Basing Environmental Decisions On Fact Vs. Hysteria
My friend Cameron Atwood writes: Curious to know your perspective on this article: Closure of Diablo Nuclear Plant Signals Dawn of Renewable Energy Era.
I have essentially the same take on this that I had on the other piece on nuclear energy, i.e., there is no doubt that most of the world is, unjustifiably IMO, terrified of nuclear energy. But notice that every GW of nuclear that is decommissioned means a GW of something else that must replace it. Of course, one could argue that (a whole mess of) wind and solar farms could fit the bill, but nuclear is baseload and variable resources are not, so you’re not really replacing nuclear; you’re most likely increasing the amount of fossil fuels that need to be consumed. Please see this piece on Germany’s increase in coal burning since they decommissioned eight nuclear plants in the wake of Fukushima.
Obviously, I’m in favor of a “Dawn of the Renewable Energy Era.” It actually sounds like something I could have written. 🙂 The migration to renewables is an extremely important aspect of creating a sustainable civilization, but it pains me to see people getting on board with this concept for reasons that aren’t based on fact.
Could nuclear power be considered renewable?
There is plenty of uranium available. Even ocean water contains uranium and the amount keeps increasing as rivers running into the ocean leach more uranium and send it into the ocean. We could never run out of it.
According to this poster
posterhttps://eclipsenow.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/nuclear-waste-poster2.pdf
advanced nuclear reactors could use the nuclear “waste” we now have to power the world for the next 500 years. So it seems reasonable to me to consider nuclear power to be renewable. And, the fact that there are huge supplies of thorium available, which can also be used for nuclear power, adds to the already inexhaustible supply of nuclear fuel.
I do not see us being a stable enough civilization to be responsible for something so lethal that stays lethal for thousands of years
Thousands of years? You are assuming that we will forever continue to use our antiquated and mediocre nuclear technology. What is commonly called nuclear waste is actually unused nuclear fuel.
Check out this link:
https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/2010/06/27/nuclear-waste-worth-30-trillion/
You are not alone in your reservations. http://ieet.org/index.php/IEET/print/11826 But there are those who move forward in spite of risk or consider the level of risk tolerable.
Somehow we have to find a way to move forward irrespective of our differences. If we don’t come together with a successful plan we will surely all fail together.
Exactly.
Craig, the article is very compelling. My initial thought was to wonder how much an increased demand for electricity contributed to the new Germany Coal plants. The article doesn’t address the point.
The fact that they were in the planning stages for 10 years also drives speculation that their existence could have been the reason that the nuclear plants could be shuttered.
Fall of 2007 I spoke about energy use in buildings for an international conference at Lehigh University titled
“Balancing Energy and the Environment: An Exploration of Future Research Needs,” – See more at: http://www1.lehigh.edu/news/conference-will-seek-balance-between-energy-and-environment#sthash.LPFJNmQg.dpuf
One of the speakers was Lehigh Professor Ed Levy, an expert in clean coal technology, and I was amazed how much more efficient and clean a coal power plant can be if all of the technologies available are used. With as progressive as Germany is, I would hope that they are using these technologies.
Most of the attendees at Balancing Energy and the Environment were research scientists so they were surprised and elated to hear that energy improvements to existing buildings could help us to turn around our emissions enough to make a difference. The breakout session after the talk was an exciting discussion and led to the creation of my talk the next spring titled “Carbon Footprint Reduction Through Energy Improvements to Existing Buildings”.
That’s terrific, Bruce. Keep up the good work out there.
But what about developing countries? As they strive to provide more electricity to their people to lift them out of poverty, their total increase in energy production will be greater than the entire world is now using. That does not mean that we shouldn’t strive to improve energy usage efficiency. However, it does mean that on a global scale, efficiency improvements will make only a marginal difference.
The reduction in CO2 emissions has to come from energy technologies that emit NO CO2. CO2 free energy technologies have to be used to meet ALL the energy needs in ALL countries. There is only one exception, i.e., tiny countries that cannot emit enough CO2 to matter such as small Pacific island countries.
That means that we cannot use energy systems which require using fossil fuels for backup. Designing Ivanpah to burn natural gas is a clear admission that solar energy is incapable of reducing CO2 emissions to zero.
Nuclear power is capable of generating power reliably with NO CO2 emissions. Any risk of nuclear power is dwarfed by the dangers of CO2 emissions.
Bruce as much as I applaud your perspective, I am also a bit leery of carbon capture as a patch for a fundamentally dirty technology. There is a new coal plant in the southern US that was hailed for its carbon capture. Unfortunately it went far over budget and he carbon captured is then being injected into oil wells to produce more oil. In the balance it gives us more expense and more carbon. “Renewable” is not a magic word any more than “carbon capture,” “nuclear,” “conservation.” It seems fundamental in our nature to look for and over appreciate anything that seems to “break the rules:” magic.
IMO, renewable energy isn’t “break the rules” stuff. It’s the natural result of the fact that we receive 6000 more power from the sun than we need for all our activities.
Best yet, we’re almost there.
While there is a solid renewable resource it must be applied properly. The first time you hear about a hydro project in Death Valley you will have your doubts. Some offerings are far more subtle, like small wind. There are niche applications but we have to give physics and economics its due.
It is relatively easy to be fooled with insufficient information or understanding especially when there seems to be a tide of public opinion that virtually amounts to a fad. Renewable energy when misapplied can lead to a “bad rap” and so it is easy to frown on small wind even though there are some good applications among a lot of offerings that are not going to work very well.
I like renewable. But just because it is renewable doesn’t mean I am going to suspend all judgement. On the flip side just because I don’t favor nuclear doesn’t mean that I will discount any application.
We are pretty good with the recycling of lead batteries perhaps more could be safely done with nuclear batteries.
Breath,
Not only that, but much of the captured CO2 will probably escape with the oil that is being extracted.
It is questionable whether there is a practical way to sequester CO2 that is certain to prevent its escape. It makes more sense not to generate CO2 in the first place.
Somehow the carbon needs to be returned into a stable solid. There are some experimental methods that are showing promise. http://www.gizmag.com/carbon-capture-rock-two-years/43787/ The more general overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solid_sorbents_for_carbon_capture If we could find a way to make a common or in demand material that would also sequester carbon (like concrete or a substitute for plastics) this could also have great benefits.
I’d like to see the numbers. The process may work on a limited scale, but would it be practical on a global scale? Would the CO2 need to be transported to distant sites where the process would work? Are there enough early accessible sites available?
It may work, but it seems that there is not yet adequate information to evaluate its practicality on a large scale. In any case, easily accessible coal will not be available forever.
Frank, this is the exact problem with most of the technology news. It is written to be somewhat sensational. The numbers tend not to be clear, perhaps even to the researchers who are in only an early stage of a discovery.
In addition, if we could hope for an especially effective method of carbon capture that could then be implemented separate from an attempt to burn more coal, it might be used to induce a different political stance from fossil fuel companies.
Though he talked about carbon capture, of which I am also skeptical, I am talking about cleaning up the burning process and using state of the art pollution controls. He talked of improving combustion efficiency through better controls and continuous monitoring of the combustion process. Fluidized bed combustion is the state of the art, and it turns out there are little clogs that develop, so that if you monitor combustion you can make adjustments that optimize combustion. Simple but not inexpensive technology.
FWIW, I agree with you that CCS isn’t a good answer, especially given how close we are to a massive migration to renewable energy.
Unless we can determine that an adequate energy storage technology will soon be available, I don’t see how we can be sure that we are close to a massive migration to renewable energy. On the other hand, we do know that nuclear power is not intermittent.
Present nuclear power is subject by design and regulation to shutdowns when the temperature rises too high. In an era of global warming it may not be perfectly accurate to suggest that nuclear is not without potential interruptions.
However the capacity factor of nuclear which includes a form of energy storage in its fuel) is almost certainly always going to be greater than those applications of renewable energy that do not also contain some form of energy storage (like the energy storage with-in hydro or geothermal.)
It is true that shutdowns have occurred when the temperature has become too high. And, global warming would exacerbate that problem.
Although I understand that problem from the theoretical standpoint, I have not studied the exaction conditions under which it has occurred or what solutions are available. If it has occurred only with direct body of water cooling, then perhaps cooling towers would be the solution. If it has occurred also with cooling towers, perhaps increasing the capacity of the cooling towers would be a solution. However, I would assume that new nuclear plants could be designed to deal with an increased coolant temperature although probably the efficiency would be slightly reduced.
Concentrated solar systems also require cooling and their efficiency would also be reduced if cooling temperatures were increased.