Greens want every possible intervention except one which “solves” their useful crisis
Guest essay by Eric Worrall
‘Drill Bit Dana’ has been at it again, trying to claim that we don’t “accept the science”, because we are ideologically opposed to their solution – massive government intervention.
There is just one problem with this argument – its an utter falsehood. The reason its a falsehood, is massive government intervention is not the only, or by any measure the best, route to reducing CO2 emissions. Most skeptics are supporters of power generation solutions which would, as a byproduct, significantly reduce CO2 emissions.
We have no reason to reject alarmist science, other than we think it is wrong.
Take the example of America. The USA has substantially reduced CO2 emissions over the last decade, because of fracking – the switch from coal to gas, even though energy use has gone up, has reduced the amount of carbon which is burned to produce that energy.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/07/02/us-co2-emissions-may-drop-to-1990-levels-this-year/
Of course, America’s coal producers are still mining as much coal as they ever did – and exporting it to Europe, whose disastrous policy failures have increased costs and CO2 emissions.
In the case of fracking, the reduction of CO2 emissions might have been incidental, but fracking has produced results. Surely when it comes to CO2, results are what count?
But the real elephant in the room, with regard to emissions reduction, is the nuclear option.
James Hansen likes nuclear power.
http://edition.cnn.com/2013/11/03/world/nuclear-energy-climate-change-scientists-letter/index.html
George Monbiot likes nuclear power. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2011/mar/21/pro-nuclear-japan-fukushima
Anthony Watts likes nuclear power.
James Delingpole likes nuclear power.
Jo Nova likes nuclear power.
The Heartland Institute likes nuclear power.
http://blog.heartland.org/2013/11/global-warmings-mt-rushmore-wisely-embraces-nuclear-power/
So why isn’t nuclear power the main focus of everyone’s attention? Why do far too many alarmists persist with antagonising us, by pushing their absurd carbon taxes and government intervention, when they could be working with us? Why do alarmists keep trying to force us to accept solutions which we find utterly unacceptable, when there are obvious solutions which we could all embrace?
Perhaps some alarmists are worried about the risk of nuclear accidents – but, if climate change is as serious as they say, how can the risk of a nuclear meltdown or ten possibly compare to what alarmists claim is an imminent risk to the survival of all humanity?
Why do alarmists persist with pushing falsehoods about the motivation of their opponents, when they could, right now, be taking positive, substantial steps to promote policies which actually would reduce CO2 emissions?
What was the motivation of Phil Jones, Director of the CRU, when he wrote the following Climategate email:-
http://www.ecowho.com/foia.php?file=0837094033.txt
“Britain seems to have found it’s Pat Michaels/Fred Singer/Bob Balling/ Dick Lindzen. Our population is only 25 % of yours so we only get 1 for every 4 you have. His name in case you should come across him is Piers Corbyn. … He’s not all bad as he doesn’t have much confidence in nuclear-power safety.”
Does Phil Jones really think that nuclear safety is more of an issue than global warming?
The easy answer to this dilemma is that most alarmists are being dishonest – that they don’t really believe CO2 is an important issue, that its simply a convenient excuse to push their political agenda. But surely they can’t all be bent? Monbiot seems sincere about embracing nuclear power. Hansen, and the authors of the open letter, seem sincere about promoting nuclear power. Are they really the only honest participants on the alarmist side of the debate? Surely this can’t be the case.
What am I missing?
pyeatte says: “Their attitude that people are a cancer on the planet implies they would prefer no people at all, including themselves. ”
The cancer analogy is valid to a point. Humanity is an organ of the planetary organism, we are each cells of the organ. Having dominated all predators and developed technology to circumvent the usual limits of food resources, that organ is growing beyond the natural restraints of the system. In some ways that is analogous to the growth of a tumour.
The difference is we are not single cells but allegedly intelligent beings.
The question is then do we continue to grow uncontrolled until we kill the host, like a malignant tumour, or do we use our alleged intelligence to ensure we don’t suffocate life on the planet.
Surgical removal of a large part of the tumour is a solution that tends to be only temporary. Maybe if we put our 7 billion heads together we can find an alternative.
Somehow I don’t see “free” markets, driven essentially by personal greed as being likely to have the right controls built into it.
Have you forgotten? There is no need to limit CO2.
With nuclear power there are numerous issues that get short shrift, such as security. Nothing can be made fool-proof because fools are too ingenious. Anything built by man can be hacked by man. In addition to considering what nature might do, we also have to consider what foolish men or foolish regimes might do.
We don’t need nuclear power, nor do we need wind and solar polar. All of these power generation technologies cost far more than they are worth and entail various liabilities often swept under the carpet, i.e. Fukushima.
We have abundant reserves of fossil fuels, and we are expert at exploiting these resources responsibly. Arguments and restrictions against coal read like something from the pages of Swift or Pynchon…surely such fools could not trespass on the realms of reality? But there they are, in all their folly, participants in the Great Carbon Dioxide Scare, and here the reader must finally turn to the telling question:
Who profits?
“Who profits?”
Fossil-fuel companies under your preferred energy portfolio. I thought that would be obvious, Steve.
The only item in my energy portfolio is logic.
Greg:
re your post at August 9, 2014 at 9:09 am.
Humans are NOT a cancer on the planet. We are sentient beings who – in common with all other organisms in nature – modify our environment for our benefit.
And we only inhabit a small part of the fifth of the world which is not covered in water.
Richard
In the years since Kyoto most of the efforts to improve energy production have been forced by the green lobbies and the legislated funding for renewable sources. Because the renewable sources are diffuse and intermittent, they rely on the grid rather than replace it. Almost unnoticed, during this same period, very dense sources of energy have been developed with nearly no help from the Federal or State laws or funding. Some of these sources are becoming mature enough to be brought into the market in the very near future. They will eventually remove the need for a grid and replace all current sources including hydro.
Look at Blacklight Power who have developed a power source with a million times the power density of a car engine with an anticipated cost of less than 1 cent per kilowatt hour. They project 100 KW units ready for distribution in 14 to 16 weeks.
Or Solar Hydrogen Trends who have developed a process to produce hydrogen from water at an energy equivalent cost of 1.3 cents per kilowatt hour.
Or Lawerenceville Plasma Physics who are nearing proof of concept on a small hot fusion generator that generates no radioactive waste and electricity at a tenth the cost of coal facilities.
If a tenth of the money thrown away on wind and solar had been aimed at “cold fusion”and related technologies we would not have any concern about fossil fuel pollution and the power players would have to think of another crises to control our lives and pocketbooks.
Gee, Greg. Can we start by killing those who propose killing others?
If humans are a tumor on the planet, then I “know” you have already castrated yourself and sterilized everybody in your immediately family, all of your children, every one in your political party, and everybody you work , right?
Oh, wait! I’m sorry. You only want the ones YOU disapprove of and who are “officially” branded by YOUR party and YOUR religion of Gaea and “The Earth” as “undesirable” to be killed. To die in cold, filth, hunger, and poverty.
You, yourself, have no intention of getting killed. Because “saving the planet” is not worth YOUR life.
Somebody else’s life? Worth less than you.
Come to think of it that the whole global warming scare was initiated by rightwing Margaret Thatcher to promote nuclear energy and break the the coal mine unionists.
Steve P. has put his finger on the nub of the matter- he asks: “Who profits?”
He had furnished the answer before he put the question: Those who would cash in on The Great CO2 Scare. And now it is the nuclear power industry trying to ride the wave.
Roger Sowell’s greatest hits:
“2 Why do small islands have zero nuclear power plants, but burn expensive oil or diesel resulting in power prices of 25 to 35 cents per kWh?”
Taiwan, an island only 27% larger than Hawaii, has three nuclear plants hosing six reactors. I guess Sowell will now declare that this is not “small” enough. Apparently, this lawyer won’t be satisfied unless Robinson Crusoe has his own nuclear reactor.
“3 Why do nuclear utilities never, ever, ask for a rate decrease when they build a nuclear plant?”
First of all, there is no such thing as a “nuclear utility.” There are only utilities who use a variety of technologies in their electricity generation portfolio. Exelon, the largest operator of nuclear plants in the US, gets 35% of its electricity from fossil fuel plants. The question should be, why do utilities never, ever, ask for a rate decrease when they build a power plant?
A more pertinent question would be, why do utilities get to pass along the volatile cost of fuel, such as natural gas, to their customers without any additional oversight?
“6 Why does nuclear power in the US require heavy subsidies from government – and almost total indemnity from costs of a massive radiation disaster?”
Do you really want to compare subsidies provided by the US government? When it comes to energy, the largest recipient of subsidies from the US government, by far, is the oil companies.
“7 Why are nuclear plants shutting down in the US, with owners saying they are losing money?”
Why are owners of nuclear plants paying exorbitant fees to relicense their plants to run an additional 20 years? Do you really believe that they would volunteer to pay regulatory fees in order to lose money for 20 more years?! Could it be because these plants are cash cows?
“8 Why are there so many near-misses on meltdowns in US plants, on average every 3 weeks?”
Mr. Sowell should stay off the drugs or back up such ridiculous claims.
“9 Why were there three serious meltdowns worldwide in just a bit more than 30 years? (Fukushima, Chernobyl, Three Mile Island)”
For something that provides 11% of the world’s electricity and 5% of the world’s total primary energy supply, I’d say that only three events in 60 years is a pretty damn good record.
Compare that to the environmental impact of oil, coal, and natural gas. If you want to talk about serious accidents, try the Kingston Fossil Plant coal fly ash slurry spill, the Exxon Valdez spill, and Deepwater Horizon. Those in glass houses ….
“10 Why are new reactor technologies being researched and developed?”
Because technology moves on. Why would anyone want to develop those darned horseless carriages when we have horses or those darned aeroplanes when we have boats?
Roger Sowell: “4 Why did France install nuclear plants to provide 85 percent of the country’s power, and no other country in the world followed their lead?”
Simple. Because France’s nuclear program was driven by the desire for an independent nuclear arsenal, not civilian power generation.
Nuclear programs have been first and foremost driven by military objectives, not power generation. That is why cost has never been the main criterion and why it has always been generously subsidised and underwritten.
Whether one supports military nuclear objectives or not, it is foolish not to recognise that it has never been a purely commercial venture, required to stand its own two feet in competitive terms.
Hans Erren:
At August 9, 2014 at 9:51 am you assert
Thatcher did start the global warming scare but not for the reason you assert.
Her political party was willing to go along with her global warming campaign because they were opposed to the coal unions and they wanted the UK nuclear power industry both to displace coal and to provide necessary materials for nuclear weapons production.
The facts of these matters are here.
Richard
Nuclear power is not going away, and is ever evolving.
Here is information on Generation III Reactors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_III_reactor
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AP1000
Examples of US construction:
http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN-Construction-underway-of-second-Vogtle-AP1000-2211134.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/02/09/us-usa-nuclear-nrc-idUSTRE8182J720120209
And we are all afraid of radioactive elements, actinides, but burning coal releases radioactive elements into the environment:
For comparison, according to NCRP Reports No. 92 and No. 95, population exposure from operation of 1000-MWe nuclear and coal-fired power plants amounts to 490 person-rem/year for coal plants and 4.8 person-rem/year for nuclear plants. Thus, the population effective dose equivalent from coal plants is 100 times that from nuclear plants.
http://web.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html
Spent nuclear fuel frightens many; but much of it could be (and some of it is) reprocessed:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/Nuclear-Fuel-Cycle/Fuel-Recycling/Processing-of-Used-Nuclear-Fuel/
In the USA, no civil reprocessing plants are now operating, though three have been built. The first, a 300 t/yr plant at West Valley, New York, was operated successfully from 1966-72. However, escalating regulation required plant modifications which were deemed uneconomic, and the plant was shut down.
The second was a 300 t/yr plant built at Morris, Illinois, incorporating new technology which, although proven on a pilot-scale, failed to work successfully in the production plant. It was declared inoperable in 1974.
The third was a 1500 t/yr plant at Barnwell, South Carolina, which was aborted due to a 1977 change in government policy which ruled out all US civilian reprocessing as one facet of US non-proliferation policy. In all, the USA has over 250 plant-years of reprocessing operational experience, the vast majority being at government-operated defence plants since the 1940s.
In France a 400 t/yr reprocessing plant operated for metal fuels from gas-cooled reactors at Marcoule until 1997. At La Hague, reprocessing of oxide fuels has been done since 1976, and two 800 t/yr plants are now operating, with an overall capacity of 1700 t/yr.
Nuclear energy generation is not going away – not for all of our fears, and opinions, perceived costs, and alleged safety issues. Hundreds of plants are under construction world-wide. There are a lot of us on this planet and we all need electricity.
Mods:
I know why my reply to Hans Erren has gone into the mod bin, but it is annoying.
Richard
Re kencoffman says: August 9, 2014 at 6:51 am
“I’m reminded of a great book by Petr Beckmann called The Health Hazards of NOT Going Nuclear.”
Another great book by Petr Beckmann is “A History of Pi”.
http://www.amazon.com/A-History-Pi-Petr-Beckmann/dp/0312381859
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/history-of-pi-peter-beckmann/1013291417?ean=9780880294188
An excerpt from the Preface explains how this book is a must-read for the present climate “crisis”: “The history of [pi] is a quaint little mirror of the history of man. It is the story of men like Archimedes of Syracuse, whose method of calculating [pi] defied substantial improvement for some 1900 years;. . .and it is also the story of human folly that made mediaeval bishops and crusaders set the torch to scientific libraries because they condemned their contents as works of the devil.”
The late author’s preface to the third edition in 1974 was prophetic: “. . .Meanwhile, a disturbing trend away from science and toward the irrational has set in. The aerospace industry has been all but dismantled. College enrollment in the hard sciences and engineering has significantly dropped. The disoriented and gullible flock in droves to the various Maharajas of Mumbo Jumbo. Ecology, once a respected scientific discipline, has become the buzzword of frustrated housewives on messianic ego-trips. Technology has wounded affluent intellectuals with the ultimate insult: They cannot understand it any more.
“Ignorance, anti-scientific and anti-technology sentiment have always provided the breeding ground for tyrannies in the past. The power of the ancient emperors, the mediaeval Church, the Sun Kings, the State with a capital S, was always rooted in the ignorance of the oppressed. Anti-scientific and anti-technology sentiment is providing a breeding ground for encroaching on the individual’s freedoms now. A new tyranny is on the horizon. It masquerades under the meaningless name of “Society.”
“Those who have not learned the lessons of history are destined to relive it.
“Must the rest of us relive it, too?”
A war against reason waged with weapons of mass delusion.
I like thorium based nuclear power.
http://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/eleven-reasons-to-switch-to-thorium-based-nuclear-power-generation/
http://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/eleven-more-reasons-to-switch-to-thorium-as-nuclear-fuel/
http://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/nuclear-power-why-we-chose-uranium-over-thorium-and-ended-up-in-this-mess-time-to-clean-up/
http://lenbilen.com/2012/02/15/nuclear-power-and-earthquakes-how-to-make-it-safer-and-better/
RACookPE1978 says: Gee, Greg. etc.
How about read all the bits you chose not to quote and try again before trying to misrepresent what I said?
richardscourtney says:
Humans are NOT a cancer on the planet. We are sentient beings who – in common with all other organisms in nature – modify our environment for our benefit.
As individuals we are sentient beings , that was part of what I said you may recall. The question is whether, having over-come the usual limitations that limit natural species, we are “sentient” enough collectively to chose between being an over developed brain or a malignant tumour.
“And we only inhabit a small part of the fifth of the world which is not covered in water.”
How large does metastasis have to be to kill the host?
I used to be anti-nuclear, until I read the glowing reports about it. Ba-da-boom!
Jokes aside, the big issue with it are the capital costs, making its power more expensive than coal, and perhaps more than NG. Still, it is good base-load power, and should continue to be a good chunk of the big 3 (coal, NG, and nuclear). Indeed, one could argue that if they are going to continue shutting down coal plants, what other options are there? Fairy farts?
Brian@10:03am evades the very pertinent issue of paying the cost of a massive radiation disaster.
Brian will never address that issue nor will any advocate of nuclear power.
Brian, for your benefit and for the benefit of all, let me put the question directly to you:
Who pays for cleaning up a massive radiation disaster?
The best source of nuclear power will be thorium. The fact we haven’t even explored this option is rather short sighted. It should be a Greenies best friend, no CO2 and no radioactive waste.
There are alternatives that have been suppressed that would be cheaper than nuclear.
30 years ago a close friend was involved with a small start up company that had developed a working engine that produced 40% of the power of a comparable sized gasoline engine. The difference being that a $20 canister of catalyst could run the engine for 50,000 miles. As they were preparing for their IPO big oil came in with an army of lawyers threatening patent infringement. They had to fold even though they believed they had valid patent rights because their lawyers said it would take at least 10 years and 10’s of millions of dollars to defend themselves.
Of course, America’s coal producers are still mining as much coal as they ever did – and exporting it to Europe, whose disastrous policy failures have increased costs and CO2 emissions.
Nope…coal producers, over the past few months (probably not showing in available data, yet), at least here in WV have slowed production and will be slowing it even more. ‘Warn notices’ for at least 1100 miners just went out, a few days ago. These are lay-off/shutdown notices. They will be taking effect over the next several months, and this is just for one company. Since earlier this year, there have other lay-offs, mostly at smaller mines/companies.
Hans Erren says:
“Come to think of it that the whole global warming scare was initiated by rightwing Margaret Thatcher to promote nuclear energy and break the the coal mine unionists. ”
She had already broken the back of organised labour by that time. The objective was remove labour intensive industries, where the average worker could organise and have some say, form the economy and rely solely on the financial sector as the mainstay of the economy.
The government now has to go cap in hand to the bankers and ask them really nice, pretty please, could they be a little less obvious about raping the country and still giving themselves big bonuses. Not that they are against rape, you see, ” just be little more discrete if you would. “
In the article, Nuccitelli talks about social science answering the question about his perceived disconnect between scientific experts and public opinion on climate change. But, if he can claim my observations are invalid because I’m not what he has built in his mind as a “climate scientist,” isn’t his opinion about he thinks are social science analyses equally invalid?
Of course, I think I answered my own question…