioactive materials. Item will be shipped in accordance with Postal Service activity limits specified in Publication 52. Radioactive minerals are for educational and scientific use only."

[robertdfeinman]

Just a technical note about "half life". If you have 10 lbs of radioactive stuff and it has a half life of 10,000 years then at the end of the 10,000 years you still have 5 lbs of the stuff. In another 10,000 you still have 2.5 lbs, etc.

Uranium (even enriched) isn't terribly hazardous because it emits radiation slowly. U238 half life is about 4.5 billion years and U235 is about 700 million years. Uranium is a heavy metal and ingesting it can produce poisoning just like with lead and many other metals. Plutonium 239 only has a half life of about 24,000 years, making it much more radioactive. It is also a more dangerous poison.

The idea of storing reactor waste is to allow the shorter lived reaction components to decay (over a period of years, not centuries). This makes it easier to handle and also less "hot" in the traditional sense. All these items emit heat as well as radiation and getting rid of the heat is a big problem. If they are packed too close or with insufficient cooling you can get fires, or melting, etc.

As I said above, if storage and disposal were easy they would have been instituted already. Tell the nuclear industry to set up the needed protocols now, before any new plants are built, and see what they say.

[hari]

The reason why Parliaments in Sweden and also Germany voted against nuclear power was the problem of managing the nuclear waste. Sweden went a lot further than Germany in closing down its aging nuclear plants, and investing in renewable energy sources. Hydro is a significant source of power in Sweden (I don't know % of total supply).

However, Finnland has been the most recent EU country to invest in new nuclear power plants. Of course technology is all the time improving but disposal of nuclear waste is still the critical problem for the industry.

Chancellor Merkel has gone on record that Germany cannot afford to close down its nuclear power plants, at this point in time, when energy supply is getting more problematic. She wants to keep the option open.

@rdf - as usual - is right in pointing out that we may, in fact, go nuclear in the distant future when industry may be able to guarantee not only absolute safety but also efficient technological means to dispense with nuclear waste.

That will remain the critical issue for those who don't wish to support it as an alternative energy source.

[Alex Tolley]

rdf: "Uranium (even enriched) isn't terribly hazardous because it emits radiation slowly."

I suppose that depends on what you mean by "terribly". DNA is affected by penetrating radiation, and we are bathed in natural background radiation to which we are reasonably adapted. However, we can be exposed to higher levels - cosmic rays with commercial flights; x-rays and isotopes used in medicine; and higher natural backgrounds, e.g radon from granite rock strata. Exposing yourself to uranium mine tailings is not a good idea and it will significantly raise your cancer risks and damage to your offspring. It is like exploding a dirty bomb in New York. Sure, the overall mortality rate won't be all that high over a lifetime, but I doubt any residents would stay - New York would be abandoned.

I would treat uranium mines as extra lethal heavy metal mines. The heavy metals - uranium and lead will be toxic chemically and the uranium and other shorter lived decay products provide a low level radiation hazard as well. Effectively the surrounding land becomes unusable and potentially a problem when the metals get into the groundwater supplies. Remediation would be expensive, and as we have seen historically, probably not even seriously attempted.

While it may be possible to keep high level waste away from people over 10,000 years, I doubt that will be even remotely possible for mining sites. Talk about handing on our costs to the unborn.

[anne]

Baron:

"Radioactive sample of uranium ore. Useful for testing Geiger Counters. License exempt. Uranium ore sample sizes vary. Shipped in labeled metal container as shown."

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/c/carroll/lewis/alice/chapter1.html

1865

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
By Lewis Carroll

Down the Rabbit-Hole

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table: she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words ‘EAT ME’ were beautifully marked in currants. ‘Well, I’ll eat it,’ said Alice, ‘and if it makes me grow larger, I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep under the door; so either way I’ll get into the garden, and I don’t care which happens!’

She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, ‘Which way? Which way?’, holding her hand on the top of her head to feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to find that she remained the same size: to be sure, this generally happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen, that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the common way.

So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

‘Curiouser and curiouser!’ cried Alice (she was so much surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English); ‘now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was! Good-bye, feet!’ (for when she looked down at her feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off). ‘Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears? I’m sure I shan’t be able! I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself about you: you must manage the best way you can; —but I must be kind to them,’ thought Alice, ‘or perhaps they won’t walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I’ll give them a new pair of boots every Christmas.’

And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it. ‘They must go by the carrier,’ she thought; ‘and how funny it’ll seem, sending presents to one’s own feet! And how odd the directions will look!

Alice’s Right Foot, Esq.
 Hearthrug,
  Near the fender,
   (with Alice’s love).

Oh dear, what nonsense I’m talking!’

[Arne (not anne)]

It seems to me that the political problems of nuclear energy have outweighted the technical problems. Coal mining is dangerous. Coal plants are dangerous. Generating electricity with coal produces radioactive waste. But using coal is not politically sensitive in the same way.

It seems it is not just NIMBY, but also better the devil I know than the one I don't.

[Arne (not anne)]

I should have said that coal is the devil people THINK they know.

[anne]

There is another matter, subsidies for nuclear power development must be offered and even with the offering investment in and deveopment of facilities has been limited and this problem needs to be addressed more clearly than I have found. Again, is the French nuclear power system as economically efficient as we might like to believe?

[btg]

i am generally opposed to nu-cu-lar power for the reasons many others have described above - there are just too many negatives to outweigh the benefits, but unfortunately, Ontario Hydro (where I live) is planning on building more of them.

"This goal can be achieved by ending deforestation (on a net basis) and by cutting our current fossil-fuel-based emissions by one third."

Let me bring up a point I have made before - assuming that 100% of the reduction cannot or will come about through sequestration (sequestering carbon from jet aircraft is impossible) then a large part of this reduction will have to come from reducing emissions by reducing demand.

yet, there is the basic econ 101 problem I have mentioned before - shifting the demand curve will end up lowering prices - meaning that non-kyoto signatories will have an incentive to use more fossil fuels... and even within countries that try to comply, reducing demand will be even more expensive than we anticipate because of the same feedback loop - some people will invest money to reduce emissions, while others might use even more energy because the price will drop (or in relative terms to doing nothing and letting "peak oil" push up the price, the price will be less).

reducing emissions has to go hand-in-hand with redcutions in supply/production of fossil fuels. for the US to expand production in ANWAR and through more coal is the wrong thing to do... governments and environmental groups should be buying up the resources and then keeping the carbon where it is. so when hillarey clinton or bush or anyone else talks about "reducing dependence on foreign energy" they are actually suggesting the opposite of what is necessary. countries without an industrial base, like saudi arabia, will never voluntarily make drastic cuts in oil and gas (or coal) production. the rich countries need to be the ones to act to shift the supply curve so that reductions in emmissions/fossil fuel demand are accompanied by a corresponding shift in supply, so that the price of fossil fuels stays high, or goes higher than it otherwise would. to do otherwise might mean that, even if carbon taxes are implemented, the net price of fossil fuels might actually decline.

just as james carville had a sign that said" its the economy, stupid", with fossil fuels the motto is "its the price of fossil fuels, stupid". carbon taxes push up the price, which is why carbon taxes are expected to work, but the other way to keep prices high (other than increasing demand) is to directly reduce supply by shifting the supply curve!

[Alex Tolley]

arne: "Coal mining is dangerous. Coal plants are dangerous. Generating electricity with coal produces radioactive waste. But using coal is not politically sensitive in the same way."

Coal mining is dangerous - for the miners due to black lung and mine accidents. They accept the risk and get paid for it. The Navajos in the article submitted by Anne did not get paid for accepting the risk of uranium mine waste on their land. I don't want to be forced to acceptthe risk of "blowups happening".

Generating electricity with coal produces radioactive waste - a very little - although admittedly is does all go into the atmosphere.

Let us not forget Windscale, 3 Mile Island and the real disaster at Chernobyl. The scale of the 1957 leak at Windscale was covered up by the British government eager to promote nuclear energy. We found out how bad it was in 1987. 3 Mile Island was the US' wake up call. Fortunately the "incident" was contained and leakage was very low and below background. Chernobyl was so severe that the town is still mostly empty. The radioactive plume was tracked across Europe.

It is certainly possible that the public has an exaggerated fear of radiation compared to other dangers. However, I also don't want nuclear industry promises of fail-safe reactors to be used to gain acceptance for a technology that poses many real risks not addressed by the industry. Both energy conservation and alternate power sources should be stacked up against nuclear, oil and coal.

We also have to remember that existing businesses and their attendant infrastructure influence the energy mix. Power companies are not going to plump for solar if it meant that power generation would be in the hands of the consumers and out of their control, much as telecoms companies jealously guard their control of the network.

[James Killus]

Let me first lay reason's point to rest. The generation of heat in power production, per se, has very little impact on "global warming." The amount of heat from nuclear or coal fired power plants is trivial compared to the "radiative forcing" from greenhouse gases. The latter is currently on the order of a watt per square meter. Do the math on the number of square meters on the Earth's surface and compare that with power generation and the two aren't remotely comparable.

For things like solar energy, there is even less impact, since sunlight falling on the Earth generates heat anyway; something like photovoltaics just have the energy in the form of electricity for part of the way. The only way that solar power would affect climate is if it somehow markedly affected the Earth's albedo, and again, the amount of electric power used by the entire planet is a tiny fraction of overall solar warming.

The real issue with nuclear power is that it is an inherently socialistic enterprise, so the economic and political system in the U.S. is not well suited for it, at least not at this time. The fact is that that government must be involved at every phase of the operation, owing to safety, the very large capital costs (which require insurance greater than private sources can, or are willing to, afford), waste disposal, and to guard against the diversion of fissile material to weapons.

None of thse are insurmountable problems for a well-run political system, but ours doesn't measure up at this time. I will also note that there are fuel cycles which destroy all the transuranic elements, including potential bomb materials, and which can be used to even transmute long lived fission products into those with much shorter lifetimes, making the waste storage problem a matter of centuries, not millenia. I expect India and China to both eventually come to the forefront in these (India because it has large thorium reserves, which requires advanced fuel cycle technology to exploit; China because eventually they will turn away from coal and oil, as will every country, sooner or later).

Also, just offhand, fusion is easily as "dirty" as fission, as it produces copious amounts of fast neutrons, which activate almost any material they encounter. Moreover, fusion/fission cycles are always more technically and economically viable than pure fusion schemes, so they will always be here first.

Finally, just as a bit of a reminder to Alex Tolley, uranium is primarily an alpha emitter, so it is not "penetrating" radiation in any real sense of the word (alpha "penetrates" about 2 inches in air and will not get through someone's skin). Ingestion is another matter, but even there, the heavy metal aspects of uranium may be more important than its radioactivity (especially for depleted uranium, which is slightly more than half as radioactive as uranium with a full isotope mix). However, in situ uranium, in geological settings co-exists with the entire decay chain, so radium and radon account for most of the problems in uranium mining and other sorts of geological contamination.

Frankly, I'd be very happy to burn 90%-95% of the U.S. supply of weapons grade fissile materials in power plants, but that would not actually require any more reactors than we have at present. But, again, the political climate of the U.S. simply precludes reasonable solutions to the problems with nuclear power at this time, and I'm not holding my breath waiting for the country to come to its senses, as that would be for the first time that occurred during my lifetime.

[Zero]

MT "It's only a small part of the article, but the turnaround on attitudes toward nuclear energy from a few decades ago still surprises me when I see it. Instead of being viewed as a potential environmental disaster, nuclear power is now hailed as part of the solution to our environmental problems."

My opinion is the attitudes toward gambling are more relevant than the attitude towards nucleur power.

[Zero]

Sorry - meant to say the changes in attitude toward gambling are parallel to the attitude change towards nuclear power than Iraq.

It would be interesting to see what a Nuclear plant would look like using todays technology. Control systems and materials have changed in the last 20 years, meaning plant safety could and should be considerably improved.

Of course no one wants to live by a nuclear plant, but then no one wants to live by the town dump either.

[trainsnotcars]

I'm puzzled by why contributors are so concerned about the safety and environmental costs of uranium mining but unconcerned by the 7000 or so deaths worldwide from coal mining, or the devastation caused by open-cast mining.

Carbon capture from coal-fired power stations would use half the electricity generated just to separate and compress the CO2 - to put this another way, twice as much coal would have to be mined and burned to generate the same power output, with all the social, environmental and financial costs that would imply. The energy cost of carbon sequestration is a thermodynamic limit - not something that can be overcome by technology. If price signals are strong enough to block CO2 emissions, nuclear fission will win over coal on cost grounds.

Again, I'd recommend Mackay's online book at www.withouthotair.com for anyone who wants to educate themselves about sustainable energy

[Alex Tolley]

JK: "Finally, just as a bit of a reminder to Alex Tolley, uranium is primarily an alpha emitter, so it is not "penetrating" radiation in any real sense of the word (alpha "penetrates" about 2 inches in air and will not get through someone's skin). Ingestion is another matter, but even there, the heavy metal aspects of uranium may be more important than its radioactivity"

Thank you for the correction. I would make 2 points:

1. Inhalation of the dust in tailings will incur not just chemical toxicity, but cellular damage from the alpha particles. This is the same issue as natural Radon gas exposure.

2. Decay products of uranium 238 include beta emitters, like Radon, which are more penetrating. However I do not know how significant this radiation is compared to the dominant alpha emissions.

However I don't think these details alter my general sense that being around old Uranium mines is not a healthy exercise. Whether a fraction of the population dies by cancers induced by inhalation or heavy metal toxicity from ingestion, probably doesn't matter that much. For the rest of us, it becomes another piece of the planet to stay away from - for a long time.

[Alex Tolley]

TNC: "I'm puzzled by why contributors are so concerned about the safety and environmental costs of uranium mining but unconcerned by the 7000 or so deaths worldwide from coal mining, or the devastation caused by open-cast mining."

Because over the long term, if we stop mining and burning coal, as we will, the deaths quickly stop. Indirect deaths from smog disappear as soon as the smog disappears. This was the experience in London in the 1970's when the government banned the use of coal in domestic fireplaces. Instantly the smog disappeared, so did the deaths, and the venue for those Sherlock Holmes mysteries. It will take somewhat longer to remediate coal waste. This is not true for the problem of mine and reactor waste. It is also impossible to make nuclear or dirty bombs with coal - a potential threat with widespread use of nuclear plants.

[Arne (not anne)]

James,

Isn't the incident insolation about 1W/m^2? The amount trapped by GHG an order of magnitude less? And the differential from changing GHG concentrations yet another order of magnitude less?

[gordon]

Thanks to Alex Tolley for raising the issue of centralisation. Big plants (like the existing coal-fired plants or possible nuclear plants) are big investments and can provide big profits - particularly if heavily subsidised by Govt. By contrast, many renewables (not all) can function as smaller, decentralised installations, right down to your own solar panels on your roof. The Rocky Mountain Institute (I'm not connected with it - just an admirer) paper "Mighty Mice" discusses distributed generation in more detail.

If you were an energy utility and saw the choice of maintaining easy (and probably subsidised) profits from a fully or nearly-depreciated big plant against losing market share to decentralised generation, what would you be doing? Peddling nuclear and "clean coal", of course!

[ken melvin]

btg - something like the effects of conservation?

[anne]

TNC, I will read the suggested manuscript in the coming few days. Thank you, and please suggest more readily accessible references when possible.

[LesserFlea]

Just one more shot at this, since earlier in the day I promised to
fulminate about fusion (should the subject come up).

"Moreover, fusion/fission cycles are always more technically and economically
viable than pure fusion schemes, so they will always be here first."

We do not at the moment know if ANY form of fusion technology will be
technically and economically feasible. Four months from now will be
the fiftieth anniversary of the first conference for which the Soviet
Union let out some of their best scientists to meet in Geneva with
ones from the west. The subject: controlled fusion. Great ballyhoo about a
ten year goal for big power production. (I was there, though it is not my
subject area.)

Since then, through some obscene inverse version of Moore's law,
the distance to the pot of gold has steadily increased.
By now is admitted, even by the faithful, that the $multibillion
ITER machine to be constructed in Japan, if completely successful,
could not provide the basis of technology that would significantly
reduce the accumulated amount of CO2 in the atmo. by 2050. So we can
forget about it.

To some degree, the researcers in this area, with the overoptimism
that one has to have to get out of bed, not to mention getting
funding, have created this false hope. And over the years it may
have discouraged the support of research that, at least in retrospect,
would have been much more valuable.

Also with respect to: "The energy cost of carbon sequestration is a
thermodynamic limit - not something that can be overcome by technology."

It's even worse than that. There is no place that we can put it
where we are sure that it will stay for a half a century. Maybe
we can pump it down some well and it won't seep out--maybe not.
(Information gleaned from Lewis talk that I referred to earlier.)

[gordon]

Sorry, the "Mighty Mice" paper is here (.pdf).

[James Killus]

Arne,

Peak solar insolation is actually about a kilowatt per sq meter, but the average over the Earth's surface is less than a quarter of that, so the radiative forcing by greenhouse gases is between two and three orders of magnitude less than insolation itself. However, since we're talking about an average temperature of about 288 K, then you can see how small changes in radiative forcing can result in small changes in temperature that are nevertheless significant to us.

Alex,
It's true that mining uranium leaves a toxic result, but mining anything leaves a toxic result, and old gold mines also emit pollutants, including radioactive ones. Moreover, the famous observation that a coal-fired power plant emits more radiation than a nuclear plant (in normal operation) is true (albeit a sleight of hand that dismisses the waste disposal), and may be paired with a similar observation that old coal mines also emit radiation. The buildup of radon in Pennsylvania basements is not due to the existance of old uranium mines in Pennsylvania.

The decay chain for U238 takes a rather long time to establish a steady-state, owing to the third product in the chain, U234, with a half-life of about 245,000 years. However, every atom of U238 that decays by alpha emission also does produce a beta/gamma event in fairly short order (Th234 reaches steady state in 24 days, and Pa234 in just one minute), so there would be some penetrating radiation from DU, though the beta/gamma events are pretty small potatoes. When ingestion (including inhalation) is the issue, you're correct that the alpha emissions of DU are as much or more important than incidental exposure. That is an issue for tank crews that have been using DU shells (which burn on impact), but the body burden for other folks seems quite small. The attribution of "Gulf War syndrome" to DU has led to a lack of attention to other, more likely causes, I fear, which is common in popular conceptions of disease.

I'm also concerned with the proliferation problem represented by nuclear power, but I must observe that countries that have developed nuclear weapons aren't always those that have a big reliance on nuclear energy, and there are plenty of countries using nuclear energy that have shown no desire to get bombs. In any case, the U.S. has a lot of both, and shows no signs of dealing intelligently with either, so I tend to worry more about that.

[Michael Cain]

It may be an overly optimistic perspective, but...

Less than 80 years ago the neutron was a theoretical particle that had never been observed. Today there are a number of proposals for technology that would "burn" reactor wastes, some producing useful energy as a by-product. Given modest levels of funding for research and engineering, it seems likely that in another 80 years we could be in a position where safe storage of reactor wastes was only an 80-year problem, not a tens-of-thousands of years problem.

Large parts of the world's population are in need of increased base load generating capacity. Some portion of that need will be met with fission reactors. Someone -- Japan? China? India? -- will sell those reactors. What practical alternatives for reliable base load capacity can be offered?

[german_reader]

@anne

"Also, I wonder whether France is more energy efficient and less greenhouse gas emitting than Germany..."

It is. For actual numbers ( 2005 ) on CO2 emissions per capita or $ GDP you can look here:

http://www.iea.org/Textbase/country/index.asp

( Select the country/region, click on the map and then look under "indicators" )

Tons of CO2 emissions per capita:

France 6.19
Germany 9.86
United Kingdom 8.80
Italy 7.76
Japan 9.50
United States 19.61
Canada 17.00

An official summary of greenhouse gas emission trends in the EU is here:

http://www.eea.europa.eu/pressroom/newsreleases/eu-greenhouse-gas-emissions-decrease-in-2005

Germany is de facto one of the western European countries with the highest greenhouse gas emissions ( Finland, the Netherlands, Ireland or Belgium are others ). On the other hand Germany has by far the largest manufacturing sector in the EU. That explains much of the difference to France or the UK. And since 2006 it is a net exporter of energy. But most of our energy production is currently based on fossil fuels and renewable energies or energy saving are only at the beginning. At the current stage the nuclear energy production in France is definitely more climate friendly.

We've done a lot, but we have to do far more. It will take at least two to three decades to replace most of our traditional energy production with more sustainable alternatives. Energy saving is seen as the most important way to reach a more sustainable level of energy consumption. According to some studies around 50% of the current energy consumption could be avoided with existing technologies and with moderate costs ( in the US it's probably more ). Much of the rest can be replaced with renewable energies.

Nuclear energy could be an alternative for a limited period. But I doubt that it's worth to take the enormous long-term risks for an energy that is probably as limited as fossil fuels. We would win a few decades for hundreds or thousands of years with increased risks from nuclear waste. Future generations would have to manage the follow costs. That's not very responsible against our children, grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

And nuclear energy, as far as I understand it, can only replace traditional electricity production. It is not usable to replace heating or gasoline ( or only with enormous costs ). So we would need on top of nuclear energy other energy sources to cover our energy requirements. That would make it necessary to develop additional energy sources anyway.

"Alternative" energies have the advantage that most of them can be used with decentralized structures on the local or regional level. And they don't need ( in most cases ) a permanent input of basic materials from external suppliers. That would make countries, regions or households more independent from monopolists and insecure foreign providers. I think it's better to save the billions we would need for new nuclear plants, reactors, storage places and invest them in energy saving and alternative energies. It's in my view the better and more responsible way.

Atomkraft, nein danke!

[trainsnotcars]

Germany's anti-nuclear posture would be more convincing if they were not building new coal-fired power plants (without carbon capture).

A workable plan for using renewables to replace baseload in Europe would be anything but decentralized: it would need high-voltage DC power cables to connect northern Europe with north Africa, and most of the supply would have to come from vast arrays of solar thermal power plants in the north African desert (using mirrors to concentrate sunlight to boil seawater, about 50 sq km of desert can replace a 1 GW power station). We'd better start being more friendly towards the Arab world.

As for using mains electricity to power transport and heating, that's entirely feasible: heat pumps can pump 4-5 kW of heat for every kW of electricity, electrified railways can provide all long-distance transport, and electric vehicles work just fine for short journeys.

[reason]

James Killus..
thanks for your reply on the direct impact of power generation. I was speculating on the basis of a projected total energy output 4 times what we have now. As for solar, I was considering that if solar collectors were located in sandy deserts (likely because of hours of sunlight), they would definitely reduce the amount of energy lost radiatively. I understand your point and respect your obvious knowledge of the subject. It could be a minor point but is often forgotten. And I know that in the past it WAS considered a local problem associated with nuclear reactors. And as we have seen local problems often scale to become global problems. I just wanted to point out that global warming might still possibly continue even without large greenhouse gas production.

[JMWatson]

Everyone seems to be concerned with the risks associated with nuclear power.

Quick quiz:
A) Per TWh, which energy source has killed more people, nuclear or wind?
B) True or False, the largest energy disaster (measured in number of people killed) was Chernobyl.

One major problem with nuclear energy is that any accidents that happen are widely reported and can have dramatic effects. Everyone remembers Chernobyl, but do people generally know how many people died or got cancer because of the accident (54 and 4000, respectively, if you believe the WHO)? Three Mile Island, the worst nuclear disaster in the US, killed 0 people.

In contrast, how many people are killed, slowly and quietly, by burning coal in the US (not including the risks from climate change) every single year (hint, its larger than the total number of cancers caused by Chernobyl according to the WHO)? What is the risk associated with abandoning nuclear energy and trying to rely solely on solar and wind to replace coal plants (and btw, carbon capture and storage is a pipe dream, if you think storing radioactive waste is difficult, how are we going to store the billions of tons of C02 we make every year?). Germany has enacted a moratorium on nuclear power plants, and while its doing a great job in promoting wind and solar, its also planning on building 10 or 20 new coal plants.

The other issue that people have mentioned is what to do with the nuclear waste. To discuss this, one needs to understand that there are different types of radiation. All radiation is dangerous. Beta, Gamma, and Neutron radiation can penetrate different materials. All will pass through skin (alpha radiation will not), and hence are dangerous if one stand next to them. Gamma and Neutrons will pass through several inch plexiglass. All of this radiation is blocked by thick concrete. After 5000 years, the beta, gamma, and neutron radiation of spent nuclear fuel is back to background levels (i.e., the fuel no longer needs to be shielded). You can stand next to it and not be irradiated. There are still several radioactive materials present, but they are primarily alpha emitters. For these to be dangerous, they need to be ingested or inhaled. Spent nuclear fuel in the US consists of ceramic pellets, surrounded by stainless steel cladding. Ceramics are not really water soluble (there are human made ceramics still present after 25000 years or so).

If we bury spent nuclear fuel, will it stay put? If you're interested, I'd encourage you to read about the Oklo natural nuclear reactor. The synopsis is that a natural nuclear reaction occurred in a uranium deposit in Africa, producing essentially the same nuclear waste as produced in a nuclear power plant. That waste, despite being in contact with groundwater (which was in fact necessary for the reaction to take place), moved about 10 feet over the course of 2 billion years.

[anne]

Thank you German Reader for being willing to set down a precise easily accessed reference that actually answers a ressaonable question conviningly.

What is saddening is the pretentious ranting of the nuclear power advocates who never bother thinking that it could be helpful to allow anyone other than a person pretending to be a physicist to understand the issues involved. All the pretense of the advocates does is to makes anyone else suspicious. Me, I just love thorium. Thorium for all. Thorium in the morning. Thorium in the evening. Yeah.

Remember advocates to continue to be smugly incomprehensible, and think you are accomplishing anything. Am I being clear enough?

[JMWatson]

You're certainly clear. I'm not trying to be pretentious or smug, nor am I trying to say that nuclear energy is the be-all and end-all. What am I not making clear? I'll do my best to explain it in as non-technical terms as possible, or to point you to places that can explain it better than I've done.

[anne]

Thank you, JM Watson. I am completely open to research into and development of nuclear power supplies, but I do want to have a sense without having to be a specialist that I understand what the issues are.

Questions that have puzzled me are why we have spent so little on energy research and development programs for so long, and why despite sympathetic Congresses an Administrations the economics of nuclear power plant construction has not been favorable enough.

There is always reason for caution and explantion; wind power is an interesting though limited alternative, but I can understand the caution of people who want to be assured that birds will not be harmed before plunging to the development. I am completely open to your arguments, an only using myself as an example because of a wish to understand that I am sure goes beyond me.

Thank you, JM Watson. I will surely read what is suggested, as I will remember these comments.

[anne]

Simply learning the uranium ore is less dangerous than I would have thought has been helpful. A possible sense of radiation danger in uranium mining that needs to be dispelled, for instance, is whether the danger is more subtle than that of coal mining but still there. A legacy we nee to understand is the historical hiding of the danger from radiation, as I believe even the anger from Hiroshima and Nagasaki was hidden.

[JMWatson]

The first question is probably an easy one, though I can't claim to know exactly why there haven't been more built. Why build a nuclear plant when you can build a coal plant instead? The rise in nuclear over the last few years coincides with a push to get coal plants to pay for some of their external costs through carbon taxes or cap and trade.

Per kW installed capactiy, coal runs $1300 (according to wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_fuel_power_plant). Nuclear is more expensive, with lowest claimed costs of $1400 per kW, though some reactors built in the US ran as much as $5000 (http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower)

Wind runs about $1000
http://www.windpower.org/en/tour/econ/index.htm

[german_reader]

@trainsnotcars

"Germany's anti-nuclear posture would be more convincing if they were not building new coal-fired power plants (without carbon capture)."

Absolutely true. And as so often the organized lobbies of the industry and energy suppliers are part of the problem. They oppose stricter regulations of CO2 emissions ( for example in the car sector ). And they love big centralized solutions because it preserves their monopol power.

What we need is in my opinion a mix of many different alternatives for energy production. That would increase the security of energy supply and make it easier to find appropriate solutions for regional conditions and needs. And as I said above the largest "source" of alternative energy seems to be energy saving. Don't nail me on the details, I am really no expert on that matter, but in my view supporters of nuclear energy often forget that we could reduce our current use of energy enormously ( especially in the US ) without a dramatic decline in living standards. That would make additional nuclear reactors superfluous. And what's so bad if for example countries in the Sahara could earn some money with providing solar electricity to Europe?

Nevertheless, as you said we've made a lot wind about our "climate friendliness", now we must prove that we not only can make it but use it successfully. That's much more difficult.

[reason]

German_reader
The problem with lobbies is the natural outcome of specialisation itself. If an entity (person or firm) is defined by what it does, then it will always defy the public interest unless the public interest happens to correspond to its interest. This is why we should make the cost of adjustment to individuals as low as possible. There should be more talk in economics about "cost of adjustment". It is very, very often assumed away.

[trainsnotcars]

german_reader

It's not the power generation companies that are insisting on coal-fired power - they'd be just as happy to build nuclear power stations. It's German voters who have locked their government into phasing out nuclear power.

A country like Germany needs to reduce CO2 emissions by more than 90%, while maintaining a total energy supply of about 5 kW per person. Renewables and conservation would probably be enough to reduce emissions by 30%, but to use renewables to substitute for 90% of fossil fuel emissions would require "big centralized solutions" that have their own problems. One option is to build gigantic solar thermal plants in the north African desert, another is to cover about half the surface of Germany with wind turbines (one sq km can produce 2 MW, enough for 400 people but germany has 200 people per sq km) and fill the mountain valleys with reservoirs for pumped storage (required for windless days). It's a lot easier to just buy nuclear-generated electricity from France.

[Barkley Rosser]

Thorium is clearly the way to go, and India already has one reactor using it. Waste can be reused in existing reactors; France is doing it right now. This problem has been way overexaggerated.

Any realistic approach by the US, and for that matter, India and China, will rely heavily on nuclear. Three Gorges in China shows the limits of hydro; none of these countries are Sweden. And, to seriously replace coal and nuclear with wind or solar under existing tech would take enormous amounts of land, far more than most people are aware of.

Which gets it down to coal versus nuclear, really. CCS is appealing, but is still a ways off, and indeed, coal mining is dirty and dangerous. I do not like nuclear particularly, but any serious effort to deal with global warming emissions reduction will have to involve a serious push for it.

[Alex Tolley]

BR: "seriously replace coal and nuclear with wind or solar under existing tech would take enormous amounts of land, far more than most people are aware of."

The US has approximately 30 people/sq km. This is well within range for wind and solar to meet demand.

Moreover, total solar output is vast, so in the more distant future, we really could approach space based solar power stations as the primary energy source, offering as much energy as we could safely use.

[Barkley Rosser]

Alex,

Wind and solar are possible solutions for some time in the future, but not for the near term. We need more tech breakthroughs on them. Solar is not too bad for home heating, but for electricity production it is about ten times as expensive as coal and nuclear. No way India or China are going to go for it at all in anytime soon, much less the US or other OECD countries.

Wind is more cost effective, although still more expensive, and we will see it increasingly coming in. But it has problems also, getting blocked in many places in Appalachia due to killing endangered bat species and other problems. Maybe can be used offshore, but still not likely to seriously substitute for coal and nuclear.

China is building something like two coal-fired power plants a month. This is what we are up against, and nuclear is the only real alternative there.

[Alex Tolley]

BR: "Solar is not too bad for home heating, but for electricity production it is about ten times as expensive as coal and nuclear."

Old data. The latest printable PVs from NanoSolar (http://www.nanosolar.com/) are close to being on a par with coal fired plants - would be even more attractive if the appropriate carbon taxes were in place. Wind can be sited offshore - in the UK they are going ahead with the largest offshore wind farm on the planet.

[Barkley Rosser]

Alex,

If so, great. However, some quick googling suggests there are some doubters out there about some of their numbers. Also, will the cost stay low if we start using this tech to seriously replace coal fired power plants as mass sources of electricity rather than as boutique showoff jobs?

I am more optimistic about offshort wind plants, but again, not going to be enough to really replace those darned coal fired power plants. And, can you convince China to do either of these rather than build two new coal fired power plants per month?

[anne]

A question, since everyone knows everything about India's nuclear program. Has India signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty while I was out feeding the cardinals? I think not. So, why always a discussion with no references in which everyone knows everything and all things nuclear but never has evidence of how they know what they know. I have now listened to a prominent British climatologist speak on energy efficiency and conservation and never mention nuclear energy. I have no idea why.

Why is China so readily building coal fueled power plants, when they can build nuclear plants?

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/slot3_022806.html

February 28, 2006

Q&A: U.S. and India
By BERNARD GWERTZMAN

George Perkovich, vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a leading expert on India's nuclear program, applauds the U.S. goal of trying to reach an accommodation with India over its nuclear program. But he says the details in the draft accord, now being worked on in advance of President Bush's arrival in India next week, were "very under-cooked and not well-considered."

"The idea of changing the rules to make some accommodation with India was correct," says Perkovich. "But this particular approach was ill-considered, in essence giving India, or attempting to give India, everything, and to throw out in essence all the rules in return for too little from India. And the reason that you want more from India is to be able to send a signal to the rest of the world that 'Yes, nonproliferation matters also, and we're not throwing out the distinctions that have been made between countries that have nuclear weapons and countries that don't.'"

President Bush heads to India and Pakistan next week. In India, which will be the centerpiece of the trip, he's hoping to sign an agreement on nuclear sharing, which will require congressional approval. Do you think this agreement will actually come into being this soon?

Certainly the administration and the Indian government in July when they announced the basic outlines hoped and anticipated that by now, yes, they would have been able to clear away the legal issues and actually have something formalized. The proposal ran into a lot more difficulty than either government anticipated, in both countries, interestingly. It ran into considerable opposition in India and a lot of scrutiny in the United States.

What were the problems?

The original proposal was unusually vague, and it left open some really fundamental questions. For example, the administration in July 2005 said that this deal would augment our nuclear nonproliferation objectives. It said the main way this would happen is that for the first time India would designate certain nuclear facilities as civilian, and put those under safeguards by the [UN nuclear watchdog, the] International Atomic Energy Agency [IAEA]. Many of those facilities aren't under such safeguards now.

What the administration didn't nail down was how long would the safeguards be accepted or agreed to by India. In other words, all of the world, except for the five recognized nuclear weapon states, have safeguards forever on a facility. You build a facility, you put it under safeguard, safeguards are there eternally, and safeguards on the fuel and the nuclear material are for eternity.

People asked, "Is this what India's going to do, when it designates a facility as civilian and puts it under safeguards, is it for eternity?" [Bush] administration leaders kind of shrugged their shoulders. They hadn't thought of it. The Indians, when first asked, said, "No way, because what we've agreed to, and what President Bush has said, was that India now will be treated like all the other advanced nuclear countries, meaning the five recognized with nuclear weapons." And the dirty little secret is that we five--the U.S., Russia, China, Britain, and France--do not accept safeguards forever. We have voluntary safeguards which say, "Yes, you can come look and inspect it today, but if tomorrow I change my mind, I kick the inspectors out, I take the fuel, and do what I want with it." And so Congress and others asked the administration, "Well which is it, is it safeguards forever, in which case, OK; if it's not safeguards forever, you didn't get anything." And the administration scratched its collective head and said, "We're going to have go talk to the Indians about it."

So what's happened when we talked to the Indians?

The Indians came up with a formula that was very clever. They said, "Well, we don't like it, but we're prepared to accept safeguards on facilities and on fuel as long as you're prepared to continue providing the fuel. So if you say safeguards forever, that means you have to promise fuel forever." The United States will never agree to that.

Why is that?

I've had this discussion with administration officials. They say, "We will never give up our sovereign right to deny exports to anyone." This comes up in regard to Iran. In many ways, the key to solving the Iran nuclear problem will be to guarantee Iran sources of fuel from outside of Iran to persuade Iran not to make the fuel themselves. And the Iranians say, "We can't do that if we're not going to be guaranteed that fuel supply forever." And the United States says it will never make that guarantee forever because it may want to impose sanctions if Iran takes hostages again, or what have you. The United States will never give up its right to deny export licenses. And so that same principle would have to hold for India. This is one of those issues that's still, I think, being hammered out as we speak.

And of course, in India, I gather, there's a strong nuclear lobby?

In India, you have a strong nuclear establishment, which is a little different from a lobby. In other words, it's the Department of Atomic Energy, the Atomic Energy Commission, the people who actually wear the white coats and design and build things and get budgets to do that. It's always been a state within a state. It's been highly unaccountable. It's never been subjected to international scrutiny or competition. They were seen as the avatars of modernity and brilliance, the real symbols of great technological prowess, and so they have been powerful over the years, and also, immune from economic accountability and pressure. It's a paradox. On one hand, the nuclear experts realize that, finally, all of the promises they've made about providing nuclear energy for decades always come up woefully short; that they're never going to meet the country's energy needs without significant international cooperation.

You mean they don't have enough sources of uranium?

They don't have enough sources of uranium to fuel the kind of first-generation nuclear reactors they would need to meet energy requirements for the short term or even the next two decades. So there's a physical limit because of the fuel. There's a technological limit because their programs always kind of run behind in terms of the size of its reactors and its general capability.

Now, they're improving that a lot, but they can't build enough reactors soon enough to meet the country's energy targets. So where that leads is that, for a combination of both fuel needs and reactor needs, they're going to have to turn to international cooperation. Now they have a grand plan that they've had since the 1940s, which is to be the only country which relies on a totally different kind of fuel, which is a thorium-based fuel, because India has an abundance of thorium in its sand, in its soil. The problem is that the thorium fuel cycle is always fifty years away....

[anne]

http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/international/slot3_022806.html

You mean they don't have enough sources of uranium?

They don't have enough sources of uranium to fuel the kind of first-generation nuclear reactors they would need to meet energy requirements for the short term or even the next two decades. So there's a physical limit because of the fuel. There's a technological limit because their programs always kind of run behind in terms of the size of its reactors and its general capability.

Now, they're improving that a lot, but they can't build enough reactors soon enough to meet the country's energy targets. So where that leads is that, for a combination of both fuel needs and reactor needs, they're going to have to turn to international cooperation. Now they have a grand plan that they've had since the 1940s, which is to be the only country which relies on a totally different kind of fuel, which is a thorium-based fuel, because India has an abundance of thorium in its sand, in its soil. The problem is that the thorium fuel cycle is always fifty years away....

[What was that about thorium here and thorium there and thorium everywhere? Sort of like Got milk? Got thorium?]

Alex Tolley says...

anne: "Why is China so readily building coal fueled power plants, when they can build nuclear plants?"

Because they have huge coal deposits to exploit - 1/3 largest reserves in the world after the US and Russia. Sopping up employment via mining and transportation may be involved too. Speculatively - if you going to be building 2 power stations a month (as per BR comment) then you certainly don't want to be using technology that might blow up in an accident due to poor construction or lack of adequately trained workers.