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?
More than anything, it is crucial that we have a rational energy policy. Under the current administration, we don’t have that. So-called “green energy” makes no sense whatsoever, and can be discarded as being irrational. Nuclear, though, is completely rational, and should be a healthy chunk of the Big Three; Coal, NG, and Nuclear. Currently it provides something like 19%, and there is probably plenty of room for it to grow. 25% is not beyond the realm of possibility.
There are some Alarmists who apparently are pro-nuclear, but for the wrong reason. They are wolves in sheeps’ clothing. Beware.
“Wow. Site of the worst nuclear reactor disaster ever, and you can visit the town, see the sites, speak to the people who’ve moved back, look at the reactor building, and even get a vegetarian lunch.”
There was also a “Top Gear” episode a while ago where our intrepid trio were challenged to drive from Sevastopol to Chernobyl. I was surprised by the whole thing – “they won’t be allowed” in, I thought, “no way will they go in”. But much to my amazement they did, and long did they tarry.
Why didn’t the msm tell us about this? Not pc?
mpainter (August 9, 2014 at 10:41 am) “Who pays for cleaning up a massive radiation disaster?”
The ocean. Does it matter that the ocean has warmed from about 0.1C on average ostensibly caused by man? No. Maybe someday in the far future. Does it matter that the ocean has a bit lower pH on average due to manmade CO2 in the atmosphere? No, natural variation still far exceeds that decrease in all cases. Does it matter that Japan dumped a bunch of radioactive isotopes into the ocean? Not substantively but it could if they continued.
“So the bloggers here who say “ignorant” and “irrational” to those who express their concerns about nuclear power generation should hurl such epithets at the utilities.”
So far your concerns have all been ignorant and irrational. Not only that, but your very first post accused nuclear proponents here of being paid shills.
Well, actually, no, I never said any such thing, not even by a stretch and you cannot show where I said such. The comment is at Aug 9@6:32. Again, a proponent of nuclear power has shown the unreliability of the species.
For most of the duration of the nuclear power generation era, we’ve been informed that a meltdown is the worst possible scenario for a nuclear power plant. Hollywood even made a blockbuster disaster film – The China Syndrome about one such fictional event, where the true extent of an accident was being covered up, in what IMDb calls “a modern nightmare.”
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078966/reviews?ref_=tt_urv
But now that we’ve had three total meltdowns, it turns out it’s no big deal. The ocean will take care of the clean-up. And besides, nobody has died so far, so obviously there are no health issues we need concern ourselves with at all, and we can all go back to counting fairies on pinheads, I mean, further discussions about the true role of the fantastic carbon dioxide molecule as an agent of climate change.
I will proudly wear the badge of “proponent of nuclear power”, and if that makes what I post “unreliable”, then so be it. I will do whatever it takes (Schneider style) to flush out your ilk.
From eric1skeptic on August 10, 2014 at 6:51 am:
From mpainter on August 10, 2014 at 7:37 am:
From mpainter on August 9, 2014 at 6:32 am:
Advocates of nuclear power pretending, at the prompting, for their pockets. That sure can read like you accused those advocates of being paid shills, except for that final question mark that transforms it to an implication, albeit a strong implication.
That’s it! We’ll flush the ocean. And Kirk, Spock and Scotty will beam down to the crushed reactors to retrieve the missing coriums!
I have a suggestion for nuclear plant safety. Build them in Antarctica. It’s a giant wasteland anyway. It might even be possible to use the low temps to increase Carnot efficiency. Water for cooling should be no problem. Since hydrocarbons are the most convenient way to use and store energy, and incidentally account for the vast majority of the energy that the world actually uses, use this nuclear energy to make hydrocarbons. Capture the CO2 and pipe or barge it back to Antarctica to complete the cycle.
I’ve posted before about nuclear electric power deaths since 1950s ~70 and 47 of them were at Chernobyl an egregiously cheaply built, unsafe reactor. Notably France has had just 1 death and it was in an accident involving melting of spent fuel rods – he might even have been run down by a forklift for all I know. Hey, there have even been solar PV deaths in California!! In China, they have recently got coal mining accidents down to ~2000/yr from 6-7000/yr – hey nobody raises protest placards about this – only the CO2 it emits. So with nuclear, they raise cost, a large percentage of which is the cost of dealing with activists and excessive overdesign as a CYA for politicians and bogus danger. The interference by activists have retarded technological development of this energy source which will inexorably one day come to the fore.
I’m afraid we just have to weather the storms and forge ahead. Windmills will not change much in time: you need to expose the same amount of wind grabbing surface and it has to be up high. Solar, the same: it has to have surface area exposed to the sun. Nuclear could end up the size of a Howard Johnson’s. Sorry about links – google nuclear electrical plant deaths.
This topic reminds me why I do not normally troll through comments on WUWT, despite an often rich source of additional data and links. I come to WUWT for science (and Willis’ occasional travelogues) – and I may be the only ‘greenie’ to do so. I get very depressed by the voice of Middle America. And also somewhat disheartened by the otherwise sharp minds of many sceptics who completely lose their critical faculties when it comes to energy policy, development, economic growth and above all, nuclear power.
And then there is another issue – the one sceptics share with the greenies in equal measure – a willful blindness to anything that does not fit with their worldview. I am a case in point: I wrote a 400 page critique of global warming theory, with 200 scientific references – it was sent to the greens I knew well in the hope they would see sense, but of course, they would not read it. It was published as ‘Chill: a reassessment of global warming theory’. It was endorsed by the drafting author of the Kyoto Protocol (my one ‘green’ convert) who knew me well enough to read it and had the grace to engage in argument. The book had 20 five-star ratings on Amazon UK. It was also reviewed alongside IPCC Houghton’s tome as essential reading by a respected paleo-ecology journal.
But WUWT would not review it – nor mention my name in any of its references to UK sceptics. A green sceptic does not compute. It is also clear in the book that I am against nuclear power, but support open democratic and grass-roots answers to climate resilience (I am not a closet Stalinist command and control economy by any other name kind of weasel). So I don’t fit the stereotype.
In addition to having qualifications in ecosystem science, I am also a member of the Royal Anthropological Institute – with an interest in the social dimensions of science and its role in political change. So I keep an eye on who believes what. In my view – limited as it may be, there are no hard and fast rules. Firstly the ‘greens’ are a disparate bunch – my government claims to be green, so do proponents of nuclear power and even GMOs. The Green Party opposes nuclear power – but on paper only – they don’t campaign because without nuclear, the UK would be stuffed with regard to reduced carbon emissions – and carbon, as you know, is God. Greenpeace opposes nuclear power – but again, mostly on paper for the same reason and they hope the supporters don’t notice – or perhaps secretly hope they are listening to their retiring director in UK a few years back, who announced that he saw no alternative but to go nuclear to meet our climate obligations. It is the same for Monbiot – except he has been more open. I believe Patrick Moore – a founder of Greenpeace, feels the same way.
There is, in fact, no really powerful anti-nuclear movement in the UK. Nor in France. In the case of the latter, where I have lived at times, with its 85% nuclear electric supply – their 50 reactors were forced upon widespread dissenters by bringing in troops, tear gas and stun grenades. The electricity supplier is a state monopoly. That is why it is a lead partner with China (also not known for tolerating dissenters) in building Britain’s first nuclear station in 20 years – just 20 miles upwind from where I live.
The German government aims to phase out all nuclear stations as a consequence of Fukushima. Madness? No risk of a tsunami, sceptics say! When are one-dimensional sceptic thinkers going to join up a few dots?? WUWT has already reported on the solar tsunami that narrowly missed earth in 2012. Do some research please….on how long the grid would go down, how long diesel supplies would last, and how much land would be contaminated – all from one simple solar pulse, which NASA now estimates a 1/12 chance in the next decade.
Elsewhere I hear leading sceptics trash all greens – you obviously don’t care about great whales, acid rain, the loss of rainforests, nuclear waste dumping at sea, toxic persistent organic chemicals – all success stories of green activism – by scientists and lawyers. And they say – there is no limit to economic growth, nor resource exploitation, because it helps us walk lightly on the Earth. What absolute tosh – but don’t let rational argument and data spoil the view. Like the advocates of DDT – totally out of touch with the research on loss of eagles, egrets, herons and whatever else at the top of the food chain – heh – worth the risk to protect the poor against malaria? Except that the west when it banned DDT to protect its wildlife and as a precaution because the breakdown products which resemble neurotoxins developed by the Nazis, were accumulating in mothers’ milk, exported the factories to Africa and India, where it is still produced and used to control malaria.If you really have not choice other than eagles or malaria, who can blame them – but other options do exist and are not cheap because industry does not manufacture them in enough quantities. That is the price of eagles and India doesn’t care that much, having just lost 95% of its vultures to a veterinary anti-inflammatory product given en masse to its sacred cows.
I know it is a lost cause to post this…but I do like the site, generally. Without this kind of blog there would have been no effective opposition to the climate bandwagon.
@mpainter,
You did say:
“All at the prompting of the nuclear power crowd and for their pockets?”
Notice that word, “prompting”. Notice the phrase “their pockets”.
Offensive, no?
Col Mosby, as usual, your points are false.
“There are NO govt subsidies for commercial nuclear power aside from some
(very few) guaranteed govt loans.”
The truth, which you should know if you hold yourself out as an expert, is nuclear power plants in the US are, and have been, heavily subsidized via
1) large (many $billion US) federal loan guarantees,
2) liability relief via the Price-Anderson Act,
3) relief from some lawsuits during construction,
4) a form of a carbon tax that shuts down their coal-based competition,
5) raising electric prices during construction, and
6) relaxing safety requirements rather than forcing utilities to shut down or comply.
The only conclusion that can be drawn is US nuclear power plants are heavily subsidized.
My articles 13 and 25 address these points in detail.
@ur momisugly Brian who says at August 9, 2014 at 6:09 pm
“Ha ha ha! Mr. Sowell, with all due respect, the truth is that you know almost NOTHING about nuclear power.
I’m very familiar with your writings on this subject, and if you’ll forgive me for being blunt, you’re just an ignorant shill lawyer who is paid by fossil fuel companies to say this stuff (as you explain on your own web site) and who knows nearly next to nothing about what you are hired to be a mouthpiece against.
Your stupid talking points are cookie-cutter stuff that are taken straight from Greenpeace and similar organizations and that have been rebutted ad absurdum (even in the comments section here). You make claim after claim that you simply can’t back up. Even when it comes to arguing like a lawyer, you’re totally incompetent.”
Mr. Brian, your libelous statement above is noted, saved, filed, and very likely will be the subject of a defamation suit.
Your identity will be found out.
Anything has to be better than the UK’s Short Term Operational Reserve (STOR). This is an ever-expanding army of diesel generators scattered all over the country, which do nothing most of the time. But they are paid 12 times the going rate for electrical supplies, when the wind stops. This is the secret truth, that the Green fantasists do not want to talk about.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2362762/The-dirty-secret-Britains-power-madness-Polluting-diesel-generators-built-secret-foreign-companies-kick-theres-wind-turbines–insane-true-eco-scandals.html
It is claimed in the following link that these very expensive generating sets work only 60 hours a year, but I think that is a deliberate misprint to salve the Green conscience. To make economic sense, my calculations indicate that a minimum run-time of 600 hours a year is required to make any return of investment (when power is sold at 12x normal price). And this is just happens to be x10 greater that what this article says, so I think someone has deliberately dropped a zero.
http://www.flexitricity.com/core-services
Ralph
Quoting out of context Cobb. Quote the whole comment, if you don’t mind. Then I’ll answer your question.
Roger Sowell says:
August 10, 2014 at 9:16 am
Loan guarantees? These cost money only when they are not paid back. Freedom from law suits – thank goodness for that – the courts in the US are used like baseball bats by activists. Your list is full of thin stuff. The biggest tariff is dealing with antediluvian activists.
Also Roger, I’m aware of your fixed, immovable position on this. Given some research funds and quiet time, most of the problems with nuclear safety (only 70 nuclear electric plant deaths since the 1950s and 47 of these at the badly designed Chernobyl) and cost would be solved. Aluminum was $1200/kg in 1852. Don’t be like protesters and decriers of airplanes after the first flight. Yes they were very dangerous and didn’t look like they could ever be useful for transportation. And at $1200/kg for aluminum, how were they ever to find a light metal to make them out of.
. http://education.jlab.org/itselemental/ele013.html
Greg says: August 9, 2014 at 10:09 am
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.
_____________________________________
I think the real reason for France going for nuclear, is that they have very few energy sources.
The UK was finding oil, Germany has massive brown coal fields, Sweden had Hydro, Norway had oil, and France has – well, not a lot really. If France was to prevent being relegated to the back-seat of technological and manufacturing Europe, it had to create a reliable energy system — something that the next generation forgot all about in their dash for Green power.
And the UK is now going to be dependent on slashing and burning every forest in the US, for our energy. Just how daft do these Greens get?
Ralph
I just searched the text and all the comments for some mention of space — in the sense of acres or hectares or square miles or kilometers. I’m thinking of the spatial implications of energy sites. Only Paul Pierett at 8:53 mentions space in this sense and then in a context that includes A-Bomb Tests (why caps?), accidents, and Chernobyl. [Full disclosure: my wife and I have contributed to the Children of Chernobyl program and met some of the children.]
So, consider the current and future energy use as projected using standard methods – that is, no grand 90% reduction in people or energy. Now assume one wanted to phase out all carbon based fuel and replace it with wind, solar, and energy in the ocean. Do this at a 2% per year replacement rate over 50 years.
How much of this will be wind? Land based or sea based? How much will be solar – utility size or roof top like? For tides, waves, and ocean currents – all possible and all tiny, and likely to stay that way.
Here is the issue: Start with a simple substitution of all-wind and calculate the land area needed to replace current energy by 2064. One will have to ignore the storage issue for now but should include the transmission lines to move the power to areas where wind doesn’t blow for days. For an example of this issue, see:
http://transmission.bpa.gov/business/operations/wind/baltwg.aspx
There has been almost no wind power for the 12 hours beginning at 10 PM PST on Saturday and not much until Tues. or Wed. of the coming week – if then.
Try some other, more reasonable, mixes of power sources other than all wind. Use the best numbers available and factor in improvements in technology (again, storage is questionable but make a case for it if you can), use reasonable population growth estimates, and increasing per capita consumption.
I’m old enough that I will not see much change from today as this transition takes place, but maybe you will be here in 2064. If you are one of the ones that expect to be here then – what do you expect to happen regarding this energy transition?
mpainter says:
August 9, 2014 at 5:54 pm
“DirkH
We buy oil Mexico, Venezuela, Nigeria but how much Saudi? Methinks little if any. ”
Good luck getting anyone to buy US treasuries when they don’t need them as currency for oil purchases.
Well actually we’re already there and the Fed absorbs all newly issued debt of the US while the nations of the world dump their remaining stockpile of treasuries or let it mature. (remember Operation Twist? That was to let China exchange US long term debt to short term debt – the long term papers are now all owned by the Fed. The Chinese wanted out of the long term papers, and did.)
Do you think there’ll be a great demand for USD’s / treasuries globally in the future?
So, that’s why the Petrodollar dies. Oil was the only quasi backing for the USD and that’s now breaking away rapidly – so many deals in non USD made now you can’t even begin to bomb all nations who participate.
And that’s that for the Dollar. I would advise the USA to prepare for isolation and autarky but; well, actually it would be pointless… for that you would first have to kick out the Chinese… who already own 30% of commercial real estate in Manhattan, for instance.
John F. Hultquist:
At August 10, 2014 at 10:07 am you suggest there will be a “transition” to use of windpower by 2064 and ask
By then the scam will be over so the subsidy farms that operate wind turbines and solar power will have been scrapped.
Windpower was used for thousands of years until it was abandoned when the greater energy intensity in fossil fuels became available by use of the steam engine.
Fossil fuels, nuclear power and hydropower are the future for at least this century. Windpower and solar power only exist to farm subsidies: they are expensive, environmentally damaging, and polluting additions to grid systems, and they make no reduction to the need for thermal power stations.
Richard
Here’s Sowell geting thrashed on a pro-nuke forum: http://atomicinsights.com/nuclear-energy-is-cheap-and-disruptive-controlling-the-initial-cost-of-nuclear-power-plants-is-a-solvable-problem/
Mr Sowell, do you ever get tired of posting the same silly straw men like why are there no nukes on islands? I agree with Brian, you are incompetent, you should at least replace your arguments with ones that haven’t been trashed over and over.
mpainter says:
August 9, 2014 at 1:41 pm
DirkH:
Your comment seemed as a non-sequitor to mine.
We do not burn oil in power plants.
So what do you know about oil and dollars that is about to change, pray share your information.
…..
Huh?
http://globalenergyobservatory.org/list.php?db=PowerPlants&type=Oil
To eric1skeptic who say at August 10, 2014 at 10:28 am
“Here’s Sowell geting thrashed on a pro-nuke forum: http://atomicinsights.com/nuclear-energy-is-cheap-and-disruptive-controlling-the-initial-cost-of-nuclear-power-plants-is-a-solvable-problem/
Mr Sowell, do you ever get tired of posting the same silly straw men like why are there no nukes on islands? I agree with Brian, you are incompetent, you should at least replace your arguments with ones that haven’t been trashed over and over.”
Your libelous statement above is noted, saved, filed, and may be the subject of a defamation lawsuit.
SAMURAI says:
August 10, 2014 at 5:25 am
Gamecock— The purpose of the initial Oak Ridge Lab reactor was to prove molten salt reactors worked, which is precisely what was proven.
The next experiment was a test LFTR but the idiots at NRC and govt hacks pulled the plug; they coveted the bomb-grade fissionable material that LWRs created– a mistake that has cost the world $100’s of trillions….
===================
So, you have gone from:
“All theoretical properties/concepts of LFTR technology have been proven to work through proof-of-concept experiments conducted at Oak Ridge Labs in the 60’s.”
To:
“The next experiment was a test LFTR but the idiots at NRC and govt hacks pulled the plug”
You are incoherent.