2021/04/11

Pro-nuclear movement - Wikipedia

Pro-nuclear movement - Wikipedia

Pro-nuclear movement

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to navigationJump to search
Patrick Moore in 2009.[1] Moore was opposed to nuclear power in the 1970s [2] but has come to be in favor of it.[3][4][5] Moore is supported by the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) and in 2009 he chaired their Clean and Safe Energy Coalition.[6] As chair, he suggested that the public is not as opposed to nuclear energy as they were in decades past.

There are large variations in peoples’ understanding of the issues surrounding nuclear power, including the technology itself, climate change, and energy security. Proponents of nuclear energy contend that nuclear power is a sustainable energy source that reduces carbon emissions and increases energy security by decreasing dependence on imported energy sources. Opponents believe that nuclear power poses many threats to people and the environment. While nuclear power has historically been opposed by many environmentalist organisations, some support it, as do some scientists.

Context[edit]

See also: Nuclear power debate and Nuclear energy policy
During a two-day symposium on "Atomic Power in Australia" at the New South Wales University of Technology, Sydney, which began on 31 August 1954, Professors Marcus Oliphant (left), Homi Jehangir Bhabha (centre) and Philip Baxter, share a cup of tea

Nuclear energy remains a controversial area of public policy.[7][8] The debate about nuclear power peaked during the 1970s and 1980s, when it "reached an intensity unprecedented in the history of technology controversies", in some countries.[9][10]

Proponents of nuclear energy point to the fact nuclear power produces virtually no conventional air pollution, greenhouse gases, and smog, in contrast to fossil fuel sources of energy.[11] Proponents argue perceived risks of storing waste are exaggerated, and point to an operational safety record in the Western world which is excellent in comparison to the other major kinds of power plants.[12] Historically, there have been numerous proponents of nuclear energy, including Georges Charpak, Glenn T. Seaborg, Edward Teller, Alvin M. Weinberg, Eugene Wigner, Ted Taylor, and Jeff Eerkens. There are also scientists who write favorably about nuclear energy in terms of the broader energy landscape, including Robert B. Laughlin, Michael McElroy, and Vaclav Smil. In particular, Laughlin writes in "Powering the Future" (2011) that expanded use of nuclear power will be nearly inevitable, either because of a political choice to leave fossil fuels in the ground, or because fossil fuels become depleted.

Lobbying and public relations activities[edit]

Main article: List of companies in the nuclear sector

Globally, there are dozens of companies with an interest in the nuclear industry, including Areva, BHP Billiton, Cameco, China National Nuclear Corporation, EDF, Iberdrola, Nuclear Power Corporation of India, Ontario Power Generation, Rosatom, TEPCO, and Vattenfall. Many of these companies lobby politicians and others about nuclear power expansion, undertake public relation activities, petition government authorities, as well as influence public policy through referendum campaigns and involvement in elections.[13][14][15][16][17]

The nuclear industry has "tried a variety of strategies to persuade the public to accept nuclear power", including the publication of numerous "fact sheets" that discuss issues of public concern.[18] Nuclear proponents have worked to boost public support by offering newer, safer, reactor designs. These designs include those that incorporate passive safety and Small Modular Reactors.

Since 2000 the nuclear industry has undertaken an international media and lobbying campaign to promote nuclear power as a solution to the greenhouse effect and climate change. Though reactor operation is free of carbon dioxide emissions, other stages of the nuclear fuel chain – from uranium mining, to reactor decommissioning and radioactive waste management – use fossil fuels and hence emit carbon dioxide.

The Nuclear Energy Institute has formed various sub-groups to promote nuclear power. These include the Washington-based Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, which was formed in 2006 and led by Patrick Moore. Christine Todd Whitman, former head of the USEPA has also been involved. Clean Energy America is another group also sponsored by the NEI.[19]

In Britain, James Lovelock well known for his Gaia Hypothesis began to support nuclear power in 2004. He is patron of the Supporters of Nuclear Energy. SONE also campaigns against wind power. The main nuclear lobby group in Britain is FORATOM.[19]

As of 2014, the U.S. nuclear industry has begun a new lobbying effort, hiring three former senators — Evan Bayh, a Democrat; Judd Gregg, a Republican; and Spencer Abraham, a Republican — as well as William M. Daley, a former staffer to President Obama. The initiative is called Nuclear Matters, and it has begun a newspaper advertising campaign.[20]

Organizations supporting nuclear power[edit]

In March 2017, a bipartisan group of eight senators, including five Republicans and three Democrats introduced S. 512, the Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act (NEIMA). The legislation would help to modernize the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), support the advancement of the nation's nuclear industry and develop the regulatory framework to enable the licensing of advanced nuclear reactors, while improving the efficiency of uranium regulation. Letters of support for this legislation were provided by thirty-six organizations, including for profit enterprises, non-profit organizations and educational institutions. The most prominent entities from that group and other well-known organizations actively supporting the continued or expanded use of nuclear power as a solution for providing clean, reliable energy include:

The United States generates about 19% of its electricity from nuclear power plants. Nearly 60% of all clean energy generated in the U.S. comes from nuclear power. Studies have shown that closing a nuclear power plant results in greatly increased carbon emissions as only burning coal or natural gas can make up for the massive amount of energy lost from a nuclear power plant. Even though there have long been protests against nuclear power, the effect of long-term scrutiny has elevated safety within the industry, making nuclear power the safest form of energy in operation today, despite the fact that many continue to fear it. Nuclear power plants create thousands of jobs, many in health and safety jobs, and seldom experience protests from area residents, as they bring large amounts of economic activity, attract educated employees and leave the air clear safe, unlike oil, coal or gas plants, which bring disease and environmental damage to their workers and neighbors. Nuclear engineers have traditionally worked, directly or indirectly, in the nuclear power industry, in academia or for national laboratories. More recently, young nuclear engineers have started to innovate and launch new companies, becoming entrepreneurs in order to bring their enthusiasm for using the power of the atom to address the climate crisis. As of June 2015, Third Way released a report identifying 48 nuclear start-ups or projects organized to work on nuclear innovations in what is being called "advanced nuclear" designs.[24] Current research in the industry is directed at producing economical, proliferation-resistant reactor designs with passive safety features. Although government labs research the same areas as industry, they also study a myriad of other issues such as nuclear fuels and nuclear fuel cycles, advanced reactor designs, and nuclear weapon design and maintenance. A principal pipeline for trained personnel for US reactor facilities is the Navy Nuclear Power Program. The job outlook for nuclear engineering from the year 2012 to the year 2022 is predicted to grow 9% due to many elder nuclear engineers retiring, safety systems needing to be updated in power plants, and the advancements made in nuclear medicine.[25]

Individuals supporting nuclear power[edit]

See also: Nuclear power in Australia § Advocates for nuclear power

Many people, including former opponents of nuclear energy, now say that nuclear energy is necessary for reducing carbon dioxide emissions. They recognize that the threat to humanity from climate change is far worse than any risk associated with nuclear energy. Many of these supporters, but not all, acknowledge that renewable energy is also important to the effort to eliminate emissions. Early environmentalists who publicly voiced support for nuclear power include James Lovelock, originator of the Gaia hypothesis, Patrick Moore, an early member of Greenpeace and former president of Greenpeace Canada, George Monbiot and Stewart Brand, creator of the Whole Earth Catalog.[26][27] Lovelock goes further to refute claims about the danger of nuclear energy and its waste products.[28] In a January 2008 interview, Moore said that "It wasn't until after I'd left Greenpeace and the climate change issue started coming to the forefront that I started rethinking energy policy in general and realised that I had been incorrect in my analysis of nuclear as being some kind of evil plot."[29] There are increasing numbers of scientists and laymen who are environmentalists with views that depart from the mainstream environmental stance that rejects a role for nuclear power in the climate fight (once labelled "Nuclear Greens,"[30] some now consider themselves Ecomodernists). Some of these include:

Scientists[edit]

James Edward Hansen
Prof. Barry W. Brook

Non-scientists[edit]

Open letter signatories

Climate and energy scientists in 2013: there is no credible path to climate stabilization that does not include a substantial role for nuclear power[66][67][68][69]

Conservation biologists in 2014: to replace the burning of fossil fuels, if we are to have any chance of mitigating severe climate change […we] need to accept a substantial role for advanced nuclear power systems with complete fuel recycling[70][71][72]

The following is a list of people that signed the open letter:[73]

Future prospects[edit]

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, located in France, is the world's largest and most advanced experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor project. A collaboration between the European Union (EU), India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States, the project aims to make a transition from experimental studies of plasma physics to electricity-producing fusion power plants. However, the World Nuclear Association says that nuclear fusion "presents so far insurmountable scientific and engineering challenges".[75] Construction of the ITER facility began in 2007, but the project has run into many delays and budget overruns. The facility is now not expected to begin operations until the year 2027 – 11 years after initially anticipated.[76]

Another nuclear power program gaining momentum recently is The Energy Impact Center's OPEN100 project.[77] Revealed in 2020, OPEN100 is an open-source approach to nuclear plant design. The large costs commonly associated with nuclear power are one of the main objections for supporting research and investing in nuclear plants. In an effort to quell those concerns, the OPEN100 project aims to share the engineering behind successful nuclear deployment in the past to create the foundation for a new generation of power plants that are safe, economically sound, and also easier to build.[78]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^ TEDxVancouver - Patrick Moore - 11/21/09 on YouTube
  2. ^ Patrick Moore, Assault on Future Generations, Greenpeace report, p47-49, 1976 - pdf [1] Archived 2012-10-20 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ The Independent, Nuclear energy? Yes please! [2]
  4. ^ The Nuclear Environmentalist 18 December 2009
  5. ^ "Interview with Italian Nuclear Energy advocacy group Atomi per la Pace".
  6. ^ Nuclear Energy Institute article
  7. ^ Sustainable Development Commission. Is Nuclear the Answer? Archived 2014-03-22 at the Wayback Machine p. 12.
  8. ^ Sustainable Development Commission. Public engagement and nuclear power Archived 2012-02-17 at the Wayback Machine
  9. ^ Herbert P. Kitschelt (1986). "Political Opportunity and Political Protest: Anti-Nuclear Movements in Four Democracies" (PDF). British Journal of Political Science. 16(1): 57. doi:10.1017/s000712340000380x.
  10. ^ Falk, Jim (1982). Global Fission: The Battle Over Nuclear Power. Melbourne: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-554315-5.
  11. ^ Patterson, Thom (2013-11-03). "Climate change warriors: It's time to go nuclear". CNN.
  12. ^ Bernard L. Cohen (1990). The Nuclear Energy Option: An Alternative for the 90s. New York: Plenum Press. ISBN 978-0-306-43567-6.
  13. ^ Leo Hickman (28 November 2012). "Nuclear lobbyists wined and dined senior civil servants, documents show". The Guardian.
  14. ^ Diane Farseta (September 1, 2008). "The Campaign to Sell Nuclear". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. pp. 38–56.Missing or empty |url= (help)
  15. ^ Jonathan Leake. "The Nuclear Charm Offensive" New Statesman, 23 May 2005.
  16. ^ Union of Concerned Scientists. Nuclear Industry Spent Hundreds of Millions of Dollars Over the Last Decade to Sell Public, Congress on New Reactors, New Investigation Finds Archived 2013-11-27 at the Wayback MachineNews Center, February 1, 2010.
  17. ^ Nuclear group spent $460,000 lobbying in 4Q Business Week, March 19, 2010.
  18. ^ M.V. Ramana (July 2011). "Nuclear power and the public". Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. p. 46.
  19. ^ Jump up to:a b Sharon Beder (2014). Lobbying, greenwash and deliberate confusion: how vested interests undermine climate change. In M. C-T. Huang and R. R-C Huang (Eds.), Green Thoughts and Environmental Politics: Green Trends and Environmental Politics (pp. 297-328), Taipei, Taiwan: Asia-seok Digital Technology.
  20. ^ Matthew Wald (April 27, 2014). "Nuclear Industry Gains Carbon-Focused Allies in Push to Save Reactors". New York Times.
  21. ^ Nuclear Energy Institute website
  22. ^ Jump up to:a b Hume, Holly (18 September 2020). "'Protest' beach party uses inflatable bananas in support of nuclear energy". East Anglian Daily Times. Retrieved 18 September2020.
  23. ^ NFF
  24. ^ "The Advanced Nuclear Industry: 2016 Update". Third Way. Retrieved 2017-07-14.
  25. ^ "Nuclear Engineers – Job Outlook" in Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2014–15. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Department of Labor
  26. ^ Environmental Heresies
  27. ^ An Early Environmentalist, Embracing New ‘Heresies’
  28. ^ James Lovelock
  29. ^ "Technology News".
  30. ^ Robert Bryce (Winter 2013). "Rise of the Nuclear Greens". City Journal. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  31. ^ James Hansen (3 December 2015). "Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change". The Guardian. Retrieved 8 June 2016.
  32. ^ James Lovelock (24 May 2004). "Nuclear power is the only green solution". The Independent. Retrieved 12 December2014.
  33. ^ David MacKay (March 2012). A reality check on renewables. Retrieved 12 October 2012.
  34. ^ Mackay, David (2009). Sustainable Energy: Without the Hot Air. UIT Cambridge. ISBN 978-0-9544529-3-3.
  35. ^ David Sheff (March 1983). "A candid conversation with America's "photographer laureate" and environmentalist about art, natural beauty and the unnatural acts of Interior Secretary James Watt". Playboy. Retrieved 22 October2014.
  36. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f g h "Bipartisan Group of Senators Introduce Nuclear Energy Innovation and Modernization Act". U.S. Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. 2 March 2017. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  37. ^ "Nuclear power's time has come". CNN. 22 February 2010. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  38. ^ Jump up to:a b c d e f Pandora's Promise at IMDb. Specifically credited are Brand, Cravens, Lynas, Rhodes, and Shellenberger.
  39. ^ Carol Browner (5 May 2014). "If You're Concerned About Climate Change, You Should Support Nuclear Power". Forbes. Retrieved 2 June 2014.
  40. ^ "To Carol Browner, Nuclear More Than Just Matters – It's Essential". Breakthrough Institute. 27 May 2014. Retrieved 5 June 2014.
  41. ^ Cravens, Gwyneth (2007). Power to Save the World. New York: First Vintage Books.
  42. ^ "2015 Emerging Explorers » Leslie Dewan, Nuclear Engineer". National Geographic Society. Retrieved 14 June2015. At the most fundamental level I'm an environmentalist. I'm doing this because I think nuclear power is the best way of producing large amounts of carbon-free electricity. I think the world needs nuclear power, alongside solar, wind, hydro, and geothermal, if we want to have any hope of reducing fossil fuel emissions and preventing global climate change.
  43. ^ Chris Goodall (23 February 2009). "The green movement must learn to love nuclear power". The Independent. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  44. ^ Babs McHugh (20 Jun 2014). "Environmentalist argues in favour of nuclear power". ABC Online. Retrieved 17 April2015.
  45. ^ "Speaking At MIT, Secretary Of State John Kerry Urges Action On Climate Change". wbur.org. 9 Jan 2017. Retrieved 14 May 2018.
  46. ^ Margi Kindig (17 Feb 2016). "The promise of nuclear power". JSOnline. Retrieved 20 Feb 2016.
  47. ^ Jerry McNerney and Robert E. Latta (17 May 2016). "NRC Reform for a strong, safe nuclear power industry". thehill.com. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  48. ^ Keith Kloor (21 Oct 2013). "Bjørn Lomborg: The resilient environmentalist". Cosmos. Archived from the originalon 3 February 2015. Retrieved 3 February 2015.
  49. ^ "Nuclear power support from former sceptic Mark Lynas". BBC. 8 October 2013. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  50. ^ Mark Lynas thinking the unthinkable on nuclear poweron YouTube
  51. ^ Jerry McNerney and Robert E. Lata (17 May 2016). "NRC Reform for a strong, safe nuclear power industry". thehill.com. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  52. ^ George Monbiot (21 March 2011). "Why Fukushima made me stop worrying and love nuclear power". theguardian.com. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  53. ^ Hugh Montefiore (22 October 2004). "We need nuclear power to save the planet from looming catastrophe". The Independent. Retrieved 15 October 2013. Note, an expanded version of the same essay was printed the next day: Hugh Montefiore (23 October 2004). "Why the planet needs nuclear energy". The Tablet. Retrieved 21 October 2013.
  54. ^ Patrick Moore (16 April 2006). "Going Nuclear". The Washington Post. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  55. ^ Jonathan Miller (12 May 2016). "Lund debate focuses on nuclear power, climate change". Retrieved 12 May 2016.
  56. ^ Lisa Murkowski (17 May 2016). "Press Release: Our Nation Must Lead on Nuclear Energy". murkowski.senate.gov. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
  57. ^ Jump up to:a b "Breakthrough! Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger of the Breakthrough Institute Discuss "Climate McCarthyism" And Why They Now Support Nuclear Power". Energy Tribune. 20 November 2009. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  58. ^ John Vidal (10 April 2012). "Vicious words mark the war between pro and anti-nuclear environmentalists". theguardian.com. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  59. ^ Jogalekar, Ashutosh (July 23, 2013). "Richard Rhodes on the Need for Nuclear Power". Scientific American.
  60. ^ Fiona Harvey (3 May 2012). "Nuclear power is only solution to climate change, says Jeffrey Sachs". The Guardian. Retrieved 17 February 2015.
  61. ^ Kate Breimann (30 April 2013). "Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear in 'Pandora's Promise' Trailer". Rolling Stone. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  62. ^ Thelen, Frank (2019-09-25). "Ist unser Planet noch zu retten?" [Can we still save the planet?]. LinkedIn (in German).
  63. ^ Steve Connor (23 February 2009). "Nuclear power? Yes please..." The Independent. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  64. ^ Former Greenpeace/UK Executive Director Stephen Tindale on nuclear power and renewable energy on YouTube
  65. ^ Bryony Worthington (4 July 2011). "Why thorium nuclear power shouldn't be written off". The Guardian. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  66. ^ Leigh Dayton (10 March 2010). "James Hansen keen on next-generation nuclear power". The Australian. Retrieved 20 October 2013.
  67. ^ James Hansen on nuclear power on YouTube
  68. ^ Thom Patterson (3 November 2013). "Climate change warriors: It's time to go nuclear". CNN. Retrieved 5 November 2013.
  69. ^ Ken Caldeira; Kerry Emanuel; James Hansen & Tom Wigley (3 November 2013). "Top climate change scientists' letter to policy influencers". CNN. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
  70. ^ "Aussie scientists dominate global energy talks". ABC News (Australia). 7 June 2011. Retrieved 15 October 2013.
  71. ^ Steve Connor (4 January 2015). "Nuclear power is the greenest option, say top scientists". The Independent. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
  72. ^ Barry W. Brook & Corey J. A. Bradshaw (15 December 2014). "An Open Letter to Environmentalists on Nuclear Energy". Retrieved 12 January 2015.
  73. ^ as of the most recent access date, Brook and Bradshaw's letter had an additional 75 signatories; only those with biographical Wikipedia articles are displayed here however.
  74. ^ Ove Hoegh-Guldberg & Eric McFarland (30 June 2014). "Let's go nuclear, for the reef's sake". The Australian. Retrieved 11 November 2014.
  75. ^ World Nuclear Association (2005). "Nuclear Fusion Power".
  76. ^ W Wayt Gibbs (30 December 2013). "Triple-threat method sparks hope for fusion". Nature. 505 (7481): 9–10. Bibcode:2014Natur.505....9G. doi:10.1038/505009a. PMID 24380935.
  77. ^ "Energy Impact Center Launches OPEN100". New Nuclear. 2020-02-26. Retrieved 2020-11-23.
  78. ^ SEE, Energetika NET-reliable energy news for. "OPEN100 Aims to Lower Cost of Building Nuclear Reactors". www.energetika.net. Retrieved 2020-11-23.

Further reading[edit]

External links[edit]

Posted by at
Labels: ,

This is the point (one of the points) that Vaclav Smil makes about renewables: ... | Hacker News

This is the point (one of the points) that Vaclav Smil makes about renewables: ... | Hacker News

Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login
tuatoru 9 months ago | parent | favorite | on: After many false starts, hydrogen power might now ...

This is the point (one of the points) that Vaclav Smil makes about renewables: abysmal energy density of production (in Watts/square meter: more like 'intensity' than 'density' to me).
The only thing that beats oil is nuclear fission. With everything else, production takes up land that could be used for something else, or isn't being used for something else because it has problems such as distance or inhospitable climate or unfriendly (steep or unstable) terrain. All of which drive up maintenance costs or make the land also unusable for energy production.

There are no good solutions apart from the one that coal companies astroturfed us into nearly banning in the 1960s.



svara 9 months ago [–]

What you're calling "energy intensity of production" doesn't look like a very important parameter. There's plenty of unused land that could host solar or wind installations and transporting electricity really is a solved problem.
I understand the impulse to defend nuclear power against seemingly irrational criticism, but that shouldn't distract you from the incredible advances that other technologies have been making. Nuclear has had its time, and today it's just not a competitive way of making electricity anymore.

Beside, you're never going to convince people that nuclear is perfectly safe - it just isn't. Even if you can completely rule out catastrophic failure, you still have a bunch of people who need to go to work every day and work with radioactive materials. Yes, it can be done safely, but personally I'm happy I don't have to (and I do work with other toxic crap in the lab on a regular basis ;)).

So, at the end of the day, you're going to need to make an argument that goes like "... but nuclear power is worth it because we have no better alternatives" at some point. But look at this report on levelized cost of energy (LCOE) [0]. Wind and solar are absurdly cheap! We need to focus on solving the intermittent supply issue now, and that looks to be totally doable, if expensive, with current technology. But it's only getting cheaper (see literature I've cited in a different post in this thread).

Of course, calculations might change if there's some sort of technology breakthrough in nuclear technology - as in any technology.

[0] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/lcoe2019


tuatoru 9 months ago [–]

> Even if you can completely rule out catastrophic failure, you still have a bunch of people who need to go to work every day and work with radioactive materials.
This is argument from extremes.

Coal plants kill a lot more people simply by operating: they release radioactivity (and toxic heavy metals, and PM2.5 particulate).

Gas extraction, processing, and transport also kill people (often the people who were occupying the land that the gas drillers want.) Ditto for oil. Wind turbine construction and maintenance also kills people. Solar panel construction involves working with toxic chemicals in far greater quantities than nuclear fission.

You expose fewer people to smaller risks with nuclear than with its alternatives.[1]

Also, wind and solar are dependent on either storage, for which we have no good grid-scale, months-long options yet, or globe-spanning petawatt transmission networks, if you're not going to accelerate climate change.

Don't get me wrong. I love solar PV - the only energy production method that relies on modern physics. I love wind, too, because it doesn't involve boiling water to make steam to drive turbines, which seems hopelessly steampunk to me these days. I'd also love to see a worldwide transmission network - that level of international co-operation would be awesome.

[1]. Gawd, I sound like a shill for nuclear. 2002 me would be horrified. But learning about climate change (and wanting industrial civilization to continue) forced me to confront my priors.


sho 9 months ago [–]

> Nuclear has had its time, and today it's just not a competitive way of making electricity anymore
I just don't agree with this. The tech has not been there, and even as that has slowly changed, the regulatory environment has lagged and obstructed horribly. These are problems, but they can change over time.

I believe it is in fact possible, given enough resources and effort, to truly perfect nuclear power - that being, after all, the real source of all these "renewable energy" options. And when we do, we should embrace it, not dismiss it out of hand based on some outdated superstition.

I don't have anything at all against wind and solar, but it's not a 1000-year strategy. Yes, we need to take urgent action to address climate change, and these may well be - ok, fuck it, are - our best short term options. But going forward, when we then need to look at how we'll increase society's power budget by 10, 1,000, 1,000,000 - nuclear is the only way[1], and we should start working on that, and sweeping away these old stereotypes, today.

[1] also open to space-based energy harnassing techniques, but i am trying to limit my thinking to known-viable ideas


nine_k 9 months ago [–]

Maybe above 60° latitude Sun energy is hard to harvest, an wind energy could be too unstable. This is where nuclear power would be in place.
Even though not so many people live so far up north, it's a significant part of densely populated Europe.


jes5199 9 months ago [–]

concentrating diffuse stuff is the new paradigm. the age of diffusing dense stuff is over.

noctune 9 months ago [–]

Wind turbines can coexist with agriculture without many issues. Pretty common here in Denmark. The biggest problem with building wind turbines on land here is probably NIMBY-ism.

Posted by at

Global Energy: The Latest Infatuations | American Scientist

Global Energy: The Latest Infatuations | American Scientist

Global Energy: The Latest Infatuations
BY VACLAV SMIL
In energy matters, what goes around, comes around—but perhaps should go away
---
MAY-JUNE 2011
VOLUME 99, NUMBER 3
PAGE 212
DOI: 10.1511/2011.90.212

 
VIEW ISSUE
To follow global energy affairs is to have a never-ending encounter with new infatuations. Fifty years ago media ignored crude oil (a barrel went for little more than a dollar). Instead the western utilities were preoccupied with the annual double-digit growth of electricity demand that was to last indefinitely, and many of them decided that only large-scale development of nuclear fission, to be eventually transformed into a widespread adoption of fast breeder reactors, could secure electricity’s future.


Ad Right
Two decades later, in the midst of the second energy “crisis” (1979–1981, precipitated by Khomeini’s takeover of Iran), rising crude oil prices became the world’s prime existential concern, growth of electricity demand had slumped to low single digits, France was the only nation that was seriously pursuing a nuclear future, and small cars were in vogue.

After world crude oil prices collapsed in 1985 (temporarily below $5 per barrel), American SUVs began their rapid diffusion that culminated in using the Hummer H1, a civilian version of a U.S. military assault vehicle weighing nearly 3.5 tonnes, for trips to grocery stores—and the multinational oil companies were the worst performing class of stocks of the 1990s. The first decade of the 21st century changed all that, with constant fears of an imminent peak of global oil extraction (in some versions amounting to nothing less than lights out for western civilization), catastrophic consequences of fossil fuel-induced global warming and a grand unraveling of the post-WW II world order.

All of this has prompted incessant calls for the world to innovate its way into a brighter energy future, a quest that has engendered serial infatuations with new, supposedly perfect solutions: Driving was to be transformed first by biofuels, then by fuel cells and hydrogen, then by hybrid cars, and now it is the electrics (Volt, Tesla, Nissan) and their promoters (Shai Agassi, Elon Musk, Carlos Ghosn) that command media attention; electricity generation was to be decarbonized either by a nuclear renaissance or by ubiquitous wind turbines (even Boone Pickens, a veteran Texas oilman, succumbed to that call of the wind), while others foresaw a comfortable future for fossil fuels once their visions of mass carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) were put in practice. And if everything fails, then geoengineering—manipulating the Earth’s climate with shades in space, mist-spewing ships or high-altitude flights disgorging sulfur compounds—will save us by cooling the warming planet.

This all brings to mind Lemuel Gulliver’s visit to the grand academy of Lagado: No fewer than 500 projects were going on there at once, always with anticipation of an imminent success, much as the inventor who “has been eight years upon a project for extracting sunbeams out of cucumbers” believed that “in eight years more, he should be able to supply the governor’s gardens with sunshine, at a reasonable rate”—but also always with complaints about stock being low and entreaties to “give … something as an encouragement to ingenuity.” Admittedly, ideas for new energy salvations do not currently top 500, but their spatial extent puts Lagado’s inventors to shame: Passionately advocated solutions range from extracting work from that meager 20-Kelvin difference between the surface and deep waters in tropical seas (OTEC: ocean thermal energy conversion) to Moon-based solar photovoltaics with electricity beamed to the Earth by microwaves and received by giant antennas.

And continuous hopes for success (at a low price) in eight more years are as fervent now as they were in the fictional 18th century Lagado. There has been an endless procession of such claims on behalf of inexpensive, market-conquering solutions, be they fuel cells or cellulosic ethanol, fast breeder reactors or tethered wind turbines. And energy research can never get enough money to satisfy its promoters: In 2010 the U.S. President’s council of advisors recommended raising the total for U.S. energy research to $16 billion a year; that is actually too little considering the magnitude of the challenge—but too much when taking into account the astonishing unwillingness to adopt many readily available and highly effective existing fixes in the first place.

Enough to Go Around?
Although all this might be dismissed as an inevitable result of the desirably far-flung (and hence inherently inefficient) search for solutions, as an expected bias of promoters devoted to their singular ideas and unavoidably jockeying for limited funds, I see more fundamental, and hence much more worrisome, problems. Global energy perspective makes two things clear: Most of humanity needs to consume a great deal more energy in order to experience reasonably healthy lives and to enjoy at least a modicum of prosperity; in contrast, affluent nations in general, and the United States and Canada in particular, should reduce their excessive energy use. While the first conclusion seems obvious, many find the second one wrong or outright objectionable.


Illustration by Tom Dunne.

In 2009 I wrote that, in order to retain its global role and its economic stature, the United States should

provide a globally appealing example of a policy that would simultaneously promote its capacity to innovate, strengthen its economy by putting it on sounder fiscal foundations, and help to improve Earth’s environment. Its excessively high per-capita energy use has done the very opposite, and it has been a bad bargain because its consumption overindulgence has created an enormous economic drain on the country’s increasingly limited financial resources without making the nation more safe and without delivering a quality of life superior to that of other affluent nations.
I knew that this would be considered a nonstarter in the U.S. energy policy debate: Any calls for restraint or reduction of North American energy use are still met with rejection (if not derision)—but I see that quest to be more desirable than ever. The United States and Canada are the only two major economies whose average annual per capita energy use surpasses 300 gigajoules (an equivalent of nearly 8 tonnes, or more than 50 barrels, of crude oil). This is twice the average in the richest European Union (E.U.) economies (as well as in Japan)—but, obviously, Pittsburghers or Angelenos are not twice as rich, twice as healthy, twice as educated, twice as secure or twice as happy as inhabitants of Bordeaux or Berlin. And even a multiple adjustment of national per capita rates for differences in climate, typical travel distances and economic structure leaves most of the U.S.–E.U. gap intact: This is not surprising once it is realized that Berlin has more degree heating days than Washington D.C., that red peppers travel the same distance in refrigerated trucks from Andalusia to Helsinki as they do from California’s Central Valley to Illinois, and that German exports of energy-intensive machinery and transport-equipment products surpass, even in absolute terms, U.S. sales.

Moreover, those who insist on the necessity and desirability of further growth of America’s per capita energy use perhaps do not realize that, for a variety of reasons, a plateau has been reached already and that (again for many reasons) any upward departures are highly unlikely. In 2010 U.S. energy consumption averaged about 330 gigajoules per capita, nearly 4 percent lower than in 1970, and even the 2007 (pre-crisis) rate of 355 gigajoules (GJ) per capita was below the 1980 mean of 359 GJ. This means that the U.S. per capita consumption of primary energy has remained essentially flat for more than one generation (as has British energy use). How much lower it could have been can be illustrated by focusing on a key consumption sector, passenger transport.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles
After 1985 the United States froze any further improvements in its corporate automobile fuel efficiency (CAFE), encouraged a massive diffusion of exceptionally inefficient SUVs and, at the same time, failed to follow the rest of modernizing world in building fast train links. For 40 years the average performance of the U.S. car fleet ran against the universal trend of improving efficiencies: By 1974 it was lower (at 13.4 miles per gallon [mpg]) than during the mid-1930s! Then the CAFE standards had doubled the efficiency of new passenger cars by 1985, but with those standards subsequently frozen and with the influx of SUVs, vans and light trucks, the average performance of the entire (two-axle, four-wheel) car fleet was less than 26 mpg in 2006 or no better than in 1986—while a combination of continued CAFE upgrades, diffusion of new ultra low-emission diesels (inherently at least 25–30 percent more efficient than gasoline-powered cars) and an early introduction of hybrid drives could have raised it easily to more than 35 or even 40 mpg, massively cutting the U.S. crude oil imports for which the country paid $1.5 trillion during the first decade of the 21st century.


Illustration by Tom Dunne.

And the argument that its large territory and low population density prevents the United States from joining a growing list of countries with rapid trains (traveling 250–300 kilometers per hour or more) is wrong. The northeastern megalopolis (Boston-Washington) contains more than 50 million people with average population density of about 360 per square kilometer and with nearly a dozen major cities arrayed along a relatively narrow and less than 700-kilometer long coastal corridor. Why is that region less suited to a rapid rail link than France, the pioneer of European rapid rail transport, with a population of 65 million and nationwide density of only about 120 people per square kilometer whose trains à grande vitesse must radiate from its capital in order to reach the farthest domestic destinations more than 900 kilometers away? Apparently, Americans prefer painful trips to airports, TSA searches and delayed shuttle flights to going from downtown to downtown at 300 kilometers per hour.

In a rational world animated by rewarding long-term policies, not only the United States and Canada but also the European Union should be boasting about gradual reductions in per capita energy use. In contrast, modernizing countries of Asia, Latin America and, most of all, Africa lag so far behind that even if they were to rely on the most advanced conversions they would still need to at least quadruple (in India’s case, starting from about 20 GJ per capita in 2010) their per capita supply of primary energy or increase their use by more than an order of magnitude—Ethiopia now consumes modern energies at a rate of less than 2 GJ per capita—before getting to the threshold of a decent living standard for most of their people and before reducing their huge internal economic disparities.

China has traveled further, and faster, along this road than any other modernizing nation. In 1976 (the year of Mao Zedong’s death) its average per capita energy consumption was less than 20 GJ per capita, in 1990 (after the first decade of Deng Xiaoping’s modernization) it was still below 25 GJ, and a decade later it had just surpassed 30 GJ per capita. By 2005 the rate had approached 55 GJ and in 2010 it reached 70 or as much as some poorer E.U. countries were consuming during the 1970s. Although China has become a major importer of crude oil (now the world’s second largest, surpassed only by the United States) and it will soon be importing large volumes of liquefied natural gas and has pursued a large-scale program of developing its huge hydrogenation potential, most of its consumption gains have come from an unprecedented expansion of coal extraction. While the U.S. annual coal output is yet to reach one billion tonnes, China’s raw coal extraction rose by one billion tonnes in just four years between 2001 and 2005 and by nearly another billion tonnes by 2010 to reach the annual output of 3 billion tonnes.

China’s (and, to a lesser degree, India’s) coal surge and a strong overall energy demand in Asia and the Middle East have been the main reason for recent rises of CO2 emissions: China became the world’s largest emitter in 2006, and (after a small, economic crisis-induced, decline of 1.3 percent in 2009) the global total of fossil fuel-derived CO2 emissions set another record in 2010, surpassing 32 billion tonnes a year (with China responsible for about 24 percent). When potential energy consumption increases needed by low-income countries are considered together with an obvious lack of any meaningful progress in reducing the emissions through internationally binding agreements (see the sequential failures of Kyoto, Bali, Copenhagen and Cancún gatherings), it is hardly surprising that technical fixes appear to be, more than ever, the best solution to minimize future rise of tropospheric temperatures.

Renewable Renaissance?
Unfortunately, this has led to exaggerated expectations rather than to realistic appraisals. This is true even after excluding what might be termed zealous sectarian infatuations with those renewable conversions whose limited, exceedingly diffuse or hard-to-capture resources (be they jet stream winds or ocean waves) prevent them from becoming meaningful economic players during the next few decades. Promoters of new renewable energy conversions that now appear to have the best prospects to make significant near-term contributions—modern biofuels (ethanol and biodiesel) and wind and solar electricity generation—do not give sufficient weight to important physical realities concerning the global shift away from fossil fuels: to the scale of the required transformation, to its likely duration, to the unit capacities of new convertors, and to enormous infrastructural requirements resulting from the inherently low power densities with which we can harvest renewable energy flows and to their immutable stochasticity.


Illustration by Tom Dunne.

The scale of the required transition is immense. Ours remains an overwhelmingly fossil-fueled civilization: In 2009 it derived 88 percent of its modern energies (leaving traditional biomass fuels, wood and crop residues aside) from oil, coal and natural gas whose global market shares are now surprisingly close at, respectively, 35, 29 and 24 percent. Annual combustion of these fuels has now reached 10 billion tonnes of oil equivalent or about 420 exajoules (420 × 1018 joules). This is an annual fossil fuel flux nearly 20 times larger than at the beginning of the 20th century, when the epochal transition from biomass fuels had just passed its pivotal point (coal and oil began to account for more than half of the global energy supply sometime during the late 1890s).

Energy transitions—shifts from a dominant source (or a combination of sources) of energy to a new supply arrangement, or from a dominant prime mover to a new converter—are inherently prolonged affairs whose duration is measured in decades or generations, not in years. The latest shift of worldwide energy supply, from coal and oil to natural gas, illustrates how the gradual pace of transitions is dictated by the necessity to secure sufficient resources, to develop requisite infrastructures and to achieve competitive costs: It took natural gas about 60 years since the beginning of its commercial extraction (in the early 1870s) to reach 5 percent of the global energy market, and then another 55 years to account for 25 percent of all primary energy supply. Time spans for the United States, the pioneer of natural gas use, were shorter but still considerable: 53 years to reach 5 percent, another 31 years to get to 25 percent.

Displacing even just a third of today’s fossil fuel consumption by renewable energy conversions will be an immensely challenging task; how far it has to go is attested by the most recent shares claimed by modern biofuels and by wind and photovoltaic electricity generation. In 2010 ethanol and biodiesel supplied only about 0.5 percent of the world’s primary energy, wind generated about 2 percent of global electricity and photovoltaics (PV) produced less than 0.05 percent. Contrast this with assorted mandated or wished-for targets: 18 percent of Germany’s total energy and 35 percent of electricity from renewable flows by 2020, 10 percent of U.S. electricity from PV by 2025 and 30 percent from wind by 2030 and 15 percent, perhaps even 20 percent, of China’s energy from renewables by 2020.

Unit sizes of new converters will not make the transition any easier. Ratings of 500–800 megawatts (MW) are the norm for coal-fired turbogenerators and large gas turbines have capacities of 200–300 MW, whereas typical ratings of large wind turbines are two orders of magnitude smaller, between 2 and 4 MW, and the world’s largest PV plant needed more than a million panels for its 80 MW of peak capacity. Moreover, differences in capacity factors will always remain large. In 2009 the load factor averaged 74 percent for U.S. coal-fired stations and the nuclear ones reached 92 percent, whereas wind turbines managed only about 25 percent—and in the European Union their mean load factor was less than 21 percent between 2003 and 2007, while the largest PV plant in sunny Spain has an annual capacity factor of only 16 percent.


Photo courtesy of First Solar.

As I write this a pronounced high pressure cell brings deep freeze, and calm lasting for days, to the usually windy heart of North America: If Manitoba or North Dakota relied heavily on wind generation (fortunately, Manitoba gets all electricity from flowing water and exports it south), either would need many days of large imports—yet the mid-continent has no high-capacity east-west transmission lines. Rising shares of both wind and PV generation will thus need considerable construction of new long-distance high-voltage lines, both to connect the windiest and the sunniest places to major consumption centers and also to assure uninterrupted supply when relying on only partially predictable energy flows. As the distances involved are on truly continental scales—be they from the windy Great Plains to the East Coast or, as the European plans call for, from the reliably sunny Sahara to cloudy Germany (Desertec plan)—those expensive new supergrids cannot be completed in a matter of years. And the people who fantasize about imminent benefits of new smart grids should remember that the 2009 report card on the American infrastructure gives the existing U.S. grid a near failing grade of D+.

And no substantial contribution can be expected from the only well-tested non-fossil electricity generation technique that has achieved significant market penetration: Nuclear fission now generates about 13 percent of global electricity, with national shares at 75 percent in France and about 20 percent in the United States. Nuclear engineers have been searching for superior (efficient, safe and inexpensive) reactor designs ever since it became clear that the first generation of reactors was not the best choice for the second, larger, wave of nuclear expansion. Alvin Weinberg published a paper on inherently safe reactors of the second nuclear era already in 1984, at the time of his death (in 2003) Edward Teller worked on a design of a thorium-fueled underground power plant, and Lowell Wood argues the benefits of his traveling-wave breeder reactor fueled with depleted uranium whose huge U.S. stockpile now amounts to about 700,000 tonnes.

But since 2005, construction began annually on only about a dozen new reactors worldwide, most of them in China where nuclear generation supplies only about 2 percent of all electricity, and in early 2011 there were no signs of any western nuclear renaissance. Except for the completion of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s Watts Bar Unit 2 (abandoned in 1988, scheduled to go on line in 2012), there was no construction underway in the United States, and the completion and cost overruns of Europe’s supposed new showcase units, Finnish Olkiluoto and French Flamanville, were resembling the U.S. nuclear industry horror stories of the 1980s. Then, in March 2011, an earthquake and tsunami struck Japan, leading to Fukushima’s loss of coolant, destruction of reactor buildings in explosions and radiation leaks; regardless of the eventual outcome of this catastrophe, these events will cast a long suppressing shadow on the future of nuclear electricity.

Technical Fixes to the Rescue?
New energy conversions are thus highly unlikely to reduce CO2 emissions fast enough to prevent the rise of atmospheric concentrations above 450 parts per million (ppm). (They were nearly 390 ppm by the end of 2010). This realization has led to enthusiastic exploration of many possibilities available for carbon capture and sequestration—and to claims that would guarantee, even if they were only half true, futures free of any carbon worries. For example, a soil scientist claims that by 2100 biochar sequestration (essentially converting the world’s crop residues, mainly cereal straws, into charcoal incorporated into soils) could store more carbon than the world emits from the combustion of all fossil fuels.


Map courtesy Desertec: http://www.dii-eumena.com/home.html

Most of these suggestions have been in the realm of theoretical musings: Notable examples include hiding CO2 within and below the basalt layers of India’s Deccan (no matter that those rocks are already much weathered and fractured), or in permeable undersea basalts of the Juan de Fuca tectonic plate off Seattle (but first we would have to pipe the emissions from Pennsylvania, Ohio and Tennessee coal-fired power plants to the Pacific Northwest)—or using exposed peridotites in the Omani desert to absorb CO2 by accelerated carbonization (just imagine all those CO2-laden megatankers from China and Europe converging on Oman with their refrigerated cargo).


Maps adapted by Tom Dunne from National Public Radio: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=110997398

One of these unorthodox ideas has been actually tried on a small scale. During the (so far) largest experiment with iron enrichment of the surface ocean (intended to stimulate phytoplankton growth and sequester carbon in the cells sinking to the abyss) an Indo-German expedition fertilized of 300 square kilometers of the southwestern Atlantic in March and April 2009—but the resulting phytoplankton bloom was devoured by amphipods (tiny shrimp-like zooplankton). That is why the best chances for CCS are in a combination of well-established engineering practices: Scrubbing CO2 with aqueous amine has been done commercially since the 1930s, piping the gas and using it in enhanced oil recovery is done routinely in many U.S. oilfields, and a pipeline construction effort matching the extension of U.S. natural gas pipelines during the 1960s or 1970s could put in place plenty of links between large stationary CO2 sources and the best sedimentary formations used to sequester the gas.

But the scale of the effort needed for any substantial reduction of emissions, its safety considerations, public acceptance of permanent underground storage that might leak a gas toxic in high concentrations, and capital and operation costs of the continuous removal and burial of billions of tonnes of compressed gas combine to guarantee very slow progress. In order to explain the extent of the requisite effort I have been using a revealing comparison. Let us assume that we commit initially to sequestering just 20 percent of all CO2 emitted from fossil fuel combustion in 2010, or about a third of all releases from large stationary sources. After compressing the gas to a density similar to that of crude oil (800 kilograms per cubic meter) it would occupy about 8 billion cubic meters—meanwhile, global crude oil extraction in 2010 amounted to about 4 billion tonnes or (with average density of 850 kilograms per cubic meter) roughly 4.7 billion cubic meters.


Image courtesy of Statoil.

This means that in order to sequester just a fifth of current CO2 emissions we would have to create an entirely new worldwide absorption-gathering-compression-transportation- storage industry whose annual throughput would have to be about 70 percent larger than the annual volume now handled by the global crude oil industry whose immense infrastructure of wells, pipelines, compressor stations and storages took generations to build. Technically possible—but not within a timeframe that would prevent CO2 from rising above 450 ppm. And remember not only that this would contain just 20 percent of today’s CO2 emissions but also this crucial difference: The oil industry has invested in its enormous infrastructure in order to make a profit, to sell its product on an energy-hungry market (at around $100 per barrel and 7.2 barrels per tonne that comes to about $700 per tonne)—but (one way or another) the taxpayers of rich countries would have to pay for huge capital costs and significant operating burdens of any massive CCS.

And if CCS will not scale up fast enough or it will be too expensive we are now offered the ultimate counter-weapon by resorting to geoengineering schemes. One would assume that a favorite intervention—a deliberate and prolonged (decades? centuries?) dispensation of millions of tonnes of sulfur gases into the upper atmosphere in order to create temperature-reducing aerosols—would raise many concerns at any time, but I would add just one obvious question: How would the Muslim radicals view the fleets of American stratotankers constantly spraying sulfuric droplets on their lands and on their mosques?

These are uncertain times, economically, politically and socially. The need for new departures seems obvious, but effective actions have failed to keep pace with the urgency of needed changes—particularly so in affluent democracies of North America, Europe and Japan as they contemplate their overdrawn accounts, faltering economies, aging populations and ebbing global influence. In this sense the search for new energy modalities is part of a much broader change whose outcome will determine the fortunes of the world’s leading economies and of the entire global civilization for generations to come. None of us can foresee the eventual contours of new energy arrangements—but could the world’s richest countries go wrong by striving for moderation of their energy use?

BIBLIOGRAPHY
British Petroleum. 2010. BP Statistical Review of World Energy. http://www.bp.com/liveassets/bp_internet/globalbp/globalbp_uk_english/reports_and_publications/statistical_energy_review_2008/STAGING/local_assets/2010_downloads/statistical_review_of_world_energy_full_report_2010.pdf
International Energy Agency. 2010. Key World Energy Statistics.
http://www.iea.org/textbase/nppdf/free/2010/key_stats_2010.pdf

Jackson, R. B., and J. Salzman. 2010. Pursuing geoengineering for atmospheric restoration. Issues in Science and Technology 26:67-76.
Metz, B., et al., eds. 2005. Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Sivak, M., and O. Tsimhoni. 2009. Fuel efficiency of vehicles on US roads: 1923-2006. Energy Policy 37:3168-3170.
Smil, V. 2008. Energy in Nature and Society: General Energetics of Complex Systems. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.
Smil, V. 2009. U.S. energy policy: The need for radical departures. Issues in Science and Technology 25:47-50.
Smil, V. 2010. Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger.
Smil, V. 2010. Energy Myths and Realities: Bringing Science to the Energy Policy Debate. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute.
U.S. Energy Information Administration. 2010. International Energy Outlook 2010. http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/pdf/0484(2010).pdf
Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)