Dr. Roger Pielke Jr. had a worthwhile guest essay in Foreign Policy titled: Climate of Failure published last year that Dr. Judith Curry has made a post about today that she calls a “good topic for Sunday discussion”. I agree. While I see many of the same things she does, I also see a different path forward. Her last takeaway point is:
… focus on goals that can actually be accomplished and getting people who think differently to act alike.
We have the technology to do that in our hands now, all we need is the will. If it weren’t for the need to make nuclear bombs (of which uranium based nuclear power is a spinoff), we might already have been there. Few people know this, but the demonization of coal didn’t start with environmentalists, it started with nuclear power advocates, but that is a story for another day.
Here are some excerpts from Pielke Jr’s essay in FP:
Environmentalists are just now waking up to the reality that if we’re going to stop global warming, we’re going to have to be a lot more politically savvy.
So what’s the next step? For years — decades, even — science has shown convincingly that human activities have an impact on the planet. That impact includes but is not limited to carbon dioxide. We are indeed running risks with the future climate through the unmitigated release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and none of the schemes attempted so far has made even a dent in the problem. While the climate wars will go on, characterized by a poisonous mix dodgy science, personal attacks, and partisan warfare, the good news is that progress can yet be made outside of this battle.
…
The heady days of early 2009, when advocates for global action on climate change anticipated world leaders gathering later that year around a conference table in Copenhagen to reach a global agreement, are but a distant memory. Today, with many of these same leaders focusing their attention on jump starting economic growth, environmental issues have taken a back seat. Leaders’ attention to climate policy is not coming back — at least not in any form comparable to the plans being discussed just a few years ago. A rising GDP, all else equal, leads to more emissions. But if there is one ideological commitment that unites nations and people around the world in the early 21st century, it is that GDP growth is non-negotiable.
Stabilizing the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would require more than 90 percent of the energy we consume to come from carbon-free sources like nuclear, wind, or solar. Policymakers often discuss reducing annual emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels. But emissions today are already more than 45 percent higher than in 1990, so that higher level implies a need to cut by more than 90 percent from today’s levels. Put another way, in round numbers, we could keep at most 10 percent of our current energy supply, and 90 percent or more would have to be replaced with a carbon-free alternative. Today, about 10 percent of the energy that we consume globally comes from carbon-free sources — leaving a long way to go.
Consider this: If the goal is to stabilize the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at a low-level by 2050 (in precise terms, at 450 parts per million or less), then the world would need to deploy a nuclear power plant worth of carbon free energy every day between now and 2050. For wind or solar, the figures are even more daunting.
…
Natural gas is not a long-term solution to the challenge of stabilizing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere, because it is still carbon intensive, but the rapidly declining U.S. emissions prove an essential policy point: Make clean(er) energy cheap, and dirty energy will be quickly displaced. To secure cheap energy alternatives requires innovation — technological, but also institutional and social. The innovation challenge is enormous, but so is the scale of the problem. A focus on innovation — not on debates over climate science or a mythical high carbon price — is where we’ll make process.
The vast complexity of the climate issue offers many avenues for action across a range of different issues. What we need is the wisdom to have a constructive debate on climate policy options without all the vitriolic proxy battles. The anger and destructiveness seen from both sides of this debate will not be going away, of course, but constructive debate will move on to focus on goals that can actually be accomplished.
Full essay here: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/08/06/climate_of_failure
Notes from Anthony:
“…the world would need to deploy a nuclear power plant worth of carbon free energy every day between now and 2050. For wind or solar, the figures are even more daunting.”
Given the size of the task presented, and the “herding cats” nature of individual sovereign nation economies, it seems to me that the promise of clean energy alternatives as a solution to carbon emissions is essentially stillborn.
In my opinion, Thorium based nuclear power is the way forward. It has all the benefits of zero carbon emissions, plus it has less problematic fissile by-products than comparable Uranium235 based power systems. Plus, the fuel components of thorium based power systems aren’t generally compatible with current fission and thermonuclear bomb making technologies, making such technology less of a terrorist action risk. Thorium is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth’s crust.
Surprisingly, the US has already had (and discarded) a Thorium based power plant. The very first nuclear power plant at Shippingport , which converted to Thorium and began operating in August 1977:
It used pellets made of thorium dioxide and uranium-233 oxide; initially the U233 content of the pellets was 5-6% in the seed region, 1.5-3% in the blanket region and none in the reflector region. It operated at 236 MWt, generating 60 MWe and ultimately produced over 2.1 billion kilowatt hours of electricity. After five years the core was removed and found to contain nearly 1.4% more fissile material than when it was installed, demonstrating that breeding had occurred
It was decommissioned in 1982 and dismantled, the former site has been cleaned up and released for unrestricted use without any radioactivity issues.
Just think of the good people like Bill McKibben could do if they got behind ideas like Thorium power, rather than wasting their efforts trying to tear down existing energy supplies and replace them with impotent alternatives.
Here are two videos on Thorium based nuclear power, the first is 30 minute documentary,
The second is a 5 minute intro into LFTR reactors for the time-challenged.
This video does not work at all…..
The Integral Fast Reactor, had it not been canceled by the likes of Clinton and Kerry, would have put us in a much better situation than at present. The biggest obstacle we face is those politicians who thrive on crisis and will do everything in their power to kill anything that has a chance of being an actual solution. It is not surprising they are behind wind and solar – they aren’t real solutions.
thallstd;
But I came across this video about a new approach to solar based on photosynthesis.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I watched this video from the 40 minute mark. It is garbage. For starters, he yammers on about photosynthesis but the system he proposes has precisely zero to do with photosynthesis. His entire “system” works by electrolysis of water which I for one did as an experiment in junior high several decades ago. At best he has come up with a more cost effective electrode, other than that he has developed absolutely nothing. He powers the system using solar panels, and presents it as a system cost effective enough to power homes in the third world. If only people in the third world had homes to put the solar panels on! Then he says he can build it for $85K per home….ooops he left out the cost of the fuel cell… and there’s no compressor station in his diagram, so I assume he left that out too…. and he also left out the maintenance costs over the life of the system.
Stunningly, he presents this system as solving third world energy supply problems, conveniently forgetting that energy supply to homes is only a fraction of the problem that needs to be solved if standards of living or going to rise those of “Spain”. You’ll never run a semi-trailer with a reefer on this system, nor a large hospital, a manufacturing plant, or a waste water plant…or any of the many other things that require energy to run and bring up standards of living. He also attempts to position nuclear and fossil fuels and hydro as being impossible to scale to support the energy needs of the third world, and manner in which he does so is pretty much drivel.
He’s out there looking for investors. This is a promotional video and in my opinion rises to the level of snake oil.
Back to the CO2,
Pulling arbitrary limits for CO2 out of one’s behind seems to really excite some folks, in spite of ample evidence that not only is it a fool’s errand, it is also an expensive and counterproductive misdirection, and has caused all kinds of mischief that has only lowered people’s standard of living.
I would postulate that if it were possible to burn every carbon atom that could be mined, drilled or fraced, the atmospheric CO2 concentration would still be far lower than prehistorical levels that have been estimated at 7000 ppm, due in no small part to the cubic miles a carbonate now sequestered as rocks of various forms. Apparently levels of CO2 nearly 20 times present didn’t upset the apple cart, so get off it already. The “CO2 is death” crowd has given us insanely stupid wind farms, cap and trade, numerous clean energy boondoggles, federal bureaucracies empowered to dictate rules based on false premises no matter the consequence, Diesel engines
that have been rendered needlessly complex, unreliable and less efficient than their 15 year old predecessors, utilities that worry more about offsetting gimmicks than generating electricity and nearly a generation of people who are convinced that their world is about to end in a steaming, mosquito infested, hurricane caused swamp that’s catching fire due to drought.
If you’re going to make a pitch for nuclear power (which I think is long overdue) do it on its own merits.
It’s important to realize that the reason Thorium reactors have not been built and commercialized is that it’s very hard for the nuclear industry to make money off them.
The nuclear industry doesn’t make money building nuclear plants. They make money selling fuel rods and pellets made from Uranium (and Plutonium). Those are really expensive, and hard to refine. It’s like the shaving industry – they sell shavers at cost, in order to sell blades at high mark-up.
The problem with Thorium is that it’s a really cheap and plentiful fuel to use. The nuclear industry couldn’t make much money selling the fuel. And they probably couldn’t make all that much building the reactors either. So, they have used their power to suppress not just any commercial development of Thorium plants, but even most research on it. Industry lobbyists have kept congress from approving anything which might threaten their bread and butter.
That’s why other countries are getting way ahead of us. They’ve come to realize that it’s in their interests to invest in this energy tech, and so they are. China has big plans to exploit Thorium, and probably to build and export Thorium reactors and maintenance contracts and so on. Plus, they have huge Thorium deposits that they are just setting aside as a by-product of their rare-earth mining industry.
To get Thorium R&D going in America would mean breaking the back of the nuclear indu
Daunting indeed. Reality also dictates nuclear will never fly because public perception is impossible to overcome. Alternatively, assuming CO2 is ever a problem, I like the Ivanpah solar mirror array.
Rob Spooner says:
September 1, 2013 at 9:15 pm
I’m a skeptic about AGW, but that skepticism is nothing compared to my skepticism about Cold Fusion.
Another interesting comment. I was perfectly happy lapping up the mainstream media story about global warming for several years. Then curiosity prompted me to look a little more deeply and very quickly I became sceptical of AGW. However, it needed me to probe the topic myself. I was interested in cold fusion right from the start and did not swallow the mainstream media tack that it was junk science (I knew Martin Fleischmann and found the “charlatan” label inconceivable).
Scepticism about AGW comes from, in essence, accepting that the data says more than the models. I agree. However, when scepticism about cold fusion comes from accepting that “pre-existing theories” mean more than the data, it seems to me to be the opposite of scepticism.
The “too good to be true” argument is a good one too but, again, it cannot negate the observations that have been made. If you’re interested, Google “Rob Duncan, Missouri” and read page 3, second paragraph, of his CV. He was an out and out sceptic who was invited to look into the phenomenon. He changed his mind.
Rob Spooner says:
September 1, 2013 at 9:15 pm
I’m a skeptic about AGW, but that skepticism is nothing compared to my skepticism about Cold Fusion.
=============================
I you’re talking about Pons and Fleischmann, I couldn’t agree more. The facts seem to point to a combination of experimental error and questionable “science”. One should point out however that there are other approaches to fusion, the best known probably being the Farnsworth Fusor, that do or might achieve nuclear fusion. What they have in common is that no one currently knows how to get a positive energy yield from any of those devices. That doesn’t preclude the possibility, however remote, that sometime, somewhere, someone will come up with a simple, tameable, relatively inexpensive device that somehow takes in Hydrogen and/or Deuterium and/or Tritium and produces Helium and energy. It’s probably not actually impossible. But we don’t currently have the slightest idea how to do it.
On the one side are those that consider CO2 will cause dangerous global warming and on the other that CO2 emissions have no effect and both are extreme positions to take.
I doubt whether anyone on either side of the argument would disagree that energy efficiency is a good thing?
The starting position should be to obtain agreement that building regulations and other regulations throughout the developing world are such as to minimse energy use through proper regulation and good design.
As an example this occurred in the UK where solid walls were used on the outside of buildings, then cavity walls an now cavity walls with insulation. The Scandinavians , US and other countries were far ahead in the game than us.
The above along with roof and ground floor insulation reduce considerably energy use and hence emissions.
This should be the starting point?
The smartest words ever to come out of Hansen’s mouth…
“The hope that the wind and the sun and geothermal can provide all of our energy is a nice idea but I find it unlikely that that’s possible.”
“Suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”
Godfather Of Global Warming Alarmism James Hansen Admits Renewable Energy Is A ‘Nice Idea’ Though Useless http://wp.me/p3Bc8A-4y
Brian
Don K – U-233 is perfectly good material for a nuclear weapon, assuming that it is pure enough. …
We agree on that I think. I only pursued the issue long enough to satisfy my self that claims that Thorium(/U233) would solve the nuclear proliferation issue were probably wrong. I did come away with the impression that a U233 weapon might be a bit bulkier or otherwise marginally more inconvenient for the military than a U235/Pu239 device. But it would still be a bomb. I reckon they’d cope with any limitations somehow.
Speaking of what is already known, you are completely off-base when you claim that the nuclear industry has been “less than candid.” Bulls-t. …
Thanks for your opinion. I’ll stand by mine which is widely shared. “They” misled us about the safety of nuclear power plants. My evidence … Fukushima Daiichi. You think the public wasn’t misled? Fine. I can’t imagine why you’d think that, but you’re entitled to your opinions.
There’s a second issue with Fukushima BTW. It’s possibly more important than misrepresentations about safety. The engineering at Fukushima seems actually pretty impressive all things considered. But in the half century since the plant was designed, Geology had come to understand that earthquakes substantially stronger than the Great Kanto Earthquake of 1923 (magnitude 7.9) were not only possible, but actually likely on Japan’s Northeast (and, I believe, Northwest as well) coast. In an ideal world, that would have been recognized and the nuclear plants in the Tohoku would either have been hardened or shut down. The Fukushima complex would either have survived intact or it wouldn’t have been there. The fact that the problem was not addressed is kind or scary and it’s why I personally think that an unconditionally safe nuclear plant design is essential to fission (or fusion for that matter) power rollout on a wide scale. People are human. They screw up. And nature is unpredictable.
DrJohnGalan
September 2, 2013 at 12:17 am
…
Scepticism about AGW comes from, in essence, accepting that the data says more than the models. I agree. However, when scepticism about cold fusion comes from accepting that “pre-existing theories” mean more than the data, it seems to me to be the opposite of scepticism.
Back in the old days when cold fusion was based on the idea that the platinum matrix, under electric stress, somehow compressed nuclei sufficiently to initiate fusion reactions, the idea was plausible.
There *are* low energy fusion reactions which might conceivably lead, one day, to desktop fusion energy production – the Farnsworth Fusor, Muon catalyzed fusion (that one just got interesting – since desktop teravolt particle acceleration was demonstrated – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plasma_acceleration ), Pyroelectric fusion, to name a few.
What they *ALL* have in common, is that none of them violate the known laws of physics. All of them produce fusion neutron flux. None of them make ridiculous claims about mysterious weak force interactions which somehow circumvent normal fusion paths.
Of course its possible, in fact certain, that Physics has a few quirks that nobody has yet discovered. I loved reading E E Doc Smith’s space opera stories about total conversion nuclear power from burning copper and a mysterious transuranic element, and the surprise discovery that nuclear power spacecraft can fly faster than light. But what I kept clear in my mind is that this is FICTION.
Stacey says:
September 2, 2013 at 12:55 am
The starting position should be to obtain agreement that building regulations and other regulations throughout the developing world are such as to minimse energy use through proper regulation and good design.
Absolutely not. That is Progressive/Socialist thought at work. The impetus for saving energy should always be the free market’s goal of saving money, without government interference.
Well said, Bruce. I’m surprised no-one’s picked up on this snippet of petty-fascism:
“focus on (…) getting people who think differently to act alike.”
Was Ms Curry wearing a burka when she wrote that? Or is freedom for me, but not for thee?
I agree with that that that that that other fellow proposed.
Bugger 🙁
Abundant Sustainable Energy
The Luddites had a dim view of coal. See Luddites to Neo-Luddism, Stephen Jones
Contrast the vision of William Blake in building a New Jerusalem to replace those “dark satanic mills”. as sung at the Pops
Abundant sustainable clean fuel and energy and benefitting the poor is a worthwhile goal rather than shutting down our economy and killing the poor with burning corn via ethanol mandates, “carbon taxes” or “cap and trade”.
The challenge with most nuclear reactors has never been the reactor part.
The heat exchanger part and the fuel cycle part are the challenges.
A heat exchanger in a conventional thermal plant that leaks a little, just leaks a little. A heat exchanger in a nuclear plant that leaks a little upsets people.
The second problem is fuel cycle costs…you need a 100 nuclear plants that use X type fuel in order to make the fuel fabrication cost effective.
The entire US market for base load(24X7) is maybe 300GW.
The problem with deploying new nuclear designs in the US is that someone has to make a decision to build a bunch of them, the only way to insure they will be financially viable is to force the closure of a considerable portion of existing baseload.
The alternative is to give up our nationalist pride and roll out new nuclear fuel cycle designs in China or India first. They each could build a 1,000 GW of new capacity without having to retire any existing plants(existing plants would just become peakers/intermediate load).
Pat – the article is by my son, but I can respond to your comment
“the scientific evidence he has to support his strong, positive, zero-doubt averral that human CO2 emissions have had or will have an impact on climate.”
It is trivial to show that added CO2 affects the climate both radiatively and biogeochemically; e.g. for the former, see
McNider, R.T., G.J. Steeneveld, B. Holtslag, R. Pielke Sr, S. Mackaro, A. Pour Biazar, J.T. Walters, U.S. Nair, and J.R. Christy, 2012: Response and sensitivity of the nocturnal boundary layer over land to added longwave radiative forcing. J. Geophys. Res., 117, D14106, doi:10.1029/2012JD017578. Copyright (2012) American Geophysical Union. http://pielkeclimatesci.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/r-371.pdf
Minimum temperatures certainly are higher when CO2 (or water vapor) is added.
The question we all have is the magnitude of this effect relative to other human and natural climate forcings. A prudent approach is to limit how much we alter the climate unless we know with certainty that there are no negative consequences.
The global climate models clearly are failing to quantify these effects.
rpielke:
Although I agree with the substance of your post at September 2, 2013 at 7:19 am
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/01/climate-of-failure-how-alternate-energy-dreams-are-pie-in-the-sky-solutions-for-emissions/#comment-1406041
I write to dispute an opinion which you assert.
You say
I disagree, and state my opinion as follows.
Minimum temperatures certainly are higher when CO2 (or water vapor) is added.
The question we all have is the magnitude of this effect relative to other human and natural climate forcings. A prudent approach is to avoid precipitate actions intended to reduce these forcings unless we know with certainty that they induce negative consequences which are sufficient to negate the their observed positive consequences (e.g. improved crop yields).
The need to avoid harmful precipitate actions is demonstrated by the global climate models clearly failing to quantify these effects. This failure demonstrates that – at present – we cannot quantify potential costs and benefits. Importantly, at present it seems the models exaggerate effects and, to date, the negative effects are merely postulated while some positive effects are observed.
Richard
Anthony ….your blog is the BEST.
all the things you bring forward need to be brought forward.
..yet at the end of the day do you not see that you are engaging the barking fools who really don’t care about facts or truth. as you argue and PROVE how wrong they are …they still carry the day as they control the education of the next generation of barking fools.
all the best and do keep up the fight. and add to the fight the fact that the barking fools are just that. oh yeah save me a bunk in the gulag. hopefully one furthest from the shitters.
There is no way we can “limit how much we alter the climate” since there is no evidence that we are, plus, even if we were, it is at least 50x more expensive “doing something” about climate than it is to adapt. It is a huge, foolish waste of money in other words, and very likely would simply set us on the wrong path energy-wise. We need cheap energy.
“”Pat Frank says:
September 1, 2013 at 11:01 am””
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/09/01/climate-of-failure-how-alternate-energy-dreams-are-pie-in-the-sky-solutions-for-emissions/#comment-1405581
And asks Roger Pielke, jr. to explain in detail the relation between human CO2 emissions and recent climate warming. I second this request but please be advised I am layman. I can clearly understand how CO2 can warm the atmosphere when the sun is shining but I am lost when the discussion turns to ‘backradiation’. I can accept that CO2 in the night time atmosphere is radiating in the 13 to 17 micron band but this can only warm up stuff colder than about -70C. That temperature is not easily found on the surface outside of Antarctica.
The layman barely has an idea about Thorium as an energy source. However, if I can imagine a connection between “Thorium” and “nuclear” and feel a little fear then the layman, who is sufficiently bamboozled into thinking that CO2 is a pollutant can also be persuaded to imagine that Thorium can lead to disasters like Fukushima and Chernobyl.
Personally I don’t have a problem with fission as an energy source because it is statistically no more hazardous than fossil fuel sources.
In case you were interested in the OECD perspective on risks of nuclear relative to other energy sources here is their 2010 report: http://www.oecd-nea.org/ndd/reports/2010/nea6862-comparing-risks.pdf