While the latest IPCC working group III summary report has its share of gloom and doom and ridiculous edicts, it does have one redeeming quality as Josh points out.
While the latest IPCC working group III summary report has its share of gloom and doom and ridiculous edicts, it does have one redeeming quality as Josh points out.
Bring ’em on! Energy liberates people.
I wonder how often the IPCC people played “Age of Empires”?
( http://www.ask.com/wiki/Age_of_Empires?o=2801&qsrc=999&ad=doubleDown&an=apn&ap=ask.com )
Good one Josh!
pic.twitter.com/8vrHYbQNO5
did they never click the IPCC is a govts toy ?
the govt likes the useful idiots because they are so, well, useful. the ecos were pumped and dumped.
the ecos never really thought the govts wanted to go back to mud huts? or maybe they did.
Global warming is eating it’s green children… (“BLURP!”)
A common goal, but not a common means.
Irony is delicious.
The slogan could perhaps be reduced to “More tracking nuclear.”
“More fracking nuclear.”
[And more fracking auto-correct. 🙁 ]
James Hansen, opponent of fracking but (recent) proponent of nuclear, must feel torn by all this.
While the IPCC may feel comfortable buying into their AGW nonsense, apparently even they have
limits to illogical thinking
jauntycyclist says:
April 14, 2014 at 1:42 pm
“did they never click the IPCC is a govts toy ?”
Green NGO’s are as well (paid by the EU commission).
So this is a Hegelian dialectic: Thesis IPCC, Antithesis Green shocktroops; synthesis:
No Coal (from IPCC)
No Oil (from IPCC)
No Nuclear (from Green shocktroops)
No Fracking (from Green shocktroops)
I am more a Sid Meier’s Civilization guy.
Green is the new red.
Am expecting a rush of greenie tree hugger suicide pacts – as they realise their ‘demi-gods’ have turned on them! Hopefully it will be like lemmings……………LOL
The irony is that too many conservatives are in denial about the science of climate change while too many liberals are in denial about the solutions.
I am in southern Wisconsin. It is currently half past April and I have 34 degrees F and it’s snowing. Forecast for tonight is a low of 20 degrees F.
Where is all that global warming I was promised? I want my global warming back!
Nuclear and fracking have to be in the report to give western governments, Japan and Europe in particular, the cover they need to gain energy independence from Russia. The cold war was never over, it was only on pause, and now the Russian bear has come out of hibernation and is carving off bits of Europe one piece at a time. The Americans and Europeans can’t act lest Europe wind up freezing in the dark. Hence all the European pressure to get rid of the sanctions regime on Iran.
If Obama had a clue (and I am not saying he does), Keystone would be approved and built on a record pace, along with facilities to export LNG from Canada and the US to Europe. This report by supporting fracking and nuclear gives some measure of cover for that strategy, though I think it may simply be coincidence in this case.
For me, this was always THE issue that showed that ‘Climate Change’ was really a political thing. It was always obvious that green energy was never going to be able to replace coal and oil anytime soon. The greens unwillingness to dial back the nuclear panic and anti fracking lies long enough to actually cut CO2 emissions [amply] demonstrates how [concerned] about it they REALLY are.
It’s easy to get the IPCC to do what you want. Pay them and they’ll be all over you. Now that we’ve established what they are, it’s just a matter of haggling over price.
Nuclear power has far too many disadvantages, as described in my series The Truth About Nuclear Power. There will be 30 articles, of which 10 are published thus far.
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part-one.html
The Law Of Unintended Consequences bites again.
Just a passing thought on this latest dustup between greens and the IPCC.
When it comes right down to it, Nuclear is probably the only NON-Renewable energy there is. in the long run. The amount of nuclear material is fairly fixed and decreasing (even without use by man). Oil, Coal, Gas – they are all renewed. Just not on a short term time scale (like wood).
Roger Sowell says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:47 pm
Nuclear power has far too many disadvantages,
Vs
France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.
France is the world’s largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this.
France has been very active in developing nuclear technology. Reactors and fuel products and services are a major export.
It is building its first Generation III reactor.
About 17% of France’s electricity is from recycled nuclear fuel.
I am increasingly convinced that satire and sarcasm are the ultimate takedown of this nonsense. It just needs wider publication. You there, Romm, McKibben, Cook, Hansen? And Mann, we already know you cannot handle it.
Onward Josh. What an apt nom de guerre.
Isn’t this what Prof. Muller is on record as saying? GHE is real and there is real warming. The best solutions involve conservation and cleaner sources of fuel including natural gas through fracking and additional nuclear power plants.
Nuclear power has far too many disadvantages, as described in my series The Truth About Nuclear Power. There will be 30 articles, of which 10 are published thus far.
What you mean other than the fact that without it, it will be impossible to keep 9 billion people alive?
MattS says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
ah! I am lucky then – cos I am in Portugal currently enjoying 24+degC and lots of sunshine….
Obviously global warming is over ‘here’ this week?
regards etc
Kev
So even the IPCC admits the answer isn’t blowing in the wind after all.
davidmhoffer says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
Nuclear and fracking have to be in the report to give western governments, Japan and Europe in particular, the cover they need to gain energy independence from Russia. The cold war was never over, it was only on pause, and now the Russian bear has come out of hibernation and is carving off bits of Europe one piece at a time.
=========
1 [trimmed]
Hypocrite, heal thyself.
@Khwarizmi – I do not agree with you, but I love your expression – NeoCon coup.
Thanks for the laugh!
Kev-in-Uk,
“Obviously global warming is over ‘here’ this week?”
Can I borrow some?
Khwarizmi
because your prime loyalty is to Der Judenstaat.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Your bigotry and hatred is on display for all to see.
Your anonymity suggests you are a coward to boot.
“Crispin in Waterloo says:
April 14, 2014 at 1:59 pm
“More fracking nuclear.” ”
Or, to get it done real fast, “more nuclear fracking”…. JUST KIDDING!!!
Moderator, I’m not a believer in censorship when it comes to blog comments but the “Khwarizmi’s” repulsive racist anti-Semitic comment has no place in this or any blog.
“Khwarizmi says:
April 14, 2014 at 3:15 pm ”
Mellow out the ‘tude….Nehemiah 2:20….
Felix says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
The irony is that too many conservatives are in denial about the science of climate change while too many liberals are in denial about the solutions.
First, you need to disabuse yourself of the notion that this is a conservative vs liberal issue, as it goes far beyond that. Secondly, if you look at the so-called “science of climate change”, you will see that there really isn’t much even resembling science. The IPCC makes a lot of assertions based on assumptions, and then have the chutzpah to declare a 95% confidence level on it.
The real irony here is that the squabbling about “solutions” is a total farce, since there is no problem with our climate, and the kicker is that CO2 actually is nature’s and man’s best briend. The fight to “save” the planet by limiting our fossil fuel use is doing nothing but hobbling economies, and limiting the amount of plant growth enhancers we are providing for plants. Nothing green about that.
The reason the WGIII wasn’t listened to in Copenhagen 2009 is the same reason it won’t be listened to in the next 6 years either.
And especially the WGIII won’t be listened to on its position about nuclear or fracking either.
The IPCC is inherently faulted in a fatal way both structurally and ideologically***.
*** Ideologically => Post-modernism and post-normalism cannot work because they are based on irrational positions of what reality is.
John
“Jeff says:
April 14, 2014 at 3:37 pm
Or, to get it done real fast, “more nuclear fracking”…. JUST KIDDING!!!”
It has been tried with mixed results.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Rulison
Makes the “no nukes” crowd real antsy with the gas drillers moving closer and closer to the original bore hole.
“Nuclear power has far too many disadvantages, as described in my series The Truth About Nuclear Power. There will be 30 articles, of which 10 are published thus far.”
Offhand, I’d say that’s roughly 10 too many. In my experience, the truth about anti-nuclear folks is that they tell many, many lies. I have supreme confidence that this joker will live up to my expectations. Good to see that the Japanese govt is encouraging all the utilities to restart their nuclear plants and save Japan’s economy.
Commercial nuclear expansion in the US is, even if expedited, wouldn’t have any significant new amounts of operating capacity until at least ~20 years later.
By then the data on CO2 effects on the atmosphere will be sufficient to mitigate any real concern about fossil fuels. That will really dim the new found enthusiasm for nuclear and would reduce the economic benefit evaluation of nuclear plants.
Nuclear should always be significant in the power generation mix, but not a dominant option.
John
Funny how when you make coal, and to some extent gas more expensive because of the “carbon” they emit, nuclear suddenly looks more attractive.
Not unlike the action of alcohol in a bar setting.
“Bruce says:
April 14, 2014 at 4:15 pm ”
Ouch! I have to wonder if the water going to/through Battlement Creek (maybe tributary to Colorado River?) is still “hot”, as it were….
It’s one thing to have it inside a reactor or some sort of containment, but this is “gone fission” of
the worst kind….Then again, I wonder if folks back then really knew. I remember the machines they used to x-ray feet to get the “perfect” fit….wonder how those folks’ feet are now…(hopefully OK…)…
Not good news for the watermelons, the red is starting to come through the thin green skin.
Roger Sowell says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:47 pm
…… “There will be 30 articles”
Get lost with your “30 Articles”, of misleading poppycock. From what I read in the examples you gave at the website you linked to, you have little idea of the reality of modern nuclear science, which are using new techniques to recycle waste into fuel, and even use waste as fuel in itself.
Greens will criticize the ipcc and no one will call them anti science deniers
Hey Roger your very first article is disproved by France of all countries. They produce 75% of their own power via nuclear and export electricity to the rest of Europe. So exactly how is it that nuclear can’t compete?
I”ll admit if you pile artificial regulations on top of it to make it expensive then you have a point. Oh wait the NRA does doe that wow… perhaps some of those rules designed to make nuclear bad should be tossed out the windows. I say defenestrate the rules. 😉
After hearing preposterous claims from the anti-nuke jerkheads over the years, I would advise not believing anything they claim about 1) costs 2) nuclear waste 3) radiation leaks, etc. etc. In other words, most anything they say concerning nuclear power. For those who woud rather learn the truth about such things,including Gen 3 and Gen 4 reactors, etc this is the place to visit :
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org
There you will learn who is buying what from whom, what
costs are written into fixed price contracts, what new fuel and other technologies are being developed, where all the new construction is taking place around the world (70 plants currently
under construcion, 30 in China alone). For example, a plant site in China today ordered 2 Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, with 4 more to follow. The Chinese have previously indicated
they will be buying 30 more AP1000 reactors in the near future. By mid century China plans to have 500 reactors and 1600 by the end of the century. India is also very aggressively developing closed cycle nuclear power system. Most countries in the Middle East have ordered nuclear plants
and Britain has begun a large building program. The U.S. is the laggard, for a variety of reasons, however, for the first time in 30 years new plants are being constructed – 2 in Georgia, 2 in South Carolina and 1 in Tennesse. There will be more, many more. Nuclear power is the future of
energy. No question. None. No other energy technology has a future.
Fission is the best and cleanest transitional energy source available for the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the 21st century. But the next nuclear plants will be the last. Though the technology is more complex, it is much easier to build a Fusion plant without concern for the nonexistent pool of radioactive nucleides that a Fission plant must constantly concern itself about disseminating, into the biosphere. .
.
It will then give away to clean, inexhaustible, Fusion and energy as a constriction on growth disappears. With ample energy, you can make all the convenient fossil fuel that you want. Or anything else too.
questions? why aren’t the CAGW NGOs screaming & yelling? why is the CAGW MSM virtually ignoring this?
thankfully, there’s IPCC (which is still all about killing coal), then there is reality:
14 April: Bloomberg: Post-Fukushima Japan Chooses Coal Over Renewable Energy
By Chisaki Watanabe and Masumi Suga
Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is pushing Japan’s coal industry to expand sales at home and abroad, undermining hopes among environmentalists that he’d use the Fukushima nuclear accident to switch the nation to renewables…
In many ways, utilities are already ahead of policy makers. With nuclear reactors idled for safety checks, Japan’s 10 power companies consumed 5.66 million metric tons of coal in January, a record for the month and 12 percent more than a year ago, according to industry figures…
Japan’s appetite for coal mirrors trends in Europe and the U.S., where the push for cheaper electricity is undermining rules limiting fossil fuel emissions and supporting cleaner energy. In the U.S., a frigid winter boosted natural gas prices, providing catalyst for utilities to extend the lives of dirtier coal plants. Germany, Spain and Britain are slashing subsidies for renewables to rein in the cost of electricity…
WWF: “Japan basically needs to recognize an increase in coal use is a serious issue for climate change. The country needs to push for reduction of carbon dioxide.” …
“It’s crucial to have diverse energy sources for a country like Japan, which relies on imports for all energy,” said Akira Yasui, an official in charge of coal policy at the Ministry of the Economy, Trade and Industry. “Our basic stance is to use coal while caring for the environment as much as possible. Coal is economical and stable in supply.” …
More Coal
Tokyo Electric, better known as Tepco, has other plans to use more coal for the stations that serve 29 million customers around the nation’s capital…
“The plan represents nothing but anachronism,” said Mie Asaoka, head of the Kiko Network, a Kyoto, Japan-based environmental organization.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-13/post-fukushima-japan-chooses-coal-over-renewable-energy.html
14 April: Guardian: Lenore Taylor: Coal will be a main energy source for ‘decades and decades’, says Greg Hunt
Environment minister says advances in carbon capture will be key to Australia’s emissions cuts in his response to IPCC report
Coal will be a predominant energy source for “decades and decades” to come, but with “drastically” reduced greenhouse emissions owing to technological advancement, the environment minister, Greg Hunt, has predicted as he responds to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
“Coal will be used for decades and decades more … but what I do think will change is the emissions from it and that is the critical thing,” he told Sky news, describing “highly prospective” technology being developed by Csiro.
“What I think will happen is this … we will be able to use coal and gas in a dramatically more efficient way, with dramatically lower emissions … that will happen over the coming decade as we make real progress, including cleaning up our brown coal power stations, with drying gasification and capturing, not for storage … but capture and reuse,” Hunt said.
He nominated the three “great sources” for emission reductions for Australia as “the land sector, energy efficiency and cleaning up power stations.”
The government will release a white paper on its Direct Action plan in the next few weeks…
The IPCC report, prepared by more than 1,250 experts from around the world, found that limiting the global temperature increase to 2C above pre-industrial levels would require a tripling or quadrupling of low-carbon energy by 2050.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/apr/14/coal-will-be-a-main-energy-source-for-decades-and-decades-says-greg-hunt
@ richard,on April 14, 2014 at 3:00 pm, and France’s nuclear utilities.
I refer you to Part Eleven of the Truth About Nuclear Power series, which addresses the French model. If what France has done is so great, why has no other country in the world followed its lead?
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/the-truth-about-nuclear-power-part.html
@ Big Mac & Chips on April 14, 2014 at 4:48 pm
You miss the entire point. It matters zero to the economics if nuclear plants recycle their waste, or recycle spent fuel. Economics alone doom nuclear power to an also-ran. Keep reading the articles.
@ LamontT on April 14, 2014 at 5:07 pm
You also should read the Part Eleven of my series. France is not the model to follow.
And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.
@ Col Mosby on April 14, 2014 at 5:23 pm
“After hearing preposterous claims from the anti-nuke jerkheads over the years, I would advise not believing anything they claim”
Wow. Name-calling. I too have heard nothing but impossible claims from nuclear proponents over the many decades I’ve been practicing, and none of it has come true. Nuclear power is not cheap, it costs far too much to build, and costs too much to operate today. It is a fact that US nuclear plants are closing because they simply cannot compete. They are not safe, either, even though the industry tells everyone lie after lie that the plants are safe. Each radiation release (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima) is waved away as “a fluke, other plants are safe” yet another one melts down a few years later.
Imagine the world as you paint it, with 1600 nuclear plants in earthquake-prone China, built to Chinese standards of high-speed rail with walls that crumble. How many radioactive dead zones will there be in the next century?
I am a no-longer-practicing nuclear core cooling engineer.
I am very much in favor of certain varieties marginally critical nuclear power. Non enriched Uranium-Deuterium and thorium for example.
CANDU reactors (Deuterium, heavy water) are very safe, very low emission.
Nuclear power is awesome.
8 April: Bloomberg: Tara Patel: French Energy Law to Lower Atomic Power Reliance, PM Valls Says
Valls reiterated President Francois Hollande’s plan to cut dependence on atomic power to half of all output by 2025 from about three-quarters now. State-run Electricite de France SAoperates the country’s 58 nuclear reactors.
The law to shift toward renewables and away from nuclear is already about a year behind schedule…
The nuclear meltdown in Fukushima, Japan, in 2011 prompted France’s neighbors Germany and Italy to turn their backs on atomic energy and raised questions at home about the energy source. The atomic regulator ordered EDF to carry out safety measures costing an estimated 10 billion euros ($14 billion) to make reactors safer and Hollande planned to close EDF’s oldest plant at Fessenheim by the end of 2016.
Ministry officials estimated last month in testimony to a parliamentary commission that as many as 20 reactors may have to be halted by 2025 to meet Hollande’s pledge to reduce dependence on nuclear power and boost renewables…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-08/french-energy-law-to-lower-atomic-power-reliance-pm-valls-says.html
25 March: Guardian: Peter Wynn Kirby: Europe’s new nuclear experience casts a shadow over Hinkley
Those planning the UK’s first nuclear reactors in decades cannot ignore the costs and delays to plants in Finland and France
With two new UK reactors planned at Hinkley Point C in Somerset and three years after the meltdowns at Fukushima in Japan, it is worth considering whether the design, procurement, construction, and management of nuclear power plants is sufficiently reliable to allay public concern over radiation and value for money.
In the case of the reactor design chosen for Hinkley C, the French-designed European Pressurised Reactor (EPR), there is not yet a finished power plant to judge by.
The two plants closest to completion, in Finland and France, have been plagued by astonishing cost overruns and construction delays, along with a litany of complaints over design flaws, poor quality control, and construction lapses…
The EPR’s automatic control system and safety system, by Siemens, also proved insufficiently robust. In 2009, nuclear safety regulators in Britain, Finland, and France jointly released a report judging the safety system to be insufficiently independent from the automatic control system, sending Areva back to the drawing board. This means that the EPR design selected for Hinkley C is not actually a finished product – one key component remains in development…
Originally commissioned at €3bn, the cost of the Olkiluoto 3 in Finland has ballooned to an estimated €8.5bn. Amid the finger-pointing between Areva and Finnish electricity provider Teollisuuden Voima Oy (TVO), with each suing the other for losses as a result of the delays and other problems (€2.7 and €1.8bn, respectively), Areva has apparently not submitted a revised schedule and did not renew contracts for 50 work foremen at the site in February, when work all but stopped for most of the month.
With all the mounting setbacks, no one involved in the project dares to predict when the plant will actually come online, but Finnish media sources estimate its completion date will have slipped from 2009 to 2018, or perhaps even as late as 2020…
France is perhaps one of the most pro-nuclear places in the world to build a reactor, with about 75% of the country’s electricity already generated from the atom. But Flamanville is also years behind schedule and far over budget.
Work started in 2007, yet similar problems with questionable quality control and design issues have dragged the completion date into 2016 (this for a project originally intended to last 4.5 years). The final bill for Flamanville is estimated to reach €8.5bn – exactly the same as the upwardly revised cost of Olkiluoto…
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/mar/25/europes-new-nuclear-experience-casts-a-shadow-over-hinkley
if the pro-nuclear people wish to pick up any or all of this trillion-dollar bill, that’s fine by me.
but, if CAGW is exaggerated or based on tortured data, i say no to a price on CO2 emissions, & no to taxpayers funding the scam. Coal is King:
14 April: Bloomberg: Alex Morales/Stefan Nicola: Renewables, Nuclear Must Triple to Save Climate, UN Says
The International Energy Agency estimated last year that the power industry needs to invest $17 trillion from 2013 through 2035 to satisfy rising electricity demand. Investments made now in new fossil fuel-fired plants have implications for future emissions because they last for decades, it says.
Annual expenditure on renewables, nuclear, and carbon capture and storage must rise by $147 billion, and spending on energy efficiency measures for transportation, buildings and industry needs to increase by $336 billion, it said…
A 2-degree scenario would involve “more rapid improvements of energy efficiency, a tripling to nearly a quadrupling of the share of zero- and low-carbon energy supply” by 2050.
That finding is a boon to wind turbine makers such as Vestas Wind Systems A/S, solar panel manufacturers including Yingli Green Energy Holding Co. and nuclear reactor makers Areva SA and Toshiba Corp.’s Westinghouse unit…
Injecting CO2
Operational plants include Statoil ASA’s Sleipner project, in which carbon dioxide, or CO2, is siphoned out of natural gas and injected into saline aquifers, and a program at a Koch Nitrogen Co. fertilizer plant in Oklahoma that pipes CO2 to oil fields for enhanced oil recovery…
***Governments need to bring in policies that boost the cost of emitting carbon to a level that make CCS “economic,” Michael Grubb, chair of the Cambridge Centre for Climate Change Mitigation Research at the University of Cambridge, said in a phone interview. He put the level at more than 50 euros ($69) per ton. Allowances currently trade at about 5 euros on the European Union emissions trading system, the world’s biggest…
“The cost of averting catastrophic climate change is minimal, but in order to keep costs down, we have to act now,” said Samantha Smith, who leads the climate program at the environmental group WWF…
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-04-13/renewables-nuclear-must-triple-to-save-climate-un-says.html
Reuters: Nuclear industry says weak carbon price justifies state funding
FORATOM, which represents Europe’s nuclear industry, said new atomic power generation will need financial support as long as carbon prices are low and hit back at EU regulators’ criticism of funding for a plant to be built by EDF…
“The market must therefore provide, in the interim, the necessary support mechanisms to incentivise nuclear investments at an acceptable level of risk for investors,” FORATOM said…
http://af.reuters.com/article/energyOilNews/idAFL6N0N24KU20140410
I have said since 1979 that I will finish my career as an engineering geologist with a final stint in siting studies for nuclear power. That will be after I began that career at the end if the previous bout of nuke construction, went successively into water resources, some environmental geology, then engineering and geologic hazards, then mining now oil&gas and next back to nuclear. What a fun cycle (except for the environmental consulting. I’ll post something some day on my blog and alert everyone about it. That was more or less a waste of time-actually more, not less)
Roger Sowell
Each radiation release (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima) is waved away as
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Oh we do no such thing. The causes of those accidents have been studied in detail, and learned from. The lessons inform new design parameters and operating procedures to make future plants safer still.
400,000 people die every year from drowning. Shall we ban swimming?
Over 1,000,000 people per year die in traffic accidents. Should we ban cars?
Shall we go back to the stone age to avoid the risk of fatalities from planes, trains, mining, electricity, construction, bridge collapse, building collapse, medical procedures, and so on? Care to compare the deaths globally per year to those things versus nuclear power? Want to ban all the ones higher than nuclear? What would that leave us with. I’ll answer that. Caves.
Everything humanity does to makes lives better comes with some risk. We can learn from our mistakes and work to eliminate them in the future, or cower in the darkness.
For those who prefer a summary of the first eleven articles in The Truth About Nuclear Power, it has been shown (one) that modern nuclear power plants are uneconomic to operate compared to natural gas and wind energy, (two) they produce preposterous pricing if they are the sole power source for a grid, (three) cost far too much to construct, (four) use far more water for cooling than better alternatives, (five) nuclear fuel makes them difficult to shut down and requires very costly safeguards, (six) are built to huge scale of 1,000 to 1,600 MWe or greater to attempt to reduce costs via economy of scale, (seven) an all-nuclear grid will lose customers to self-generation, (eight) smaller and modular nuclear plants have no benefits, (nine) large-scale plants have very long construction schedules even without lawsuits that delay construction, (ten) nuclear plants require costly upgrades after 20 to 30 years that do not always perform as designed, and (eleven) after the worldwide increases in crude oil price in the 1970s, France chose nuclear power rather than high-priced imported oil or relying on other countries for natural gas. France has, in the intervening years, subsidized its power prices, reluctantly privatized only a portion of the electric industry, developed nuclear technology that it desperately subsidizes to sell to other countries, exports low-balled subsidized power to neighboring countries in an attempt to maintain high nuclear plant operating rates, and recently was the object of an investigation for anti-trust by the EU related to power prices. Clearly, following France in nuclear is not the way to go.
Jeff says:
April 14, 2014 at 4:41 pm
“Bruce says:
April 14, 2014 at 4:15 pm ”
Ouch! I have to wonder if the water going to/through Battlement Creek (maybe tributary to Colorado River?) is still “hot”, as it were….
It’s one thing to have it inside a reactor or some sort of containment, but this is “gone fission” of
the worst kind….Then again, I wonder if folks back then really knew. I remember the machines they used to x-ray feet to get the “perfect” fit….wonder how those folks’ feet are now…(hopefully OK…)…
============================================================================
I watch American Restoration on the History Chanel. Someone brought one of those in and because the restorer had no experience with x-ray machines he brought in an expert because he didn’t know if it was safe even when turned off (it was, it used a special kind of vacuum tube/light bulb as an x-ray source).
The expert measured the radiation output when it was on, and the X-ray output per second was above the current maximum annual exposure allowed for hospital x-ray technicians.
@ davidmhoffer on April 14, 2014 at 7:22 pm
Why choose a technology that is proven to be dangerous? We drive cars that have expensive, heavy, and mandatory safety features. We could, instead, all ride motorcycles at 150 miles per hour without helmets. Which would you say is safer, cars with seatbelts and crash safety designed in with reasonable speed limits, or 150 mph motorcycles and no helmets? Nuclear power has far more economic and safer alternatives. These alternatives are called coal and natural gas, wind, solar, geothermal, and hydroelectric.
I invite you to read Article Two in the Series. See what nuclear power ultimately leads to.
Roger Sowell;
I invite you to read Article Two in the Series. See what nuclear power ultimately leads to.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I’ve read your drivel. I’m not sure you realize it, but you’ve done more to convince me that nuclear is the way to go than advocates of nuclear power themselves. You’re no different than the climate alarmists. You spew fear mongering laced with misdirection. When your claims are examined in detail, they fall apart. In thread after thread you wind up looking like a fool, yet your persist. If you had actual VALID arguments, I’d take you seriously. But every time I dig into your claims, they turn out to be drivel. Trot out a valid argument, and people will start to listen to you. All you’re doing by spewing fear mongering and misinformation is convincing anyone who looks into it that you have no valid arguments upon which to rely.
@ davidmhoffer on April 14, 2014 at 7:52 pm
“When your claims are examined in detail, they fall apart.”
That tells us all we need to know about your analytical skills. I stated that San Onofre (SONGS) in California was shut down due to faulty steam generator design. Do you deny this?
I state that nuclear plants in the New York and Mid West are closing due to being unable to compete with wind and gas-derived power. Do you deny this?
I state that Georgia’s Vogtle plant was only green-lighted by its financial backers after obtaining state government law change to allow the utility to pre-charge the customers for the cost of building the plant. Do you deny this? I could go on, but my fingers get tired.
Many actual nuclear power engineers and technicians agree with me. They know what type of plants they design and run.
There is a reason that nuclear power has achieved only 11 percent of the world’s electricity generation (as of 2011 per IEA), after 50 years of desperately trying to increase their market share. Too dangerous, and too expensive.
@ davidmhoffer on April 14, 2014 at 7:52 pm, part two.
I have indeed engaged in numerous comments and replies on nuclear power, with the frustration of not having a sufficiently long forum to give my replies. That is part of why I am writing the series on Truth About Nuclear Power. I invite you, if you are able, to refute any argument or fact given in that series.
However, I do not really try to persuade you. You have demonstrated your inability to absorb factual information and logical conclusions on nuclear power. Still there are far more readers here than just you. Many of them have open minds and may be persuaded.
Ohhhh, the irony! It should be a ‘flower power and peace sign’ painted school bus the greens are being thrown under and the ‘green’ characters comment bubble should say No Fracking Way Dude!
In the comments queue above is another bit of irony:
Felix says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
The irony is that too many conservatives are in denial about the science of climate change while too many liberals are in denial about the solutions.
This is followed immediately by:
MattS says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
I am in southern Wisconsin. It is currently half past April and I have 34 degrees F and it’s snowing. Forecast for tonight is a low of 20 degrees F. Where is all that global warming I was promised? I want my global warming back!
Felix thinks ‘conservatives’ are in denial about AGW while every day folks like MattS all across the whole damn state of Wisconsin and all of Canada are still experiencing winter weather in the middle of April! Now, we all know that Wisconsin has folks from every persuasion of economic, political, religious, philosophical, gender, and sexual orientation but they all need do no more than look at the outdoor thermometer and out the window to know spring is late this year. In many areas across the state, the frost was 4 feet deep and more and still has not thawed completely, a result of a deep and difficult winter. Felix thinks the entire population of Wisconsin and their thermometers andtheir still frozen ground are conservatives in denial.
Now, THAT is truly ironic, Felix!
Are the thermometers, the family budget breaking winter fuel bills, and the frozen tundra remaining in Wisconsin this April just imaginary artifacts of ‘conservative denial’, Felix? Is CO2 causing colder and longer winter weather? Please provide your independently verifiable evidence substantiating this cold ‘climate change’!
If that proves too daunting, then perhaps you would like to elaborate about the ‘climate change solutions’ that liberals are in denial of? MattS really wants lower cost energy and milder winters because high energy costs and extremely cold winters impoverish Wisconsin citizens. Enlighten MattS about how liberals can mitigate the cold winters and high energy costs, please Felix. Please, enlighten us all……
As David pointed out, France supplies 75% nuclear energy and is not suffering yet you tell us to disregard the French Model. That tells us that Nuclear works – all you are telling us is that the US Model doesn’t work. Not only that but the German model was working also until they got the heebie jeebies over Fukushima which was not a nuclear accident but an accident of location.
I lived in Shenyang, China for a few years. They have a Nuclear power plant there and there were no issues, accidents or any genetic modification of the general population.
You Roger are just an anti nuke guy with blinkers.
Roger Sowell
(one) that modern nuclear power plants are uneconomic to operate compared to natural gas and wind energy,
If they were uneconomical, companies wouldn’t be trying to build them. Dictatorships like China who couldn’t give a flying fart about anything EXCEPT economics wouldn’t be building them. As for wind, you really blow your credibility with that one, it is intermittent and economical only in very specialized cases.
(two) they produce preposterous pricing if they are the sole power source for a grid,
Which is why their primary use case is base load. You may as well argue that a semi-trailer cannot economically transport a single case of beer and so they are useless.
(three) cost far too much to construct,
That’s just a statement, not evidence or reasoned debate. If they cost too much, countries and companies wouldn’t be building them.
(four) use far more water for cooling than better alternatives,
Does the water wear out? Nor is “far more” a reason to not use nuclear. I could say your precious wind mills use far more land area than other alternatives, or far more rare earths. The only questions are a matter of economics and resource availability. So of course you don’t build a nuclear power plant somewhere with an insufficient supply of water, anymore than you would build a wind mill somewhere that there’s an insufficient supply of wind.
(five) nuclear fuel makes them difficult to shut down and requires very costly safeguards,
They’re easy to shut down, just slower because they are base load designs. ANY base load design is slow ramping up and slow ramping down. As for those costly safeguards, well DUH! Do you know of ANY industry that shouldn’t be required to put in safeguards commensurate with the issues?
(six) are built to huge scale of 1,000 to 1,600 MWe or greater to attempt to reduce costs via economy of scale,
Uh, yeah. Since they are built for base load, they need to be big. For peak loads you want smaller faster ramp up ramp down technologies. You are once again beating on nuclear by claiming it is uneconomical to do things it wasn’t designed to do.
(seven) an all-nuclear grid will lose customers to self-generation,
Which has what to do with anything? Do you imagine that hydro or coal or solar or gas will not lose customers to self generation?
(eight) smaller and modular nuclear plants have no benefits,
Once again then, why are they being built? Why are companies and entire countries buying them? Do you suppose they look at their options and say, hey! This one is really expensive and doesn’t work very well, let’s buy that one! Seriously?
(nine) large-scale plants have very long construction schedules even without lawsuits that delay construction,
Again, and so? You think the Boulder Dam just appeared over night? That wind farms appear over night? Everything at the scale of the power grid takes a long time to design, build, and deploy. That however is immaterial. The only things that are material are the amount of power required, the time frame it is required in, and the cost of provisioning it over the lifetime of the plant.
(ten) nuclear plants require costly upgrades after 20 to 30 years that do not always perform as designed, and
Uh huh. Like that NEVER happens with solar. Ooops, all those solar companies went bankrupt or cannot survive without subsidies. Same for wind farms. Do you think that gas and coal plants don’t need upgrades and maintenance over the course of their lifetimes? Seriously?
(eleven) after the worldwide increases in crude oil price in the 1970s, France chose nuclear power rather than high-priced imported oil or relying on other countries for natural gas. France has, in the intervening years, subsidized its power prices, reluctantly privatized only a portion of the electric industry, developed nuclear technology that it desperately subsidizes to sell to other countries, exports low-balled subsidized power to neighboring countries in an attempt to maintain high nuclear plant operating rates, and recently was the object of an investigation for anti-trust by the EU related to power prices.
Yeah, and what was the RESULT of that investigation?
I invite you, if you are able, to refute any argument or fact given in that series.
Done. I’m pretty sure I nailed more than one.
Steven Mosher says:
April 14, 2014 at 5:02 pm
Greens will criticize the ipcc and no one will call them anti science deniers
++++++++++
Bingo… well stated. 100% in agreement here~!
(seven) an all-nuclear grid will lose customers to self-generation,
Sorry Roger, forgot one important point. Since nuclear plants are good at base load and terrible at variable load, OF COURSE and “all-nuclear grid” would be expensive. But no one is proposing an “all nuclear grid”. You’re constructing a straw man argument that is completely immaterial to the use case for which nuclear is proposed. I could as easily argue that an all ocean liner transportation system would lose customers to self transport. It is just a silly argument to make, and underscores my complain earlier that your arguments are laced with misdirection and misinformation, convincing me further that you have no valid arguments to bring to the table.
[trimmed]
davidmhoffer says:
April 14, 2014 at 9:08 pm
(seven) an all-nuclear grid will lose customers to self-generation,
Sorry Roger, forgot one important point. Since nuclear plants are good at base load and terrible at variable load, OF COURSE and “all-nuclear grid” would be expensive. But no one is proposing an “all nuclear grid”. You’re constructing a straw man argument that is completely immaterial to the use case for which nuclear is proposed. I could as easily argue that an all ocean liner transportation system would lose customers to self transport. It is just a silly argument to make, and underscores my complain earlier that your arguments are laced with misdirection and misinformation, convincing me further that you have no valid arguments to bring to the table.
+++++++++
Thank you davidmhoffer: And more expensive than wind power? Go ask Denmark about electricity pricing. If windmills could sell, energy at 4cents per kWh without subsidies and without rate payers being forced to pay for it, there would not even be a discussion. You fail to provide balance also – but omitting that wind forces the grid to use variable base load power generation which kills efficiency. Wind requires near 100% backup once there are enough wind turbines. Roger – you sound like a child trying to win a debate without understanding the underlying metrics. Bad lawyer!
Look, I expect lawyers to argue cases that they do not believe in, because it’s their job to win an argument. So, I have to ask, what is your modus operandi? I know – to convince people to just believe in something without thinking. It does not work here. When your claims are subject to cross examination, they fall apart.
@ davidmhoffer on April 14, 2014 at 9:08 pm
It is evident that you have not read a word that I wrote. Every single one of your objections is clearly refuted in the articles.
And the reason for discussing an all-nuclear grid, number Seven on the list that you argue so vainly against, is that many pro-nuclear people state often that “nuclear is the only way to go” and “nuclear is the way of the future” or similar such. The basis for the Truth series is to show what will actually happen and why, citing factual sources.
Your supposed “nailed it” missed by a mile on ever point.
Here is the ultimate fact, as I stated above. If nuclear power is so great, why does it still generate only 11 percent of the entire world’s electrical power (IEA statistics, from 2013 Outlook, for 2011) even after 50 or more years of desperately trying to break into the market? Even with huge subsidies, and laws protecting the plants against lawsuits.
You of course have no answer for that.
@ Mario Lento at April 14, 2014 at 9:21 pm
Wind does exactly what it is designed to do (at this time): produces power when and as the wind blows. As more grid-scale energy storage is brought online, wind energy will not require backup. MIT recently applied for a patent on their ocean-floor grid-scale energy storage systems. These will allow off-shore wind energy to be stored and released as needed.
My views on wind energy are published here:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/gone-with-wind-nuclear-bye-bye.html
You want to know my motives? Here it is, copied directly from the Gone With The Wind article just above:
“In my considered, engineering-based opinion, nuclear power is a danger and a threat to the economic well-being of electricity consumers. I have a special place in my heart for the poor, the elderly, those on fixed incomes, and those who barely scrape by month to month or even week to week. High electricity prices causes those vulnerable groups to choose between food, rent, and paying the electric bill. That is simply wrong, in my view. Nuclear power increases electricity prices by outrageous amounts, as I witnessed only too personally in the 1970s along the US gulf coast. It is simply wrong to run them, or to build them, when there are so many better, cheaper, and less deadly alternatives available. Today, the power plant of choice is a combined cycle natural gas-fired gas turbine plant, with low construction costs, high thermal efficiency of approximately 60 percent, low operating costs with low-cost natural gas at around $4 per million Btu, and very low water consumption for cooling.
Since wind energy also forces nuclear power plants out of business, that alone justifies the subsidies.”
Roger Sowell;
Here is the ultimate fact, as I stated above. If nuclear power is so great, why does it still generate only 11 percent of the entire world’s electrical power
You of course have no answer for that.
We’re talking about the future Roger, not about the past. What the current market share has NOTHING to do with the economics or future viability of nuclear. That’s just another straw man argument that has nothing to do with the issue. If nuclear is economical and unconstrained by regulation, its market share will grow. There was a time in history when candles and whale oil had well over 90% of the lighting market share compared with electricity. You’d look pretty silly a century or so ago arguing that was proof that electricity had no future.
It is evident that you have not read a word that I wrote.
Yeah, I crushed your arguments one by one by not reading them. You didn’t even TRY to rebut any of the points I made in rebuttal to yours, you changed the subject again.
Seriously dude, the difference in tactics between you and the common garden variety climate troll we used to see here often is precisely zero. The topic may be different, but the tactics are identical and the deliberate obtuseness staggering.
See the 5 minute readings here:
http://transmission.bpa.gov/Business/Operations/Wind/baltwg.aspx
The green line near the bottom with its ups and downs is wind power. Red is load.
For this region the base load power is hydro.
Note on Monday morning (April 14) as the load went steeply up the wind power went . . .
Oh, there wasn’t any wind. We turned of machines, lights, heaters, stop lights and – well, we did not actually turn them off. Hydro kept society humming right along.
Good thing – our house is 100% electric including the well. Cheers.
Roger Sowell;
Nuclear power increases electricity prices by outrageous amounts, as I witnessed only too personally in the 1970s along the US gulf coast
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
It isn’t the 1970’s anymore Roger. Again, this isn’t about the past. Oil prices sky rocketed in the 1970’s too. Would that be a reason to stop using cars today? If you are so all fired concerned about the effects of high prices on the poor and elderly, by all means do the right thing.
Let the free market be free. The low cost providers will win, the high cost providers will lose. If you are correct, then you need do nothing else but that to win your case.
davidmhoffer says:
April 14, 2014 at 10:10 pm
“ . . . There was a time in history when candles and whale oil had well over 90% . . . ”
A bit before my time, but some of the family had gas lights from a well on their property. Being quite little at the time my sister and I did not like to visit – dirty walls, smell, and not bright in the big rooms with small windows.
I wonder if whale oil had better characteristics?
is CAGW gatekeeper, Andrew Revkin, complaining?
NOT A SINGLE MENTION OF FRACKING OR NUCLEAR (MUSTN’T LET THE CAGW-FOLLOWERS KNOW OR THEY MIGHT GET UPSET):
13 April – Nations’ Handling of New Climate Report Presages Divisions in Treaty Effort
(CHART CAPTION: A chart of trending news stories on April 13, 2014, from the website Newsmap.jp. News of the new climate report is the green block at the bottom right.)
Justin Gillis’s news story from Berlin on the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — the one on the world’s options for limiting global warming — tells you all you need to know about the familiar contents. The chart of trending news in the United States above tells you all you need to know about how much people are tuning in. (Click to learn more about how Newsmap works.)…
[Insert, 3:52 p.m. | Eric Holthaus has posted an excellent summary of the economic points made in the report at Slate.]…
There’s an important back story — on how the final two days of negotiations between the report authors and government officials reflect global divisions that will only intensify as the world’s rich and developing countries wrangle over a new climate treaty that is supposed to emerge in late 2015.
Under rules created when the climate panel was established in 1988, governments have to approve the final summary for policy makers word by word and unanimously…
(FROM GILLIS ARTICLE) Some developing countries insisted on stripping charts from the report’s executive summary that could be read as requiring greater effort from them, while rich countries — including the United States — struck out language implying that they needed to write big checks to the developing countries…
(FROM AP’s KARL RITTER ARTICLE) Some developing countries objected and wanted the graphs to follow the example of U.N. climate talks and use just two categories – developed and developing – according to three participants who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the IPCC session was closed to the public…
Another snag: oil-rich Saudi Arabia objected to text saying emissions need to go down by 40 percent to 70 percent by 2050 for the world to stay below 2 degrees C (3.6 F) of warming, participants told AP. One participant said the Saudis were concerned that putting down such a range was “policy-prescriptive,” even though it reflects what the science says…
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/13/nations-handling-of-new-climate-report-presages-divisions-in-treaty-effort/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Climate%20Change&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body&_r=0
10 April: Revkin: I just gave a talk at TEDx Portland — a daylong event focused on various interpretations of the word “perfect.”
I was hardly perfect, but hopefully conveyed my core conclusion: that in our variegation and imperfection, we humans — with motivation and sustained work — are perfectly suited for surviving, and perhaps thriving, in a consequential, complicated century and changing climate.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/12/we-are-perfect-with-an-asterisk/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog Main&contentCollection=Sustainability&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body
John F. Hultquist says:
April 14, 2014 at 10:32 pm
A bit before my time, but some of the family had gas lights from a well on their property. Being quite little at the time my sister and I did not like to visit – dirty walls, smell, and not bright in the big rooms with small windows.
I wonder if whale oil had better characteristics?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Gosh, I read a paper on indoor air quality in the early 1800’s about….well, a few decades ago. I dimly recall that there was a lot of soot and other problems with whale oil, but there weren’t a lot of alternatives. Gas burns pretty clean, but if your family was getting the gas straight from the well, there were likely impurities in it (my guess anyway).
Roger Sowell: “MIT recently applied for a patent on their ocean-floor grid-scale energy storage systems”
Anything off-shore is going to be expensive and short-lived. Oil platforms work well, because the price of oil exceeds the cost of building and maintaining those platforms. Unless the price of electricity soars (which is a real possibility if you take nuclear off the grid…), those installations are unlikely economically feasible.
Besides, if you truly believe in self-generation, then your ocean-floor energy storage is moot. Which is it?
Please… less activism.
***meant to add – Check out the Newsmap Chart on the Revkin/Dot Earth page to see how interested the public is in the IPCC Report. anthony might find a use for it in another thread.
Rune;
Besides, if you truly believe in self-generation, then your ocean-floor energy storage is moot. Which is it?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Yeah, he promoted the living day lights out of that in another thread. I forget who took him on, but absolutely slaughtered him. If I got that that badly embarrassed on a thread, I wouldn’t show may face…er…name….er whatever for at least a year. Or come back under a different name.
Jordan says: “The Law Of Unintended Consequences bites again.”
No, it’s the law of what happens if you lie about you intentions.
The enviros have a vision of how we should live, reigning in rampant consumerism and treading more lightly on the earth that feeds us ( which I’m not totally unsympathetic to ). But in order to try to force others who don’t agree they latched onto the this “save the planet” crap. An argument so overwhelming that no reasonable person could disagree.
They have bet the farm on global warming to push their agenda, with 2-bit political skills : if we exaggerate they’ll have to listen and with a threat like environmental disaster, crop failure and wars we can dictate how everyone lives.
Left-leaning scientists started manipulating the data in an attempt to be “effective rather than honest”. Left-leaning media further distorted the science as it was actually written ( eg. Suzanne Goldberg, prime offender. )
Real politicians know how to turn any situation and are a little more calculating and better at it ( it’s their job ).
Someone, about 30 years ago decided to do a bit of political Aikido on the green movement. Encouraged the greens come charging forward, invested large amounts of govt money in biased science to “prove” AGW, then deftly flipped them on their back.
They now find themselves faces with a total contradiction. Having fairly successfully opposed nuclear for 40 years they now realise it is “low carbon” !!
The double irony is that most people here are cheer-leaders for nuclear power, yet are vehemently opposed to the AGW BS, which is the best argument in favour of nukes.
forget energy the only solution for the deep ecologists is to wipe out humans on a massive scale with famine and pestilence. reduce humans reduce co2.
Is there no intellectual sancturary safe from the addled mind of Piers Corbyn?
Dear QE2 – Please take this thick dollop home where he belongs and find work for him out of the public eye.
April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm | MattS says:
April 14, 2014 at 3:03 pm | Kev-in-Uk says:
Mmmm, I’m in Queensland, Australia … Beautiful One Day, Perfect the Next ! 😉
It would appear that somebody high up in the IPCC has been reading Jared Diamond’s “Callapse” & David Archibald’s “Twilight Of Abundance” and arrived at the same conclusions. The difference being the IPCC claim it is to prevent “climate change” where as the two books show it is about survival of the Human Race whilst maintaining, or improving, our current standard of living,
Roger Sowell is a well known anti-nuclear troll. Do not feed the troll. I tried once a wore out my keyboard. His augments are not based on facts, just opinions which he is more then welcome to.
Friends:
I see that davidmhoffer is ‘over the target’ so is ‘taking flack’.
At April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm here he wrote
His comment addresses the true causes of governments’ attitudes to the AGW scare and, therefore, it induced some nasty responses: Khwarizmi hurled obscene racist abuse, and Roger Sowell ‘snowed’ the thread with comments proclaiming his idiocy and ignorance.
Such responses are common when a comment addresses the fundamentals of the AGW-scare on WUWT.
Firstly, the AGW-scare has always been supported by proponents of nuclear power and natural gas. These supports are because the scare promotes the market shares of nuclear and natural gas by calling for closure of cheaper coal-fired power.
Support of nuclear power was a major reason why the political party of Margaret Thatcher was willing to support her starting the AGW-scare, and this is explained here.
The Climate Research Unit (CRU) at East Anglia University was established using money provided by oil companies (who produce natural gas) and the ‘climategate’ emails showed that a major concern of CRU continued to be maintaining funding from oil companies.
Attempts to impose AGW ‘mitigation’ policies were finally defeated at the Copenhagen CoP in December 2009, and AGW had ceased a decade earlier (it has not resumed since). The realities of reasons for the scare have become more apparent since then, and – as Josh observes – the recent WG111 Report overtly promotes those realities.
Hence, the very fine comment of davidmhoffer is worthy of serious debate, and I have some disagreement with his analysis of the present situation.
He says
I agree that the Russian Bear has again awoken, but I think the Bear has been prodded by the West and has responded by resuming the Great Game which all major powers played in the nineteenth century: I think it is a misunderstanding to see the Russian response as a resumption of the twentieth century Cold War.
Russia has reacted to the EU and NATO each attempting to gain total influence over the Ukraine which borders Russia. Russia sees this as a direct military threat which could become a future military danger and – predictably – has acted to negate the threat.
How would the USA react to similar military threat which poses a potential military danger?
Indeed, how did the USA respond when the Warsaw Pact provided a similar threat by attempting to install nuclear weapons in Cuba?
Natural gas is a strategic resource, and controlling strategic resources is an essential part of the Great Game.
Richard
PS, davidmhoffer, I add a warning.
Making comments which are too accurate can lead to you getting a ‘time out’ from WUWT because it induces the kinds of responses you have obtained.
LOL. LOL. LOL.
***CAGW gatekeeper, Graham Readfearn, avoids any mention whatsoever of NUCLEAR or FRACKING, yet quotes IPCC’s Ottmar Edenhofer, the very guy who personally endorsed nuclear in the few MSM reports that exist! as for the rest of his piece, it’s even sillier than all the previous stuff he’s been paid to write?
14 April: Guardian: Graham Readfearn: Is it un-Australian to be driving on with fossil fuel expansion plans?
As the IPCC warns greenhouse gas emissions need to be cut quickly, an Australian court decides that stopping a mega coal mine won’t cut emissions
About five years back, I was crawling in Brisbane traffic behind one of the city’s ubiquitous white utility vehicles on my way to an anonymous city centre office to sit my Australian citizenship test.
Stuck to the back of this ute was a large anti-immigration sticker, peeling on one corner, declaring “Fuck off, we’re full,” to all literate observers.
This, from a citizen of a nation first forcibly grabbed and then reshaped by immigrants, struck me as a statement that was as lacking in compassion for and consideration as it was loaded with sheer existential dumbness…
***Now before you double-check, you haven’t stumbled onto an Aussie culture blog in a place where you might have been expecting me rambling on about the latest United Nations climate change report….
Ottmar Edenhofer, a co-chair of the IPCC group that produced the report, said: “There is a clear message from science: To avoid dangerous interference with the climate system, we need to move away from business as usual.”…
We are driving a ute at reckless speed towards a risk-laden future with a rear bumper sticker telling the climate literate world what we think of them.
Is that un-Australian?
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/planet-oz/2014/apr/14/ipcc-report-climate-change-queensland-alpha-coal-mine-liability
READFEARN OBVIOUSLY HID THE IPCC REPORT’S ENDORSEMENT OF NUCLEAR & FRACKING TO MITIGATE CAGW FROM HIS READERS, and the following comments show why:
SilverHead: Just one question for you then, Mr Readfern : if it was a no-emissions nuclear energy generation plant being proposed for the same site, would you still be agin it?
20reeds: Fantasy. There is no such entity as a no-emissions nuclear plant – the fuel has to be mined, processed and transported i.e. massive emissions, else the plant sits as a useless piece of industrial stupidity, in which case it might then be regarded as a no-emissions plant. Dr Helen Caldicot will fill you in on the remaining killer externalities of this dangerous technology.
Do I take it that you are a supporter of nuclear and therefore would be an advocate for nuclear waste disposal in third world nations or would you accept it in say a storage facility in your neighbourhood? Be honest now and tell us the truth!!
Brakingishard: ‘Straya, the mined and fracked country.
We ‘used’ to have a voice.
We’re so fracked.
I’d really like to defend Roger Sowell’s anti-nuclear stance…
But, as his arguments are cr@p & not factually based, I can’t.
The only upside is that while he’s ‘entertaining’ us on here, he’s not annoying anyone else & it makes him feel important.
As I write this the local wind farm is stopped, no wind (who’d have thought that could ever happen), but the local 40yr old nuclear plant is still reliably producing low cost energy.
Everyone seems to have missed the point ,that if we cannot use oil or coal, or nuclear or gas energy we could just stick with electricity!
Roger Sowell,
You, being a lawyer, surprised me by smearing France with innuendo. In part 11, you assert that French subsidized prices were Investigated for anti-trust by the EU. (see link) http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-12-595_en.htm?locale=en
That paper is headed; State aid: Commission gives conditional approval to aid component in regulated electricity tariffs in France. Brussels, 12 June 2012.
“On completion of an in-depth investigation opened in June 2007 (see IP/07/815), the Commission concluded that the aid contained in these tariffs was compatible with the internal market on certain conditions, the main ones being:
(i) the introduction of regulated access for competitors to nuclear power from EDF’s existing nuclear power stations (the “ARENH” scheme) up to a ceiling of 100 terawatt hours,
(ii) maintenance of the ARENH price at its current level of EUR 42 per MWh pending Commission approval of a methodology to be proposed by France for setting the price, and
(iii) a gradual shift to cost-based pricing every year after summer 2012 until the “green” and “yellow” standard prices are completely eliminated at the end of 2015.”
So yes, the French were investigated, but you ignored the EU conclusions. You implied otherwise & that’s being economical with the whole truth.
If that is the level of partisanship, also to be found in parts 1 to 10, then I guess you did you waste your time. Whilst you are entitles to your own opinions, you are not entitled to your own facts. I guess some lawyers, like politicians, cannot stop lying to themselves… It’s a lack of moral integrity.
Mods:
I regret that Roger Sowell has managed to deflect this thread from the important subject illustrated by the Josh cartoon and discussed by davidmhoffer.
Two hours have passed since I made a post in attempt return the thread to its subject by replying to the analysis of davidmhoffer. I made the post at April 15, 2014 at 12:26 am and (assuming it appears) it will probably be here.
Please retrieve my post which will soon be so far up-thread that it will be overlooked if it does appear.
Richard
The IPCC says we need more Nuclear Power, but that will not translate into the actual actions to build them. I just had dinner last night with an engineering buddy of mine who’s field of expertise is hardening Nuclear Power plants against terrorists activities (a sad commentary on the times we live in), and he said he is personally aware of more than 30 plants in the United States that are ready to go from an engineering and funding perspective, lacking only approval by the NRC. He says, “Don’t hold your breath.” The Greens still have friends in lower governmental places.
another CAGW gatekeeper, Tom Arup, avoids any mention of IPCC’s fracking/nuclear endorsements, but manages a bizarre “imaginary” mention of nuclear:
13 April: SMH: Tom Arup: IPCC report a reminder it is not too late if we act now
Imagine for a moment that at next year’s UN climate negotiations in Paris a new global treaty to cut emissions is signed against the odds. It is modest, but a start…
Concerns about nuclear power ease, new plants are built…
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/ipcc-report-a-reminder-it-is-not-too-late-if-we-act-now-20140413-36lfe.html
the green NGOs & their MSM CAGW gatekeepers have voiced no objections to the IPCC’s endorsements of nuclear/fracking; in fact, they are doing their best to make sure the public don’t even know of the endorsements, so how anyone on this thread can be blind to this fact, or the following one:
Feb 2012: Politifact: Obama says he supported the first new nuclear power plant in three decades
Countering Republican attacks on gas prices, President Barack Obama gave a hard-hitting speech on energy policy in Miami on Feb. 23, 2012…
One of his speech’s shortest lines caught our attention: “We supported the first new nuclear power plant in three decades.”…
Back in February 2010, when the project received conditional approval, Obama himself praised the deal, connecting it to the need for climate change legislation.
“To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we need to increase our supply of nuclear power, and today’s announcement helps to move us down that path,” he said…
The experts we spoke with, both those who support nuclear power and those who oppose it, said that Obama’s statement was largely accurate, given that the last time a nuclear reactor received federal approval was 1978. And, his administration has so far supported the recent approval of new reactors in Georgia with $8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees.
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/mar/02/barack-obama/obama-says-he-supported-first-nuclear-power-plant-/
you may be pro-nuclear, but what if it is to be funded in the name of CAGW, with taxpayers’ money, high carbon prices, etc?
MattS says: @ April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
I am in southern Wisconsin. It is currently half past April and I have 34 degrees F and it’s snowing. Forecast for tonight is a low of 20 degrees F.
>>>>>>>>>>>>
Matt I am in Sunny mid North Carolina and they have FREEZE WARNINGS up!
In April ten years ago we had 6 day over 91 °F. Max for the entire month was 4 days @ 93 °F and the min for the month was 62 °F For the month of April in 2005 we had a max of 95 °F and a min of 73 °F so below freezing is NOT usual for this area in mid April especially near a solar cycle max.
I hope it does not kill off the strawberry crop. Nothing like fresh picked strawberries.
(Yesterday it snowed in parts of Oklahoma.)
@Gail Combs – I had to move the strawberry plants back into the greenhouse yesterday. Fortunately, they are in moveable containers. I am just a hobbyist, not a real farmer. 😉
This was one of my Open University text books. I remember a summer school discussion on it in the early 80’s where the greens shouted down any dissenting voices. One of them even said they refused to read any propaganda.
Hoyle’s arguments seemed irrefutable when I read it.
I wonder where we would be now, 30 years on, if his ideas had got traction?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Energy-Extinction-Case-Nuclear/dp/0435544314
nuclear has been part of the IPCC CAGW mix for years – but the NGOs & MSM have done a great job of keeping it from the average punter (including many CAGW sceptics – as evidenced by those commenting on this thread, who still insist on viewing CAGW from a political partisan perspective) :
April 2007: The President’s News Conference With Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan at Camp David, Maryland
Geo W. Bush: We talked about the environment and energy. I appreciated very much Shinzo’s vision of using technologies to help our energy security, our economic security, and at the same time, be responsible stewards of the environment. There’s a lot of work that Japan and the United States can do together, particularly in fields like emission-free nuclear energy, nuclear power. I mean, the truth of the matter is, if people really want to solve the issue of greenhouse gases, civilian nuclear power, powering our energy grids by nuclear power is the best alternative available. We can work on new technologies through our joint nuclear energy action plan and through the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership to bring technologies on the market as quickly as possible to assure people that we can deal with the waste, for example, in a responsible way.
We—over lunch I’m going to also remind Shinzo about my deep desire to have our folks driving automobiles powered by ethanol and biodiesels. And I’m going to share with him our strategy about reducing gasoline consumption in the United States by 20 percent over the the next 10 years as a result of ethanol, as well as our cellulosic ethanol technologies that are, hopefully, coming to market quickly…
Shinzo Abe: Let me also point out, as President mentioned earlier, that an important progress has been made on the climate change issue. And I finalized with the President a joint statement on the subject matter. It is gratifying that we agreed—Japan and the United States agreed at the leaders’ level to study jointly an intensified dialog on ways and means to make progress towards the ultimate objective of stabilizing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, to resolve the environmental issues, and to resolve the greenhouse gas issue. I believe this represents an important progress.
It is essential that the world community act on the climate change issue in concert, and Japan and the United States agreed to work together on this front. Thank you. http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=25225
2007: World Nuclear News: IPCC sees role for nuclear energy
Working Group III of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has published its Summary for Policy Makers report on mitigation of climate change. The report acknowledged the role of nuclear energy as an option for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but said that safety, weapons proliferation and waste remain as constraints.
Current nuclear power is included as a ‘key mitigation technology’ in the field of energy supply while advanced nuclear power is considered key for the 2030 timeframe, alongside advanced renewables like tidal and wave energy, concentrating solar and photovoltaics…
The text states: “Given costs relative to other supply options, nuclear power, which accounted for 16% of the electricity supply in 2005, can have an 18% share of the total electricity supply in 2030 at carbon prices up to 50 US$/tCO2-eq (tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents), but safety, weapons proliferation and waste remain as constraints.”…
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/newsarticle.aspx?id=13358
CAGW sceptics should be revelling in this opportunity to inform the CAGW-believers of the IPCC’s endorsements of the very things they hate, because the MSM & NGOs are most certainly intent on continuing to keep it a secret.
Interesting Roger apparently you don’t have an actual counter to my argument. Instead you waved your hands and provided an answer to one I didn’t make. So you concede your view on nuclear power is incorrect I take it.
Travis Casey says: @ April 14, 2014 at 3:00 pm
Isn’t this what Prof. Muller is on record as saying? …
Muller has a Shell Oil exec as one of his consultants.
From Muller & Assoc.:
http://www.mullerandassociates.com/index.php
If you then go to the listing of the TEAM at Muller Assoc. you find. Arthur Rosenfeld, Former California Energy Commissioner among others.
Further down you find Marlan Downey
Click on Marlan Downey, Oil and Gas Executive
And guess what ? We find SHELL OIL!
Shell Oil and BP have been associated with the IPCC (and the WWF) from the start. Ged Davis, the Shell Oil VP who wrote the Sustainability Scenarios for the IPCC shows this in the February, 1998 Climategate e-mail which asks for comments on the attachment: “Draft Paper for the IPCC Special Report on Emissions Scenarios” by Ged Davis.
http://assassinationscience.com/climategate/1/FOIA/mail/0889554019.txt
Another Shell Oil exec Doug McKay was at the IPCC scenario meetings. McKay was also Senior Financial Analyst with the World Bank. Robert Watson worked for the World Bank while Chair of the IPCC.
Then you have Shell Oil, BP and a Rockefeller Foundation funding the Climate Research Unit at East Anglia.
David Hone is not only SHELL OIL’S Senior Climate Change Adviser he is also Chairman of the International Emissions Trading Association. He and his mentor James Smith. SHELL OIL’S previous UK Chairman took SHELL very deeply into Carbon Trading.
Who owns Shell?
The Dutch royal family (The House of Orange) is still reportedly the biggest shareholder in Royal Dutch Shell, although the size of its stake has long been a source of debate. Another major stockholder is the Rothschilds. The Rothschild Investment Trust was formed in 1988 and united the Rockefellers and Rothschilds as did the merger of their two banks. The Queen of England is also supposed to be a major stockholder.
SHELL and WWF:
Prince Bernhard of the Dutch Royal Family is the Founding President of the World Wildlife Fund. (WWF) HRH The Duke of Edinburgh served as International President of WWF for 16 years until his retirement at the end of 1996. John H. Loudon, Better known as “the Grand Old Man of Shell”, headed Royal Dutch Shell from 1951 to 1965. He was President of WWF from 1976 to 1981.
Ruud Lubbers served three terms as Prime Minister of the Netherlands between 1982 and 1994, thus becoming the longest serving Dutch Prime Minister…. He continued in Parliament as Senior Deputy Leader, and later Parliamentary Leader of the Christian Democratic Alliance. He became President of WWF International on 1 January 2000
If you follow the money it all leads back to the World Bank and oil companies.
Gail Combs:
Sincere thanks for your post at April 15, 2014 at 4:44 am.
It makes one of the points in my post of 12:26 (i.e. four and a half hours ago) which is still awaiting moderation.
Richard
pat says:
April 14, 2014 at 6:13 pm
questions? why aren’t the CAGW NGOs screaming & yelling? why is the CAGW MSM virtually ignoring this?
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Follow the money…
THE ORIGINS OF NGOs
Remember Maurice Strong, Chair of the First Earth Summit in 1972 that started CAGW? The guy who said “…current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class…are not sustainable. A shift is necessary toward lifestyles less geared to environmentally damaging consumption patterns….” in his opening remarks at Earth Summit II in 1992.
In brief Maurice Strong worked in Saudi Arabia for a Rockefeller company, Caltex, in 1953. He left Caltex in 1954 to worked at high levels in banking and oil. By 1971, he served as a trustee for the Rockefeller Foundation, and in 1972 was Secretary-General of the U.N. Conference on the Human Environment. He was Co-founder of the WWF and Senior Advisor to the World Bank and the UN.
Strong’s early work with YMCA international “…may have been the genesis of Strong’s realization that NGOs (non-government organizations) provide an excellent way to use NGOs to couple the money from philanthropists and business with the objectives of government.”
sovereignty(DOT)net/p/sd/strong.html
Remember the Students for a Democratic Society on campus when you were in college?
Andy Hurley says: @ April 15, 2014 at 2:06 am
Everyone seems to have missed the point ,that if we cannot use oil or coal, or nuclear or gas energy we could just stick with electricity!
>>>>>>>>>>>>
If that is sarcasm it helps to add /sarc to the end.
richardscourtney says… My comment at April 15, 2014 at 5:02 am also got booted into the ether. I have yet to figure out all the No-Nos of wordPress. (Only two links)
………..
My husband made a rather interesting comment. It seems the political left in the USA during the 1950s was very pro-nuclear and was complaining the “Capitalists’ were depriving the people of cheap energy. Too bad more people do not revert back to that way of thinking.
“davidmhoffer says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
… the Russian bear has come out of hibernation and is carving off bits of Europe one piece at a time….”
How about a smidgin of historical perspective? The Crimea belonged to Russia from the time it was wrested away from the Ottoman Empire in the 18th century until Kruschchov unexpectedly and inexplicably gave it away to the Ukrainian Soviet Republic in the 1950s, at a time when that was nothing but a symbolic gesture, since it remained in the USSR. Even Gorbachev has stated that the Crimea should never have been transferred to Ukraine, and properly belongs to Russia.
If you want to protest “carving up bits” of other nations’ territory , you needn’t look any further from home than Guantanamo.
Getting back to throwing greenies under the bus, here’s an alternative or secondary caption:
BUS-TED!
jauntycyclist says:
April 14, 2014 at 11:31 pm
forget energy the only solution for the deep ecologists is to wipe out humans on a massive scale with famine and pestilence. reduce humans reduce co2.
As the number of greens/alarmists dwindles to the radical subset that would rather humans didn’t exist at all, maybe they can be convinced that the easiest route to their goal is to let us devastate the human race by letting global warming proceed apace? (Of course, that devastation would never occur, but at least then maybe they’d leave us all alone for a time.)
If we are going to go to more nuclear,SMR’s may be the way to go. Greater flexibility, and much faster build times. The biggest hurdle for nuclear plants now are the huge capital costs which are further aggravated by lengthy construction times. With SMR’s, everything is modular, so limited need for on-site construction. They can be coupled with other energy sources, and/or additional SMR’s added later, as needed.
Roger Sowell wrote: “In my considered, engineering-based opinion, nuclear power is a danger and a threat to the economic well-being of electricity consumers. I have a special place in my heart for the poor, the elderly, those on fixed incomes, and those who barely scrape by month to month or even week to week.
++++++++++
If you really do, then you would not be for wind power which makes everyone’s energy cost more. They raise grid prices. And the more wind power you have, the more the problem of needing 100% backup is needed. Again – go look at Denmark, who’ve tried your experiment. They can no longer afford their wind energy… and they’ve succeeding as you would have had them.
And – don’t use the word engineering, as it seems to imply you understand engineering principles. Wind generation does not provide low cost energy, so you’re way off here.
After reading the back and forth on nuclear, Mr. Hoffer’s comment about getting out of the way and just letting the free market work made the most sense of all.
As long as the externalities are covered by legislation, such as making provisions for waste disposal and eventual site clean-up, market pricing will settle most of these arguments.
By the way, are the growing number of windmill and solar farms required to set aside funds for eventual maintenance and/or removal of the equipment? Are they even legally on the hook for site cleanup if the projects are eventually abandoned, whether they set aside funds or not? My guess is that they’re not, given the political favoritism they receive.
Roger Sowell says;
Here is the ultimate fact, as I stated above. If nuclear power is so great, why does it still generate only 11 percent of the entire world’s electrical power
You of course have no answer for that.
+++++++
Riddle me this. What’s the percentage of world energy that is generated by wind? Do you have an answer for that?
The IPCC is finally starting to do what my mother always told me – “Eat your Greens”
@saltspringson
LOL! Ewwww! LOL
Mac the Knife says:
April 14, 2014 at 8:23 pm
…
MattS says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
I am in southern Wisconsin. It is currently half past April and I have 34 degrees F and it’s snowing. Forecast for tonight is a low of 20 degrees F. Where is all that global warming I was promised? I want my global warming back!
Felix thinks ‘conservatives’ are in denial about AGW while every day folks like MattS all across the whole damn state of Wisconsin and all of Canada are still experiencing winter weather in the middle of April! Now, we all know that Wisconsin has folks from every persuasion of economic, political, religious, philosophical, gender, and sexual orientation but they all need do no more than look at the outdoor thermometer and out the window to know spring is late this year. In many areas across the state, the frost was 4 feet deep and more and still has not thawed completely, a result of a deep and difficult winter. Felix thinks the entire population of Wisconsin and their thermometers andtheir still frozen ground are conservatives in denial.
============================================================================
Mac,
Here is a little more perspective for my area from:
http://www.usclimatedata.com/climate/united-states/us
Temps are in degrees F and are monthly averages
Month 2014 Normal
Jan 14.8 23
Feb 17 27
Mar 20.9 36
There is a trend there and it’s pretty ugly. we are averaging 11 degrees below normal for YTD
Normal for July and August is 71. If things don’t start warming up more, I’m not going to need my AC this year.
Anyone who doesn’t think global warming is a good thing should be required to spend a year or two living in northern Alaska without electricity.
Calm down everyone LENR will deliver unlimited cheap power real soon now. (sarc)
Roger Sowell says:
April 14, 2014 at 7:00 pm
“They are not safe, either, even though the industry tells everyone lie after lie that the plants are safe. Each radiation release (Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, Fukushima) is waved away as “a fluke, other plants are safe” yet another one melts down a few years later. ”
—————–
Yup, and traveling by railroad passenger trains in the late 19th and early 20th Century was highly dangerous to one’s life expectancy.
And your problem with the following is what, to wit:
“The U.S. Navy has accumulated over 5,400 “reactor years” of accident-free experience, and operates more than 80 nuclear-powered ships”
===============
Roger Sowell says:
April 14, 2014 at 9:27 pm
“Here is the ultimate fact, as I stated above. If nuclear power is so great, why does it still generate only 11 percent of the entire world’s electrical power (IEA statistics, from 2013 Outlook, for 2011) even after 50 or more years of desperately trying to break into the market? Even with huge subsidies, and laws protecting the plants against lawsuits.”
—————
Don’t be talking silly with such tripe n’ piffle.
Power generating companies don’t have to “break into any market” ….. because they have a monopoly on the market they are currently providing power to.
And talking about “years of desperately trying”, …… try this one for duration, to wit:
The construction of Corridor H, a part of the Interstate Highway System from Weston, W.Va. to Strasburg, Virginia, was begun in 1965 and has yet to be completed. That is 49 years and still fighting lawsuits to prevent its completion.
Reference source: http://www.corridorh2020.com/History.html
– – – – – – – – – –
Rod Everson & davidmhoffer,
Free market philosophies faded in the US necessarily with the fading of the concept of the necessity of natural human progress through individual exercise of reason.
In the 200+ years leading up to ~1963 there was a culturally dominate idea that human progress through individual pursuit of science and technology was inevitable.
The question is, does a resurgence of that idea seem to be occurring in the early 21st century?
I think there is cause for optimism that it is occurring.
John
Travis Casey says:
April 14, 2014 at 3:00 pm
“Isn’t this what Prof. Muller is on record as saying? GHE is real and there is real warming. The best solutions involve conservation and cleaner sources of fuel including natural gas through fracking and additional nuclear power plants.”
There has been NO warming for 17 years+. What is so difficult about that sentence to understand?
Paul Westhaver says:
April 14, 2014 at 7:02 pm
I am a no-longer-practicing nuclear core cooling engineer.
CANDU reactors (Deuterium, heavy water) are very safe, very low emission.
Nuclear power is awesome.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Paul while I like nuclear power I do fear Fukushima type events. I’ve read a large solar storm “might” take out electrical power on a continental scale, thus making it nearly impossible to maintain cooling. 1) This is true? And if so 2) Are there any (cost effective) designs that mitigate the cooling problem. Thanks to any/all that address my concerns with nuclear power.
otropogo says:
April 15, 2014 at 5:47 am
“davidmhoffer says:
April 14, 2014 at 2:39 pm
… the Russian bear has come out of hibernation and is carving off bits of Europe one piece at a time….”
How about a smidgin of historical perspective? The Crimea belonged to Russia from the time it was wrested away from the Ottoman Empire
>>>>>>>>>>>>
If you believe that Crimea is anything but a small step in a larger picture, you are free to revel in your naivete.
richardscourtney;
Russia sees this as a direct military threat which could become a future military danger and – predictably – has acted to negate the threat.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I agree, that’s how they perceive it, but they also perceive an opportunity and they are taking advantage of it. It isn’t just the Ukraine that they have their designs on. They’ve successfully protected Syria from action against them and enabled them to hang on to the bulk of their chemical weapons. They are circumventing the embargoes on Iran by purchasing their oil from them and reselling it as “Russian” oil. They’re very close to shoehorning Egypt out of the west’s sphere of influence and into theirs. Saudi Arabia may very well be next. (That said, Egypt and and Saudi Arabia haven’t so much been wooed by Russia as they have been shoved away by Obama’s mind bogglingly naive attempts at international diplomacy).
So everywhere I look, Russia is expanding their influence and control with the clear goal in mind of extending it still further. They’ve figured out that Obama is a paper tiger, that all they have to fear from him is yet another “stern phone call”. As the west’s opposition wilts, all of eastern Europe should be quacking in their boots.
davidmhoffer:
Thankyou for your reply to me at April 15, 2014 at 10:11 am.
It seems that we are in general agreement. My post here was in support of your argument here but with one caveat.
I think my caveat is important because dealing with an issue requires correct identification of the issue. I think the discussed Russian behaviours are resumption of the Great Game, but you think those behaviours are resumption of the Cold War. If I am right then Russian use of its oil and gas supplies will be mostly as a tool of international influence: if you are right then Russian use of its oil and gas supplies will be secondary to Russian desire to acquire superior military might.
Hence, our different views indicate different probable Russian responses to the IPCC WG111 Report.
That said, I strongly agree your observations and hope many others will take note of them.
Richard
davidmhoffer says:
April 15, 2014 at 10:11 am
IMO not all of Eastern Europe needs quake in their boots. Possibly not even Western Ukraine, if NATO & the EU grow a pair.
However Eastern Ukraine is at risk. It’s unclear how the people of the eastern provinces would vote in a free & fair plebiscite on their future, but certainly many districts would chose to join Russia, especially in the Donbas. They have four options: remain in the present unitary Ukrainian state; achieve regional & local autonomy, with their own provincial legislatures & elected rather than appointed governors; secede from the Ukraine & form an independent nation-state, or be annexed to Russia. IMO different areas would select different futures, based upon the proportion of Ukrainian-speaking Ukrainians, Russian-speaking Ukrainians (often of mixed parentage) & of ethnic Russians.
The West is not in a strong position to object to secession of eastern & southern Ukrainian provinces, after its anti-Serbian crusade in Croatia, Bosnia & Kosovo. However with the Anschluss & Sudetenland in mind, NATO & the EU should make clear how much farther beyond the heavily Russian Crimea is too far. Much of the Donbas is even more Russian than the Crimea.
The Russian “army” (ground forces, airborne troops & naval infantry) is not strong enough to occupy all of southern & eastern Ukraine, but it wouldn’t need to do so. If Putin can achieve his goals without overt invasion (as opposed to the accomplished fact of not very covert invasion), he probably would prefer to do so. Maintaining secessionist sentiment alive achieves at least his goal of keeping the Ukraine out of NATO, since states with territorial disputes can’t become members. That was one reason for his invasion of Georgia.
Ironically, annexing the Crimea makes it hard for a pro-Russian president or parliament to get elected in the rump Ukraine.
Since burning natural gas is “greener” than coal, Putin can claim to be fighting CACA by selling his fossil fuels to Europe, which revenue accounts for a big chunk of Russian GDP.
Those that really is behind this political and financial have only used and hided behind willing hired greens. The root of the problem is the evil political and financial forces?
One small step for a man, one giant leap for the Mannkind. This definitively deserves some high quality music. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A6gX7yVob6w.
P.S. Thanking BRIC, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth, WWF, Oxfam and others for their hard work towards sustainable financing of new generation nuclear reactors.
Gail Combs,
Wow..can anyone verify this…yesterday when I checked the IPCC WGIII Report link in the main post, it read that Nuclear Energy was to ‘triple to quadruple by 2050’…today when I checked…there is NO mention of Nuclear Power expansion at all.
It appears that the Left has swung into action and someone in the IPCC has removed the mention of it from the report. If this is so, Anthony should update this post to reflect the new reality!
@ Perry on April 15, 2014 at 2:21 am
you wrote “Roger Sowell,
You, being a lawyer, surprised me by smearing France with innuendo. In part 11, you assert that French subsidized prices were Investigated for anti-trust by the EU.”
No, there is no innuendo, and no smearing. It is a fact, as shown below. France subsidized its power prices for quite some time. A factual statement is not a smear, at least not in the legal world.
The EU Commission published its findings after investigating the French subsidized electric power pricing, and wrote:
“. It found that these regulated tariffs were financed at least in part through state resources. It also concluded that, as far as the ‘yellow’ and ‘green’ options were concerned, the tariffs conferred a selective benefit on certain non-household consumers and that they affected trade between Member States.” (Part 2, paragraph 1)
source: http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:C:2007:164:0009:0019:EN:PDF
This is the sort of factual backup for all of my statements, all the pro-nuclear comments on this thread to the contrary.
@ LamontT on April 15, 2014 at 4:35 am
“Interesting Roger apparently you don’t have an actual counter to my argument. Instead you waved your hands and provided an answer to one I didn’t make. So you concede your view on nuclear power is incorrect I take it.”
Your argument is that France has a high percent of nuclear on its grid, and it exports power. You say those as if they are good things. I refuted that quite easily, in case you missed it:
My article Eleven concludes with France “subsidized its power prices, reluctantly privatized a portion of the electric industry, developed nuclear technology that it desperately subsidizes to sell to other countries, exports low-balled subsidized power to neighboring countries in an attempt to maintain high nuclear plant operating rates, and recently was the object of an investigation for anti-trust by the EU related to power prices.” I should add that the anti-trust investigation concluded that prices were artificially low (set by the government) and mandated an increase in prices over a short interval of years.
My views are exactly correct, supported by the facts. Your view may vary.
Roger Sowell;
My views are exactly correct, supported by the facts.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>
That’s the problem Roger. You use selective facts, completely out of context, and construct series of straw man arguments that have nothing to do with actual issues, then draw conclusions from them that equally have nothing to do with the matters being discussed.
That said, I do believe you are sincere. You’e managed to fool a single person. Yourself.
Roger Sowell Writes:
My article Eleven concludes with France “subsidized its power prices, reluctantly privatized a portion of the electric industry, developed nuclear technology that it desperately subsidizes to sell to other countries, exports low-balled subsidized power to neighboring countries in an attempt to maintain high nuclear plant operating rates, and recently was the object of an investigation for anti-trust by the EU related to power prices.”
++++++++
That all sounds benign compared to your beloved Wind Turbines… where the tax payers gets stuck with the tab for these ill producing, energy-price raising tax evading boondoggles. Really if this is a reason to hate nuclear, then you should loathe wind turbines.
Ben D –
it is still there:
At the global level, scenarios reaching 450 ppm CO2eq are also characterized by more rapid improvements of energy efficiency, a tripling to nearly a quadrupling of the share of zero‐ and low‐carbon energy supply from renewables, nuclear energy and fossil energy with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), or bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) by the year 2050 (Figure SPM.4, lower panel).
http://report.mitigation2014.org/spm/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers_approved.pdf
pat says: April 15, 2014 at 6:52 pm
Ben D –
it is still there
——————
By God you’re right….must be all this full moon energy interfering with my synapse firings, I just couldn’t find it. Thanks Pat.
Santa Baby:
re your post at April 15, 2014 at 1:19 pm .
Yes! And well said.
Some numbnuts have managed to fool themselves into thinking AGW is a left/right issue with the result that they have ignored what has actually been happening and continues to happen.
Richard
Gail Combs says:
April 15, 2014 at 5:35 am
I think more ironic than sarcastic but you can chose.
Re ;Royal Dutch Shell ,,,,it is a quoted company on the London Stock exchange and anyone can buy shares.
Ownership would be diverse in the thousands as it is a recognised blue chip stock .
I will see if I can find out more about the shareholders from their annual report.
We should be kind to the Greens. Throwing them under the bus is a very ungreen, unkind thing to do. Maybe we should throw them to the Polar Bears instead? It would solve the Polar Bears problems with finding food and our problems with the Greens. A win win situation.
LamontT says: “I”ll admit if you pile artificial regulations on top of it to make it expensive then you have a point. Oh wait the NRA does doe that wow… perhaps some of those rules designed to make nuclear bad should be tossed out the windows. ”
Darned NRA gun lobby, they have their fingers in everything! They just…Oh, wait just a moment…
Never mind.
🙂
Seriously, one basic rule of regulatory agencies is that eventually every such agency is “captured” by the industry which they propose to regulate. When that happens the regulations become a method to close out any competition or new entries into the field which may threaten the current big corporate players. There are numerous very practical and safe reactor designs which cannot be brought to market.
“NRA regulations say that you must have a three water pump redundant system for cooling.”
“But you do not understand! Our design uses passive cooling. We do not use any pumps at all for cooling. That is what makes it safe! That is what makes it cheaper and practical!”
“Too bad. No pumps, no license. Go tell your lawyers…”
Aah, Roger, you and your facts. Always so diverting.
While you’re in a conversational mood, can I please have your response to the evidence I asked for in a previous thread:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/03/31/a-conversation-with-dr-james-hansen-on-nuclear-power/
You may recall that Tsk Tsk and I asked you (over two weeks ago) to provide evidence supporting your implication that French nuclear power is “fully subsidized by the government”. You may be correct, but you’ve yet to provide any evidence. I’m still waiting (As is Tsk Tsk, I suppose).
For clarity’s sake you’ll need to provide evidence to support your assertion in toto. That is, that French nuclear energy is “FULLY subsidised by the government” (my emphasis). Me, I’d love the idea of a big fat zero on my energy bill …
Over to you, Mr Sowell.
Jim s says:
April 15, 2014 at 9:20 am
“1) This is true? And if so 2) Are there any (cost effective) designs that mitigate the cooling problem. ”
————–
Me thinks that one (1) large diesel generator would mitigate any cooling problem.
Roger Sowell says:
April 15, 2014 at 5:03 pm
“@ Perry on April 15, 2014 at 2:21 am
you wrote “Roger Sowell,
You, being a lawyer, surprised me by ….. ”
————
I am never surprised but am always dubious of the “intent” of Lawyers who write commentary for publication. Especially commentary that involves highly controversial subjects of a scientific nature that are likely to be arbitrated in front of Jurors in a Court of Law.
Samuel C Cogar says:
April 16, 2014 at 7:22 am
Me thinks that one (1) large diesel generator would mitigate any cooling problem.
—————-
That is what the Japanese thought too. Until the generators ran out of fuel 3 days after the tsunami. I like nuclear power but that is needed is a design that can passively shutdown and passively avoid a meltdown.
There are a few designs being looked at for Generation IV reactors that seem promising. Let’s hope nothing bad happens between now and the replacement of existing NP with Gen IV plants.
@ Samuel C Cogar,
Lawyers have been writing “Commentary for publication” for centuries, e.g. Blackstone’s Commentaries of 1765.
By your standards, there would be no blogs, law journals or law reviews for forensics, environmental, medical, space, technology, or any other scientific legal topic. The ABA has a section on Science and Technology of which I am a member. S&T actually has several publications, in paper and electronic media.
Roger Sowell says:
April 16, 2014 at 8:48 am
@ Samuel C Cogar,
Lawyers have been writing “Commentary for publication” for centuries, e.g. Blackstone’s Commentaries of 1765.
By your standards, there would be no blogs, law journals or law reviews for forensics, environmental, medical, space, technology, or any other scientific legal topic. The ABA has a section on Science and Technology of which I am a member. S&T actually has several publications, in paper and electronic media.
+++++++++++
Hear Hear – ode to Janice:
Here’s the problem, Roger, with your contribution to subjects involved scientific, political or any other matters. When lawyers argue a case, one wins and the other loses. Your mandate is to win and get your award. It has little to do with what’s right/wrong, good/bad, correct/incorrect. That’s the position you are in. Lawyers do not seek truth (a jury does that). You have many holes in your case, and your mandate causes you to be partial to logic, fact or anything that gets in the way of your charter.
You can not be reasoned with, for you only seek outcome, not truth.
@ Mario Lento,
There are no “holes in (my) case”, as you put it. Facts are facts. I recite the facts about nuclear power, and you and your ilk cannot stand the spotlight.
Nice try, though.
You are obviously not familiar with how attorneys shape public policy. We research facts, write and publish articles, and criticize each other’s work.
Exposing the false dogma of nuclear advocates is a worthy cause.
Hi, Mario!
Oh, boy, you should not have mentioned my name! I am Mr. Sowell’s nemesis. Bwah, ha, ha, ha, haaaaaaaaa! I DO believe that Sowell is sincere and I still have some compassion for him, nevertheless. People with mental delusions simply CAN — not be made to see reality. And that statement will not make that happen, either. I only say it to let people here know where I am coming from with regard to Sowell. It is a known fact that dementia often imitates wickedness, especially in the deceit category. Yes, I am speaking rather harshly about someone who mostly just needs our sympathy, however, the GROSS mis-information he so confidently pumps out on WUWT, month after month, about nuclear power (and, incident to that, wind power) MUST BE REFUTED to prevent his deceiving the ignorant.
I agree with your HIGHLY informed, expert opinion, Mario:
NUCLEAR POWER IS SAFE AND RELIABLE AND, WITHOUT HUGE REGULATORY BARRIERS TO ENTRY, COULD MAKE ENERGY FOR MANY AMERICANS MORE AFFORDABLE. Nuclear is a truly “green” technology. The person above frightened about “Fukushima-type events” is simply misinformed. See: “There Was No Fukushima Nuclear Disaster” here: http://www.cfact.org/2013/10/12/physicist-there-was-no-fukushima-nuclear-disaster/
Thanks for a little nod, there. If there is an ode for me somewhere in your heart, that is a lovely thing to contemplate.
Glad you took the time to weigh in on a thread where your nuclear engineering expertise was especially valuable.
Yours,
Janice
**********************************************
The following is written because, in spite of all the dishonest attorneys out there, MOST of them are decent, hardworking, HONEST, people who, believe it or not, became lawyers because: they wanted to help people — and I want to defend them!
Re: Mr. Sowell as an attorney:
1. He is operating from “reduced capacity” in my opinion, thus, he would be, in the eye of the law, “excused” (i.e., if he were to be convicted of, say, (just for grins) fraud in deceiving the public into buying shares in a bogus windfarm scheme, IF, I say, IF, (smile), he would be held guilty, but, excused from the punishment a full-capacity person would be given — usually, that means doing time in a mental hospital instead of regular prison).
2. Looking at his behavior per se, that is, for the moment setting aside the reduced capacity defense his attorney would use if he were sued or prosecuted, it is a disgrace to the legal profession. While, yes, attorneys are to be zealous advocates for their client and to present the FACTS in the best light possible from their client’s perspective, there is still a duty of candor to the tribunal which Sowell swore to uphold in his Oath of Attorney, many years ago… . When an attorney cannot in good conscience (before God who sees and knows the truth) continue to represent his or her client because they are faced with the dilemma of: a. essentially lying to the judge or b. breaching the duty to keep client confidences (or some other duty to their client), it is usually that attorney’s duty to withdraw from representation.
Sowell here, yes I realize he can’t help it but the fact of his behavior remains, is using all the techniques of a l1ar and or a weak debater:
— mischaracterization — misrepresentation of the other’s argument (a.k.a. “strawman”) — reckless disregard for the truth or falsity of his statements (if not intentional l1es) — rude and offensive ad hominem and on and on.
IN A COURT OF LAW, this is what the presiding judge would have to say:
Roger Sowell: Bllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhbity blah, and blah, and YOU don’t know! and DEATH! and ….. I KNOW THIS I KNOW IT I KNOW IT I KNOW IT……!!!! I’ve written ARTICLES!!!!! woeijowaijg ojoao;w38uro283owejljfljfaslfja laslkdsljls……
Judge: “Mr. Sowell………. Mr. Sowell!…. {POUND GAVEL} MIS-TER SOWELL! {Sowell finally stops talking} That — is — enough. This is not Roger Sowell’s Brother Love Travelling Anti-Nuclear Show. This is a court of law. The goal of this proceeding is: TRUTH. You have wandered far, far away from the mission of this proceeding — Fact-finding — and deep into the swamp-fogged hinterlands of obfuscation and fallacy. You have strayed like a mule after clover FAR from any CONCEIVABLE definition of “zealous advocacy.” You have called NO genuinely “expert” witnesses. You have persisted in repeatedly mischaracterizing the expert testimony for the other side. You have assumed facts not in evidence. You have violated the hearsay rule in ten different directions. You have issued CONCLUSION AFTER CONCLUSION. Your entire direct and cross examinations have been one long OPENING STATEMENT. I am going to have to get myself a new gavel, I have had to use it so many times this week. You have asserted nothing but unsupported generalizations showing a COMPLETE DISDAIN FOR THE INTELLIGENCE OF THIS COURT. You are, in short: a mere fanatic. Your unprofessional conduct is a disgrace to the legal profession. You are the epitome of everything that gives the public cause to despise its lawyers. You would have inspired Shakespeare.
You completely disregarded everything I told you in chambers. I am done warning you. I am sorry to have to do this; it is only the second time in my many years as a judge that I have had to, but I am sanctioning you and assessing terms … . This court will be in recess until 1:30 pm. {gavel pound} Counsel, I want to see both of you in my chambers.”
Bailiff: All rise…
— I would not disparage another member of the legal profession except for his having OPENED THE DOOR by his shamefully unprofessional conduct. I would be remiss in my duty to uphold the integrity of the legal profession if I remained silent.
Sincerely as all get-out,
Janice Moore
P.S. And, yes, Mr. Sowell, I will still pray for you. Even though you spit on me.
@Mac the Knife, April 14, 2014 at 8:23 pm
http://temperaturetrends.org/images/state_trends_2013/WI.state.v1.ANNUAL.tavg.png
Dude, you need to sharpen your blade.
Roger? Hello? Is this thing on?
You keep responding to other people, including comments that are posted after mine (April 16, 2014 at 7:21 am, to help you find it again), so I’m guessing you’ve seen it.
You might recall that I was simply asking you to provide evidence for to back up your words – that French nuclear energy is “FULLY subsidised by the government” (my emphasis). I hear tell that you’re a lawyer, and that lawyers are supposed to be wordsmiths; I’m sure you chose your words with care, and have the documentation to back them up
I think that it’s a fair and reasonable question, civilly asked. I’ve been asking it for two weeks now and, if I may be blunt, I think it deserves the courtesy of a response.
Please Mr Sowell, I’m happy to acknowledge that you might be quite correct – I just can’t find the evidence for what you said, and I’m hoping you can point me in the right direction.
Once again, Mr Sowell – over to you.
Roger Sowell says:
April 16, 2014 at 8:48 am
“Lawyers have been writing “Commentary for publication” for centuries, e.g. Blackstone’s Commentaries of 1765. ”
—————–
Roger, iffen you want to write a book, blog, law review or commentary on Law practices in 1765, 1865 or 1965 …… then be my guest and do whatever turns your crank.
But when Lawyers submit Op-Ed commentaries and/or pseudo-scientific opinions for publishing in Newspapers, etc., that read like an “infomercial” of half-truths, junk science, tripe and/or piffle …… then I have to assume its sole intent was to bias the thoughts and beliefs of any potential/prospective members of a future “jury pool”.
And most Newspaper Editors, etc., are guilty of the same dastardly acts …. and it is “effective” simply because no one can refute their “commentary” until long, long “after-the-fact”.