Dr. James Hansen’s reply to my question about Nuclear Power
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
A a few years ago, Anthony Watts posted a link “The Middle Ground where AGW skeptics and Proponents should meet up“. At AGU2013, Anthony asked Dr. Hansen a question in full session about the very same topic and a video of that exchange follows.
The proposition is, that in the highly polarized global warming debate, there are, or should be, some surprisingly broad areas of agreement. A video also follows showing Anthony asking Dr. Hansen about this at AGU2013
One such area of agreement appears to be support for nuclear power. In addition to the Middle Ground article, WUWT has posted many other articles, on Thorium and next generation nuclear technology, which have been well received by regular readers of this blog.
Dr. James Hansen is also a supporter of nuclear power. A few months ago, James Hansen, Ken Caldeira, Kerry Emanuel and Tom Wigley published an open letter, calling for and end to opposition to nuclear power, for the sake of the environment.
If I have understood correctly, scientists who are truly concerned about CO2, such as James Hansen, support nuclear power, because nuclear power a plausible route to decarbonising the economy, without the difficulty of convincing voters to accept drastic curbs to their lifestyles.
Skeptics like myself tend to support nuclear power, because it is the future – we tend to love high technology and the glorious rise of human civilisation, and yet we are, contrary to the straw man stereotypes projected by many of our opponents, concerned about environmental issues, such as the megatons of toxic ash and sludge produced by coal power stations. We see next generation nuclear power as the clean, inexhaustible energy source of the future.
So I sent an email to Dr. James Hansen mid March this year, asking whether he had ever considered sharing a platform with Anthony Watts, to jointly promote acceptance of a nuclear powered future. I made it very clear I was asking this question on my own initiative, and had not discussed it with Anthony.
This was Dr. Hansen’s reply:-
“The more important matter is the need for a slowly rising revenue neutral carbon fee, 100% of the funds distributed to the public, equal amount to all legal residents. This would cause nuclear power to win out for electricity. Otherwise we are going to get a very expensive dual renewables–fossil fuel system. This fee-and-dividend approach is by its nature a conservative agenda, allowing the market to work. It is also a winning populist political strategy, providing some correction to the increasing disparity of wealth, allowing the hard-working careful low-income person a chance to make some money and contribute to a cleaner, healthier world. This is what conservatives need to understand. If they don’t, the changing demographics will sink them, and we will all suffer under a screwed up energy system.”
I replied to Dr. Hansen, pointing out that Conservative opposition to carbon fees was entrenched, and asked whether the issue of how to make nuclear power economically attractive, on which there was no agreement, could be set aside for now, for the sake of jointly promoting research into next generation nuclear technology.
So far I have not received a reply to my second email to Dr. Hansen.
The conversation and questions I put to Dr. Hansen were meant in good faith. I hope the dialogue I have had to date with Dr. Hansen is not the end, that the conversation goes further, perhaps with other participants. Perhaps I am being naive, but I really am a keen supporter of nuclear power, and would like to find a way for everyone who supports a nuclear future to join forces, to overcome the decades of propaganda against nuclear technology, which has retarded its development in the West.
Here is Anthony asking Dr. Hansen about Thorium power at AGU2013
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“If you want the truth …..”
Fat chance from a California lawyer.
“nuclear plants are shutting down because they cannot compete ”
Two small, single units reactors have shut down after a long useful life.
“wind and natural gas ”
First you have to have a wind resource. A certain amount of wind in the PNW works because of hydroelectric. The wind is at a lower cost of because of PTC but it does not work on cold winter nights or hot summer days in the PNW. There are no old wind-farms that still produce power. In the Southeast there is no wind-farms because there no wind resource. The choice is natural gas, coal, and nuclear.
“cost far too much to construct ”
All power plants are expensive to build. State PUC know what the cost of too much natural gas and shipping cost for coal are going up too.
“4 times as much water ”
All steam plants use about the same amount of water. STP is on an artificial lake. Been there to do a study on the essential service water system. A very nice power plant.
“Kit P says:
April 1, 2014 at 3:56 am”
For those not “in-the-know” what do PNW, PTC, PUC and STP mean? Readers at WUWT are not all American, nor from CA.
Taphonomic, Thanks for the update on Yucca Mountain. That is good news. And if we oust the Senate Majority leader in November we may see some real progress.
SAMURAI April 1, 2014 at 12:48 am,
That comment of yours was so impressive that I saved it into my LFTR folder. Brilliant!
Doug Uhrig says: March 31, 2014 at 1:37 pm “A few questions: 1. How long can a reactor be used before it can no longer be used? 2. How much does it cost to decommission a reactor and find a “safe” place for radioactive parts and waste? 3. Are our reactors safe from disasters and how much would disaster cleanup cost? 4. Are any of these costs included in the per kwh cost of nuclear energy mentioned above?”
1. The fuel can be used until the neutron poison fission products interfere with reactivity and control. The vessel can be used until neutron embrittlement is excessive. 2. The cost is largely set by external/political considerations. The safe place has been found and USN NPP has decommissioned a hundred or more reactors. 3. The USN has ~6500 reactor-years of safe operation under far more technically demanding circumstances than a simply electric generating plant. A disaster is technically unpredictable – see Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s popular writing on The Black Swan problem. 4. Yes, some costs are in the cost to the consumer.
True. I would add gothic cathedrals and individual human rights to that list of past achievements that have been passed on through time. But past achievements is not the point. We can be glad that no ancient people developed the means to make the earth we are currently living on uninhabitable for tens of thousands of years. They didn’t leave us with toxic waste we have to take care of if we like it or not. They didn’t make us pay for a few decades of inefficient energy use a couple of thousand years ago. There are some good (political) arguments for thorium use: China is doing it, oil money goes to the wrong people… But in the end thorium would still be a transition energy source because of the risks involved.
When it comes to passing on negative externalities I still think the three generations limit is a good idea. It would help not to severely limit the choices of future generations.
Are we? Have you ever heard of the Asse II mine in Germany? A former salt mine used as a deep geological repository for radioactive waste in the mountain range of Asse in district Wolfenbüttel in Lower Saxony. In 2013 the parliament decided to get all the stuff out that was meant to stay there for eternity – after only 30 years. The salt mine is leaking. The cost will be horrendous.
If you really believe that co2 is going to destroy the planet then the next logical thing to do is look at the best alternatives. Nuclear is not perfect but it’s the only current viable alternative. Gas fracking can also help. France produces 70% of its power from nuclear.
The problem is that greens are like the opposition party in the UK – their job is to oppose.
PS I don’t believe for one minute that Warmists think that the trace rise of the trace gas co2 will destroy our biosphere.
Let us assume we get political agreement to build nuclear plants to replace coal, oil and natural gas for electricity generation. Let us assume we have in hand today reactor designs which are practical and safe, leaving aside for the moment exact definition of “safe”. Let us assume we have financing in hand.
How long would it take to get enough new nuclear plants in operation to replace enough coal plants to make a significant difference in CO2 while still maintaining sufficient supply to support current usage and reasonably projected growth?
Depending on other assumptions, the answer would be a rather large range. The exact value is not important. What matters is whether the range in any way overlaps the figures we keep hearing from Hansen and others about how much time we have left to save the planet.
Al Gore claimed in 2006 “we only have 10 years left to solve the global warming problem”. If that clock is still ticking our time runs out sometime before the next US presidential election.
James Hansen claimed in 1988 that sea level rise would put the road in front of his office in New York City underwater by 2028 (40 years), assuming a doubling of CO2. The projected rise is about 10 feet and in the 23 years since the prediction was made we’ve seen about 2.5 inches.
And they have plenty of company in the litany of climate doom deadlines. Depending on your choice of climate prophet, we’re either long dead, dead already, almost as good as dead, or circling the drain Real Soon Now.
No matter what optimistic assumptions you make about building new nuclear power stations, it can’t possibly be done on the schedule demanded by Hansen and others. So before we talk about common ground on nuclear power, let’s have a little discussion on just where those climate “tipping points” are. If they’re two years out, per Al Gore, we’re toast. Might as well enjoy the time we have — get your order in now for a case of Hennesey cognac before Kim Jong Un completely corners the world’s supply. If it’s another 17 years out, per Jim Hansen, we should all chip in and buy him some wellies because he’ll have to wade through his office lobby and the rebuilt World Trade Center tower will have a boat ramp.
Construction on unit 3 at plant Vogtle (Georgia) started March 12, 2013. Originally slated for operation in 2016, the schedule has slipped by some 14 months. Unit 4 construction began November 21, 2013, originally scheduled for operation sometime 2017. Both units are Westinghouse AP1000 designs and will provide net 1117 MW.
By way of contrast, units 1 and 2 construction began August 1, 1976. Unit 1 become operational June 1, 1987 and unit 2 followed on May 20, 1989.
Cheop’s Law: everything takes longer and costs more than originally planned.
If the big shots in the environmental organizations actually believed in AGW or actually cared at all about the environment we would already have a couple of hundred more nuclear power plants in the US. As long as there is no huge push for nukes from them you can be certain they are not the least concerned with any real climate change.
we already have clean, safe energy via coal and nat gas … nuke would be nice but not required …
Alan, you are making a number of assumptions that are probably unwarranted.
1. “How long would it take to get enough new nuclear plants in operation to replace enough coal plants to make a significant difference in CO2 while still maintaining sufficient supply to support current usage and reasonably projected growth?”
The world’s existing fleet of 435 reactors was built over a period of just 20 years. In that time, it grew from 0 to about 15 per cent of the world’s total electrical energy supply. It went from zero to about 8 per cent of total energy supply. It should also be remembered that many of these were first-of-a-kind engineering projects, requiring much more design and development work in basic reactor physics than is the case today.
And it was done at a time when the world’s industrial base was much smaller than it is today. As I noted above, India and China have begun to build the first tranche of about 400 reactors which will be in service by the middle of this century. And yes, they have the industrial capacity to do this.
2. “Construction on unit 3 at plant Vogtle (Georgia) started March 12, 2013. Originally slated for operation in 2016, the schedule has slipped by some 14 months. Unit 4 construction began November 21, 2013, originally scheduled for operation sometime 2017. Both units are Westinghouse AP1000 designs and will provide net 1117 MW.”
Guilty of selective evidence. CANDU reactors Qinshan 4 and 5 completed in China 10 years ago were built and commissioned 30 and 100 days AHEAD of schedule and under budget, respectively. They used advanced modular construction methods and are the latest examples of the Advanced CANDU reactor. The fact that North American and European nations build things inefficiently now is not necessarily a sign that the technology is flawed but that our western civilization may be sufficiently inept or decadent as to prevent it from achieving what it used to achieve. With their 500 series of heavy water reactors, the Indians are consistently hitting their project milestones now.
What seems to be going on here is Americans projecting the incapability of their nation to undertake and complete projects in a reasonable timeframe and projecting that to all nations indefinitely into the future. It also assumes that nuclear will never become a standardized, off-the-shelf product. You should introduce yourself to the world of SMRs before you jump to such conclusions.
3. “Let us assume we have in hand today reactor designs which are practical and safe, leaving aside for the moment exact definition of “safe””
We don’t need to leave it aside. It’s already beyond reasonable dispute that nuclear power is by far the safest way to produce electricity reliably and on a large scale. The Paul Scherrer Institut has all the numbers to demonstrate that based on the historical record to date.
As for the business about Gore/Hansen tipping points, I agree with you entirely. The reasons for nuclear development have nothing to do with imaginary climate crises and everything to do with the reliable and economc supply of electricity.
cgh says that nuclear power plants are safe. Here is one that ignores what he does not like to hear. As far as I am concerned, the verdict is in and there is no such thing as safe nuclear power generation.
Why does every decent idea come tethered to a wealth redistribution fantasy that only serves to make everyone poorer in the process. How in the world to the words carbon tax and free market end up in same sentence?
re: DMA says March 31, 2014 at 2:41 pm
The 2014 Cold Fusion LANR Colloquium just finished at MIT with multiple presentations of heat production from nuclear sources …
Acceptance of this technology will finally occur when Home Depot and Lowes begins to carry a LANR-powered hot-water heater (and combination home-heating subsystem).
Presently, we have a ‘polluted’ information field on account of the failures of a number of academic labs to forcibly reproduce the Pons-Fleischmann experiment without understanding what they were doing, disregarding process, procedure and materials purity and/or composition. The forensic work by Dr. Peter Hagelstein who examined the long string of failed experiments are followed up by his many repeated successful, excess-energy producing experiments and theoretical work which shed light on the ‘polluted’ background in which LANR technical ‘progress’ presently labors today.
I will post below, for the edification of those with a little broader than usual scientific background, a link to a video series taken at the 101-level 2014 MIT IAP CF course (conducted in January 2014). Drs Hagelstein and Schwartz are open and quite forthright with their data and experiences in this field.
A caveat at this point must be issued: The average layman, however, is not likely to make much of this video series, as may those who shun actual data based on traceable measurements involving repeatable (and repeated) experiments. Another group who may have trouble sitting through 20 plus hours of dry, technical presentation on this subject may be those whose minds are already ‘made up’ on this subject.
1) 2014 Cold Fusion 101 video lectures
I have not yet seen the series DMA refers to, but will post a link nonetheless:
2) 2014 CF/LANR Colloquium at MIT Full Coverage
.
cgh says:
April 1, 2014 at 7:46 am
I was trying to make the best reasonable case for large scale coal -> nuclear substitution and show that it still won’t meet the doomsday deadlines promoted by the CAGW crowd, even if they’re willing to discuss nuclear power. I completely ignored delays due to regulatory and court proceedings, which in the case of the new Vogtle reactors consumed another 6 years. So the net effect of all my assumptions is most likely to understate the total deployment time, although I admit I’m working with estimates that might not apply outside the US.
Bottom line, I don’t think James Hansen’s professed support of nuclear power is meaningful given the higher priority he places on a CO2 tax, and the incessant demand we drastically reduce CO2 now. The level of reduction on the schedule he demands is not possible without similarly drastic reductions in total electrical supply.
Let’s try to get a rational assessment of just what and how urgent the problem is before we go shopping for solutions.
re: cgh says April 1, 2014 at 7:46 am
… The world’s existing fleet of 435 reactors …
Commercial, power-producing reactors? How many reactors total (mil and civilian) in the world?
.
Doug Huffman says:
April 1, 2014 at 3:43 am
Roger Sowell says: March 31, 2014 at 6:15 pm “Re thorium as a future basis for nuclear power: [ … ]”
I glanced at the operating history of the Molten Salt Reactor Experiment to see that THORIUM FUEL WAS NEVER LOADED.
=================================
The first Oak Ridge Lab MSR wasn’t loaded with thorium as it was merely proof of concept reactor and in that regard, it worked flawlessly..
The next test phase of the LFTR program was to build an actual LFTR power generator, but the NRC/Defense Department/LWR business interests/political elites/”other” business interests (I’ll leave it at that)…. pulled the plug on LFTRs development for various reasons: LFTR’s nuclear isotopes were not conducive to bomb making, LFTR’s business model didn’t require lucrative fuel rod replacement contracts/revenue streams, $billions in LWR R&D had already been expended and the powers that be wanted an ROI on those expenditures, political deals involving LWRs had already been established, a huge LWR bureaucracy was already entrenched, etc..
Regardless of the reasons, it was simply one of those historic mistakes that will perplex historians for generations. We’d certainly live in a much better and different world now had that tragic mistake of history never occurred…
Anyway, China’s LFTR program is about to rewrite history; just 40 years later than it should have taken..
Dan, I’m not advocating for either of those and I agree that the idea of an entirely nuclear-based power grid or an entirely alternate energy source powered grid are each bad ideas for the reasons you listed. My point is that many of the greens have visions of the latter but they have no idea of the costs and tradeoffs involved. Most likely the greens don’t care, but there is a small percentage of the population that can be persuaded with facts and numbers.
resource guy said
‘It is with more than a little trepidation that I disagree with Anthony Watts, on anything. Solar costs are still plummeting and the leading edge of this tech innovation will reshape the debate whether pundits, industries, or nuclear cheerleaders like it or not. This is not easy for casual observers of this or any industry to navigate the twists and turns.’
I always believe in energy horses for courses. Solar might make sense in some places. In Britain we are having vast 50 acre solar ‘farms’ foisted on us in greenfield sites. Britain is not renowned for its sunny climate and in winter-when the power is most needed-such solar installations are likely to be producing next to nothing yet gaining a big subsidy. How does that make sense?
tonyb
Stephen Rasey at 8.43
Thanks for your informative reply.
In further response I have five points to make regarding Thorium-powered pebble-bed reactors.
1. I think six years of operation in Germany, four of them supplying commercial power, is pretty damn good experience – much more than most current “unconventional” reactor designs.
2. I don’t know your sources, but I suspect that the “radioactive dust emission” you quote was the same problem with the pebble valve that I mentioned – the ports of the valve closed in on a pebble and partially ground a pebble, which, of course, would have produced some dust. A purely mechanical problem which would have been rapidly solved had the development of the reactor not been shut down by the politicians.
3. You provide an informative list of HTGR forerunners, but these were completely different reactors to the pebble bed in their engineering design – much more complicated, for a start. The German pebble bed design is starkly simple, with little to go wrong. And, of course, it requires no massive and expensive containment dome, emergency cooling system or emergency power supply.
4. I believe you exaggerate the problems with hot helium as a coolant. It requires careful engineering design, but no more than superheated steam under high pressure which is highly corrosive and like a bomb if it escapes.
5. Hot graphite does require to be isolated from oxygen, but in the German pebble bed design, the graphite is sealed in the pebbles by a casing of high-melting-point (~2000 C) silicon carbide ceramic. In the event of an unforeseen breach of the reactor, the whole reactor charge is not exposed to the environment, because it is contained in hundreds of individual hard pebbles.
Another contributor (to whom I must apologise for I cannot now find his posting) claimed as a safety feature of pebble reactors that the pebbles increase in diameter with heat, so reducing the fission cross-section and thus shutting down the reaction. This is not quite true. Raised temperatures increase the vibrational amplitude of the fissile fuel atoms. The ensuing Doppler effect makes neutron capture slightly less frequent and therefore shuts down the reaction. But the number of fissile atoms in each pebble is very small compared to the total number of atoms in the pebble. Any increase in pebble size is so small as to present no significant changes in overall fissile performance, as ceramics have a characteristically very low coefficient of thermal expansion..
The original German pebble reactor design was sold to the South African and Chinese Governments. The South Africans have been unable to make any progress, but the Chinese immediately built a demonstration reactor which has been used to show visitors the complete safety of the reactor when the coolant is shut off. They are now well advanced with building two full scale commercial reactors, so we will soon see whether the claims for Thorium-powered pebble-bed reactors can be realised in practice. My money is on the Chinese – I believe we will all be buying reactors from them or building these relatively simple reactors under licence from them..
This is a frustrating situation here in the UK, where we built the world’s first commercial power reactor – and lost the technical advantage due to incompetent political interference.
@Sowell
Your claim (below) is without merit. You have cherry picked a non-reviewed paper by a lawyer, and built a strawman army from it.
Publishing misinformation like this is reprehensible.
Counterpoints:
1.) Historical and current nuclear power wholesale pricing does not exceed $0.10 per kWh in any region of the country. Rhetorical hand flourishes and vague references to a lawyer’s written opinion based on models to not change facts.
2.) No rational engineer would suggest building nuclear power to meet 100% peak capacity. The only scenario where capacity would exceed minimum (base) load would involve storage/use of excess energy.
Shame. On. You.
Damian says:
April 1, 2014 at 8:29 am
“Why does every decent idea come tethered to a wealth redistribution fantasy that only serves to make everyone poorer in the process.”
To buy the necessary votes.
“How in the world to the words carbon tax and free market end up in same sentence?”
To sell the idea of a new tax. When your population consists of experts on TV sitcoms and sports it works splendidly.
Londo says:
April 1, 2014 at 1:48 am
“There aren’t enough uranium reserves available to meet the planet’s power needs when the population hits 10 billion by around 2050; a mere 36 years away.”
But this is the reality of economics of reserves. It is pointless to look for them beyond that time span. The 40 year limit has been almost the norm for many reserves for at least the last 40 years. I agree with your main point though, that Thorium is not a question of if but when.
===========================
My point is that with LFTRs, the nuclear decay chain of thorium yields uranium 233, which can be chemically removed from the molten salts and fed back to the neutron core so the uranium never needs to be replenished. All that is required is to burn more cheap and abundant thorium and the reactor generates its own neutron source… Amazing… It’s almost like a perpetual motion machine on a colossal scale.
LWRs only burn about 0.5% of the U235 in their fuel rods before Xenon gas degradation destroys the solid fuel pellets and the reactors need to be shut down to replace them.
LFTRs burn 99% of thorium to energy, and since Xenon is a gas, it merely boils out of the liquid salts and can be easily removed chemically while the reactor is running..
A very elegant, cheap and efficient way to produce energy with no costly downtime required to changeout/rotate fuel rods.
Damian, that’s a feature, not a bug. Wealth re-distribution is the purpose of this, as Maurice Strong made abundantly clear in his address to the 1992 Rio conference.
Mpainter, consider yourself rebutted.
http://manhaz.cyf.gov.pl/manhaz/Warsztaty_10_2004/wp4/Wp4_ang/MANHAZ%20Workshop%20Severe%20Accidents%20Hirschberg%20Final.pdf
Scroll down to slide 19. If that’s not good enough for you, look up the original full ENSAD report. All the raw data is there.
Since you consider nuclear so hazardous, name one person killed by radiation from the Fukushima accident. Since you consider nuclear so hazardous, name one person killed by radiation from the Three Mile Island accident.
And don’t waste my time with speculative stuff about cancer. UNSCEAR’s dealt with all that in their reports.
Alan, I agree with you entirely regarding Hansen and the meaninglessness of his timeline. Every power reactor built in the world was built for reasons of the need for electricity supply with NO credit ever made for emissions avoidance. That’s the reason any generator is built, regardless of the pieties mouthed in public. Britain isn’t building reactors for some amorphous climate change goal. It’s building reactors because wind has proved completely inadequate to supply electricity reliably and at an affordable price.
Jim, there’s 435 reactors (approximately) producing electricity in the world today. The number increases by about half a dozen every year, mostly from Chinese and Indian construction, with about 2-3 removed from service every year. The World Nuclear Association has the full list on their website in the country profiles. They are distributed across more than 40 nations, but Canada, US, UK, China, Japan, Britain, France, Germany, Sweden, South Korea, Belgium, Russia, Ukraine, Spain, India account for about 90 per cent of them.
In addition to that, there’s about 200-300 research reactors at various universities and research institutes. The WNA website should have the number somewhere on it. Military reactors are much harder to get much evidence and precise numbers. The US has none since the removal of the Savanah River/Hanford Reservation reactors. It’s had a military plutonium surplus since the mid-1970s. Russia I believe still has a couple of production reactors which aren’t doing very much. Britain still has one of the Windscale Piles working, I think. France has Cadarache, and Pakistan, India, Iran and Israel each have at least one military production reactor. All of these military production reactors are small, typically ;less than 100 MWt. As non-power reactors, they are also non-pressurized, meaning that they’re not producing steam and hence operating at low temperatures, typically considerably less than 100 C.
I am very much in favor of increasing our nuclear power generation capacity in the United States. But that does NOT mean I favor a sort of “alliance” with James Hansen on the subject. Hansen is first and foremost a political animal – abysmally uninformed on carbon taxes and economic matters, but nevertheless as political as they come – given where he worked for many years.
I see no advantage to it for skeptics, who will be used by Hansen to make himself look good, rather than making a dent into the current opposition to nuclear power. Let us keep our respective distances, and as he and we (for the most part – I note some of the dissenters in this post) agree on the matter of nuclear power, so much the better.