From the Global Warming Policy Foundation
Throughout the history of Japan, its cities have been destroyed again and again by war, fire and earthquake. After each catastrophe, the Japanese have rebuilt, bigger and better. One hopes and expects that they will do the same again. –Lesley Downer, The Daily Telegraph, 15 March 2011
The Japanese disaster “will put new nuclear development on ice,” said Toronto energy consultant Tom Adams, the former executive director of Energy Probe. He said the nuclear industry was already facing challenges, noting that vast shale gas resources in North America and other parts of the world were starting to make cheaper gas-fired plants the electricity generators of choice. – Eric Reguly, The Globe and Mail, 15 March 2011
Neither new nuclear, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, wind nor solar are economic. Natural gas is queen. It is domestically abundant and is the bridge to the future. – John Rowe, The Globe and Mail, 15 March 2011
Obama’s energy plan relies heavily on nuclear power to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions harmful to the climate as well as to reduce dependence on imported oil. The president proposed tripling federal loan guarantees to $54.5 billion to help build new reactors in the 2012 budget plan he sent to Congress. — Jeremy van Loon and Mark Chediak, Bloomberg 15 March 2011
President Barack Obama’s energy agenda appears to be jinxed. While Japan’s nuclear meltdown may be an ocean away, the industry has quickly become the latest example of a policy in peril not long after the White House embraced it. –Darren Samuelsohn, Politico, 15 March 2011
Despite Japan’s crisis, India and China and some other energy-ravenous countries say they plan to keep using their nuclear power plants and building new ones. With those two countries driving the expansion — and countries from elsewhere in Asia, Eastern Europe and the Middle East also embracing nuclear power in response to high fossil fuel prices and concerns about global warming — the world’s stock of 443 nuclear reactors could more than double in the next 15 years, according to the World Nuclear Association, an industry trade group.—The New York Times, 14 March 2011
New data suggests Israel may not only have much larger gas resources than believed, but also the 3rd largest deposit of oil shale in the world. As a consequence of these new estimates, Israel may emerge as the third largest deposit of oil shale, after the US and China. –Dore Gold, The Jerusalem Post, 11 March 2011
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Kev-in-UK
“So ultimately, we WILL require nuclear power to supply our energy demands.”
Not a prayer. Ultimately we’ll harvest whatever we need from sunlight. We’ll make our own fuels pretty much on demand and they’ll be the same fuels we get out of the ground now. The technology is less than 20 years away which is how long it would take to get any commerical thorium reactors online. No one is going to invest their hard earned capital into new nuclear technology when something far cheaper, non-polluting, completely safe, and renewable is going to be mature at the same time.
Synthetic biology is the future for energy, agriculture, manufacturing, medicine… pretty much everything. It’s just a couple decades at most away now. Pilot plants are already being constructed that can produce transportation fuels at the cost equivalent of $30/bbl oil. Synthetic biology can produce methane (natural gas) as easily as ethanol, diesel, gasoline, jet fuel, you name it.. pretty much any carbon compounds you want. Living things are masters at it. We just have to continue building up our knowledge of the molecular machinery in bacteria so we can modify and reprogram them to do exactly what we want. It’s getting close. The first fully synthetic bacterial genome was created and brought to life just a year or two ago. The rate of progress in the field reminds of semiconductors and Moore’s Law.
Plenty of media beatup. But the reality is that a 40 year old power plant using a now unpreferred BWR technology, successfully shut down when faced with a magnitude 9 earthquake only 50 km away.
It was the tsunami which caused the problem, by disabling the backup diesel generators hence being unable to cool the shutdown heat. BWR’s are vulnerable to negative voidage, other systems such as SGHR’s are not.
This is no argument at all against nuclear power. Modern designs are inherently safer, and the reactor shutdown worked anyway.
Nothing against gas fired power stations – they are the best power technology in terms of cost, reliability and for that matter also CO2 emissions as compared to wind power on a full project cycle basis.
John-X says:
March 15, 2011 at 12:53 pm
Actually, that’s not entirely correct. Even as we speak, a “nuclear reactor” is being built in Miami, Florida. In this particular case, the design is revolutionary–so revolutionary that had the Japanese been using this approach, they wouldn’t have any of the difficulties they currently face in the aftermath of their earthquake/tsunami. The design is so revolutionary that there won’t be any radioactive feedstock and no radioactive waste products. And during operation, moderate shielding is all that’s needed to keep everybody safe; once they throw the “Off” switch, the reactions die down without a melt down. Revolutionary. Unprecedented. Absolutely amazing!
http://www.nyteknik.se/nyheter/energi_miljo/energi/article3081694.ece
Additional tests confirm original demonstrations:
http://pesn.com/2011/02/28/9501774_Future_Impact_of_Rossis_Cold_Fusion/
It is pathetic how the Western media has switched from coverage of a major, major natural disaster with, as yet, unknown numbers of deaths and millions of displaced and bereft people to concern about radioactive releases.
Even if the latter becomes worst case the destruction wreaked by nature is fa, far worse.
The decision by Germany and others to suddenly institute safety reviews of their nuclear plants is spineless reaction by the politicians. As said above, how many tsunamis are we expecting in the middle of Europe?
What do the events in Japan have to do with new nuclear development? Nothing. I don’t thing anybody plans to build more 1960s nuclear reactor designs. The media attack on nuclear power is simply a way to keep people stuck in green energy.
Green wind and solar sources deliver unreliable power and require monitoring of what we do in our homes (Home Area Network, autoresponse). It is much more expensive. We will be certain of third world conditions where even industries will have to wonder whether power will be available today. More people will be out of work.
Green energy will lead to the certainty of grinding poverty, depression, illness, malnutrition and death. And all this because of a fear of the possible problems with nuclear power? What are the actual problems? Very few people died as a result of even Chernobyl. And those were mainly the heroes who built the containment and fought the fire. Nobody died because of TMI.
New nuclear power is not the same as the aging Fukushima reactors. We need to build Integral Fast Reactors, the probable best case being liquid fluoride buring thorium. The current disaster scenario simply can’t happen. And an added benefit is the vastly reduce quantity of high-level waste produced.
I hope these recent events lead to a more complete discussion of the future of nuclear energy. We must achieve independence from foreign energy sources. Nuclear energy can power the world for several centuries. By then I hope we have fusion working.
It is silly to be having this debate now before the full extend of the problems being encountered in Japan are known. A proper and full investigation of what went on and how the reactors coped is needed. After that investigations, lessons must be learnt.
One has to bear in mind that these reactors were subjected to one of the most terrible natural disasters imaginable. This was on a scale which is extremely unlikely to ever incur in the vicinty of most reactors in use today. I suspect that in many ways, it will be found that the reactors stood up very well to this natural disaster.
We must not over react. It is likely that the only significant lesson to be learnt is not to site a reactor where it could be adversely affected by a Tsunami. Whilst, I envisage that it will be found that the reactors stood up reasonably well to the earthquake, a further lesson will be that it would be imprudent to site reactors
near to fault lines or in known earthquake zones. Taking this approach into account, it would be imprudent to site a reactor in te shaddow of a volcano. Of course, there will also be lessons to be learnt to safety/fail safe features which features can then be improved upon.
We must not over react (as Germany has already done so by closing down all reactors built before 1980). Nuclear is still a viable option.
I am not against using natural gas, shale gas, or coal (without carbon capture sequestration), for energy production but as other have pointed out gas has useful chemical applications and should not be wasted when better alternatives are available.
The panic over all this “nuclear meltdown” is based entirely on bald faced, flat out lies. Want to see what really happened? Read here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/03/14/fukushiima_analysis/
and here (original source) http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/some-perspective-on-the-japan-earthquake/ (from actually inside Japan).
Shutting down nuclear reactores based in bald faced lies in the press is basically criminal, the offending “news” sources should be charge and convicted, it’s people who wrote that jailed, it itself should be put up for sale to any new owner with the cash. At the very least, if you see panicy reportage on the front page of your local newspaper, you should call them up and tell them that if they do not put an immediate retraction also on the front page, you will cancel your subscription immediatly and tell all your friends and neighbors to do the same and why.
Lies should be challenged.
A 40 year old light water reactor. Why are there any of this type of designed reactor still in operation ? High tech modern Uranium and Thorium reactors are critical for modern western civilized countries. For those who wish a third world standard of living go the eco-extreme and oil/gas route.
It’s the perception of nuclear hazard that matters, not the facts. So nuclear will be out of favour in the USA and in Australia for another decade or so. But our Oz politicians have never heard of the boom in availablility of natural gas due to new extraction techniques. They don’t ever read blogs like this. They haven’t heard of ‘fracking’. They are more afraid of the ‘Greenies’ than either nuclear or coal with their cheap energy and powerful enemies and anti-coal and anti-nuclear lobbies.
“The disaster in Japan has made conventional nuclear power untenable.”
Why? It has clearly shown exactly the pitfalls that nuclear safety design must avoid. If you change sources you will need another disaster of this magnitude to reach the same level of knowledge in that field.
The greener nuclear alternative (Thorium).
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45178.html
“For one, a thorium-powered nuclear reactor can never undergo a meltdown. It just can’t. This is because thorium is slightly lighter than uranium and is not fissile – meaning you can pack as much of the stuff together as you want and it won’t undergo a runaway chain reaction.”
Mike M says:
March 15, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Mike, you gave the answer to your question in the remark that you appended.
Fossil fuels are hydrocarbons (as is ethanol, by the way).
The combustion of coal produces a lot of CO2 and very little H2O, while the combustion of natural gas produces far less CO2 and much more H2O per BTU. Gasoline is somewhere in between, while ethanol may be a far more copious source of H2O than natural gas is, although it still produces CO2. (A chemist may be able to put, with relative ease, exact numbers on all of the constituents of the respective combustion product per BTU for each of those hydrocarbons.)
CO2, a prerequisite for life to exist and thrive, has been assigned the role of a villain in the game people play for world domination and control; the ultimate aim of which is to squeeze the rubes — the end consumers, that is — for every nickel they’ve got.
The other combustion product, H2O, is of course also a prerequisite for life to exist and thrive, but the rules of the game require that H2O as a combustion product not be mentioned, even though is should be considered a far greater cause of global warming due to industrial, transportation and residential emissions.
Without those rules there is no game, therefore it is the bad luck of CO2 and everyone having to pay for using fossil fuels that CO2 has been capriciously labelled the villain.
For that reason, natural gas is considered saintly. By the rules of the game and by the amount of CO2 produced per BTU, coal is a greater offender than is natural gas, even though, objectively, natural gas put much larger volumes of global-warming-producing H2O into the atmosphere.
Of course, that is only if one believes the doctrine of post-modern science that truth it relative, that reality is subjective and that neither can be judged by old-fashioned, objective standards.
By the way, in cold climates like ours in central Alberta, people who used their old chimney flues for injecting exhaust gases into the atmosphere found that the much-lower exhaust temperatures caused the H2O exhausted from high-efficiency furnaces to form ice that builds up on the inside of the chimney, closing the chimney off entirely and filling their home with exhaust gases (not detectable by smell), a good portion of which would have been CO2 and at times enough CO to kill them through carbon-monoxide poisoning.
Fortunately, provided that the occupants are sufficiently awake to still be able to notice it, all of the windows in their home would fog up — due to the high H2O contents of the natural gas combustion products of their furnace.
The misery and possible deaths that result from those circumstances can thereby be avoided.
I need a bit of funding to enable me to explore that in more depth.
This is what frustrates me:
-Yes this is a problem of a design issue in older reactors.
-But, no this was not an unforseen problem. It was indentifed as an issue long ago and they have gone to great lengths to remove this issue from new reactor designs.
-People saying we are not learning from this, are ignorant of reality. We learned from the possibility of this event even before it happened. New reactors do not suffer from this problem.
Do you decide if it is safe to drive a new car based on crash tests of 40 year old cars? Do you decide if a new building is safe, by looking at the design of one built 40 years ago? Do you decide if it is safe to build a new reactor based on an obsolete 40 year old design? I guess you do, if your an idealist. Hard to make informed choices when your not informed. Nothing is perfect, but we have come along way in the last 40 years. Reactor designers have not quit working and learning for the last 40 years, even if the anti-nuke crowd has.
Anyone that comes here regularily will already know that opinions not supported by facts will not stand up on sites like this.
@Jeff Carlson said:
Actually, the failed Japanese reactors were designed in the 1950s and every reactor in the USA is at least thirty years old. These things only have a 50-year life span. If the US gummit had not had its head up its proverbial, we would have a proven breeder reactor design by now. Instead, two presidents started the necessary research and two idiot presidents later canceled that research.
mpaul says:
March 15, 2011 at 12:52 pm
“We need more research into thorium reactors which could have a dramatically better safety profile.”
We (the United States) had a liquid flourine thorium reactor running for 5 years at Livermore National Research Laboratory. The only one in the world – ever. It was operating from 1964 to 1969.
What more do you think we need to learn about LFTR? Restarting a 50 year old research reactor is no big challenge for the U.S. I’m sure the design and procedures and data are still kicking around in some classified storage closet somewhere. I suspect those classified documents contain the reasons we aren’t jumping all over LFTR. From what little I could learn of that working LFTR I think it’s simply too difficult/expensive keeping the composition/chemistry of the liquid fuel in the proper state to make it economically feasible. The liquid fuel mix is constantly changing due to transmutating fission reactions. The fuel doesn’t burn spontaneously. It’s like having a pile of wet logs in your fireplace and you can only get them to burn if you keep sticking bits of dry kindling in amongst them and without a continuous supply of kindling in the right place at the right time. Then adding insult to injury wet ashes start piling up making your kindling not burn right unless you periodically remove the ashes. None of these problems exist with solid uranium fuels. The problem with them is they burn so fast and hot it can get out of control and burn down the house really easy and possibly release so much toxic waste that the neighbors for miles in each direction have to abandon their homes too.
Pebble Bed, Thorium walkaway reactors, all advanced not these GE-Designed throwbacks to another era. Thousands of people were killed in the days of Sail
no one quit. We shouldn’t quit now…..
@R. de Haan who said:
Oh great, the US fails to support 4th generation reactor design and the world is forced to buy ancient Russian reactors.
Juice says:
March 15, 2011 at 12:40 pm
“Until US nuke plants are threatened by tsunami, I don’t see the connection.”
You’re kidding, right? California is one of the most earthquake prone regions in the world. The recent earthquake in JAPAN caused $17 million in damage to Crescent City California when the tsunami hit. The San Onefre nuclear power plant in southern California is so close to the ocean you can hear the waves (not kidding).
President Obama was warming up to increased offshore drilling when the BP spill happened.
I seem to recall that he was more recently warming up to Nuclear Energy as a green alternative.
Let’s just hope he doesn’t start promoting natural gas.
Stephan says:
March 15, 2011 at 12:11 pm
Thank you so very much for this video from Muller. He places some hard kicks on the guilty butts. This is a revelation. Because of Climategate and the non-response of mainstream science to it, I had become distrustful of any of them who addressed these matters. Now, Thank God, I believe I was wrong.
Maybe Muller and friends will restore integrity to mainstream science, though that might be impossible for the Royal Society, NASA, and the NAS. I really want to see apologies from Monbiot, the Pit Bulls on the Guardian Boards, Real Climate, Al Gore, and all the dogged defenders of intentional scientific lying. I hope the guillotines fall and the careers of all Climategaters and fellow travelers are ended. Such action is necessary across the board if public trust is to be restored to science.
I hope Muller and friends will explain why they are doing this. That explanation should be a best selling book.
Problem with gas is the recent abundance is the result of new processes that involve pumping chemicals underground at high-pressure to fracture the rock formations. This is causing localized seismic activity resulting in non-trivial damage to property. Plus, this will obviously wreck havoc on the water table all over the country. Even if it were safe (which it can’t be), the Obama EPA, and state level regulators, are already making noises like they’re going to clamp down on the new techniques. This new technology is basically a scheme to get in quick, make lots of money, with no regard for the environment, get out, and plead ignorance (after damages are done to our biosphere that are far greater than any that might be inflicted by nuclear power).
Oh. Any burning natural gas emits CO2, not that there is anything wrong with that.
I posted this on Tips, but it seems this might be a good place to repeat it. Max Hastings in the Daily Mail talking a whole lot of sense regarding nuclear:-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1366274/Japan-tsunami-earthquake-Nuclear-power-plants-dangerous.html
msinillinois says:
March 15, 2011 at 1:15 pm
“The disaster in Japan has made conventional nuclear power untenable.”
Please read something posted by rational people. Go to Nationalreview.com/TheCorner and read the posts. There are definitive posts from experts who explain that all danger of nuclear release has long passed and that the so-called fires that are reported at this time are ordinary detritus from a shut down.
There is going to be major blowback against the MSM, now including Fox, for their childish, hysterical ranting about nuclear holocaust. There should also be a huge humanitarian blow back against the MSM for taking the focus off the Japanese people and placing it on technology.
Following the news the absolute worst case scenario evolving from the reactor problems in Japan will produce less than ~5-10 deaths (including long term cancers).
Meanwhile a thousand times that many are dead in the tsunami.
More die in a bus crash in Brooklyn.
A thousands times as many die in coal mines every year.
And a large proportion of the greenster dickheads of the world continue to smoke.
Makes me ashamed to be a westerner.
ew-3 says:
March 15, 2011 at 1:14 pm
“Get the word out that the issue in Japan is largely due to it being older technology and if we’re smart we’ll swap out some of our older units with newer ones to improve safety.”
I am all for newer technology, but the problem in Japan was the site of the facility. You do not want to build a nuclear reactor on top of an earthquake hotbed where tsunamis are likely. Before we discuss anything else regarding existing or future nuclear facilities, we must evaluate the relative risks of the sites available for such facilities.