Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Jeffrey Sachs, director of The Earth Institute at Columbia University, has stated in an interview with Ryuichi Otsuka, a news researcher for the prominent Japanese news provider Yomiuri Shimbun, that Nuclear Power is an essential part of the solution to climate change.
According to Sachs;
Q: Nuclear power has various risks, but threats of climate change are much more serious?
A: That is exactly right. Climate change’s danger is great. What scientists tell us is that by the end of this century, if we don’t take strong measures, the Earth’s climate will change to be in a condition unlike anything that humanity has ever experienced — with many more extreme events, with much hotter temperatures, with much more frequency of typhoons, droughts, floods and with the risks of very significant rise of sea levels — which could create catastrophes of many of the world’s greatest cities.
And if opponents of nuclear power say nuclear power should not be used, they have the responsibility to show the alternative. Germany is closing down its nuclear power, but it’s burning more U.S. coal exported to Germany. And I find that really unacceptable. It’s bad not only for Germany but for the world.
And in China, people are suffering massive lung disease and premature death from all the air pollution coming from coal plants. A scientist estimated that more than one million people have died as a result of coal-fired power plants, whereas with nuclear plants, the number of deaths has been very small.
Read More: http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0002059677
Jeffrey Sachs has added his voice to the voices of other leading greens, scientists such as Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Tom Wigley, Dr. Kerry Emanuel and Dr. Ken Caldeira, who have demanded political acceptance of nuclear power, to save the planet. Guardian Columnist George Monbiot has maintained strong support for nuclear power, despite a substantial backlash against his stance from fellow greens. Anthony Watts, and other skeptics support nuclear power.
Leading engineers at Google Corporation, one of the world’s greenest companies, have reluctantly concluded that renewable power is not ready for mainstream use. Within the framework of belief that CO2 is an imminent threat to the planet, it is utterly implausible to deny the need for nuclear power to be a large part of the solution.
In my opinion, it is time for greens to demonstrate they actually believe in anthropogenic global warming, by throwing their wholehearted support behind the nuclear option.
Not only Japan should follow Earth Institute advice to use nuclear, all nations should to reduce fossil fuel use. Wind and solar are unable to do this.
No. Just quit demonizing carbon. In a situation in which you’re trying to assess the greater threat, and the contestants are a paper tiger (CO2) and a documented major health and environmental hazard (nuclear), there can be no doubt that the latter wins, hands down.
Vs. CO2 you’re right, there’s no contest. If, however, you’re looking for the safest way to generate large scale cheap, abundant, reliable electricity, which is essential for any developed nation, then commercial nuclear power is the safest way on a per unit energy produced over the life cycle of the method used. And that goes for both health and environmental hazards.
It turns out that in the 25 years that we have been putting the idea of decarbonization in the public spot-light, we have all gone absolutely nowhere.
Formerly, practically minded scientists, engineers and economists had presided over affairs, and as a result the human race had developed a massive nuclear and hydro base load capacity.
Producing massive quantities of dependable energy at low cost.
Since the 1980 environmentalists and climate experts have become increasingly influential. Unfortunately for the decarbonization project, in general these people have a passionate dislike for large scale hydro and nuclear.
As a result, we now habitually choose the most expensive cuisine items on the menu.
If a wind turbine is not expensive enough already, then try siting it in deep water, 75 miles from the coast.
As we are now doing here in Silly-Land. a.k.a. the U.K.
The ultimate effect of all of the efforts made in the last 25 years all across the globe, seems to have been absolutely nil.
Ever wondered why Russia Today and Al Jazeera are so keen to promote wind, solar and environmentalism?
What a complete joke the whole thing is, when you see the actual data:
http://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Renewable-Energy/How-Global-Fossil-Fuel-Dependence-Hasnt-Changed-In-20-Years.html
I’m not against nuclear, but I think that if the government is concerned about “carbon pollution” for the sake of catastrophe prevention, they should be (and should have been) much more interested in the development of Thorium nuclear. Not only domestically but for Iran and other possible abusers of Uranium by-products.
Any in government concerned about “carbon pollution” need to be removed from their posts promptly and have their heads examined. Then if found to be sane (doubtful), they need several long remedial science classes. At which point they will learn that “carbon” isn’t short for “carbon dioxide” and isn’t at all the same thing any more than “hydrogen” is short for “dihydrogen monoxide”; that “carbon dioxide” isn’t a pollutant at all, but plant food; that historically every time the Earth winds up warmer than present day temperatures, mankind absolutely flourishes; and any time it’s colder, we plunge into famine, starvation, mass migration, warfare, and plagues; and that the body of science doesn’t support any significant anthropogenic global warming anyhow. And until they understand such simple basics, they ought not be allowed anywhere near energy or environmental policy making.
So … Greens are now for nuclear power … and you’re a Gaia-raping, science-denying, National Geographic-canceling, right-wing-Neo-Nazi-Tea-Bagging-Heartland-funded-WUWT-posting ass if you don’t think CO2 is THE DEADLIEST POISON EVER?
http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/smiley-shocked035.gif
I have a funny litmus test in my life; my radical environmentalist friend, who has forever railed against nuclear power, and who is now even more rabid about CO2, just can’t get himself to admit in front of me that nuclear power is the way out of his dilemma, at least as he frames it. He knows, rightly, that I’ll have a field day. Oh the integrity …
Speaking as an engineer, I do view complex hydrocarbons as a gift from nature that needs to be managed carefully. Using them to generate electricity is wasting an opportunity to create compounds of greater need to humankind – like pharmaceuticals. I have always viewed nuclear power as the best way to generate electricity. I think the French understand this best.
Just my thoughts…
in France, I wonder why the government refused the project of Professor Edgard Nazare in 1970 concerning thorium centrals –
by the french you mean the government, but we are not in democracy – !!!!
somebody said the reason is “war” and atomic bomb !!!
A little “design help” for the Japanese:
Three choices for Emergency Diesel Generator siting:
1. Above ground, next to the reactor building on a 4′ tall reinforced concrete platform.
2. Below ground level, in a “trench/bunker….open on top” for catching any nasty oil or diesel spills so they don’t “harm the ocean” nearby ocean that is…
3. In a 4 story armored building, first two floors for diesel storage tanks, can be flooded, no problem..all passive piping and valving controlled from floors 3 and 4.
Comments:
1. Good for earthquakes, very bad for Tsunamis….wash over them and make inoperative.
2. Hum, floods completely and makes SURE the diesels are ruined and useless (actual Fukashima situation)
3. Equivalent to what the NRC forced the US plants into during the early 90’s. Realizing that “station blackout” was one of the MOST LIKELY CORE MELTDOWN THREATS!
BY the way, little known to the public (but documented on an international nuclear power info site), If it werent for the Russians and this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225_Mriya
And for the Americans with this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sikorsky_S-64_Skycrane
and THIS:
http://schwing.com/products/S61SX/
The spent fuel pools on top of the Fukashima reactors would have boiled dry and all the spent fuel
would have melted down.
There was NO HESITATION on the part of SCHWING, the USAF and the Russian Air Force to put all the pieces together and get the “boom trucks” (The three largest ones made, had almost 200′ reaches) to Fukashima to get cooling water in the pools and prevent the GREATEST disaster that could have happened.
The reactors DID melt down…TOTALLY. The Japanese just admitted this last week.
We have a full ‘China syndrome’ event going on right now. TEPCO just admitted that IT CAN’T BE FIXED.
Apparently the core, when it has melted though the center of the earth, will come out in upstate NY. 🙂
Then once the core has exited in upstate NY, it will fall upward and continue towards the sun, knocking Venus out of it’s orbit, and shortly after that causing our sun to go supernova!
The Earth Institute and Jeffrey Sachs are way behind. Nothing valuable from them.
Here is what has been happening and moving forward as fast as possible:
http://fortune.com/2015/02/02/doe-china-molten-salt-nuclear-reactor/
Pull up GoogleEarth and you will note that Japan is positively bristling with volcanoes. Tapping into geothermal energy is a no-brainer but poverty of spirit and a mind-boggling lack of imagination win out every time. Since when did Japan show real initiative in pioneering and innovation, as opposed to copying?
Groundbreakers in methane hydrates.
============
Your willingness to castigate and denigrate Japan over their supposed “lack of imagination and poverty of spirit” is gobsmacking. In fact, the tiny island of Japan has some 15 geothermal plants up and running and they generate 5% of the entire world’s geothermal energy production – even though they’ve only got 1.8% of the world’s population. Perhaps your own “poverty of spirit and a mind-boggling lack of imagination” is why you never bothered to check basic facts before posting such tripe?
Fact check time. Sachs states: “Germany is closing down its nuclear power, but it’s burning more U.S. coal exported to Germany.”
But http://www.eia.gov/coal/production/quarterly/pdf/t7p01p1.pdf shows that US exports of coal to Germany in 2014 are actually down slightly from 2013. Ooops.
Maybe, but what is cogent is, Germany is closing down its nuclear power, and building and utilizing more coal.
Germany is about the 8th largest coal producer in the world themselves. Regardless of whether they imported more or less from the USA, their coal use is on the increase ever since they started shutting their nuclear plants down. That and renewables are killing their economy and their industry, and that’s even though they’re giving industry heavy discounts on electricity prices compared to citizens.
The problem for Greens is that nuclear energy works. Widespread adoption of nuclear energy would allow continued growth of the world industrial economy without carbon-based fuels. This is anathema to the hard-core Greens, who dream of idyllic simpler pre-industrial life.
I’ve seen Jeffrey present at professional conferences and there is no real substance there. His style is definitely based on volume of words and not value. There is clearly a substitution of emotion for quantitative value. Lesser named and younger researchers would not get attention by journals with this approach.
Fully agree. He always comes up with “Scientists said….” “A scientist found….”. Would he say nuclear is needed in the USA at a conference in the USA? He says what is convenient where he is speaking. The typical in the USA is wind and solar.
Ask the Russians.
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“the death toll with nucleaar has been very small.” Well, if you reject Chernobyl as a Western nuclear plant,
the death toll would be extremely small. Three Mile Island and Fukushima accidents resulted in zero immediate deaths and none due to radiation exposure.
You don’t have to buy into the global warming schtick to have a reason to support nuclear – plain old emission reduction is enough.
Yes. meanwhile emission reduction has been successfully carried out in coal power generation as well. We should not “burn our bridges” before being safely across. The scrubber-equipped coal power plant near me does not make anywhere near the smoke it did before it was fitted with scrubbers. Fossil fueled boiler/turbines can respond quickly in cyclical load conditions, and be stored for emergency and sporadic peak demands. Gas and oil turbo-generators provide nearly instant power to avert widespread power outages due to grid overload. Perhaps the molten salt design will address the demand variability issues and not be as limited to base loading as the Uranium designs, but fossil fuels still have a niche for now.
I forgot to point out that wind and solar are neither qualified as base load generation or as peaking generation. They only introduce a chaotic load management and a greater need for very flexible load carrying ability. Nukes can’t smoothly supplement solar and wind.
Gen III plants are better able to load follow than the older Gen. II designs also. Still not to the extent of nat. gas. but far more efficiently and to a greater degree than the previous designs.
If Nuclear power is good enough now for the Iranians it should be good enough for the Japanese and anyone else interested in developing it at this point.
Heh, Iranian Domestic Nuclear Power, the very definition of Energy Insecurity.
==============
The absolute worst place on earth for nuclear power plants is Japan due to tsunamis, volcanoes and earthquakes.
Fatal.
The mess in Fukushima is completely incapable of being fixed. In the news in Japan this week is TEPCO admitting they can’t see any fix in the future maybe forever.
The mess in Fukushima has already been cleaned up.
Nuclear plants can and are built to handle earthquakes, tsunamis and they don’t need to worry about volcanoes since nobody is stupid enough to build one inside a volcano.
I don’t know where you’re getting your information from, but it’s pretty bad.
naturally, Sachs’s CAGW exaggerations and false claims went unchallenged.
anyway, it is for the Japanese people to decide their own energy future.
as for Sachs’s pro-nuclear credentials, he sits alongside Wigley, Hansen, Hoegh-Gulberg, Monbiot, Fred Pearce, Bjorn Lomborg, Carole Browner, Christine Todd Whitman, Mark Lynas, James Lovelock, etc etc in Wikipedia’s “List of pro-nuclear environmentalists”.
indeed, nuclear was always part of the IPCC plan, supported by the IAEA:
1990: IPCC: Climate Change The IPCC Scientific Assessment
Sponsored by WMO/UNEP
Foreword by Dr John Houghton, Chairman, IPCC Working Group I, July 1990
Annex: EMISSIONS SCENARIOS FROM WORKING GROUP III OF THE INTERGOVERNMENTAL PANEL ON CLIMATE CHANGE
In Scenario C a shift towards renewables and nuclear energy takes place in the second half of next century…
For Scenario D a shift to renewables and nuclear in the first halt of the next century reduces the emissions of carbon dioxide, initially more or less stabilizing emissions in the industrialized countries…
May 2007: IAEA: Climate Change Report Looks at Nuclear Power, Other Options
The IAEA supports the IPCC´s work in various areas, including technology options for the mitigation of climate change…
The IAEA, through its laboratories, Department of Nuclear Science and Applications and Department of Nuclear Energy, supports and contributes to climate change studies. The Planning & Economic Studies Section in the Nuclear Energy Department specifically addresses international negotiations on climate change and sustainable development, and contributes to the work of the IPCC…
as of 2013, according to the World Nuclear Association, over 60 power reactors are currently being constructed in 13 countries, approx 160 are planned and 320 are proposed, so it’s pointless to discuss the Japananese case in isolation.
killing coal remains the main objective:
28 March: UK Telegraph: Christopher Booker: No one is talking about our utterly mad energy policy
Last week, scarcely noticed south of the border, came the news of the premature closure of Britain’s second largest power station. The giant Longannet plant in Fife, with its 2,400-megawatt capacity, can still supply two thirds of all Scotland’s average electricity needs.
The reasons given for Longannet’s closure early next year were partly the crippling cost of the Government’s “carbon” taxes and the additional £40 million it is being charged for connection to the grid…
***But Longannet’s real crime is that the 4.5 million tons of coal it burns each year make it the biggest CO2 emitter in Scotland.
Which is also, of course, why we will hear nothing about Britain’s energy future in this election: because all the major parties are signed up to the policy set in train by Ed Miliband’s Climate Change Act committing us to reduce our “carbon” emissions by 80 per cent within 35 years…
The policy on which they are all agreed, set out in the Coalition’s “2050 Pathways for tackling climate change”, centres on three main steps, each more bizarre than the last. Step one is that we should “decarbonise” our economy, not just by closing down the coal and gas-fired power stations that supply more than 70 per cent of our electricity, but by chucking out all those gas appliances 90 per cent of us use for cooking and heating…
When the wind doesn’t blow, the only power to keep our lights on, our homes heated and our electric cars running would be that from those supposed new nuclear power stations.
***At the present rate, with only one new nuclear power plant dubiously in view by 2024, producing electricity four times as expensive as that from coal, not even tens of thousands of diesel generators could produce enough back-up power to keep our computer-dependent economy functioning at all. (Last Tuesday evening, wind was producing less than 1 per cent of the power we were using)…
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/11501235/No-one-is-talking-about-our-utterly-mad-energy-policy.html
shortly after Climategate, Fox’s Neil Cavuto interviewed fmr Australian PM, Howard who – like Bush Jr, our current PM Tony Abbott & many Republicans – was constantly mocked as anti-science & a denier of CAGW. Cavuto was nonplussed when Howard failed to take the opportunity to expose CAGW for what it was, as revealed in the Climategate emails, but instead repeatedly used the opportunity to push his long-time personal preference, nuclear energy.
what a wasted opportunity it was. it’s worth reading the entire transcript:
18 Dec 2009: Fox News: Your World w/ Neil Cavuto: Fmr. Australian PM on Global Warming
HOWARD: I think the best way of tackling the issue of global warming is for the world to invest as much as possible, as soon as possible, in finding a technological solution to the challenge.
HOWARD: I think we have to — I think countries that now don’t have nuclear power, including my own, should focus very heavily on nuclear power…
I mean, whatever your view is about global warming, we ought to try and play on the safe side. And the safe side is, at every point, to try and reduce pollution, to try and reduce CO2 emissions going into the atmosphere…
CAVUTO: Well, it might be a focus on the — sir, I’m sorry. It might be a focus on the politics, but, whatever the case, it’s also the focus on a lot of money to address the political concerns.
And it would be a kick in the pants, wouldn’t it, Prime Minister, if, all of a sudden, we discover, if even half of these CLIMATEGATE memos and e-mails that were released, are typical of information that has been hidden from us or lied about, then we could be chasing a goose here that is not real, right?
HOWARD: Well, that is possible.
One of the hexing(sic) things about this issue is that we will all be long dead when we actually know the answer to that question, because, if, in fact, the doomsayers are right, it will be a long time before the ill effects of what they’re predicting are felt by everybody.
If the doomsayers are wrong, and the people who are unfairly described as skeptics are right, it will also be many years before we know the answer to that. So, common sense tells me that what we should focus on is doing things that neither side of the debate can possibly object to, and something that utilizes a clean source of energy such as nuclear power — and it is the cleanest source of energy of all — anything that reduces the polluting impact of the use of coal and gas, things like that, where nobody can really argue…
http://www.foxnews.com/on-air/your-world-cavuto/2009/12/18/fmr-australian-pm-global-warming
The economies of both Japan and Germany will not recover until they restart their nuclear reactors.
Some Japanese plants have already been cleared for restart and it is expected that at least two of them will in June.
Japan’s internal depression began long, long before Fukushima.
People ARE dying of cancers in Japan due to Fukushima. The government refuses to collect any data about this. A huge hunk of the most productive agricultural lands in the main island of Japan has been rendered utterly toxic for human use and plants and animals in the no go zone there are seeing huge levels of mutations and an overall death of the flora and fauna.
And the poisons still pour into the Pacific Ocean and we have no idea how this is causing malign mutations there.
Just one nuclear power plant disaster per 20 years is a catastrophe. We still have virtually no tools for fixing a full meltdown. They still have NO IDEA what has happened to the cores of the melted reactors. It is so violently toxic there, even robots can’t go inside close enough to see what is going on.
The govt doesn’t collect data, yet you know for a fact that people are dying from cancer.
Where do you go to get all these lies?
No, in fact people are NOT dying of cancers in Japan due to Fukushima. That’s utter nonsense. And massive amounts of data are being collected by the government. Nor has any “huge hunk of the most productive agricultural lands” been “rendered utterly toxic.”
Lordy do you ever need to start getting actual facts and reputable information – you’re falling hook, line, and sinker for utter bunk.
Sigh. More grossly false information. One of my best friends was one of the first techs to go into the TMI containment building after that core melted down – and they removed all the fuel and decommissioned it many years ago. That core was 40% or so melted into slag on the bottom of the reactor vessel, and yet it hardly damaged the bottom of the reactor vessel itself. And toxicity isn’t the problem, radioactivity is. Two different animals entirely. http://www.nrc.gov/info-finder/decommissioning/power-reactor/three-mile-island-unit-2.html
Your claims are, unfortunately, utterly ludicrous.
Perfectly ok for greens to accept nuclear power for the “heavy lifting” in the economy. Welcome aboard! We have plenty of uses for coal that don’t involve burning it for heat or electricity. Natural gas and lpg can, whenever more economical, be used as well. The goal here is to have a post fossil fuel economy that provides for a modern, educated, workforce with a high standard of living on a global scale. That’s the way you avoid ecological disaster with onerous government control at every turn administering “shrinking” resources and choosing who among the public have become “useless eaters”
and: Günther Wallraff’s work shines a light on why
12000 people drowned by the fukushima tsunami, 13000 missed
due to Gaia
– not to technology –
never left /imprinted/ a mark in
‘peoples minds.’
live with it. Hans
garfy, ‘people cleaning the reactors’ is not a ‘NOVEL’.
It’s earnest envistigation journalism done by
Günter Wallraff – Wikipedia
Hans-Günter Wallraff (* 1.
Oktober 1942 in Burscheid) ist
ein deutscher
Enthüllungsjournalist und
Schriftsteller. Er ist …
Biografie – Recherchestil –
Diskussion um Urheberschaft –
Engagement
de.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%
25C3%25BCnt…
____
whatever to say about the man –
his work changed europes perceptions.
Regards – Hans
my fault –
garfy, ‘people cleaning the
reactors’ is not a ‘NOVEL’.
read:
garfy, ‘turkish migrants cleaning the
reactors’ is not a ‘NOVEL’.
plain truth. Hans
sorry Hans, I did not use the proper word and it was “tête de turc” –
I also went to a lecture by “Günther Schwab” – (‘austrian) – he wrote “les centrales atomiques du diable” – that was in 1978/80
Regards
Garfy
Venturi scrubbers ftw
I think it is best to use nuclear power station because we will be reducing global warming in the atmosphere which is dangerours not only to japan’s population but to the whole world
By using nuclear power station we will also be saving people life whom they are affected by the burning of coal in power station .knowing that nuclear power station is also not save but it’s the best solution to reduce global warming and it also have more facts than coal power station.
What problem of global warming. On net, more CO2 is a very good thing.
what do you think will happen to us people if the whole world use coal power station in daily life ,saying that nuclear power station is risks to use??…….
Is in it that we are all going to vanish because of acid rains and change in temperature ?…
There never was any acid rain, and what change in temperature?
http://www.cfp.ca/content/59/5/e215.full