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?
Greg:
Your post at August 9, 2014 at 10:34 am is silly.
Humanity is NOT a cancer on the planet and we do only inhabit a small part of the fifth of the planet which is not covered by water. We would need a method to inhabit other planets for your metastasis analogy to be possible.
Simply, your misanthropic assertions are daft.
Richard
” Greg says:
August 9, 2014 at 10:34 am
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? ”
_____
This discussion is nonsense. There is no reason to conjure up proxies to describe human population dynamics. We are following fairly standard pop curves for most generalized species. All that differs are the rates. We simply haven’t reached the oscillating plateau that most species eventually reach once their resource limits have been reached. Our ability to overcome population limiting factors isn’t infinite, as we will find out eventually. Nature might impose a few new ones along the way (as an epizootiologist, Ebola comes to mind to me at the moment…). It’ll be interesting to see if the limits will be externally natural or internally sociological….
mjc
“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. ”
Crap. So this is no longer and intellectual, scientific argument. The stupidity and deceit is starting bite.
Most skeptics are supporters of power generation solutions which would, as a byproduct, significantly reduce CO2 emissions.
————
Source for this assertion?
I realise that I am just one person and two cats, but we consider co2 emissions a non-issue.
We support/reject power generation solutions on the basis of their practicability and TRUE environmental impact.
cnxtim says:
August 9, 2014 at 6:11 am
The right path is absurdly simple, stay with coal, oil and gas until it GENUINELY begins to reach peak supply, then switch to nuclear.
==================
I agree with the first half. Let the people of the future decide the second half. Maybe they’ll go nuke, maybe not. It’s not our call.
Greg:
Your post in reply to Hans Erren at August 9, 2014 at 10:47 am is confused.
Yes, Thatcher did have the disastrous policies you state but they were not her reason for starting the global warming scare. If my post at August 9, 2014 at 10:10 am ever comes out of moderation then it will probably be here: it provides a link to an account of how and why Thatcher really started the global warming scare.
Richard
i have come to the conclusion that evirowackos will go against anything which does not give them control over the populace. Control of CO2 was that magic wand but it is rapidly fading and they are desperate to retain control.. This has always been about agenda and control.. it always will be. They place stupid regulations and taxes on products making them extremely expensive like Nuclear power and they do the same to every other item which would threaten their control.
Greg says:
“… Because France’s nuclear program was driven by the desire for an independent nuclear arsenal, not civilian power generation.”
No other country has been driven by the desire for an independent nuclear arsenal? Sorry, but your answer doesn’t explain why France installed nuclear plants to provide 85 percent of the country’s power and other countries haven’t. Other countries also have nuclear arsenals but haven’t done what France has done. There must be other reasons.
Paul Coppin: “This discussion is nonsense. There is no reason to conjure up proxies to describe human population dynamics. We are following fairly standard pop curves for most generalized species. All that differs are the rates. We simply haven’t reached the oscillating plateau that most species eventually reach once their resource limits have been reached. Our ability to overcome population limiting factors isn’t infinite, as we will find out eventually. Nature might impose a few new ones along the way (as an epizootiologist, Ebola comes to mind to me at the moment…). It’ll be interesting to see if the limits will be externally natural or internally sociological…. ”
Leave the proxies out if you prefer. It does get emotive.
“Our ability to overcome population limiting factors isn’t infinite” Indeed the planet if finite however clever we get at devouring every last resource.
It may be better if we are smart enough to limit ourselves ( preferably without resorting to genocide ) instead of suffocating the host or counting on nature to defend herself and deal us some negative feedbacks like ebola.
Paul Coppin:
At August 9, 2014 at 10:49 am you wrongly assert
All of that is absolutely untrue.
The fallacy of overpopulation derives from the disproved Malthusian idea which wrongly assumes that humans are constrained like bacteria in a Petri dish: i.e. population expands until available resources are consumed when population collapses. The assumption is wrong because humans do not suffer such constraint: humans find and/or create new and alternative resources when existing resources become scarce.
The obvious example is food.
In the 1970s the Club of Rome predicted that human population would have collapsed from starvation by now. But human population has continued to rise and there are fewer starving people now than in the 1970s; n.b. there are less starving people in total and not merely fewer in in percentage.
Now, the most common Malthusian assertion is ‘peak oil’. But humans need energy supply and oil is only one source of energy supply. Adoption of natural gas displaces some requirement for oil, fracking increases available oil supply at acceptable cost; etc..
In the real world, for all practical purposes there are no “physical” limits to natural resources so every natural resource can be considered to be infinite; i.e. the human ‘Petri dish’ can be considered as being unbounded. This a matter of basic economics which I explain as follows.
Humans do not run out of anything although they can suffer local and/or temporary shortages of anything. The usage of a resource may “peak” then decline, but the usage does not peak because of exhaustion of the resource (e.g. flint, antler bone and bronze each “peaked” long ago but still exist in large amounts).
A resource is cheap (in time, money and effort) to obtain when it is in abundant supply. But “low-hanging fruit are picked first”, so the cost of obtaining the resource increases with time. Nobody bothers to seek an alternative to a resource when it is cheap.
But the cost of obtaining an adequate supply of a resource increases with time and, eventually, it becomes worthwhile to look for
(a) alternative sources of the resource
and
(b) alternatives to the resource.
And alternatives to the resource often prove to have advantages.
For example, both (a) and (b) apply in the case of crude oil.
Many alternative sources have been found. These include opening of new oil fields by use of new technologies (e.g. to obtain oil from beneath sea bed) and synthesising crude oil from other substances (e.g. tar sands, natural gas and coal). Indeed, since 1994 it has been possible to provide synthetic crude oil from coal at competitive cost with natural crude oil and this constrains the maximum true cost of crude.
Alternatives to oil as a transport fuel are possible. Oil was the transport fuel of military submarines for decades but uranium is now their fuel of choice.
There is sufficient coal to provide synthetic crude oil for at least the next 300 years. Hay to feed horses was the major transport fuel 300 years ago and ‘peak hay’ was feared in the nineteenth century, but availability of hay is not a significant consideration for transportation today. Nobody can know what – if any – demand for crude oil will exist 300 years in the future.
Indeed, coal also demonstrates an ‘expanding Petri dish’.
Spoil heaps from old coal mines contain much coal that could not be usefully extracted from the spoil when the mines were operational. Now, modern technology enables the extraction from the spoil at a cost which is economic now and would have been economic if it had been available when the spoil was dumped.
These principles not only enable growing human population: they also increase human well-being.
The ingenuity which increases availability of resources also provides additional usefulness to the resources. For example, abundant energy supply and technologies to use it have freed people from the constraints of ‘renewable’ energy and the need for the power of muscles provided by slaves and animals. Malthusians are blind to the obvious truth that human ingenuity has freed humans from the need for slaves to operate treadmills, the oars of galleys, etc..
And these benefits also act to prevent overpopulation because population growth declines with affluence.
There are several reasons for this. Of most importance is that poor people need large families as ‘insurance’ to care for them at times of illness and old age. Affluent people can pay for that ‘insurance’ so do not need the costs of large families.
The result is that the indigenous populations of rich countries decline. But rich countries need to sustain population growth for economic growth so they need to import – and are importing – people from poor countries. Increased affluence in poor countries can be expected to reduce their population growth with resulting lack of people for import by rich countries.
Hence, the real foreseeable problem is population decrease; n.b. not population increase.
All projections and predictions indicate that human population will peak around the middle of this century and decline after that. So, we are confronted by the probability of ‘peak population’ resulting from growth of affluence around the world.
The Malthusian idea is wrong because it ignores basic economics and applies a wrong model; human population is NOT constrained by resources like the population of bacteria in a Petri dish. There is no existing or probable problem of overpopulation of the world by humans.
Richard
I am astounded by the sheer ignornace displayed by
the anti-nuclear folks.
Several points :
Nuclear safety:
Accidents generating electricity per
Giga Watt electric year 1966 to 1996
Fatalities Injured
LP Gas 3.1 15.0
Hydro 0.9 0.2
Coal 0.35 0.07
Wind 0.17 0.35
Nat Gas 0.09 0.21
Nuclear 0.009 0.11
As can be seen, nuclear is by far the safest form
of power generation. Accidents at Three Mile Island
and Fukushima resulted in zero deaths and one small
hand injury to a plant worker in Fukushima. No plant
workers in the accident received radiation beyond the
internationally agreed-to (VERY conservative) limit of
50 millisieverts per year and no civilians received other
than trivial amounts, far below the normal background
radiation levels of that area. Only at Chernobyl, a
Communist Russian designed plant that did not meet Western
standards for nuclear build safety, did anyone ever die
from nuclear radiation during a nuclear accident. In that
accident, far and away the most severe nuclear accident in
55 years of nuclear operation, a mere 2 dozen workers were
killed as a result of radiation poisoning during the core
meltdown and civilians received an extra 1.6 millisieverts/year
radiation above their normal 6 millisieverts per year of normal
background radiation.I might point out that residents of
many areas around the world absorb natural backgroud radiation
at levels far above the maximum levels allowable to nuclear
workers (50 ms /year) : Southwest France – 80 MS/yr,
Ramsar Iran 700(!!!) MS/year (and no health issues).
As for costs of nuclear power, in the U.S. nuclear became cheaper
than coal several years ago, and currently the cost of production is
roughly the same as coal.The cost of building a nuclear plant these
days is easy to determine simply by examining the (usually) fixed
price contracts made over the past several years. China nuclear
builds are the cheapest due to low labor prices (although the
components are often mostly supplied by a Western nuclear power
company, such as GE, Westinghouse, Areva, or Rosatom). The cost
for their plants generally run around $4 billion, while the two
plants (Westinghouse AP1000s) currenty being built in South Carolina
at the VC Summer site by SCG&E are running under budget (less than $6
billion per unit) and ahead of schedule (36 month build time from
first pour), as also are the two being built at Georgia’s Vogtle site.
The consistent pricing for new nuclear build of a 1100 to 1500 MW
power plant throughout the world falls in the area of $4 to $6 billion,
which amounts to less than one penny per kWhr produced during the first
50 years of their guaranteed 60 year lifespan (likely an 80 year lifespan
in practice). There may be added costs, especially for the first plant
at a new site, for infrastruture (power lines) and generalsite development.
That can make for a misleading cost estimate, as every site these days
contains more than one plant, and additional plants at the site do not
have to repeat these preperatory operations. China has some sites with
8 or more power plants, which all share cooling facilities and
infrastructure.
One anti-nuclear cloudy-minded fellow claimed that nuclear plants
are poisoning the cooling lakes they use with radiation. ANY radiation
leaks are dealt with under the guidance of the NRC. Some small, totally
insignificant leaks in some nuclear plants have been exaggerated out of
all rational proportion, shown by the fact that the NRC didn’t consider
them even worthy of a plant shutdown for repair (or even a warning to
th public) – they were repaired at the next refueling shutdown many months
away. Anti nuclear folks take advantage of the ignorance most Americans
have as to the dangers of radiation, or even know how much background
radiation they are receiving every day of their lives.
There are NO govt subsidies for commercial nuclear power aside from some
(very few) guaranteed govt loans. The Federal govt charges nuclear build
companies upwards of a billion dollars to approve a new power plant design.
Today’s nuclear build process is enormously different than that of previous
periods, (where anti-nuclear folks seem to dwell), and virtually assures
that there will be insignificant cost overruns or extended build times:
nuclear plants in todays world receive generic approval from the NRC for
the plant design,which means that a plant design does not have to go thru
the lengthy and expensive approval process every time a new plant is built.
This also means no plant design changes, a factor that in the past led to
significant cost overruns.
Today there is only the need for build site approval for each new plant.
Licenses are also now issued as combined build and operate licenses, which
means that, unlike in year’s past, the operator does not have to go thru the
process of getting the build license,building the plant, and then going thru
another lengthy process to get an operating license. Build times are actually
often guaranteed these days, as modular construction of many of the plant’s
components allows for offsite construction not subject to weather delays,
and where build quality can be more easily controlled. Anyone who uses cost
overrun figures from previous builds in the past displays enormous ignorance
of the way nuclear plants are designed, licensed and built in today’s world.
It is quite easy to calculate the cost of nuclear by examining its component
costs : 1) build cost & interest : less than 1.5 cents per kWhr for the first
50 years, at which point the build costs will have been paid in full 2) ops
and maintenance costs – currently 1.45 cents per kWhr, U.S. national average
per power plant, with variance from 1.34 (South Carolina, the lowest) to
around 1.6 cents as the highest. 3) Fuel costs : 3/4th of a cent per kWhr and
that figure has remained steady for decades and with the current oversupply,
will stay low. 4) govt payment for nuclear waste disposal 1/10th cent per kWhr,
and that figure has resulted in too large a fund for nuclear waste and much has
been refunded to the power plants 5) decommissioning costs when the plant is
retired : total costs vary from $300 to $500 million, which amounts to roughly
1/10th of a cent (or less) per kWhr. That’s it , folks. Roughly 4 cents per
kWhr, where wind power has had published total levelized cost estimates as high
as 18 cents per kWhr.
Anyone who thinks nuclear power is not popular around the world is totally
out of touch : China currently has 37 nuclear plants under construction
(and has just ordered 25 more from Westinghouse and plans for 500 by 2050 and
1600 by the turn of the century). There are 75 plants worldwide currently being
built, 5 in the U.S. China, with the assistance of Westinghouse, is now capable
of building virtually all of the components of a nuclear plant (including the
core reactor) and has their own version of the an enlarged AP1000, ready for export.
Someone claimed that “near core meltdowns” are occurring virtually on a weekly
basis in the U.S. That’s probably the biggest, (not to mention dumbest) lie
I think I’ve ever heard. It is true that every few weeks or so a nuclear plant
in the U.S. reports a power-down of the reactor as a safety precaution because of
some anomaly (usually a breaker tripping, etc) which is considered a very low level
event. All of these events are a matter of public record and are made known
immediately by the NRC. A “near meltdown” is considered an event of the highest
severity and would result in news coverage nationwide. There is no conceivable way
to “hide” such an event. Looking at the history of the 100 nuclear plants operaing
in the U.S.for the past 55 years, plus an additional 200-odd plants in the Western
world that have been operating for many decades, there have been a total of two
core meltdowns – Fukushima and Three Mile Island, in which there were zero
fatalities and zero radiation emissions of any concern. There are more human
fatalities and casualties just in Californa every hour of very day than there have
been in all the nuclear plants in history. Every worker in a nuclear plant carries
a radiation counter badge, and any levels out of the ordinary are immediately known.
Todays Gen 3+ nuclear plant designs (i.e. like the Wesinghouse AP1000) are
estimated to have a core meltdown probability at least 1000 times smaller than
previous generation plants, whose two core meltdownshave been of no concern. Also,
within the past 6 months, the U.S.has established two sites which contain emergency
equipment to deal with any potential meltdown situation : diesel power generators
(which would have prevented the Fukushima meltdown), water pumps and hoses, and
additional backup elecric control equipmment, all of which can be airlifted or
trucked within hours to any U.S. nuclear plant that needs assistance.
Anyone who worries about nuclear power safety (like Bill Gates) is wasting
their time.
Anyone who thinks nuclear power is expensive doesn’t know the costs involved
or is confusing their costs. Just look at the details of the contracts that
are being signed on a weekly basis by many countries around the world with the
4 or 5 major nuclear power plany builders. The costs are always published, and
the contracts are almost always fixed price contracts.
The current economic problems faced by some nuclear plants are due to abnormal
situations, in which wind power is often sold even below the cost of production
because of heavy govt subsidies and must be bought when available, which reduces
the power bought from nuclear plants, which are designed to run as base power
plants, with capacities typically above 90%, and which cannot quickly alter
their power output, up or down. The costs of wind power are also always hidden
in govt subsidies. The current low cost of natural gas power is also an issue.
South Carolina is mostly powered by nuclear (56%) and shortly will attain
over 80% nucear power. Neither the state nor the Federal govt has subsidezed
this nuclear power and South Carolina power rates are “honest,” unlike California’s
rates, which do not reflect the true cost of the power.
‘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.
————
No it isn’t: their solution preceded their science. Their so-called science has been constructed around the goal of implementing their political agendas.
We reject both.
Richard:” it provides a link to an account of how and why Thatcher really started the global warming scare.”
Sounds interesting. Could you repost it without hitting the moderation trip?
classicalhero7 says: “The best source of nuclear power will be thorium. The fact we haven’t even explored this option is rather short sighted.”
What’s the rush when we have FF for an estimated 200 year. If we get around to serious thorium development about 150 years from now, it will be in plenty of time.
rcs says:
August 9, 2014 at 6:00 am
Greens are fundamentally opposed to anything that works.
———————————————————
Not exactly, although it is okay if a program doesn’t work.
They don’t want to improve people’s standard of living by improving power generation but rather reduce consumption and power use worldwide.
They don’t want to improve the lives of billions but rather eliminate those billions.
Their philosophy on poverty is reduction through a slow die off.
It’s worked every time it’s been tried.
cn
Expecting sense out of Dana is like expecting to be able to walk on water , a total waste of time.
Meanwhile the Greens know their energy idea will not work , in fact that is the point by pushing ideas that cannot work they hope to force unto people ‘energy saving measures’ , such has no more personal motorised transport, that otherwise they would never have any dealings with .
They want an energy crisis has they see it has an ‘opportunity ‘ to further their ideology and there more than happy to pay in the price in bodies . For although they longer say it public , the greens still regard energy has to cheap and to easily available despite what everyone else thinks.
SAMURAI says:
August 9, 2014 at 8:00 am
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors (LFTRs) will be what powers our future because it’s the cheapest, cleanest, safest, most efficient, scalable, unlimited and energy dense form of energy ever developed.
==================
It hasn’t been developed. You ascribe to it imaginary properties.
Maybe the Chinese will get it to work. Even if they do, it’s not economically feasible at this time. Your declaration “If China is allowed to pursue LFTR development exclusively” sounds like a certain president telling us “we can’t let China get ahead of us in developing solar power.”
Greg:
re your question at August 9, 2014 at 11:07 am.
Sorry, but it is the link which puts that post in moderation.
I am more irked by my post at August 9, 2014 at 11:03 am also being in moderation because I don’t have a clue why.
Both should appear soon.
Please note that – as the article explains – the analysis of the origin of the global warming scare was part of a paper I produced in 1980 which predicted the global warming scare would happen. That prediction was rejected as being far-fetched.
Richard
Greenishness by its very nature is a collectivist ideology. Collectivists love Big government.
Those green avant-la-lettre activists who are essentially individualists, such as Patrick Moore, founding member of Greenpeace, ceased to be involved with Big Green the moment they realised that it had turned into yet another leftish ideology. Others, possibly more astute, were so wise not to become involved in the first place.
Off topic from nuclear energy, I’m looking at the Guardian article referenced at the top of this post (http://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2014/aug/07/facts-can-convince-some-conservatives-about-global-warming) and a post on WUWT from yesterday (http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/08/08/ugly-msnbc-host-wants-reducation-for-climate-deniers/) and I’m sensing a common “conservatives need to be educated, why won’t they just learn science?” theme. Is there a shadow CAGW strategy group that decides the theme of the moment and then sends it out to all the MSNBCs and Guardians of the world to promote it?
Greg:
Both my posts have now appeared.
Richard
Greg: “Simple. Because France’s nuclear program was driven by the desire for an independent nuclear arsenal, not civilian power generation.”
Let’s see … France tested its first nuclear weapon in 1960. France’s all-out program for nuclear-generated electricity didn’t occur until after the 1973 oil crisis (rising from just 63 billion kWh in 1980 to 394 billion kWh, six times as much, in 2000.)
Greg, please try not to put the cart before the horse.
Environmentalists urge Hansen to rethink nuclear
300+ groups say: “It is simply not feasible for nuclear power to be a part of a sustainable, safe and affordable future for humankind.”
=============
As if these groups or Hansen or WE had any say in the existence of nuclear power generation in the world.
Nuclear WILL EXIST in CHINA, INDIA, RUSSIA, and any other country that wants it. They aren’t asking US.
From World Nuclear Association website:
(
Mainland China has 20 nuclear power reactors in operation, 28 under construction, and more about to start construction.
Additional reactors are planned, including some of the world’s most advanced, to give more than a three-fold increase in nuclear capacity to at least 58 GWe by 2020, then some 150 GWe by 2030, and much more by 2050.
The impetus for increasing nuclear power share in China is increasingly due to air pollution from coal-fired plants.
)
Coal fired plants….China currently brings a new on onstream EVERY 5 DAYS. By 5 years from the present, it will have 350 MORE than today.
India is on its way on both counts.
Oppose nuclear all you want, it is already a done deal, no matter WHAT Hansen or ‘environmental groups’ or anyone else says about it. Further, China will likely be one of the major suppliers of the technology in the coming years, with its own designs, installers, operations companies and manufacturers.
Just a fact of life in the 21rst century. Better to get really good, safe, current designs out there than pretend it is going to go away.
Col Mosby: lengthy but interesting comment. You seem to know a fair bit of detail about the US industry. However, don’t generalise to the rest of the world:
“The costs are always published, and the contracts are almost always fixed price contracts”
Recent UK deal was 80bn GBP (50y IIRC) index linked.
Col Mosby resorts to calling those opposed to nuclear disaster as “ignorant”. Like other advocates of nuclear power generation he pretends that Chernobyl, Fukajima, Three Mile Island did not happen or posed no threat. As put above, you cannot build a fool-poof nuclear power reactor because fools are ingenious.
Nor does he address the question “Who pays for the cleanup of a radiation disaster?.”