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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Greenpeace has strongly condemned investment in the International ITER Fusion Project, claiming the money spent on ITER should instead be spent on renewables.
According to Australian SBS;
… Greenpeace nuclear and energy campaigner, Sebastien Blavier, said the cost and uncertainty of fusion mean investing in thermonuclear reactors at the expense of other available clean energy options is risky and ignorant.
“We are opposed to this argument of fusion being the future of power for humanity, that’s totally false for us,” he said. “Today the world is facing massive challenges like poverty, like access to electricity for people, poor people, for development.”
“We now how have the solution with renewables like solar and wind – they are affordable, they are cheap. For the moment ITER is presented as being the solution for the future power of humanity and I think that’s a big mistake.”
“If you look at the costs, it’s a massive amount of money that could be invested in renewables that are already ready to take off and be competitive; so it’s not a solution to future power, it’s only research.” …
Read more: http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2015/12/06/nuclear-fusion-shadows-clean-energy-debate
Greenpeace also opposes nuclear fission. From their website;
End the nuclear age
Greenpeace has always fought – and will continue to fight – vigorously against nuclear power because it is an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity. The only solution is to halt the expansion of all nuclear power, and for the shutdown of existing plants. …
Read more: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/campaigns/nuclear/
Given that leading greens like James Hansen, former NASA GISS director, think nuclear is an essential part of any plausible low carbon energy scenario, because renewables can’t be scaled up economically, and given that even Google couldn’t find a way to make renewables work, it seems likely that renewables will not “take off” anytime soon, regardless of how much Greenpeace thinks we should.
In my opinion, the evidence suggests Greenpeace vigorously opposes all low carbon energy solutions which might actually work. The question is, why?
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5 Dec: AberdeenPress&Journal: David Kerr: Conservationists win court battle against giant Highland windfarm
An environmental charity has won its court battle against plans for a 67-turbine windfarm in the Highlands.
The John Muir Trust launched a judicial review after the Scottish Government granted permission to the Stronelairg development last year…
The John Muir Trust objected on grounds of impact on wild land, peat and tourism…
Stuart Brooks, John Muir Trust chief executive said: “This is great news for all those who love Scotland’s wild land and wish to see it protected. A financial appeal brought a tremendous level of support from over a thousand well-wishers, allowing the Trust to proceed. Lord Jones has now decided the Trust’s court action was well-founded.”…
https://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/fp/news/highlands/770908/conservationists-win-court-battle-against-giant-highland-windfarm/
5 Dec: NYT: Melissa Eddy: Denmark, a Green Energy Leader, Slows Pace of Its Spending
One lesson they may learn from Denmark is how it is possible to substantially replace fossil fuels with clean and renewable energy. But even when progress is made in reducing environmentally harmful carbon emissions, countries may have difficulty sustaining the gains because of politics, economic concerns and, in places like the United States, ideological disputes…
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/06/world/europe/denmark-a-green-energy-leader-slows-pace-of-its-spending.html?_r=0
*groans* And ideology once again rears its ugly face to denounce development, progress and innovation just to pander to pipedreams about The Ideal And Perfect Society™.
You want to know why Greenpeace – and all the other ideological greens – are opposed to nuclear power, GMO and similar? They are not opposed to the technology… they are opposed to big companies, centralized ownership and centralized production. Just like the we-who-do-not-call-ourselves-communists-anymore on the far left they have a dream about the means of production being in the hands of “the people”. This – in consequence – means they hate big companies with a passion.
Hence: they do not hate nuclear power because it is a bad technology… they hate it because it is not Politically Correct, in the original and actual meaning of the expression. Nuclear power is wrong because their politics say it is.
Now if anyone here thinks that is a good argument, fine by me, but I am not joining you in it… I am way too pragmatic for that.
This is ridiculous. Our sun is a nuclear fusion engine. If fusion replaces fission it could dismantle the nuclear, coal, and petrolium industries overnight.
I agree renewables are of ultra importance, but, fusion could give us the means for real interplanetary travel, without the use of chemical rockets, at speeds and distances beyond our current limits, hydroponics any place on the planet, we could eliminate hunger, deinvest in fossil fuels and reinvest in education across the world.
Actually our sun is a gravity powered energy system.
And gravity sucks, so you just need oodles of raw materials like hydrogen. Given enough hydrogen; about an 860,000 mile diameter ball will do it, you won’t be able to stop it from releasing fusion energy.
But since gravity is by far the weakest force in the universe, it’s a bit hard to make one work in your garage.
We don’t have control of any more powerful force that also sucks, so we have to use forces that blow.
And whereas a suck machine just sucks everything towards the center, with a blow machine, you need to blow everything from the outside, and there’s nothing to put your back up against while you blow, and you have to do it symmetrically from all sides at once.
Which is why tokomaks and other gadgets don’t work.
Latest pronouncement from Greenpeace “Don’t even knock the rocks together, it will lead to civilisation eventually”
How could you post this article THIS WEEK without mentioning that the German Wendelstein X-7 stelerator went online, despite Greenpeace’s miserable bitching?!
“….so it’s not a solution to future power, it’s only research.”
Nicely epitomizes the Luddite Green view that renders only stasis in a primeval intellectual abyss, lest they be seen for what they are.
Oh, I don’t think you are going to face the answer to–WHY? It’s just too ugly. Many greens (not all) really want to kill human beings, as many as possible. Environmentalism is the best way to do that and instead of going to jail, you get hailed as a hero.
And NO, this is not sarcasm. It is the literal (and unbearable) truth. You HAVE heard of the college students and profs who cheered the idea of some virus wiping out a substantial fraction of the human race. You HAVE heard of Malthus and of the more recent Ehrlich and his population bomb. You HAVE heard of The Holocaust and of the Irish Potato famine, which were applications of Darwin/Malthus “science” by the Germans against 6 million Jews and 7 million others; and the Irish disaster was a deliberate theft of Irish food by the English for the specific purpose of starving as many Irish Catholics to death as possible. The potatoes were just a cover story really.
My sister is a greenie activist. She sent me a novel she wrote, for my comments. She wanted a positive story. Her idea of positive was after some disaster that killed most of the human race, sterilized the majority of survivors, and eliminated the automobile.
Or consider the howling about glaciers melting. Proof this disaster is real is a photo of a TREE GROWING.
These people are willing to sacrifice everything alive in order to hurt human beings. After all, their shrieking is about carbon dioxide–the molecule that is the basis of everything alive. And they have caused the whole world severe economic trouble with their attacks on fossil fuel. Economic harm means fewer resources for fighting pollution.
Environmentalist leaders are HELL on the environment. That is because their real purpose is not to enhance Life, but to kill.
Aid was offered to Ireland during the potato famine which was caused by a fungus. Many Irish Catholics rejected the aid because it was offered by Protestants. If you took food aid from Protestants is was known as “taking the soup”.
The fungus was not deliberate, but what was certainly deliberate was the English putting up rents and forcing people off land. My Nan remembers the Black and Tans.
“We now how have the solution with renewables like solar and wind – they are affordable, they are cheap.”
What a lie. Wind and solar are the most expensive energies on the planet. They are both 5 to 10 times more expensive than carbon-based energy sources and, as they use rare elements and non recyclable materials,t why are patently unsustainable.. And, what idiot cannot understand that the Sun sets and the wind dies. During winter cold snaps, when heating is most critical for human survival, the wind does not blow and solar input is at a minimum, even if it is not cloudy. Also, solar becomes less and less useful in the higher latitudes. Both systems require constant maintenance—they do not mention that the “green” jobs are mostly low-paying maintenance work.
YOU CANNOT BUILD A RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY FROM UNRELIABLE ENERGY SOURCES.
Greenpeace will never accept nuclear or fossil fuel energy … it is stuck in its mixed up world of make believe … solar energy and wind energy… this, at a time the world has an over abundance of fossil fuel energy that can power the world for many centuries to come. Incredible!
“Why?”
Simple: Greenpeace believes the planet should be human-free. They believe humans are a parasite that needs to be vigorously controlled or, if possible, eliminated.
Too cynical? Try this: if we get rid of all fossil fuel use, in the manner they demand, more than 3/4 of earth’s population (much more) will starve to death. I’ve spoken with greenish people who were not as radical as Greenpeace. When asked about 3/4 of the population dying, their comment is usually, ‘good. There are too many people.’ Don’t doubt for an instant that Greenpeace would cheer rapid depopulation.
Certainly seems that way. This oxygen freeloader wants us all to pay to breath. Breathing is equivalent to fly-tipping apparently …
http://s18.postimg.org/y69t2jzpl/Fly_Tipping.png
No Greenpeace really opposes all low cost energy solutions, carbon or not. Having the poor live a more simple lifestyle is part of the religion.
It’s clear that Greenpeace is “risky and ignorant,” as well as “an unacceptable risk to the environment and to humanity.” Can we stop funding them now?
GreatGreyhounds December 6, 2015 at 5:42 am
Still waiting for any ‘renewable’ to be able to power a Bessemer Blast Furnace. Maybe, just maybe, then I will think about renewables as being viable.
I don’t disagree with your overall point but, at risk of being pedantic, I would point out that a Bessemer Converter and a Blast Furnace are very different animals. The Bessemer reaction is exothermic producing energy from the oxidisation of Carbon in the molten Iron charge. The Blast Furnace uses a lot of energy from coke to reduce Iron oxide to Iron. The really big energy users in the steel industry are the Electric Arc Furnaces (EAF) where scrap metal is melted using the electric arc.
Incidentally and highly regrettably there is not likely to be much of a steel industry left in the UK as a result of the ludicrous energy policies of the government.
“Grimwig
December 7, 2015 at 12:03 am
…a Bessemer Converter and a Blast Furnace are very different…”
They are indeed. A Bessemer Converter is typically rated at 90MW. That’s a lot! And just where is steel going? TATA Steel…in India. A novelist who was the chair of the IPCC was also on the board of Tata.
I think you will find that, while an EAF may be rated at 90MW, no Bessemer ever consumed energy like that. As I said earlier, the reaction is exothermic. Bessemer furnaces have been obsolete for many a long year but their descendants such a the BOF (Basic Oxygen Furnace) are similarly exothermic. So much heat is produced in the reaction that a portion of cold scrap metal is usually included in the furnace charge.
Yes, you are right. It’s been some time since I did any metal foundry work, but I was confused between an EAF and a Bessemer converter.
“The question is, why?”
The answer is, they are anti-human.
They want a world in which only a few hundred thousand humans exist with at best, a hunter gatherer lifestyle.
So he wants to drop a possible failure for a known failure. Brilliant.
greenpeace seems to oppose all forms of energy generation, including rubbing two sticks together
Well at one time they had this high speed round the world race boat, that was supposed to run on liposuction fat.
Seems that it had a run in with Japanese whale research vessels and got swamped; as in off to Davey Jones’ locker.
I got photos of it in viaduct harbor in Auckland. Pretty impressive machine.
g
Hansen says they do it for money:
But *what* money?
Civil servants’ disposable income. A gigawatt-year of natural-gas-fired electricity production now-a-days burns $166 million worth of gas, and at an 18.75 percent royalty rate, government gets $30 million.
The nuclear alternative is $14 million worth of mined uranium at a royalty rate I don’t know, but for solid minerals 4 percent is typical. So, for government, it’s $30 million in annual royalty income versus about half a million.
By their very nature, wind and solar will never be a reliable source for base-load power. Continue with nuclear fusion work – eventually it will work and then massive, cost effective energy production will be assured. No predictions as to when.
I agree that there is no reason to fund fusion research – it is too primitive at this point and,mostly, we have molten salt reactors practically at the commercialization stage, compliments of Transatomic Power, Terrestrial Energy, and a massively accelerated Chinese development effort. Anyone who understands even the most basic of facts about energy production realizes that molten salt reactors are the future, whether Greenpeace likes it (or even is aware of it) or not. The economics are stunning – build costs
roughly half that of typical reactors, ability to load follow (beyond baseload capabilities, meaning a larger percentage of grid power can be satisfied by nuclear rather than fossil fuels). Ability to operate without need for refueling shutdown, which increases capacity roughly 10% beyond conventional nuclear, making it cheaper still.Fuel costs that are insignificant – again making it cheaper than typcial nuclear by at least 3/4th of a cent per kWhr.The utter safety of the units – far, far safer than solar panels or wind mills.
A lifepsan for the reactors easily 3 to4 times that of solar or windmills. The ability to operate the power plants close to the ultimate customers, another significant advantage over wind and commercial solar (which needs to be in a desert to be practical). No one looks to Greenpeace for realistic cost analysis
or even basic knowledge about power. These are the fools who claimed nuclear power to be inherently
unsafe. Modern reactors 1000 times safer than the previous generation of plants, which ran contionuously for 55 years with no deaths or serious injuries resulting from their operation, excepting Communist Russia’s
poorly designed nuclear unit at Chernobyl. Yeah, right, Greenpeace – our country is litered with the graves of nuclear power plant victims. Greenpeace is on lying, dishonest organization, that deserves to be investigated.
Greenpeace’s problem with fusion research is that it might be successful. Were that to happen, energy would be so cheap, they suspect, our population and consumerist ways would explode.
Greenpeace’s ultimate problem with the current world is not CO2, not capitalism (though ideologically they don’t prefer it), not resource using, not having good stuff (individually they have no concern about personal wealth or flying first class) – none of these PER SE. The organization fears the gross amount of each in the Malthusian way. Simply put, too many people doing a whole lot will cause the eco-system to implode.
It is difficult if not impossible to deny that the Earth’s resoures are limited in the manner in which we use them. The poison, bacteria-laden waters of Rio, site of an upcoming Olympic swim meet, testify to what happens with too many people and current (shoddy) infrastructures. What the world can sustain is a big question, though, as large increases in India’s and Africa’s populations have come with an increase – not a decrease – in lifespan, health and wealth. Greenpeace holds to the unidirectional view of history and the planet: that the emerging world will destroy itself by sheer numbers …. but that will only happen if culturally they do not also rise to meet the limitations their numbers create.
The European, developed world is in numerical decline as its insistence on less environmental damage increases. It is ironic and hypocritical and must be a source of deep discomfort for Greenpeace that what they really want is a small population, and that requires near-immediate reductions in the developing world of the yellow, brown and black. It is the forced reducttion in living requirements of the “otherrs” that Greenpeace subscribers implicitly demand. The world will not go up in flames or into the cesspit if Europe, the United States and (even) Russia stand fast with what they are doing. The world will collapse (in the Malthusian way) if the developing world (and China) persist in wanting a world such as the average Greenpeace supporter lives.
Fusion – like natural gas – is anathema to Greenpeace and the Robert Kennedy Jr. crowd because it will facility economic growth and consumption by the five billion or so people of the world who didn’t come from the culture of Hans Christian Anderson and his friends. This is the very, very uncomfortable situation they face at COP21 where the national blocs that threaten their entitlements refuse to accept the pain Greenpeace says is needed: less people and poverty.
How nice that Greenpeace has inverted the logic.
The reality might better be presented as that all the money wasted subsidising renewables could be invaluable in bring fusion research that much closer to success.
Whether we end up with one or two large fusion reactors or a multiplicity or small reactors is for a subsequent debate but it begars belief that this organisation should oppose a form of clean unlimited energy that would end our need for “polluting fossil fuels” forever and without converting rain forest to palm oil for bio-diesel, without smothering the land surface and shallow seas with windfarms.
The reason is a nonsense but the real reason is perhaps hinted at in Dr Moore’s blogs and it has nothing to do with the environment..
PS it would be nice to review how organisations like Greenpeace have been taken over, how they now operate under the guise of their former respectability toward more dark side objectives. Was it Maurice Strong who defined how a small group of activists could take over a large organsiation?
Many people still think when they donate to the Sierra Club they are supporting Yosemite or something, they have no idea how insanely evil they have become, or what their vision for humanity is.
Greenpeace’s opposition to the introduction of Golden Rice creates a million unnecessarily blind children every year. I don’t care how much they hate GE food, they cannot justify blinding children to support that hate. Encourage everyone you know to boycott Greenpeace until the stop blinding children.