From the Global Warming Policy Foundation
The world is about to enter a no-fly zone for energy policy, a period where nothing gets off the ground. Here we have a globalized economic system filled with unprecedented energy options, but where all options appear to be politically off-limits. If it comes to that extreme, as seems probable in the short-term wake of the Japanese nuclear meltdown, the battle will be fought with mind-spinning claims and counterclaims, distortions, lies, exaggerations, misrepresentations. At the end of the battle, the most likely winner will be the energy source that is cheapest, works best and offers the lowest risks. It will be hard to beat the fossil fuels we know and trust.-–Terence Corcoran, Financial Post, 17 March 2011
Not only is gas cheap, gas plants themselves are relative bargains. Mr. Hess said a typical nuclear plant takes 10 years and $6-billion to build, while a coal-burner takes thee years and $3-billion. A gas plant?: Two years and $1-billion. There is no denying that shale gas has radically altered the economics of power production virtually overnight. The Japanese disaster is not killing the nuclear industry, gas is, and it’s taking grubby coal down with it. That’s good news. –Eric Reguly, The Globe and Mail, 17 March 2011
Even if someone were to get the approvals to build a new nuclear facility tomorrow, or within the next five years, getting financing will be next to impossible and it’s not like there are many governments with the political will or the chequebooks fat enough to fund these kinds of projects. What can only be termed a Black Swan event in the nuclear power world today is going to prove to be a positive inflection point for the natural-gas industry in the coming months and years. –Deborah Yedlin, Vancouver Sun, 17 March 2011
Anti-nuclear critics may be celebrating the possible death of commercial nuclear power. But as U.K. energy expert Benny Peiser notes this morning, less nuclear power will mean most industrialized countries will increase their dependency on fossil fuels for electricity, not reduce them. This means global warming activists’ goal may be dying a quick death. — Richard Polock, Pajamas Media, 16 March 2011
Obama and the GOP keep pushing nuclear power, but for all their money and rhetoric, their proposals were doomed even before Japan. Robert Bryce on how natural gas killed domestic reactors. The Daily Beast, 14 March 2011
An 8.9 earthquake, a 33-foot tsunami, a series of crises at their battered nuclear plants: The people of Japan have withstood the last week with admirable tenacity. There’s no shortage of lessons the rest of the world can learn from what we’ve been seeing. Here are three of them. – Jesse Walker, Reason Online, 16 March 2011
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Bob Diaz says:
March 17, 2011 at 11:37 am
It seems that environmentalists are against ALL forms of power. A solar plant east of San Diedo was blocked by environmentalists several years ago because the HV Power Lines would have to be upgraded. Hydroelectric power is discouraged. (If AGW is true, wouldn’t hydro be a safe source of power?)
I understand that the Sierra Club generates all sorts of lawsuits to block construction of any more coal burning plants.
What we need is an anti-hypocrite law, that says if you belong to any group that blocks additional electrical power, you are cut off from the grid when the current system is at it’s limits.
I completely agree – an Energy Hypocrite law should be brought in immediately – and include Congress, the Senate and the White House. (and all their associated residences and immediate family residences). Its easily technically feasible with the ‘smart meters’ that have been installed.
If every time there was a blackout or brownout – those in the hypocrite list lost their power first – wherever they were – then it might concentrate their minds a little.
Anti-nuclear critics may be celebrating the possible death of commercial nuclear power. But as U.K. energy expert Benny Peiser notes this morning, less nuclear power will mean most industrialized countries will increase their dependency on fossil fuels for electricity, not reduce them.
He makes a fair point. I need to keep warm in Winter on 54N. To prevent me from doing so is not not some abstract “green” agenda or “carbon politics” – it is a declaration of war . I will burn “greens” and “HMG reps” before I freeze to death.
Oliver Cromwell had a point – the “bubble” inhabited by the ruling class has to burst at some point….they just can’t see what is going wrong…
As I understand it; what has been drying out and heating so that it may melt is NOT a nuclear reactor at all, but a simple water bath with some old fuel rods in it; that is what they have beed air dropping water on to and what caught fire; it is NOT a nuclear reactor; it’s a compost heap that got a bit hot..
But Obama has made his picks for “Toss the Ball through the Ring.” that passtime of otherwise unemployable tall people; and he will soon be off to Rio to party.
“”””” 3×2 says:
March 17, 2011 at 2:25 pm
……………………..
Oliver Cromwell had a point – the “bubble” inhabited by the ruling class has to burst at some point….they just can’t see what is going wrong… “””””
Speaking of Oliver Cromwell; have you ever seen his old battle axe in the British Museum ? No not her; I mean the axe that he fought with. They say it has only had two new heads, and five new handles since Oliver last used it. Fascinating !
Dr. P.H.
I live in Illinois so I know the dangers, especially the rods sitting in pools at Zion.
Yup, Harry Ried should think about the welfare of the whole country !
When operating the fuel is in containment, but the pools seem rather vulnerable !
So, we agree on many things, like starting to build later generation, more inherently safe reactor designs.
Yes there is danger in any energy generation, though more died in the dam failure than have ever died from a nuclear accidents.
-Jay
Madman2001 says:
March 17, 2011 at 2:11 pm
The New Madrid Fault is hundreds of miles away from the nuclear power plants in northern Illinois. The biggest danger in a big New Madrid quake is the destruction of Memphis.
—–
REPLY Please see Region 3 listing on the left-hand side of this page:
http://nuclearstreet.com/
Let’s see….Braidwood, Byron, LaSalle, Clinton, and Quad Cities reactors all lie within areas of seismic influence from New Madrid and other faults in Illinois (CEUS seismic zone, using NRC designation).
Major breach-of-containment from these reactors doesn’t really bother me, but I’m not at all amused that our Illinois reactor sites are crapped up with cooling pools filled up with spent reactor fuel rods.
Thank you, Sen. Reid, for killing Yucca Mountain Nuclear Repository. The onsite storage of spent fuel is the achilles heal which would greatly damage the Midwestern US territory and groundwater, and I don’t think these systems are very robust, considering that the nuclear power industry always considered these to be very temporary. This is a huge problem.
The Feds once made a promise to the US nuclear industry that they would be provided with safe & secure storage for high level wastes, but it hasn’t happened yet, and isn’t likely to anytime soon.
Jay says:
March 17, 2011 at 12:25 pm
………..
Shortly after three mile island 20,000 died in a hydro-electric dam failure. ……..
I believe you are talking about China’s Banqiao reservoir dam in Henan province. That is supposed to have caused 20,000 deaths when it collapsed. However that collapse occured during an unusual rainfall even. From Wikipedia “The Dam was designed to survive a 1-in-1,000-year flood (300 mm of rainfall per day). In August 1975, however, a 1-in-2,000 year flood occurred, and poured more than a year’s rainfall in 24 hours (new records were set, at 189.5 mm rainfall per hour and 1060 mm per day”. Notes I had on this collapse suggest that around 60 dams of various sizes collapsed during this single event.
China has the world’s worst record on dam safety, and many of their dams are well below the minimum standards required anywhere else in the world. This event was a combination of poor dam design, and a natural disaster equivilent to an inland tsunami.
A tidal power station on the Kaipara Harbour seafloor in New Zealand will produce 200MW. With no CO2 emissions, not that it matters!
Most power in NZ is hydroelectric. Tidal and wind power when available will save using the water in the hydro dams.
NZ is unsuitable for nuclear power because of the constant earthquakes, and one nuclear generator would be sufficient for the whole of NZ until it stops working for any reason. So we’d need at least two, and that’s uneconomic. There’s also nowhere to put the waste. Earthquakes, volcanoes, remember?
“less nuclear power will mean most industrialized countries will increase their dependency on fossil fuels for electricity”
Of course, this is assuming that a government has any intention of even trying to provide their citizens with reliable energy. The UK certainly has no problem destroying their country, telling the people to just get used to not having regular or reliable electricity any more, in search of crappy and unreliable wind energy. Failing to provide the needs of the people does not bother them at all.
My guess is that the Smart Grid, UK will allocate electricity as needed: 1) the government buildings, 2) the homes of the government employees, 3) close friends and relatives of government employees, 4) hospitals, fire, and police, and 5) preferred cronies’ businesses. The common people then get what’s left at any given time. The commoners have to realize that they will be at the bottom of the electricity-need list. They can basically write off having electricity and getting a petrol-fired generator permit for the backyard will be virtually impossible.
Until there are enough ‘conscious rebels’ (Orwell), the elite will continue to maintain their bubble, educating those outside the bubble to work to maintain it for the elite.
Cheap energy for all means competition, and that’s a sin said Rockefeller (establishing a cartel with Rothschild at the Baku wells when the competition between them was driving down prices).
Cromwell was just another wannabe elitist, sphere of operation irrelevant. The driving force, whatever that is, they might well have in common, the method to achieve success in their spheres they certainly have, brutality one way or another.
Why is thorium power taking so long to come on line when Westinghouse had one up and running in 1977, efficiently for five years..?
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/12/ff_new_nukes/all/1#
Three times in my life I have lived in energy poor societies. There they die young (35 to 45), there are no hospitals, there is not enough food, in one society basic clothing was an issue. People work dawn to dusk for 7 days a week. However, pollution from open fires for heat and for cooking is a problem, a big problem.
There was an Australian article two years ago about Earth Day. People turned off there lights and lit candles. Everyone missed the point, the candles put out extra CO2, and smoke, while the power stations saw barely a drop in power consumption.
To me, the celebration of Earth Day is a bit like celebrating genocide.
Nuclear energy power plants are far more expensive, and much more hazardous than coal fired power plants, and can be constructed anywhere there are railroads with which to ship the required coal. All of the nasty components of the products of coal combustion are readily removed, at litle cost, and carbon dioxide is the most beneficial to life gases that is. Higher concentration of CO2 would simply mean that more food would be harvested.
Simple arithmetic falsifies the speculation that CO2 is or could be a “forcing” element in global atmospheric temperatures, climate change, or any other false hoopla..
Here is the skinny: It is said that that there are 385 parts of CO2 per million in Earth’s atmosphere. I will be generous and pretend that the figure is 400 ppm.
Divide both values by 10. 40 molecules of CO2 amidst 100,000 moleculles. Must be a mighty molecule indeed, to be feared to such a great extent.
I will be generous again, and say that 5% of that CO2 is due to the actions of humans. Wow, 5% of 40 is just 2 molecules of CO2 per 100,000 other molecules. No measurable effect whatsoever.
The small increase in CO2 concentrations of CO2 since about 1950 has increased the yield of corn per acre in Iowa from what was a bumper crop of 90 bushels per acre in 1950 to modern common yields of 145 bushels per acre.
Re the high cost of renewable power. In California, very recently, a 5 MW (peak output) solar PV plant was switched on at Porterville (north of Bakersfield). Built by funds from SCE (Southern California Edison) for $18 million, this works out to approximately $12,000 per kW on the long-term average, basis 7-1/2 hours per day (30 percent average of peak power).
I like nuclear, in the right place and a couple of hundred km from a subduction zone is not a good place.
I like coal as well because the planet is awash with the stuff and much of it is easily obtained by open cast mining.
I like gas and oil as well.
All the above produce 24/7/52 electricity regardless of wind or cloud cover.
The developing world needs this sort of power to enable them to get to the good life. Why should anyone dictate to them that they must stay the way they are to save the planet. Not only is that claim rubbish it is the most hypocritical thing for anyone to claim.
The planet does not need saving and many peoples need to develop.
A C Osborn says:
March 17, 2011 at 2:16 pm
The video on your link was totally information free. I could see the dilithium crystals under the hood of the car.