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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Can any one tell me, within a factor of 10 how many natural gas fires there have been in Japan in the last 5 days?
It’s seems the spin doctors are out in force, but sooner or later the pictures of the towns and villages that burnt to the ground due to natural gas leaks are going to come out.
You know what the French will do about this. After all, they have the largest quantity of nuclear power plants in Europe.
I’ll tell you what they will do. Nothing. Nothing at all. They have the safest, most reliable generation systems in Europe and probably the world. They will set a couple of investigations in progress that will report back in 2015 and say how safe they are.
I hate the arrogant French government, but I did buy a place in France as insurance for when the lights go out in the UK.
Dave Springer says:
March 15, 2011 at 1:45 pm
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.”
Do you know the length of the average day in the Highlands of Scotland during January? The sun rises at nine and sets at three. How about London? The sun rises at eight and sets at four. You could cover your house with solar panels and not have hot water for a shower all winter long.
One year from know we will be talking about how this was the disaster that wasn’t. This is a VERY SERIOUS nuclear accident and it will be a huge radioactive mess to clean up AT THE SITE. I see no evidence that this will have any long term effects on public health or the ability to utilize the land that is around the plant. My hope is that it is also not a health issue for those who are fighting to establish long term cooling.
That said, politically the pundits may be right about its effect on the industry, we shall see.
Lets focus on the real tragedy which is the aftermath of the tsunami, and its impacts on the people. There has yet to be a significant nuclear incident, and hopefully there will not. Even if there is, its cause will be thoroughly investigated, and as is the case with airline crashes, appropriate changes will be made. We do not stop flying every time there is an airline crash, because the subsequent investigation makes flight safer for us all. So it should be with this incident.
@Dave Springer
Rather than go the synthetic biology route, we might as well go on a building spree building cheap reactors and not bothering with any safety features. At least that way, some of us will survive.
@Dave Springer
The San Onefre nuclear power plant in southern California is so close to the ocean you can hear the waves (not kidding).
Yes Dave. You can also hear the cars go by on I-5. Every year, more people die on that one highway than have died from TMI, Chernobyl, and will from this disaster’s final tally.
What’s your point?
Oh. By the way, do you have any idea what a 9.0 would do to southern California? That’s about 50 times bigger than the big one every one is waiting for. San Onofre and Diablo Canyon would be the least of your worries. Also, they could both withstand a 7 meter tsunami.
I also think American ingenuity could deal with this kind of crisis a lot better than Japanese culture permits. Not sure about California ingenuity, though.
Dave Springer says:
March 15, 2011 at 1:45 pm
Ah – so you don’t think genetic engineering is potentially dangerous? I am not saying that I don’t like the idea of synthetic fuel generation – just that there are an awful load of people fighting that kind of stuff from getting started. It will require just as much control, design and implemenation as nuclear power if you think about it. If the greenies don’t like genetic engineered crops, how the flip will they ‘approve’ of genetic engineered bugs? What if a crazy genetic virus mutant was released? It will need potentially far more control that nuclear power if you think it through…..because we know what nuclear problems can be created – but we have no idea what genetic mutations could be produced?
Interesting aside on this story.
Energy Probe, the anti-nuclear group cited secondly is actually one of two online homes author Lawrence Solomon, who most of us here know from the National/Financial Post and The Deniers: The World-Renowned Scientists Who Stood Up Against Global Warming Hysteria, Political Persecution, and Fraud (and those who are too fearful to do so).
There might be some reconciliation though, Lawrence’s writings in the Post in the last years have at least twice touched on re-examining the real threats of nuclear technology based on changing knowledge.
from http://ep.probeinternational.org/about/our-staff/
Lawrence Solomon is one of Canada’s leading environmentalists. His book, The Conserver Solution (Doubleday), which popularized the Conserver Society concept in the late 1970s, became the manual for those interested in incorporating environmental factors into economic life.”
Alan Wilkinson –
When I said nuclear power has become untenable, I meant from a political standpoint. Engineering has nothing to do with it. From an engineering standpoint, recycling wastewater into drinking water is perfectly feasible. The masses would not accept it, anymore than they will now accept new nuclear reactors. For now. Get thirsty enough, however, and people will drink anything.
Jeremy says:
March 15, 2011 at 1:09 pm
Apparently I need to move to Mars to get away from all the luddites.
I’m rapidly coming to the conclusion that most people are too stupid (technically- challenged) to live in the modern world.
“From an engineering standpoint, recycling wastewater into drinking water is perfectly feasible. The masses would not accept it …”
The Dutch, at the mouth of the Rhine, have been doing that for decades. Price the alternatives fairly and see what people buy.
My understanding of the problem in Japan is that is was the standby diesel generators which were swamped by the tsunami water that were the main problem. When the power to the station was disrupted and stopped the pumps for the cooling system the standby power was not able to operate. If the deisel generators were operable the power plant would probably be still working now. So the reactors etc did initially survive as designed.
Also I have read to day there has been a massive error in the reported radiation levels because the wrong units have been report— the reports say micro sieverts where is should have been milli sieverts. Can anyone confirm this ??
Who is this Prof. Muller from the video at the beginning of the responses and what college is he from?
I suppose what bothers me about this whole thing is that someone watching the news would be led to believe that three reactors are melting down and spewing radioactive waste all over Japan. They aren’t, and they aren’t.
I expect all three reactors to be in “cold shutdown” by Saturday. Unit 1 might take a little longer. The spent fuel rods in “the pool” in unit 4 might pose a problem as they were just pulled from the reactor last month but it looks like they are going to get that under control, too.
This is going to be the most massive non-crisis crisis the world has ever seen.
Sun Spot says:
March 15, 2011 at 2:10 pm
A 40 year old light water reactor. Why are there any of this type of designed reactor still in operation ?
Profit. Why replace something that is still making $$$?
And that is why the plants that are now damaged got thier licences extended in February.
You guys are still arguing as if there was actually a nuclear meltdown/disaster in Japan, there was not, as I pointed out before, see here http://www.kalzumeus.com/2011/03/13/some-perspective-on-the-japan-earthquake/
Some quotes:
“The instant response — scramming the reactors — happened exactly as planned and, instantly, removed the Apocalyptic Nightmare Scenarios from the table.
There were some failures of important systems, mostly related to cooling the reactor cores to prevent a meltdown. To be clear, a meltdown is not an Apocalyptic Nightmare Scenario: the entire plant is designed such that when everything else fails, the worst thing that happens is somebody gets a cleanup bill with a whole lot of zeroes in it.”
But how about all that dangerous radiation leaking out?? Well, another quote : “When you hear news reports of people exposed to radiation, keep in mind, at the moment we’re talking a level of severity somewhere between “ate a banana” and “carries a Delta Skymiles platinum membership card”.”
In short, NO dangerous levels of radiation have leaked out, and I don’t see any possibility of any leaking out in the future. It is only a frankly bald faced lying press that associates small radiation leaks of such things as N16 which has a half life of seconds (let me repeat, SECONDS) with panic.
Discussing the dangers of “old” style reactores here, and how dangerous they are, on this site, is just stupid. Those “old style” reactors, with their mutiple redundant safty systems, have simply proved that even those older reactors are completly safe, dispite being through a record breaking earthquake AND a tsunami on top of that (and it was the tsunami that is the only part that caused any concern at these plants, and that not a concern of real danger, only of an expensive rebuilding). Really people, I thought this was a SCIENCE site, you know, FACTS. Read the FACTS before you jump to any conclusions of the dangers, if any, of nuclear.
Number of people so far harmed by radiation in Japan, ZERO.
Number of people killed in the “nuclear accident” in Japan, 1 (a crane fell on him).
Now compare that to the number of people who were actually killed by the earthquake ( smaller than you might think, they are very prepared for earthquakes over there) and the tsunami (lots, as many as 10,000).
Conclusion, nuclear deaths (from radiation), zero, natural causes deaths, 10,000, comparative danger from radiation cpmpared to natural causes (like tsunamis), infinitely small.
Conclusion, the “dangers” of nuclear power, even in the worst possible disaster that could possibly happen, are literally SHOWN (by FACTS) to be mathematically infinitly small. And yet, the press keeps coming back to them again and again. And people on this supposedly science based blog are acting as if those “dangers” are real. Here’s an idea, name me one person, ONE NAME, of ANYONE killed or even injured in Japan by radiation.
I’m waiting…
Still waiting…
Anyone?
Anyone?
Beuler?
Theo Goodwin says:
March 15, 2011 at 3:22 pm
…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.
I’ve got bad news for the ‘definitive posters’: The spent fuel pool in reactor No 4 has a non-zero chance of achieving criticality due to lack of water (it is apparently boiling). TEPCO are considering using boracic acid on it. The spent fuel pools in reactors 5 & 6 are increasing in temperature.
http://bravenewclimate.com/2011/03/15/fukushima-15-march-summary/#comments
As much as I love nuclear for the long term, 3 billion year, solution to energy, the capital markets and price should be the deciding factors. If gas is the winner, for the next few decades, so be it. Oh, and somehow get gasoline down to the 31 cents per gallon of the 1960s. And don’t forget the gas wars when it was sold for 12 cents a gallon.
Alan Wilkinson –
The Dutch are a very practical and pragmatic people. As are the Japanese. I fully expect that Japan will continue to utilize nuclear power. That a population with a history that includes destruction of two of their cities by nuclear weapons would accept reactors in their country is an indication of just how pragmatic they are. We in the US – less so. We are obsessed by attractive, but impractical ideas like solar and wind which will never produce a meaningful amount of useful energy. We have government programs to encourage electric vehicles, then burn fossil fuels to generate the electricity to charge them, and this is “green”. Nuclear power will return to favor in the US, but I think we will have to hit bottom first, unfortunately.
kramer says:
March 15, 2011 at 4:59 pm
Who is this Prof. Muller from the video at the beginning of the responses and what college is he from?
———-
A physicist from Berkeley I believe.
Crescent City has been repeatedly hit by tidal waves. It has something to do with the slope of the ocean nearby. I’ve read that such waves are less of a problem where the offshore slope is steep–as it is around much of Washington state and BC. I think that California is less at risk than Japan for this reason. (Correct me if I’m wrong.)
Tony K
The daily mail is a mini poll of public opinion,because they allow the comments to be voted on and conveniently sort them into best rated.
The best rated comment on that article is one by Kate who says”candles not cancer”with 1,031 votes.(1,030 now I voted hehe)
Not looking good for nuclear in the UK.
He’s the chairman of the recent BEST team (temperature reconstruction effort), which has been the subject of three recent WUWT threads. Put Muller in the search box and you;ll get them at the top of the list. He’s also a prof. at Berkeley where he teaches a popular course. And he’s the author of various books, the most notable being Physics for Future Presidents, here (check the reader reviews to get an idea of his position):
http://www.amazon.com/Physics-Future-Presidents-Science-Headlines/dp/0393337111/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1298611883&sr=1-1
Dave Springer says:
March 15, 2011 at 1:45 pm
biosynthetic industry
Get our fuel from bacteria? Don’t count on it. Bacteria and other organsims are masters at doing amazing things. However, it can take a long time to optimize a process. Have you ever tried to do protein engineering? I have. You might be able to select for bugs that do something interesting. You might assemble the pieces of an unoptimized process then you have to hope that the bugs somehow fix your misunderstandings and do what you want. If you can set up a way to add selective pressure, you might get what you want. That is not always easy to arrange.
Add to that the joy of biotech bozos who don’t know how to cross-license IP. Moore’s law is applicable to semiconductors but not necessarily to biotech. The early semiconductor industry happily cross-licensed patents and the industry exploded. Biotech with greedy and small-minded players like Affymetrix, in my opinion, who want to rule the world by patenting everything in sight will stifle biotech for a while. Unfortunately, they have set the precedent and the tone for the rest of the industry. Don’t expect much from it.