Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Naomi Oreskes has accused climate scientists like James Hansen, who support the expansion of nuclear power, of practicing a “strange new form of denial”.
According to The Guardian;
After the signing of a historic climate pact in Paris, we might now hope that the merchants of doubt – who for two decades have denied the science and dismissed the threat – are officially irrelevant.
But not so fast. There is also a new, strange form of denial that has appeared on the landscape of late, one that says that renewable sources can’t meet our energy needs.
Oddly, some of these voices include climate scientists, who insist that we must now turn to wholesale expansion of nuclear power. Just this past week, as negotiators were closing in on the Paris agreement, four climate scientists held an off-site session insisting that the only way we can solve the coupled climate/energy problem is with a massive and immediate expansion of nuclear power. More than that, they are blaming environmentalists, suggesting that the opposition to nuclear power stands between all of us and a two-degree world.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/16/new-form-climate-denialism-dont-celebrate-yet-cop-21
This article was written in response to a demand by James Hansen, Kerry Emanuel, Ken Caldeira and Tom Wigley to consider the nuclear option.
Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change
To solve the climate problem, policy must be based on facts and not prejudice. Alongside renewables, Nuclear will make the difference between the world missing crucial climate targets or achieving them
All four of us have dedicated our scientific careers to understand the processes and impacts of climate change, variously studying ocean systems, tropical cyclones, ice sheets and ecosystems as well as impacts on human societies. We have used both climate models and geological records of past climates to better understand lessons from warmer periods in the Earth’s history and investigate future scenarios.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/nuclear-power-paves-the-only-viable-path-forward-on-climate-change
I can’t help feeling Oreskes has well and truly jumped the shark with the ridiculous claim that scientists like Hansen, Wigley et al are “deniers”, because they don’t believe in renewables. As WUWT reported a while ago, even Google couldn’t find a way to make renewables viable – so it seems unlikely anybody else will succeed where Google failed.
As for Oreskes objections to nuclear power, her argument that nuclear power is too risky is just plain silly. Even if the nuclear route to decarbonisation resulted in several meltdowns every year, how could this possibly be worse than the complete destruction of the biosphere through global warming, which according to the likes of Oreskes and Hansen is the price of continued reliance on fossil fuels?
Oreskes has demonstrated once again that CAGW is a religion, and nay who do not hew strictly to the articles of faith laid down by the High Priests, such as Oreskes herself, are blasphemers, and are thus apostate and no longer of The Faith.
I know there must be a joke here somewhere, but I am getting so sick of these people that I seem to have lost my sense of humor.
I sure hope it is temporary, because the hell of no humor is the worst hell of all.
Thanks Michael. I needed that.
Does this person have any sort of credentials that qualify her to even comment on any aspect of climate science, or is she just wanting to re arrange the furniture to suit her pet ideas.
She sounds like a total gad fly to me.
Glad fly? I would have said Bot Fly
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=d7Iw0-7EMUo
Couldn’t agree more. I have added this little sketch that I posted over at Bishop Hill where her antics have amused the readers.
https://youtu.be/EjYRC0IBXaY
Canada has some vast, wide-open, and relatively uninhabited places. I suggest we carve out, say, 10,000 km2 of the Northwest Territories and create the new province of Oreskesia. Those of her religion can move there to show the rest of us how to live the “right” way. Oreskesia’s Rule 1 is that no CO2 emissions are allowed, and Rule 2 is that any product that involves the use of fossil fuels at any stage of production is forbidden. The one exception I propose to Rule 2, which would support Rule 1, is that residents would be permitted to wear front and rear carbon capture and storage devices. After they spend a few weeks (or maybe hours?) there in January, we will be able to figure out who truly shares The Faith–at least among those who are still alive.
I would argue that he has shown more than that. That it is anti-human. That anything that is beneficial to humanity will not be acceptable as an energy resource.
Malthusians want to depopulate the Earth down to some small number, Frequently in the millions rather than the billions we have now.
Then let the Malthusians lead the way!
Come now, everyone is a denier of Naomi’s divine wisdom.
Classic Cult behaviour, none are as holy as I, none but I am the most righteous worshiper of my God.
Naomi leaves no doubt as to her delusion, why does she get any notice, beyond derisive laughter?
Actually I snicker every time she rants, I keep reminding myself, I could not have invented raving do-gooders this idiotic, as an act of fiction.
Before encountering members of the Cult of Calamitous Carbon/Climate, I would have dismissed such characters as implausible.
Naomi fails to realize that when everyone is a denier, nobody will be.
The mantra is that “deniers” are denying science but what but in reality it is any dissent from orthodoxy and has become analogous to the term infidel.
What does this say about the Guardian for allowing this woman space?
Guardian of the gullible perhaps?
The only thing worse than an unbeliever to the faithful is a heretic who doesn’t believe part of the dogma. In this case the green religion.This is how the Terror started in France. Citizen Hansen will be sent to the guillotine with the rest of those who are enemies of the state.
This didn’t go well for Robespierre at the end.
And led, ironically, to the Thermidorian Reaction!
Run by The Committee of Public Safety of course!
My thoughts exactly. This seems just so French Revolution. The only thing missing is the guillotine. Maybe this will make Hansen re-evaluate his thinking, seeing how he is so easily thrown under the bus.
Seems I was a little early on making this comment, but the ending still stands for those in the dogma.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/12/17/german-continuous-nuclear-fusion-reactor-milestone/#comment-2100328
seem to overlook his heretical remarks about nuclear and don’t vilify him.
They may have stopped the overlook.
The Guardian – http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/16/new-form-climate-denialism-dont-celebrate-yet-cop-21
There is a new form of climate denialism to look out for – so don’t celebrate yet – by Naomi Oreskes
But not so fast. There is also a new, strange form of denial that has appeared on the landscape of late, one that says that renewable sources can’t meet our energy needs.
Oddly, some of these voices include climate scientists,[link to below] who insist that we must now turn to wholesale expansion of nuclear power. Just this past week, as negotiators were closing in on the Paris agreement, four climate scientists held an off-site session insisting that the only way we can solve the coupled climate/energy problem is with a massive and immediate expansion of nuclear power. More than that, they are blaming environmentalists, suggesting that the opposition to nuclear power stands between all of us and a two-degree world.
Dr. James Hansen, Dr. Tom Wigley, Dr. Ken Caldeira and Dr. Kerry Emanuel will present research showing the increasing urgency of fully decarbonizing the world economy. However, they will also show that renewables alone cannot realistically meet the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees C, and that a major expansion of nuclear power is essential to avoid dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system this century.
http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/372493/c25ebfa5d2/1603503199/be41125912/
Now this is by Oreskes, who goes by – “Not only do the slaves have to “stay on the plantation”, they have to “stay in the same field on the plantation” .
The goal of global warming / climate change movement is not decarbonization, it’s to reduce the human population. Period.
..Agenda 21 ?
Precisely! The rich egotistical “elites” will inherit the Earth, not the “meek”, somebody just misheard & wrotye it down wrong, that’s all!
Let’s be realistic. With all the poor people occupying the only space that will be habitable at low cost in the coming ice age, of course the rich need to start the depopulation before it is too late to establish their fiefdoms. Most of the areas that are being taken out of use are either resource rich with easy extraction, or ideal large scale estates. It doesn’t really take a rocket scientist to see the way the world is being shaped for the future – those that choose themselves to be the owners of the planet and those that will boot lick so as to control what little masses that will be left to maintain the flow of the required resources so as to maintain the standard of living for the planet “owners” and their boot lickers.
Someone still has to make the boots and the mouthwash.
Quite correct. We have six billion surplus souls on the planet according to the deep greens. Now when all the greens and fanatical enviros start leaping from tall buildings I will take them seriously. Nuclear is a great solution and for places like Australia an easy step and also much cheaper than more inefficient wind turbines. It would also free up our coal for conversion to liquid fuels making us self reliant. At the moment we are susceptible to being starved of fuel by disruptions to our sea lanes, an ever growing danger.
That would leave a population of 1 Billion, or so and that’s too much for some of the more strident voices who claim that too many humans exist, such as Ted Turner, who’s said that he thinks there should only be 250- 500 million of us.
l first of all say that I am not American.So this is in the realms of sarcasm or irony :-
Well if they want to reduce the population here’s a song to go with it.
James Bull
All you need do is click your heels together and sprinkle a little sea water on her.
I’m glad I had finished my coffee when I read this… 🙂
Hey, it’s my mother in law !!!
Mine has been known as the Dragon from before we were married. At one family gathering one of my brothers in law was teaching her grandchildren to sing “Grandma’s a dragon Grandma’s a dragon”
She has an impressive display of toy and model dragons in the hallway of her house.
James Bull
” …. not so fast … ”
Wow … Oreskes even quotes the Wicked Witch of the West. I think the line might be “Not so fast – these things have to be done delicately.” ?? (It’s 62 years since I saw the movie … )
Oh Noes! Naomi Oreskes has loosed her flying monkeys.
Wow, she gives a whole new meaning to the phrase ” Left Wing Nut ” !!!
She shows that the CAGW movement is not really serious. If one really believes that warming is going to destroy the Earth, then how can you reject a solution that is much less threatening?
She is a leftist. Leftists are not logical being.
Notice that the nuclear power issue has nothing whatsoever to do with the so-called science of CAGW.
And yet to come out in favor of it is seen as being another way to deny CAGW.
Oreskes has proven, by this denunciation of Hansen (and anyone else who questions the ability of wind and solar to power our technological society), that the real issue is not global warming at all, but blind obeisance to the official party line.
She has proven this issue is political, and not scientific.
It is obvious that Hansen does not deny CAGW… in fact he believes it so whole-heartedly that he is backing the only way to really reduce CO2 emissions any time soon.
So what it is he is denying?
When you answer that question, you will know the real objective of her faction of the Warmistas.
I think that some of the scientist have been on the CAGW or DAGW bandwagon because they want to slow or stop the opposition to nuclear power. I would bet that those who did jump on the bandwagon wish they hadn’t because it isn’t working and now there is no easy way to get off.
Margaret Thatcher made a severe political mistake by taking a gamble on demonising coal & the lefty lead miners, to use Global Warming as an excuse to expand nuclear power, it simply backfired on her & the left siezed upon AGW as an ideal anti-capitalist tool to bash everyone with!
Damn Alan. Now I remember where I got that notion. Is PM Thatcher the reason Lord Monckton got involved with GW?
When the Hansen et al new conference occurred Andy Revkin at the NYTimes “Dot Earth” blog published an astonishing commentary on the “recarbomization” of first the German and then now the French energy grid.
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/12/04/in-paris-negotiators-trim-a-draft-climate-agreement-climate-scientists-press-for-nuclear-energy-activists-prepare-for-failure/?_r=0
The Green Malthusians would far more prefer to build more coal fired plants in both countries than to tolerate advanced nuclear energy. Though, in the end, what they really want is scarce, exorbitantly priced Green energy, even if that means freezing in the dark for stretches at a time. Just as long as it leads to a return to a feudal age economy, but with a 21st century population we’re talking mega-death. Which is precisely the point.
Sara. “Just as long as it leads to a return to a feudal age economy, but with a 21st century population we’re talking mega-death. Which is precisely the point.”
It is hard to think of a greater evil than this. It is extremely evil to condemn billions to deaths by starvation, freezing to death, riots, war, and so on. We should never underestimate the evil of the radical Marxists. And yet, the evidence that the CAGW movement really does want this sort of mass murder is hard to ignore.
Thanks for your comment.
I didnt get his name..but ABC aus radio national had a chap telling us that we need to go back to 1950 living in aus
its was a decent standard he thought.
polio due to outside dunnys n no running water
a fridge was ONLY for the well off
in 1969 I was 10
we were still using kero lanterns, blocks of ice in a cooler and boiling a copper to wash clothes n heat bathwater
and that was IN a major city of Adelaide sth aus.
I had never ending colds and chilblains because we couldnt afford a heater let alone pay the bill to run one
we did have the luxury of a cold tap of running water in the kitchen, and in the laundry.
love to see todays spoilt darlings cope with that..I really would.
What more natural source of mother natures power could there be? Radioactive decay keeps the Earth warm, to an extant, and from cooling too fast… And it doesn’t create CO2, the ‘magical, evil gas of mass destruction’. Put 1/100th the money spent on GW into providing safe, efficient reactors for electrical generation and everyone will be happy…
/ !/2 Sarc
Ps.
Why has nature not given us a way of engineering a perpetual motion machine?
Looking further, one can see that nuclear fission is just another form of solar energy, albeit from the stars that exploded to forge and disburse the fissionable elements all those billions of years ago.
Pace Jim Hansen, but the best way to “solve the climate problem is for everyone to realize that there is no problem, and that consensus AGW climatology is a crock.
Naomi Oreskes is going have to to bite a very serious bullet when climate alarm frenzy ends with a whimper.
When the fratricide begins, the end can’t be far off for the “warmists”……
Yep. When thieves fall out, honest men come by their own.
(……. honest men keep what belongs to them)
16th Century Proverb
Scott, I agree. There has never been a successful revolution that was not preceded by a split in the military. Or in this case, a split among the militants.
Hansen draws a straight line in the sand which has nuclear on his side, everything else on the other side.
Orestes draws a line in the sand that circles Hansen’s line and tries to bully Hansen not to step out of his box or he will be denied out of the tribe. Hansen looks at her like she is a specimen in a dubious clinical study.
Or something like that.
John
“Orestes draws a line in the sand that circles Hansen’s line”
Will Lew draw a triangle?
simple-touriste on December 17, 2015 at 7:40 pm
– – – – – – –
simple-tourist,
It is possible I guess that Lew, who is a self-acclaimed stereotyping authority, may dream of drawing pentagonal shapes around his antagonists.
John
It seems Hansen has been an Oreskesian ‘denier’ since at least 2011-
Hansen’s support of renewables-
“But suggesting that renewables will let us phase rapidly off fossil fuels in the United States, China, India, or the world as a whole is almost the equivalent of believing in the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.”
“”If you drink the kool-aid represented in the right part of Fig. 7 [large-scale deployment of renewables and conservation], you are a big part of the problem. The problem is that, by drinking the kool-aid, you are also pouring it down the throats of my dear grandchildren and yours. The tragedy in doing so is much greater than that of Jim Jones’ gullible followers, who forced their children to drink his kool-aid. All life will bear the consequences.”
James Hansen, newsletter article, 8/2011
Great! They are now starting to eat each other. All we have to do is wait for a little while, and then we can give Anthony and Jo our thanks, shut down all the climate sites, and use the internet for its original purpose. (Cat videos and porn.)
Can anyone-and I mean anyone-take her seriously now? I feel that her opinions should, from now on, be taken with something more than just a grain of salt. I mean, Tom Wigley, James Hansen, deniers? For that matter, should anyone even take the Guardian seriously either, if they are willing to publish this?
Could anyone take her seriously after reading
– neutral pH is 6
– beryllium is heavy
– the various radiation limits (for people, for workers) are based on the concept that low levels of radiation are safe (cause a worker has stronger natural radiation-immunity, m’kay?)
– correlation is not causation unless p<.05
Sources:
First three: her critically acclaimed book
Last: NYTimes interview
I couldn't believe it and I had to check myself on the Web (I spent nothing on that crap, hopefully).
No, but I don’t see those in the article.
Low levels of radiation are safe. (Of course the meaning of low has to be properly defined.) People living in Denver have about 3 times the radiation exposure compared to people living in Miami. Altitude and lots of granite increase the exposure for those living in Denver.
Someone took her seriously? Seriously? I can’t wait for the next Attack of La Nina.
I never honestly took her very seriously, but I suppose even that small part was in an attempt to find her logical fallacies-which are many.
And, neither can I, just wait till those temps drop!
The “Empress” has no clothes!
This reveals that Oreskes has no legitimate data nor logical argument from which to make her case – she can only try an Ad Hominem attack to divert attention from the utter weakness of her position.
“If you point a finger at someone, you have four pointing back at you!”
@David L. Hagen,
“The “Empress” has no clothes!” The mental image that conjures is just plain disturbing!!
More than disturbing. How about nauseating or frightening.
You have to admit the woman is ugly as a truck. The seeing her clothed is difficult enough.
Hey, stop insulting trucks!
Thus the problem with trying to use gender “appropriate” language!
Barely unimaginable!!
@ David L. Hagen .. Actually that’s 3 fingers pointing back at you. The thumb isn’t included it the pointing. It’s at an angle. …
Anyway, I remember the line from the Dire Straits song: Solid Rock
“When you point your finger ‘cuz your plan fell through,
You got three more fingers pointing back at you,”
Who needs drugs or alcohol when you have the equisite self satire of Comrade Oreskes?
A lesson from the French Revolution. When the revolutionaries thought they had won, they started eating their own.
That’s probably just as true for the communist revolution in Russia also. Be careful who your friends are.
Here it is in a nut shell. If it was agreed that nuclear power was a major component in the plans for replacing fossil fuels then the issue would fad away. With nuclear on the table human civilization would not be endangered and developing nations would have a good chance for a prosperous future.
And Naomi Oreskes? She would be out of a job. No longer the heroine, leading the crusade.
Anyway none of the CAGW crowd will go for it. Wrecks their meal ticket. It would be nice to see them have a uncivil war. Gives me a “warmy” feeling.
michael
But beryllium is still a heavy metal, right? It’s a toxic metal, so it’s heavy, right?
Are you a heavy metal denier?
The density of beryllium is 1840 kg/m3 making it about 2/3 as dense as aluminum at 2712 kg/m3 and way less than iron at 7850 kg/m3.
I thought beryllium was a heavy metal for a long time too because it’s a neutron reflector, but it’s not. Just goes to show ya…
Bartleby,
Relative to the metallic element lithium, the metallic element beryllium is a heavy (as in heavier) metal.
John
The more in-fighting there is the sooner the house of cards will topple.
The point about nuclear, even with melt downs from time to time, being an easily preferable trade-off to total destruction of life on earth as we know it, I think this reveals something important. If people like Oreskes actually BELIEVED their own hype, they would see this very clearly. That they don’t tells me they do not actually believe their own hype. I have no doubt they THINK they believe it. But in truth, they really don’t.
Read a fantastic scare story (elsewhere of course!) yesterday that three cores from Fukushima could not be found and where melting their way to the centre of the earth (could explain the millions of degrees down there of course!).
safest place for them to go. They won’t make it past the upper mantle.
When I was a teen, we had a trendy-Lefty teaher that was all a-flustered warning us about the dangers of Nuclear Energy, so she told us the scare-story of the China Syndrome. She did not like it when I asked her how the “molten, nuclear core” would pass through the high temperature of the Earth’s core intact enough to defy gravity and bore ~3900 miles up to China.
Hard to think of a better disposal plan for nuclear waste than to let it sink itself into the core of the Earth.
I think the real fear is/was that once it reaches the water table, a steam explosion will occur and spread the stuff who knows where.
Other Left governments think the same as Dr Hansen.
Take the South Australian Government Royal Commission into nuclear fuel use
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-09-09/nuclear-fuel-cycle-royal-commission-starts-in-adelaide/6758648
Now in this advocates for ‘decarbonisation’ are very vocal in wanting nuclear power
‘Australia can be low energy cost leader: Garnaut
Professor Garnaut said Australia could achieve huge competitive advantages from low-emission energy resources.
“Australia is much richer in high-grade uranium oxide, the basis of nuclear energy, relative to other developed countries’
The Greens in Australia are so dysfunctional that they even oppose the return of Australian generated radioactive medical waste used in treating cancer.
SBS has highlighted this on their news programs.
This is an issue which divides the green left to the detriment of sense.
If they think carbon dioxide is so dangerous, why not embrace something that isn’t, that will
give base load power?
The Guardian is running the wrong narrative.
But then, its good at some narration
‘The Guardian goes all lad’s mag, gets red faced. headline Tuesday:
My girlfriend’s enlarged breasts turn me on, but I am not sure what to do with them.’
The Australian CUT@PASTE Dec 16th 2015 Pg 15.
No doubt they will be sending in an investigative journalist to find out.
COP21, the Paris Circus, was a vast right wing conspiracy restart the nuclear programs for electrical power production.
Can we stop the conspiracy now and get on with construction?
I’m with Oreskes on nuclear, so I guess that I am no longer a denier while Jim Hansen is.
Dec 17, 2015 at 10:05 AM | Unregistered CommenterRichard Tol
http://bishophill.squarespace.com/blog/2015/12/17/the-vacuity-of-naomi-oreskes.html#comments
I agree nuclear in its current form doesn’t make economic sense, and reactors which require active safety are just nuts. But its fun to argue from the premises of your opponents, when their arguments don’t make sense, even on their own terms.
With Fukushima being the worst civilian nuclear power accident outside of the Soviet Union, even the first generation plants have a good safety record (note “good” not “perfect”). The USN has had no deaths attributable to nuclear propulsion and has thousands of reactor years of experience (nearly 400 with one ship – CVN65) with essentially generation one reactors.
The harm from having an annual accident of the scale of Chernobyl or Fukushima would be far less than the harm from misguided “green” policies.
Something else to think about: The primary harm from being exposed to radiation is an elevated risk of developing cancer. The earthquake and tsunami that led to the Fukushima destroyed a lot of chemical plants – how many people will be developing cancer from exposure to toxic chemicals from the earthquake & tsunami versus the number expected to develop cancers from exposure to radiation from Fukushima.
Deaths amongst windmill maintenance crews (not to mention the birds and bats), coalminers, loggers etc. need to be taken into account too.
Eric that’s just not true. Fourth generation nuclear power is cheap and safe. If you’ve done enough research to doubt carbon dioxide is an existential threat to humanity, you owe it to yourself to spend at least that much time looking at contemporary nuclear power designs. Personally I favor the Toshiba reactors but there are quite a few alternatives.
The same people who are trying to kill fossil fuels killed nuclear in the 60’s and 70’s. They’re first class morons.
And Nigel, lets see if the various governmental agencies make a legitimate effect to track how many folks die from falls while maintaining their home rooftop PV cells.
Effort
My understanding is that what happened at Fukashima was completely foreseeable and preventable, and it was only a virtual comedy of errors that allowed what happened to have occurred.
Chernobyl was due to the Soviets building the cheapest possible, graphite moderator reactors, designed such that they actively burn if they melt down. Three Mile Island was a win-win and no one was hurt and the problem contained. Fukushima was just plain stupid—who in their right mind would put the back-up generators in an unhardened structure on the ocean side of the nuclear plant, where a tsunami could wipe them away? That’s just a stupid plan and one very easily corrected.
Liquid fluoride thorium reactors (aka LiFTR) are already liquid and cannot meltdown, they are even self-scrambling and self-leveling, we are up to our ears in thorium, It’s cheap and easy to manage. The proof of concept was done back in the 1960s. It can even be automated and not subject to human error. We could have a completely decentralized energy supply and entirely eliminate the grid and any threat of blackouts or brownouts. Industry would be independent and safe. Imagine the incredible tons of copper and iron that could be recovered from the dismantled power lines.
Oh, and nuclear has the smallest ecological foot print, is one of the cheapest energies, and “green.” Wind and solar have the largest footprint on the planet, cost many times more than other forms of energy, use rare materials that are not only unsustainable but also most for the materials are non-recyclable. Yeah, wind and solar suck big time. The Sun sets, the wind dies, and we do not have a cheap, reliable means of storing energy between times.
YOU CANNOT BUILD A RELIABLE ENERGY SUPPLY FORM UNRELIABLE ENERGY SOURCES.
Glad to see someone else mentioning the potential of the LFTR.
Chernobyl was initiated by a “safety check” of course.
How many people died as a result of Chernobyl ?
Here it is from the UN (The Organisation that gave us the UNIPCC) ..
http://www.un.org/press/en/2005/dev2539.doc.htm
” WASHINGTON, D.C., 5 September (IAEA/WHO/UNDP) — A total of up to 4,000 people could eventually die of radiation exposure from the Chernobyl nuclear power plant (NPP) accident nearly 20 years ago, an international team of more than 100 scientists has concluded.
As of mid-2005, however, fewer than 50 deaths had been directly attributed to radiation from the disaster, almost all being highly exposed rescue workers, many who died within months of the accident but others who died as late as 2004.
The new numbers are presented in a landmark digest report, “ Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and Socio-Economic Impacts”, just released by the Chernobyl Forum. The digest, based on a three-volume, 600-page report and incorporating the work of hundreds of scientists, economists and health experts, assesses the 20-year impact of the largest nuclear accident in history. The Forum is made up of eight UN specialized agencies, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, and the World Bank, as well as the Governments of Belarus, Russian Federation and Ukraine.”
So, yes it was a disaster and many lessons have been learnt, there has not been anything like this since.
How many workers have been killed with other Energy production methods? compared to deaths in the Nuclear industry.
April 26, 1942: A coal-dust explosion at Benxihu Colliery in Japanese occupied China killed 1,549
May 5, 1988: Norco, Louisiana, Shell Oil refinery explosion after hydrocarbon gas escaped from a corroded pipe in a catalytic cracker and was ignited. Louisiana state police evacuated 2,800 residents from nearby neighborhoods. Seven workers were killed and 42 injured.
July 6, 1988: Piper Alpha disaster. An explosion and resulting fire on a North Sea oil production platform kills 167 men.
Someone is bound to Mention Fukishima…
March 2011: Fukushima I nuclear accidents in Japan. Regarded as the second largest nuclear disaster in history, after the Chernobyl disaster, there have been no direct deaths attributed to radiation at or around the Fukushima power station but a few of the plant’s workers were injured or killed by the disaster conditions resulting from the earthquake and tsunami that struck the power plant which precipitated the accident.
Go for Nuclear, it is clean and safe, well mostly clean.
“Liquid fluoride thorium reactors (aka LiFTR) are already liquid and cannot meltdown, they are even self-scrambling and self-leveling, we are up to our ears in thorium, It’s cheap and easy to manage. The proof of concept was done back in the 1960s.”
ABSOLUTELY FALSE!!! Where did you get this junk?
The assumption among some so-called experts is that there is no safe level of radiation, and thus even tiny amounts cause a number of deaths proportionate to the dose.
In other words, it is supposed by these people that the dose/fatality graph is linear for radiation exposure.
It is know to be true that low levels of radiation have the opposite effect…they protect against genetic damage by activating cellular repair mechanisms and other protective responses on a cellular level, and perhaps at the level or organ systems and entire organisms.
Several very well documented instances of this phenomenon are know, and this protective effect is known as hormesis. In the case of radiation, it is called radiation hormesis, but such responses have been documented regarding exposure to other toxic substances and some sorts of injuries.
Getting lots of sun makes a person tan, and this protects against further damage from solar UV.
Broken bones heal to be stronger at the location of the fracture. Working with ones hands and getting numerous abrasions leads to calloused skin, which is highly resistant to almost any sort of damage. Doing strenuous work which tears down muscle tissue leads to the development of very strong muscles, which are able to do far more work than muscles which are not stressed on a regular basis.
These are all well known effects, which no one would dispute. Less well known, but true nonetheless is that within our bodies are other processes that performs tasks such as repairing oxidative damage to cells and tissues including, most significantly for long term low doses of ionizing radiation, repairing damaged DNA. These repair mechanisms respond to stress and extra damage by stepping up their response and effectiveness.
In this way, people who live in places with naturally high levels of background radiation have been shown to suffer less cancers than others who do not experience elevated exposure. Many places, like the monzonite sands of India, have this natural condition, and epidemiological studies have confirmed this (perhaps) surprising and counterintuitive result.
Even cases of sudden elevated exposure, endured over log periods of time by large numbers of people, have been documented.
Perhaps the best known is a building in Taiwan which was constructed as a housing block, and which inadvertently was built with highly radioactive rebars in the concrete. The radiation was not discovered for a very long time, so lots of people lived for a long time under radiation loads which had been supposed would cause greatly elevated cancer risks. But these people did not have elevated rates of cancer…in fact they had rates that were significantly below those of other people with the same demographics but without the radiation exposure.
What does not kill you makes you stronger, is an aphorism which is true in ways undreamed of by whoever coined the phrase.
It is easy to look up this effect. If you never heard of this, you will likely be pleasantly surprised.
A link to the story and subsequent research, but a search will turn up many other references:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2477708/
This is more than a hint on the religious nature of climate alarmism. The first major schism has occurred and the heretics have been identified and called out. What will come next?
Inquisition? Schism? 30 years war? I’m laying on a supply of popcorn… 🙂
Post COP nuptials, a great time for muckrakers and tallow harvesters. Confusion and dissention in the air. One lentil short of mulligatawny over at the orange tirade offers pot stirring ideation, punch and Judy (bets are off). Disturbances in the farce all around. Green energy sabres at the ready, left-left entertainment follows.
Oreskes came to Australia and was protected by the greenABC from being asked awkward questions, such as why has the temperature not risen outside natural variation as predicted by the models?
The otorious anti nuclear protestor Jane??? was here at the same time spreading gossip about Fukushima. When challenged with real data, she answered by catching the first plane out of the country.
These people are prime hypocrites.
These people will , however, be given prime jobs in Hillary’s first cabinet .
I can see Oreskes as head of the US State Dept.
Would she be any different from, or less effective than, Kerry?
The quasi-marxist-leninist-trotskyist-antinuclear-green-occupy-‘whatever it is I’m against it’ crowd always end up fighting amongst themselves à la the People’s Front of Judea vs the Judean People’s Front.
Orestes and her ilk do not believe that having reliable, cheap energy is a good thing. They want us to have to tailor our activities to wind and solar and get used to having intermittent and unreliable energy; i.e., no real industry to speak of, as such activities require reliable, cheap energy.
Children are being taught this rubbish in schools
James Delingpole has it well covered.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/17/cop21-failure-terror-begins-crazed-greenies-eat/
Unlike Naomi Oreskes, James Hansen is not a complete imbecile. He understands that unless you wish to kill a good percentage of the world’s population, that renewables will never replace the reliable source of energy that nuclear provides.
Perhaps Ms. Oreskes wishes to substantially deplete the world’s population so that the energy demand is shrunk to the energy supply that she will allow those who are selected to live to have.
isthatright – yes, we must give the devil his dues. Hansen is spot on : only a crash-program building nuclear power stations stands a chance of halting atmospheric CO2 increase. At least he shows that he is realistic, given his belief in the theory of CAGW. It is Oreskes who has her head in the clouds.
“James Hansen is not a complete imbecile. ”
Which bits are missing ???
“He’s right your Honor. This man has no dick.” — Dr. Peter Venkman. Ghostbusters.
Well, he does bring up his grand kids at every opportunity … as if he had something to prove.
James “Boiling Oceans” Hansen?
Are we talking about the same guy?
The number of times this guy has been completely wrong in his over confident predictions could fill an encyclopedia, and yet he has never admitted he may have it all wrong.
To me, this sort of behavior is no hallmark of superior intellect.
Menicholas: it demonstrates that Hanson fully believes Catastrophic AGW, but his answer is at least a realistic one.
Yes, it may be the only thing he has ever said in public that turned out to be correct.
Even a stopped watch…
As a millennial with a brain, I’m one of the few who thinks that Nuclear Plants should be our future and not just that fusion future (which will eventually come…I think) but that fission is both safe, reliable, and can provide the baseload, nearly CO2-free power that Environmentalists say they want, but that’s not actually what they want as I think nearly everyone here knows.
If government regulation got out of the way, especially with Gen-4 reactors, we would not have any meltdowns and the cost and time required to build the reactors would be minimal. As well, pushing development and regular distribution of molten salt reactors would mean that we no longer have to worry about nuclear waste storage as the waste would just be transported and stored briefly before it was consumed by this reactor further eliminating the anti-nuclear worries of long-term storage and possible leakage of the radioactive material.
#1 They’ve always told us there’s a consensus, that’s why skeptics are banned from all aspects of climate/policy..
#2 Alarmists never call each other out, no matter how wacky the claims; which shows they care more about PR than the truth. Now we have one occasion where they do, it’s surprisingly the super loony alarmists calling out other alarmists for something they are actually being logical about.
Ah the revolution is now eating their own
once you end the war on coal, & continue with oil and gas & hydro, there’s no need for heavy investment in and reliance on either option the CAGW factions are now fighting over.
Naomi should take some time off. She looks tired.
Hansen and co. quote ” We have used both climate models and geological records of past climates to better understand lessons from warmer periods in the Earth’s history to investigate future scenarios ” How about that then? Admission that the Earth had been warmer.
When the Berlin wall came down there was two sets of people , those that weep tears of joy at its falls and the freedom the people of eastern Europe gained , and those that weep tears of sadness because it fell and the people of eastern Europe gained freedom , guess which one Naomi was.
Naomi Oreskes is a green, socialistic fascist, a fanatic that has a cause based on insanity, were rule one is never criticize or question the ‘science’, the logical basis, basic engineering issues, basic economic issues associated with the insanity. The time for ‘discussion’ or debate is over. Wait there never was any discussion or debate.
The entire scientific basis of CAGW is incorrect. The majority of the CO2 atmospheric rise is due to natural sources and the majority of the warming in the last 150 years is due to solar cycle changes. If that assertion is correct global warming and the rise in atmospheric CO2 is reversible.
Cult of CAGW Rules (Similar to the Rules of Fight Club)
Cult of CAGW Rule 1: Those who question any of the cult’s science are evil, deniers. Sub rule 1A. The time for ‘debate’ concerning ‘climate change’ is over so it is impossible to stop the madness. Sub rule 1B, talking about the end of deficit spending is to be avoided at all costs. Liberalism, socialism is based on never ending spending to ‘solve’ problems. If time of deficit spending is over, then spending more money on project A will require spending less money on project/entitlement B.
Cult of CAGW Rule 2: Fabrication of science is necessary to convince the public that unlimited deficit spending/allocation of limited GDP is necessary to fight ‘climate change’. Due to rule 1 and rule 2, all calculations associated with the greens scams, the general circulation predicted warming in the models, the Bern atmospheric model that provides the cult’s assertion for the lifetime of CO2 in the atmosphere, CO2 sources and sinks, and the economic costs of warming and benefits for green scams has been fabricated to push the cult of CAGW’s paradigm.
Cult of CAGW Rule 3: All promises to make ridiculous expenditures (there is no money to spend and there are comical, pathetic future unfunded liabilities) on green scams which will result in no appreciable change in climate or in atmospheric CO2 levels are praised (reality should be ignored) as they are a move in the right direction.
There are layers and layers of lies associated with the Cult of CAGW.
Green Scam Layer. Developed Countries are Running Deficits and hence have run out of Money to spending on everything layer.
Oreskes does not understand that the green scams are scams, a colossal waste of limited public funds. The green scams do not work. People do not understand that developed countries have run out of money to spending on everything.
Spending is limited by GDP. Higher energy costs will result in lower GDP and will result in a lower standard of life for all people. Spending more money on green scams that do not work will require spending less money on health care, roads, defense, schools, teacher’s salaries, public pensions, aid to foreign countries, aid for refuges, and so on.
Oreskes does not understand the developed countries have increased their debt to GDP ratio by 50% since 2007. That was a significant mistake. There will be consequences when the next economic crisis appears. The public will not support green scam mandates that will triple of the cost of electricity and result in the loss of more jobs to Asia during an economic crisis.
Economist June 13, 2015
It is pathetic that the cult of CAGW and the many green leaches are pushing green scams that do not work for basic engineering and economic reasons.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/obamas-renewable-energy-fantasy-1436104555
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2014/11/22/shocker-top-google-engineers-say-renewable-energy-simply-wont-work/
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/02/08/weekly-climate-and-energy-news-roundup-167/
http://notrickszone.com/2015/02/04/germanys-energiewende-leading-to-suicide-by-cannibalism-huge-oversupply-risks-destabilization/#sthash.8tE9YRDj.PSllYaQF.dpbs
I just found this comment from earlier in the year on Judith Curry’s blog:
“I’d like to see a list of candidates for Pope of the Church of CAGW.
James Hansen,
Michael Mann
Al Gore
Obama
John Holdren
Naomi Oreskes”.
I guess that Oreskes must have read that comment and decided to work her way down the list, discrediting all but herself.
The night of the long knives.
But once she is Pope of the Church of CAGW there is a need for fresh saints, so she can’t be too harsh on them either.
The general thrust of the skeptic case is that the increased CO2 atmospheric fraction has little to do with atmospheric temperatures.
To needlessly replace fossil fuels then makes no sense.
The history of nuclear power stations gives very little support to the proposition that they are safe.
A major incident like Chernobyl or Fukushima destroys land values within 20 mile radius of the plant never mind the health risks.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22530053-800-shocking-state-of-worlds-riskiest-nuclear-waste-site/
France which is Europe biggest nuclear power user has recently grown wary and plans no future stations.
The decommissioning of retired nuclear power stations is proving to be horrendously expensive.
France is worried? That’s new to me.
Despite decades of extreme antinuclear propaganda in the media, the French people are resisting well.
The idea of decrease “dependency” on nuclear is a political talking point.
But France is scheduling the decommissioning of those plants soon, in response to greenie pressure.
No. Nuclear capacity is now capped by law (yes this is obviously illegal, free trade and everything) at 63 GW.
The capacity cap will be raised when the EPR comes online. (It’s like the deficit ceiling in the US!)
There is the just upgraded Fessenheim plant with a not-really-core catcher (the real core catcher would be larger I guess) in both reactors, so they won’t be closed now.
There was bargain with the green party: close Fessenheim plant and get our votes. The greens not in the government anymore.
There is a vague plan to decrease nuclear energy in relative terms from 75% to 50% … in 2025. François Hollande failed pretty much everything except gay mariage and a 75% tax for >one million euros salaries.
François Hollande can’t decide anything significant now, the traditional left party (Parti Socialiste) is traditionally pronuclear, the communists are, the “extreme right” (Front National) is too, only the greens and the neo-communists (Front de Gauche) are against.
Bryan: the cost and danger of nuclear power is not a function of the technology, but of the perceptions and the legislation.
If you start with the proposition that nuclear power is so dangerous that one extra micro Sievert of radiation (in a world that contains billions) is so dangerous that every reactor mist have 17 concrete and steel walls built round it and safety system in quintuplicate, all assessed twenty times a day by an army of trained bureaucrats, well yes, then nuclear power will be impossibly expensive.
It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.
The evidence of course is slowly building that radiation is far far less dangerous than the regulatory environment has assumed. There is no shame in that, because the regulatory environment was introduced at a time when the knowledge and the data simply wasn’t there, and so worst case assumptions were made.
What is shameful is the reluctance of the anti-nuclear brigade to relinquish their shibboleths, and accept that the true lessons of Chernobyl, Fukushima and Three mile Island, is that actually radiation is far far less dangerous than has been assumed by the regulatory structures, and that all the predictions made in terms of megadeath resulting from radiation release have been utterly and completely wrong, to the point where the whole basis of the model of human harm from low level radiation has to be called into question.
But the left loves its shibboleths. Anti-nuclear sentiment as well as anti-capitalist sentiment, and that includes Green issues as well, is the bedrock of the cold war AgitProp that was used to destabilise the West. And now lives on in modified form in the environmental movement.
What we see here is the schism between the real environmentalists – the likes of Patrick Moore, and even the idiotic Monbiot, and Mark Lynas, who actually believe in AGW,. and are honest in their appraisal of the solutions, and those to whom AGW, nuclear power and the like are simply tools in a worldwide, generation spanning, hearts-and-minds black propaganda war, whose aim is the destruction of national cultures, economies and identities and the imposition of a world government, which they either fondly believe will solve the worlds problems – or firmly believe they will be a part of, and therefore safe from being a neo-feudal serf. Which is the condition they feel befits the rest of us.
It is this massive and monumental egotism of the Green/Left/anti-nuclear brigade that gives the lie to their pretensions. They are legends in their own minds, warriors whose methods cannot be questioned, because their cause is right, or so the puppet masters assure them.
I cannot stress this enough. I have spent a long time analysing the Green/Left/CND mind, and they all share a common characteristic. They think they are more intelligent and deserving of note than they actually are. They bitterly resent being ignored, laughed at or dismissed as idiots.. Their whole emotional stance is of bitter resentment against those whom they perceive have passed them by and been successful, where they have not. The more their ideology crumbles around them, the more bitter and full of hatred they feel, because it reinforces their status as victims, and even though it is their own ideology they are victims of, they will always manage to project that hatred onto others, seeing class enemies, environmental enemies and the like where none actually exist.
You and I might profess to being a bit sceptical about green issues. They dont profess to being concerned, they are Environmentalists. They define themselves by their political beliefs, and therein lies the danger: If those beliefs fail, they are in the end empty shells of people with no substance left at all.
And herein lies the crux of the whole matter. Naomi simply cannot even entertain the possibility that she is wrong. TO do so would be to court complete disintegration of her persona. Naturally she defends her position with all the scorn venom and irrationality of which the human female is capable, (and which is now being copied by today’s metro-sexual males).
Just please dont be drawn into the same position vis à vis nuclear power, of being tied to the old shibboleths, when new information shows them to be misplaced.
Nuclear/fossil/renewable should be a simple question of cost benefit and risk analysis based on best data available. Not an issue of bigotry and ideology that the Green Left want to make it.
Pr Pierre Pellerin (MD, “agrégé” of biophysics, researcher at INSERM (Institut National de la Santé et de la Recherche Médicale = national institute of health and medical research) and CEA (Commissariat à l’énergie atomique), professor of biophysics and nuclear medicine, French expert for radioprotection, creator and director of “Service central de protection contre les rayonnements ionisants”):
extract from:
Entretien réalisé par Alexandre Sidorenko,
Kiev-Tchernobyl-Kiev,
Kiev-Soir, 19 juin 1989,
publié par Sovietskaya Bieloroussia, dimanche 1er juillet 1989
Source: http://www.dissident-media.org/infonucleaire/zones_controle_special.html (yes, an antinuclear site)
Google Translate output edited by me:
In my opinion, the concept of absence of threshold belongs to the category of imaginary problems which are useful for people with professional selfishness. About the linearity (the dose / effect relationship, that is to say the absence of a threshold, translator’s note) during the 30 years of the common market [= Europe integrated market], we spent about 1 billion francs and so far there has been no result. When we ask to stop the funding of such research, people try to make us change our minds because for many years there has been laboratories, that entire departments were created, that many scientists are involved in this research and that interrupting all this work would be unreasonable.
By the way, the no threshold concept has emerged not as a problem requiring a solution but only as a hypothesis to be used by humanity to develop protection standards. The International Commission on Radiological Protection created in the first place precisely to review these pessimistic assumptions, and understood that this was a pseudo-scientific way to address the issue, but it did not hesitate to edict these from the desire to improve protection against radiation. And a huge number of people including scientists, have begun to consider the worst case as an indisputable fact.
Extract from:
Interview Alexandre Sidorenko,
Kiev-Tchernobyl-Kiev,
Kiev-Evening, June the 19th , 1989,
published by Sovietskaya Bieloroussia, Sunday, July the 1st, 1989
Source: http://www.dissident-media.org/stop_nogent/109_110_haut_respon.html
Leo,
This is one of the most coherent pieces regarding AGW I have ever seen.
Thanks
“France which is Europe biggest nuclear power user has recently grown wary and plans no future stations.”
Do you know that France currently has 58 power reactors online in 19 different plants, and is building a 1600 MW “EPR” (formerly European Pressurized Reactor, now Evolutionary Pressurized Reactor)?
Do you know that the total capacity is 63 GW?
Do you know that the lifetime of these reactors will be extended for 20 years?
Do you have any idea what France electrical needs are?
Why would you think France should make plans to build “future stations”?
Today the last deep coal mine in the UK closes.
Thatcher kicked off the anti-coal bandwagon because of class hatred against British miners.
She later said that the use of the ‘greenhouse effect ‘ argument was just tactics and anyone that was worried by CO2 was just deluded.
Here on a climate skeptic site some advocates seem to accept that there is a CO2 problem .
Their solution is a massive switch to Nuclear Power Plants despite the safety and cost involved.
The cheapest, most reliable energy source is fossil fuels (coal gas and oil ).
Why fix a non existent problem with a dangerous and costly solution?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lists_of_nuclear_disasters_and_radioactive_incidents
It wasn’t class hatred, it was a reaction to the militant left wing antics of the labor unions.
“France which is Europe biggest nuclear power user has recently grown wary and plans no future stations.”
The word “station” is interesting. Why “station” instead of “reactor”? Do you even know the difference?
Also, number of civilian power reactors in the world: 438.
Number in France: 58
It means 13% of the civilian nuclear power reactors of the world are in France! (for about 1 % of the world population)
Another comparison:
Nuclear power capacity
USA 99 GW
France 62 GW
And of course France plans no future “stations” because adding reactors to existing stations is cheaper.
simple-touriste
I said
“France which is Europe biggest nuclear power user has recently grown wary and plans no future stations.”
You said
“The word “station” is interesting. Why “station” instead of “reactor”? Do you even know the difference?”
If you google
Nuclear Power Station
Or Nuclear Power Plant
You will get thousands of hits.
Is English not your first language?
Or are you just a language fascist?
“Is English not your first language?”
No, it isn’t.
What is your point?
Did you mean “station”?
Why would France build nuclear stations?
There are layers and layers of madness associated with the Cult of CAGW.
The following is an interesting review of Naomi Klein’s new book ‘This Changes Everything’ which is an anti-industrial development book. Klein believes in a fairy tale world, where green energy is not a scam. Climate ‘change’ is the wedge to create her socialistic vision. Silly reality, more than 10 observation and analysis results that support the assertion that roughly 90% of the warming in the last 50 years was due to solar magnetic cycle changes rather than atmospheric CO2 and that the planet has now started to cool are not even considered, irrelevant to her fantasy.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/the-it-girl-of-climate-change-doesnt-get-it/article20736274/#dashboard/follows/
The cult of CAGW is part of cult of Liberalism which is based on spending more and money which the government does not have to solve problems. The end of the road is economic collapse.
http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21577348-gloomy-convincing-account-developed-worlds-problems-horror-story
Scientific Layer. Hide the fact that there are cycles of warming both hemispheres in the paleo record. The past warming correlates with solar cycle changes.
Scientific Fraud layer. Manipulate data. Fire editors that dare to publish papers that show CAGW is a scam.
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/davis-and-taylor-wuwt-submission.pdf
Just out of interest here are some figures for the various technologies that fall under the title “renewable”:
“92% of renewable energy was hydroelectric followed by wind at 6% and geothermal at 1.8%. Solar photovoltaic was 0.06%, and solar thermal was 0.004%. Data are from OECD 2011-12 Factbook (2009 data)”
So, were a person to rule out nuclear and promote renewable technology, then obviously a rational actor would channel funding towards the most proven and most successful technology currently available.
We get <16% of global electricity from Hydro Power – and yet Oreskes and her friends always seem to want us to hurl money at the most expensive item on the menu.
I suspect that if wind power became commercially competitive and reliable, then they would first lose interest and then heartily resist it.
Just as the eco-left has done with hydropower.
Apologies, hydro is MORE than 16% of total global electricity production. And PV has grown by approximately a factor of 6 since 2009.
Hydro and PV solar is an excellent combination. We’re lucky enough to have that in our Australian State of Tasmania which is almost entirely powered by Hydro electricity. The more PV solar we get, the less pressure there is on draining our dams and we can export more profitable peak loading power across to the Australian mainland via our undersea cable.
Hydro power is one of the best energy sources as it can be varied instantly to match the required load. Its a great peak energy provider…
Absolutely. And many countries have over 50% hydro. Brazil for example has this facility to expand solar and wind due to its massive hydro capacity.
Chinese panels are now so cheap that the EU has slapped a 70% tax on them to try to keep the price high??!!!
Which to me, as a potential customer (off the grid) seems like the dumbest thing that I have ever heard.
70% tax on Chinese PV panels?
Now there is a scandal all in itself, even if not for the obvious incongruence of this to what is being foisted off on us at COP21.
Of course, the real reason Oreskes is dead against nuclear power is…
” It requires technical expertise”
Something she and her fellow travellers will never acquire. if she can’t have it…. neither can you.
if she can’t have it…. neither can you.
Its called social justice, or egalitarianism, or ‘fairness’.
Its a complete rejection of any hierarchy whatsoever, except strangely it allows seems to end up in a hierarchy even more rigid than the one it purports to replace..
The buzzword is ‘equality’
And as we all know, some pigs are more equal than others.
No, she’s against it because it works. True warmists only believe in and promote methods that don’t economically work–that way they can achieve their goal of keeping the masses from having cheap abundant energy. After all, we’d only get into mischief.
About 15 years ago, when natural gas was considered a premium, almost boutique fuel, and very high-priced, all the enviros were saying it was the perfect alternative to nasty old cheap coal power. But since horizontal drilling w/fracking and the resulting overproduction of gas has dropped its price to the very affordable range, now enviros can’t stand natural gas. It’s too cheap and available. We’ll just get into mischief.
I think we have the birth a new piece of terminology, ‘Oreskesian Deniability’. Celebrations at seedy local dive bars would be the appropriate venue to celebrate at.
: )
John
One problem with renewables that is constantly overlooked by the faithful is that they consume lots of resources. They need construction materials and land – lots of it.
If you compare Ivanpah’s 392 MW (during the day only – and it needs a gas supply to achieve that) with Susquehanna’s 2,700 MW on a 24/7 basis you can see that renewables will swallow up huge swathes of land.
That may work in large countries but places like the UK and Japan would struggle with such solutions.
Hmm…2700 MW vs 392 MW. One might draw the conclusion that the energy output from renewables is woefully insufficient in meeting our energy requirements. Data that I have never seen is a comparison of energy transfer capacity of various types of renewables (probably because I haven’t looked for it). I have read reports from AGW cultists that there is enough wind power area available in North Dakota and South Dakota alone to supply the entire country with its electricity requirements. Intuitively that’s hard to believe and there is no mention of how many turbines would be required and the cost that would be required to acquire the land, build the turbines, much less the cost of getting that energy throughout the country.
Of course, the above illustration indicates how ineffective soar power would be in replacing other more efficient sources of power and there is no indication of the relative costs of each. So, as a curious observer, is there enough theoretical energy out there in renewables to make a significant impact on our total energy requirements. That begs the question though of the entire AGW cult with their supposition that reducing our energy consumption will return the world to the Utopia that it was 1000 years ago (ignore history please).
Inquiring minds want to know..and so do I
From Ontario, Canada’s public energy system from two days ago:
http://reports.ieso.ca/public/GenOutputCapability/PUB_GenOutputCapability_20151216_v25.xml
I chose 1PM to be fair to solar (which is more than warmunists are to us):
Effeciency (i.e., output divided by capability)
NUCLEAR 98.9%
GAS 14.6%
HYDRO 70.3%
WIND 35.9%
SOLAR 30.4%
BIOFUEL 40.4%
% of total energy supplied:
NUCLEAR 57.0%
GAS 6.5%
HYDRO 29.0%
WIND 6.3%
SOLAR 0.2%
BIOFUEL 0.9%
Absent a computer chip-like advance in technology, I’m scared to find out how much land we’ll have to cover to get that solar number from 0.2% to even 2.0%…
Last week, our Auditor-General found out that our “green” energy plan is already $9 billion overbudget…
The problem with such calculations are many fold.
First, they take wind speed and multiply the number of square miles that see those speeds in the existing undisturbed environment. The problem is that as soon as you start putting in windmills, the windspeed downwind starts to drop. Even in small fields, this is a measurable problem. As a result, even if they were to fill up North and South Dakota with windmills, it would only produce a fraction of the power advertised.
Secondly, no windmill made generates it’s rated power more than a small fraction of the time. When winds are too high or too low, the windmills are shut down. As a result much of that so called wind power is unrecoverable, even under the best of circumstances. PS, in low wind conditions the cannibalization affect mentioned in the first point means that even fewer of the windmills will actually be turning.
Thirdly, very few people live in North and South Dakota. States nearby are also not densely populated. As a result most of the energy generated will have to be transported hundreds to thousands of miles to get to the people who need, with much, perhaps even most of the power lost along the way.
As a result most of the new windmills will have to be built in places where the conditions are less favorable.
Reminds me of the idiots who go on and on about how covering New Mexico and Arizona with solar panels would be able to power the entire US.
The US East Coast megapolis will never be able to be powered by renewables alone. Too much cloudy weather, too many short days and windless summers, and no where near enough topography or floodable land to increase hydto substantially.
These people that think wind and solar can replace fossil fuels and nuclear in such population dense locations are just uninformed or delusional.
It may be theoretically possible to convert a large portion of a western desert state to a solar farm, but without a superconducting transcontinental grid, it can not be delivered to where it is needed.
And then there is the whole thing with night time…
Hydro seems to be in a category of its own, in a sort of energy limbo. Enviro loons tend not to like it, and often it isn’t counted as a renewable. Large-scale hydro can make sense economically, unlike solar and wind, which Greenies love (go figure). Anyway, we currently have a huge project in the works called Northern Pass, which will bring down over 1,000 MW of hydro from Quebec, feeding it into the New England power grid. Many of the concerns about it, mostly aesthetic ones (since the towers are in some cases twice the height of regular ones) have been, at least in part, addressed, by re-routing, and even burying parts of it. I see this as a win for common sense. At the same time, now there is an attempt to bring NG into southern New Hampshire, which would be great. Naturally, the Greenies are foaming at the mouth on this. Bernie Sanders, of course, has jumped on the anti-pipeline bandwagon.
Building dams for hydro has numerous benefits, besides the power itself. impounding large amounts of water is a boon to farming, plus it decreases risk of flooding and makes a region more able to withstand drought as well.
The main objection seems to be the inability for migratory fish to return readily to their spawning areas.
And some land is lost of course.
We cannot have everything…I say build dams and keep working on better fish ladders and other methods to allow fish to get upstream.
I had not been aware of so much untapped hydro power potential in Eastern Canada. Burying transmission lines has some problems, but overall it seems to be a good idea…ice storms and hurricanes can knock out power to large numbers of people for extended periods. Never lived in ice storm country, but my time without power after a couple of hurricanes was intensely miserable. I am willing to pay for a back up generator that will almost surely rarely be used…possibly never…to avoid the chance of weeks without power again.
I would like to take this opportunity to welcome Dr Hanson to the ever growing world of denieralistism or whatever we are called these days. You are most welcome sir. I look forward to reading your posts.
Oreskes hasn’t come up with the idea that renewables are cost-effective all on her own. She’s following a large number of greenie writers (e.g., Amory Lovins, who published a book with this claim a couple of years ago, etc.), and the Big Green NGOs, in believing that they are, or will be soon. And they are just as vociferous about it as she is. IOW, those who disagree with them are d*niers, etc. Our side is mostly unaware of this faction.
The Revolution always devours its children; I suppose it is their turn to be munched now.
FD
“one that says that renewable sources can’t meet our energy needs.”
Well, they can’t. That much is obvious when one starts to do the industrial math. But here we get to one of the core problems with the CAGW movement. They are technology fetishists. They worship the windmill and the solar panel with absolutely no clue as to how they are made or how much they can provide, Even if we used up all the world’s minable rare earth mineral reserves just to make windmills, we’d still never come close to satisying the world’s current electricity consumption. I still want to know where they think all the electric cars they claim will replace all the petroleum-powered ones will come from and how the immense amount of additional electricity consumption those vehicles will require will be generated.
A few days ago I mentioned an electric car enthusiast I debated a couple of decades ago who declared that all we needed to do to solve the problem of inadequate batteries was to pass a law requiring battery manufacturers to create the type of batteries that were needed.
In his mind, it was only a lack of will that prevented companies from coming up with miracle batteries.
The battery manufacturers didn’t use the ” miracle data tonic ” .
Brilliant idea. Why they’re at it just pass legislation that all vehicles are propelled by air without compressing. That would be wonderful!
My dear fellow Mark, you have missed the answer. To hell with batteries and gasoline. You pass a law that all roads must go downhill and everyone can just coast there!
During a discussion about mobile towers (*), I explained the parallel infrastructure of different mobile operators was a rule in Europe and that the mobile operators couldn’t build one shared radio infrastructure even if they wanted to (+). The guy told me that with one network instead of three (#) in France the level of tower emission would be divided by three. I replied that by dividing the emissions and spectrum, you would also reduce the capacity of the network (@).
He told me that the Law would force operators to provide as much capacity with one relay as with three, without producing more EMF than each of the original relays.
(*) funny fact: I once had another discussion with a warmist/pretend academic (but maybe he was really an academic) who said NASA is to be trusted because NASA sends stuff in space and makes mobile phone communications possible by sending mobile phone satellites in orbit; after many back and forth I got the confirmation that it wasn’t a slip and the guy really didn’t know about mobile communication towers.
(+) except in remote areas where there is one shared network in France, called “F-contact”
(#) four mobile networks in France now
(@) of course a shared network has better occupation than many different networks, but still
“She received her PhD degree in the Graduate Special Program in Geological Research and History of Science at Stanford in 1990.” – Wikipedia
“There is also a new, strange form of denial that has appeared on the landscape of late, one that says that renewable sources can’t meet our energy needs.”
“Argumentum ad Verecundiam (argument from authority) fallacy: an appeal to the testimony of an authority outside the authority’s special field of expertise.” – Lander
PhD = pile higher and deeper
One Warmunist fruitcake calling another Warmunist fruitbat a “d*nier; a delicious blend of irony and schadenfreude with my morning coffee. It doesn’t get any better.
Have you seen the lonely sportsman from a poor African country at the Olympics?
The one who never practiced and who almost sinks in the swimming pool, or can barely ski, etc. Some people find that touching. (Every time my mother wonders why she isn’t a the Olympics, as there are sports where she is really pathetic, too.)
That’s what I feel about Oreskes in hard sciences.
Often the same one that then applies for asylum, meanwhile the same countries use the OIC’s money to send a lot of ‘officials’ who then find the two weeks after their athletes get knocked out , are well spent shopping or otherwise enjoying themselves , and certainly not going home ‘early ‘
Because even the most vehement alarmists knows GW warnings are empty rhetoric. It’s smack talk, like when an action hero/villain threatens to punch someone to the moon. GW alarmism is not concerned with the biosphere, saving humanity or the rest of it, it is the temper tantrum of a child who wants their own way, because.
She has spent the last several years justifying her attack existence by pushing for what she just got from Paris. So now that she has her ends, how will she justify her existence going forward? Is she afraid she will drift off into insignificance? So to stay relevant in her own mind she’ll attack something else. It doesn’t matter what as long as it gets her some attention.
There is a method to the madness. She is angling for a major pay boost as a paid commentator at a major media group. The deal will involve just more of the regular tripe to a wider audience.
Nuclear was a hot topic until the Japanese earthquake took the steam out of it. Some of the nuclear plants sit in dangerous areas. I can think of several here in the US. Others sit in areas that I wonder about. In the middle of the US during the 19th century a similar earthquake would cause an unbelievable amount of damage. They are accidents waiting to happen. As far as I know the design failure that affected the plants in Fukushima are in ALL US plants. I do not know whether they are changing that flaw or sitting there with their fingers crossed.” If enough time goes by, it won’t be my problem. It’s off of my desk. ” and after the fact, there will be hand wringing, ceo’s stepping down, assurances that they now have competent mangement, and technically trained staff to handle the situation.
I don’t see renewables, if you can call them that, ( I’ve seen cost estimates that they cost more than they produce) taking over the heavy lifting of fossil fuels. The only other industry that has the potential to replace fossil fuels is fusion, and the greens are against that. Which in my mind, is puzzling.
If we weren’t bound by technical limitations, we could think of entirely new ways to generate massive amounts of power. It won’t be a scientist who thinks of it, it’ll be a sci fy type of person.
(The design flaw is the mechanical device that tells the operators that there is water in the reactor. Steam pressure pushed the lever to indicate that there was sufficient water in the reactor to keep it cool )
Mostly rubbish. The Fukushima plant survived the earthquake quite well even though it exceeded greatly the plant’s design basis. What caused all the damage was the water flooding into the plant from the tsunami, combined with the fact that the backup diesel generators were in the basement and the diesel storage tanks were completely unprotected in the yard, and hence washed away by the tsunami. If the seawall had been just 5 m higher, no one would ever have heard of Fukushima.
No, they are not ” accidents waiting to happen”. There has been a great deal of work going on for the past four years to deal with beyond-design-basis accidents. A lot of retrofitting has been done mostly along the lines of reinforcing backup power which was the principal problem at Fukushima.
Next, please explain how you get an earthquake of 8.2 magnitude anywhere other than along a continental fault line, which is certainly not found in the middle of the US in the 19th or any other century
And no, not all reactors in the US are the same. Fukushima’s reactors were all BWR types. Most of the reactors in the US are PWR types.
For the Fukushima Dai-Ichii site where four of its six reactors had failed containment, the two others were at higher elevations on the site and they had no problems by the immediate effect of earthquake or from the unprecedented tsunami.
TEPCO several times in previous decade studied idea to bring a backup power high tension on high tower lines from a plant inland to all six reactors as a backup to the batteries and diesel generators. That might have helped if they were designed well.
John
It’s impossible to plan for every type of diaster. And yes the design flaw is or was in every us reactor. Will it take an 8.2 earthquake to destroy a plant that isn’t built for a 5 or 6? The headaches are endless with fission. You can argue every little thing. If only the sea wall had been 5 meters higher…. for example. … let’s find something else.
I never thought that fission would last. Fission was only a temporary means until we found something else. In my view, to suggest fission as a permanent source of energy is nuts. With fission there is no limit to human stupidity. Starting with management. Why do you think there are so many regulations? A bolt is a bolt right? I’ll buy the cheaper one. They look the same. Well, why does it have to meet certain strength requirements? We can’t meet our budget if you keep adding these conditions. Oh a leak, I’ll send some guys down there with a bucket and mops. The color of the fuses indicate ratings. We have no idea why the telemetry keeps going down. Some genius decided to swith out the color coded fuses to save money. Do you have any idea how hard that was to find out what was wrong? I’m convinced, no limit.
Since it’s impossible to plan for every type of disaster, the only solution is to shut down everything.
That type of thinking is little more than paranoia trying to find a respectable outlet.
“TEPCO several times in previous decade studied idea to bring a backup power high tension on high tower lines from a plant inland to all six reactors as a backup to the batteries and diesel generators”
High tower lines are vulnerable to natural events. I don’t think you could adequately secure those.
The emergency workers received generators but couldn’t connect the wires as the outside connectors weren’t compatible!
“That might have helped if they were designed well.”
But not when the bus was flooded. The whole safety system of the plant was vulnerable. The plant safety was substandard in many ways (notably lack of recombiners).
Even the hydrogen vents (the big red and white towers) were unsafe: it transported hydrogen to another building and caused the fourth hydrogen explosion.
Still, the emergency cooling systems worked quite well without electric power: one reactor had a cooling system running on steam pressure, the others a simple thermal exchange.
“Will it take an 8.2 earthquake to destroy a plant that isn’t built for a 5 or 6?”
Is YOUR house quake safe?
If not, why? Do you not care being crunched?
Of course a tiny amount of cesium is something else.
CGH,
You said:
“please explain how you get an earthquake of 8.2 magnitude anywhere other than along a continental fault line, which is certainly not found in the middle of the US in the 19th or any other century”
The New Madrid fault zone produced some of the strongest, most far reaching, and potentially catastrophic earthquakes in US history.
That they occurred a few hundred years ago was a blessing. Church bells were rung by the shaking as far away as Boston and Charleston, New Orleans and Chicago.
These are well known events, so your insistence that they could not happen speaks to your education and knowledge of geology. Perhaps you should look stuff up before opining in public
Sorry to be rough, but facts is facts:
http://dnr.mo.gov/geology/geosrv/geores/techbulletin1.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Madrid_Seismic_Zone
Menicholas, you do understand the difference between 7.2 and 8.2? It’s a full order of magnitude in energy release. Fukushima was 9.0, meaning nearly 100 times the energy release of New Madrid. Do you still wish to pretend that such is possible in a continental interior?
Rishrac, your 10:35 post is mostly nonsense. Utilities started specifying nuclear grade components back in the 1960s before the advent of extensive government regulation. And just what would the “something else” be post-fission?
The map I posted is for one in the series, The most intense one was estimated to have been around magnitude 8, but no one really knows how to accurately gage the intensity of a quake that happened hundreds of years ago.
Some estimates were as high as 8.2.
But there is only one example that is well known from this fault zone.
Another near Charleston has caused large quakes as well.
Now, I would assert that it is impossible to be sure that the next quake in one of these areas will not be far stronger.
How does one calculate the maximum energy release from a deep fault zone such as New Madrid, or be sure that there are not other sites around the Eastern US where a huge quake will occur someday?
In fact, there is no way to be sure of any of these things. Anyplace which has quakes may produce a massive one someday, and places which have never had one cannot be said to be risk free.
In any case, my pointing this out was not to say that I am antinuclear power.
Just making a point about that specific issue.
it seemed to me you were stating that powerful quakes cannot occur in the interior of continents that are far from known or obvious faults.
We do not have enough history to be sure of what might someday occur in New Madrid, Charleston, or even New York/Philadelphia/Baltimore, or off the coast of Florida for that matter.
Let me see if I have this right. You are actually claiming that every nuclear plant in the US is in danger of being hit with a 9.0 earthquake followed by a 30 foot tsunami?
Don’t be ridiculous. I looked for the earthquake that shook the middle part of the US for days. It wasn’t listed. It occurred in 1817 or 19. How many of those plants could withstand a fairly sizable shake for days?
What do you think my concern is? And I’m taking a cruise if this happens, don’t want any part of it. Multiple plant failures at the same time. … since you have all the i’s dotted and t’ crossed on this, don’t call me on this. You’re on your own. Uniformity in plant design is/was not a hallmark, except strangely for some flaws. At one time the color of pipes that carried different materials varied from plant to plant. You remember the $0.98 solution? Yea, saved about 2 thousand $ on the fuses, spent about 5 million to fix.
Oh, that quake occurred about the time of a native American uprising. The chief that was trying to persuade other tribes to join told them if they didn’t he’d be mad and strike the ground to make the earthshake. It was felt from Michigan to Alabama. Pioneers reported sand geysers. Also, in the 1960’s there was a strong earthquake in Alaska. There was structural changes in the soil as far as the southern US. I remember seeing a photo of a ridge that appeared that ran thru a field in Alabama. …. I can’t live far away enough from a nuclear power plant. Japan is too close. I’m not saying they aren’t necessary, I’m saying that too many isn’t good.
“…past climates to better understand lessons from warmer periods..”
And James et al, did you understand that these warmer periods were a blessing the humans and the biosphere at large? The two Naomis couldn’t fill a thimble with their actual knowledge. There political ideology takes up all the room in their brains for thought about anything.What is it that gives these two misanthropes such celebrity and weight? And the bigger question: what more experiment on centrally planned socio-econo-political management of people’s affairs do we need to assure ourselves that this is not the way forward? S’truth, when the asylum is taken back from the whackos, some heavy boilerplate needs to be added to constitutions – they were designed with the idea that more reasonable people would be running the show.
“Ever does evil turn against itself.”
Fortunately, yes.
Think Shia and Sunni spending as much energy killing each other as they do killing infidels.
As they say:
Here is relevant Scientific American article from 213:
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/russias-nuclear-reactors-could-take-over-the-world-safe-or-not/
Summary: “The federation is aggressively selling reactors to countries with little nuclear experience ”
to add: “…and useful idiots (like Naomi) help to undermine competition”
cgh
December 18, 2015 at 7:09 am
“Mostly rubbish. The Fukushima plant survived the earthquake quite well”
Nonsense!
Fukushima Dai-ichi #1 was smoking already before the tsunami hit. Several workers there have reported seeing buckling, cracking, hissing, leaking coolant pipes. In addition, even before the Mar. 11 event, there was concern at Fukushima about cracking pipes due to age, and wear & tear.
The authors have spoken to several workers at the plant. Each recites the same story: Serious damage to piping and at least one of the reactors before the tsunami hit.
[…]
In September 2002, TEPCO admitted covering up data about cracks in critical circulation pipes in addition to previously revealed falsifications.
[…]
Kikuchi Yoichi, a former GE engineer who helped build the Fukushima nuclear power plant says unequivocally that, “the earthquake caused the meltdown not the tsunami.”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011vided pro/08/12/tepcos-darkest-secret/
What was released? Newly declassified US NRC report written just one week after the disaster sheds light on the extent of the catastrophe:
The source term provided to NARAC was 1) 25% of total fuel in unit 2 released to atmosphere 2) 50% of total spent fuel from unit 3 was released to atmosphere, and 3) 100% of the total spent fuel from unit 4 was released to the atmosphere.
http://pbadupws.nrc.gov/docs/ML1212/ML12122A949.pdf
(page 7)
ENGINEERS IN Japan’s ruined Fukushima nuclear plant have revealed it suffered a triple meltdown in the four days after being battered by a huge earthquake and tsunami on March 11th.
The news confirms fears that reactor three, which contains controversial mixed uranium-plutonium fuel, known as Mox,… Mox is considered thousands of times more toxic than uranium nuclear fuel.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/fukushima-plant-suffered-triple-meltdown-1.581190
There is very much more, especially radioactive contamination of the Pacific Ocean from groundwater flowing over and through Fukushima Dai-Ichi, where location of coriums from three melt-downs remains unknown.
There is also a big question about the safety of, for example, Diablo Canyon NPP on California’s Central Coast, which sits virtually atop the Hosgri Fault system, recently discovered to be much more extensive than previously thought/revealed.
http://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/2015/11/28/faults-linked-diablo-canyon-nuclear-plant/
But let me take a step back, and address the issue of nuclear power vis-a-vis the Great Global Warming Scare, sometimes known as CAGW, but now hiding behind various guises like “climate change,” and what have you. Many who read and comment here recognize that CAGW is bogus, on the one hand, but seeming fail to recognize one of the primarily beneficiaries, on the other.
If CAGW is bogus, and if CO₂ has been wrongly demonized, why is it again we can’t just burn cheap & abundant coal to generate all the safe and reliable power we all need?
Cui bono?
–sp–
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/12/tepcos-darkest-secret/
http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/08/12/tepcos-darkest-secret/
“the pipes buckling, and within minutes, I saw pipes bursting”
Vague, unspecific. Which pipes? Where?
Of course, this is made up so we have no details.
“Someone yelled that we all needed to evacuate.”
I call BS on this one. After a quake you don’t evacuate with your car. Very unsafe.
You stay in a safe place.
“As he was heading to his car, he could see that the walls of the reactor one building itself had already started to collapse. “There were holes in them. In the first few minutes, no one was thinking about a tsunami. We were thinking about survival.””
BS again.
Anyway, the whole water piping of the turbine building could be wrecked, it wouldn’t make a different WRT safety.
simple-touriste
December 18, 2015 at 1:48 pm
Please tell us what massive earthquake you’ve experienced in the immediate vicinity of a nuclear powerplant that gives you the experience to call BS on the Fukushima Dai-ichi #1 worker’s reports. The Counterpunch article makes clear the reports are from workers at the stricken plant.
You call BS simply because that is what you’re most familiar with. You have no credibility, and I will have no further discussion with you.
“Please tell us what massive earthquake you’ve experienced”
Please state your nuclear qualifications and quake safety qualifications!
“in the immediate vicinity of a nuclear powerplant that gives you the experience to call BS on the Fukushima Dai-ichi #1 worker’s reports.”
This is simply nuts. You don’t ride after a quake. Even a child would get that.
“Counterpunch article makes clear”
Counterpunch is a communist disinformation outlet.
“the reports are from workers at the stricken plant.”
The alleged nuclear workers can’t even mention anything specific showing that they actually went to this plant, even once. There are many sorts of pipes in a nuclear plant. Water pipes, vapor pipes, air pipes… they don’t even say what sort of pipe broke.
I call BS on everything you say.
I hate to disagree S.T., but after the quake and before the tsunami, many people did get in cars and flee the coastal zones.
I woke up to the live news feed that morning to the site of cars and minivans being overtaken by the tide of debris, at that point miles inland.
If you were right on the coast near the epicenter, getting in a car and driving fast may have been the only way to escape the tsunami.
But many were killed in cars.
I vividly recall watching one car which was blocked by a fence, and the driver going back and forth as the wave of killer debris came closer. All I could think was that I would have driven straight through the fence and driven overland long before that wave got to my car…but that driver was killed because he did not leave the road. On foot he would have had no chance.
“before the tsunami, many people did get in cars and flee the coastal zones”
That’s a special case, in a zone vulnerable to flooding.
But when you have a hardened, anything-proof building nearby?
s/b “…seemingly fail to recognize one of the primary beneficiaries of the scam, on the other”
I think your Tin Foil hat is a little too tight, try some adjustments !! DOH !
Thanks for the crazy talk.
So Mox is evil! Bouh!
And still, nobody died, nobody was harmed. (Well, fire fighting pipes were destroyed by the hydrogen explosions, so emergency workers could have been hurt if they had been in the wrong place. You could estimate that a few virtual death.)
simple-touriste
December 18, 2015 at 1:22 pm
“Thanks for the crazy talk…And still, nobody died, nobody was harmed.
Wrong on all three counts! Whether or not you’re ignorant, lying, or both is not clear, but these reports may help rectify the first possibility:
According to data collected by the Fukushima Prefecture, 2014 saw 1,232 nuclear-related deaths. The two towns with the greatest number of deaths were both near the Fukushima plant: Namie, with 359 dead; and Tomioka, with 291 dead.
[…]
It typically takes four to five years for most nuclear-related thyroid cancers to manifest, and as that window approaches many Fukushima parents believe that their children are already showing symptoms. Fukushima officials have tested approximately 300,000 children and have turned up 100 cases of the disease, in contrast to the pre-disaster rate of one or two per million children.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/fukushima-disaster-caused-at-least-1232-fatalities-in-2014-as-radiation-death-rate-accelerates/5441390
Physician Janette Sherman, M.D. and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano published a report Monday highlighting a 35% spike in northwest infant mortality after Japan’s nuclear meltdown.
The report spotlighted data from the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report on infant mortality rates in eight northwest cities, including Seattle, in the 10 weeks after Fukushima’s nuclear meltdown.
Medical professionals publish report highlighting post-Fukushima mortality spike.
–KCPQ FOX News, June 17, 2011
Consistent patterns of elevated increases are observed in the west (20 of 21 comparisons, 6 of which are statistically significant/borderline significant), by state, type of birth defect, month of birth, and month of conception. While these five anomalies are relatively uncommon (about 7500 cases per year in the U.S.), sometimes making statistical significance difficult to achieve, the consistency of the results lend strength to the analysis, and suggest fetal harm from Fukushima may have occurred in western U.S. states.
http://file.scirp.org/Html/13-1330400_54828.htm
TEPCO Workers deaths are not reported
“She also said that there were 100,000 shifts shared between the work force that have worked at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant so far, also, 4% of 100,000 (4300) workers have reportedly died.”
“Apart from Tepco workers, 64 members of the Self Defence Force and about 300 policemen have also died. They said that those policemen who work at the security check points of the no go zones in Fukushima prefecture are not wearing any protection, therefore, they have been exposed to huge amounts of ionizing radiation.”
http://robinwestenra.blogspot.com.au/2013/11/tepco-workers-deaths-not-reported.html
Steve Zeltzer, reporting from Japan: One of the things I learned in Osaka from the president of the day laborers is that many of the day laborers being brought into the plant, they’re not being registered and they’re disappearing. There were over 800 day laborers who have disappeared from contact by the union, which means they may have been killed or died during work.
http://www.kpfa.org/archive/id/100824
Tokyo – A total of 1 232 deaths in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture over the past year were linked to the nuclear accident four years ago, up 18% from a year earlier, a news report said on Tuesday.
http://www.news24.com/World/News/Japans-nuclear-related-deaths-rise-by-18-20150310-2
“One day I was taking a cigarette break with a coworker. When we finished our break, I stood up and called out to my still-seated coworker: ‘Wanna get going soon?’ But he didn’t move. He was dead. The dead body was not returned to his family because of radiation. They poured cement over the body and carted that off to J village area. I have no idea what happened to the corpse after that.”
http://blog.goo.ne.jp/jpnx05/e/6de670909c7788f2443a5c370d4a384b
Global research dot com?
Who might they be?
Here is who:
“Global Research – Centre for Research on Globalization
http://www.globalresearch.ca
An independent research and media group of progressive writers, scholars and activists committed to curbing the tide of “globalisation” and “disarming” the new world…”
http://www.globalresearch.ca/
Hmm…such gems as “Fluoride, killing us softly”, and other stimulating fare.
Yup, this is the place i go for true facts.
NOT
If you believe that crap about a guy dying on a cigarette break and then being immersed in concrete and rushed out of town…I cannot help you, as you are hopelessly naive.
“If you believe that crap about a guy dying on a cigarette break and then being immersed in concrete and rushed out of town…I cannot help you, as you are hopelessly naive.”
OK. Throw that out, and address the rest, or shut thy yap hole.
Menicholas
December 18, 2015 at 3:11 pm
And by the way, an attack on source, or dragging in something else, like flouride, is not addressing the issue of the triple meltdown at Fukushima, or resulting health issues.
Those diversions are unsound arguments known as fallacies.
Steve, you have zero data from reliable sources.
“Fukushima officials have tested approximately 300,000 children and have turned up 100 cases of the disease, in contrast to the pre-disaster rate of one or two per million children.”
WRONG
There is NO DATA on background rate in Japan. There was never any systematic testing in Japan (or elsewhere).
“Janette Sherman, M.D. and epidemiologist Joseph Mangano”
Sherman and Mangano are too well known crackpots.
The idea that minuscule amount of excess radiation causes detectable increase of death is batcrazy. We know more about the effects of radiations than almost anything else. Small amounts of radiation (with no obvious cofonder) have never been linked with increase diseases.
“The dead body was not returned to his family because of radiation. They poured cement”
It’s a good one.
OTOH, I have heard that Marie Curie’s body was buried in an antiradiation box (Pb, not cement).
“And by the way, an attack on source,”
So you won’t defend your source?
“or dragging in something else, like flouride, is not addressing the issue of the triple meltdown at Fukushima,”
How is that an issue? Nobody denies that this plant is wrecked. Huge financial loss. Small financial loss compared to the total of losses.
“or resulting health issues.”
We have yet to see any real issue (unlike fake thyroid issues caused by systematic screening).
The Fukashima event is described in an extensive and well sourced Wikipedia article.
Wikipedia is suspect on certain topics, but on others it is a reliable source of information.
You can click on each source link if you doubt any of what is described.
Linking to a site devoted to every ridiculous notion ever promulgated is a serious blow to credibility.
That web site has articles relating to 911 Truthers, chem trails, San Bernardino Truthers, vaccines are poison type articles…basically everything which is widely believed to be true is derided as a hoax on that site.
As far as that goes, it may be the most comprehensive tin-foil hat crowd website I have ever seen.
And as far as the dangers of radiation go…I go where facts lead, not disproven scare stories.
Believe it or not, and I am sure you will not, radiation in moderate doses is beneficial to health.
Read my post above for details on that.
IMO, someone making ridiculous claims and linking to phony information does not call for rebuttal via extensive analysis.
Enough to point out that the sources noted are unreliable…basically opinions from random people, and there are a lot of people with irrational fears in the world…and that others have a contrary opinion of the events described.
“why is it again we can’t just burn cheap & abundant coal to generate all the safe and reliable power we all need? ”
Because CO2 has been ruled by the EPA to be a dangerous pollutant, and regulations have been written making most coal fired plant uneconomical due to new emission standards.
That’s why.
Yes, Menicholas, I think most of us here understand that, and a few here may even understand that I covered that aspect of the ruse in my opening premise:
“If CAGW is bogus, and if CO₂ has been wrongly demonized…”
The bogus demonization of CO₂ resulted in EPA’s ruling, and that was led by Obama’s war on coal, leading to the discriminatory regulations.
Last week, Obama’s EPA announced sweeping regulations for U.S. power plants, forcing them to drastically reduce carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent by 2030. The news sent shockwaves through the coal industry, sending stocks tumbling and forcing the industry’s two biggest players to consider bankruptcy filings.
That’s where liberal billionaire Soros steps in. In the days after the Clean Power Plan was announced, Soros bought more than 1 million shares of Peabody Energy and 553,200 shares of Arch Coal — the country’s two biggest publicly-traded coal companies.
http://dailycaller.com/2015/08/19/the-real-winner-of-obamas-war-on-coal-george-soros/#ixzz3uiXn2eWv
How clean is “clean coal”?
How much sulfur do you catch?
CounterPunch , really ??? ROTFLMAO…..
Most of the information above is incorrect or out of context. The NRC report you cite for the releases list the numbers they gave to NARAC to feed a computer code as a bounded worse case. Ultimately, there was no release from the Unit 4 spent fuel pool.
Furthermore, the plant had five offsite lines coming in, which were all taken out by the earthquake. The diesel generators started up automatically with the loss of off-site power, but the tsunami then took out most but not all of them. The real problem then became the fact that the power distribution panels also became submerged for Units 1-4. Units 5 and 6 had power from one of the surviving diesel generators.
“The NRC report you cite for the releases list the numbers they gave to NARAC to feed a computer code as a bounded worse case. Ultimately, there was no release from the Unit 4 spent fuel pool.”
The NRC heads were convinced that the spent fuel pool was either boiling or leaking and practically empty. The Japanese contacts were informing the NRC that it wasn’t the case.
The NRC was 100% wrong, with friendly people in the place telling them the truth.
Now how imagine how this “elite” performs in a case of war. No wonder one F117 was destroyed by the most primitive technological army.
Please explain how a minuscule amount of additional radiation can make a difference in the ocean.
I know, right. Fish don’t swim around or feed on smaller fish off of close to shore. There are no plums of water that remain for miles out to sea. What am I thinking? Or trash that gets contaminated and washes up somewhere far away. Nothing to be concerned about. And who cares where the cores are, out of sight, out of mind. I’ll let simple touriste fix this problem, because there is no problem, right? I just love working with the simple minded especially when they are in positions of authority. Such interesting conversations I have sometimes.
Look ! A graph that clearly shows the relationship of co2 and temperature, for millions of years! That’s the control knob! It’s so simple, 97 % agree!
Radiocesium will provide tracing information for marine biologists. That counts as a positive externality?
Fishes are fine. Fishing is OK, except of the ridiculous radiation standards.
To quote Oscar Wilde yet again; “You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh.”
Hmm, ‘deniers’ used to refer to those who expressed the slightest disagreement with the notion that humankind has threatened our continued survival as a species by severely damaging the atmosphere. Now, in the wake of COP21 in Paris, it conveniently morphs into a label for those who express the slightest disagreement with the remedial prescriptions of self-appointed ‘progressive’ elites.
As Thomas Sowell said: “In democratic countries, where public opinion matters, the left has used its verbal talents to change the whole meaning of words and to substitute new words, so that issues would be debated in terms of their redefined vocabulary, instead of the real substance of the issues.”
Dear fan,
I think that Thomas Sowell quote deserves one more posting!
As Thomas Sowell said:
The CAGW crowd uses these derogatory terms so often, the words become pointless. Kind of like the folks who use the “F-word” in every other sentence to get a reaction. Eventually it becomes background noise, signifying nothing.
‘Hansen is a Denier’ – I saw that coming!
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2015/08/26/the-cult-of-climate-change-nee-global-warming/#1
Strikes me ,that the vitriolic hatred of capitalism has a rational root in Naomi’s world.
She is a well trained useless parasite. Sorry but that is self evident.
Now capitalism depends upon trade and providing a service useful to others, to establish your financial worth.
Parasites earn a negative rating in any sane capitalist system.
Hence a functioning capitalist system would expose far too many persons,currently staffing our kleptocracy, as less than useful to society.
Naomi has every reason to hate and fear capitalism.
Lysenko subject to Lysenkoism, irony continues to climb to dangerous levels.
‘Hansen is a Denier’
I am very late to this thread and few will read this comment. Oh well.
I would like to point out that James Hansen has always been a “Denier” as have most on the alarmist side and far too many on the “skeptical” side. Folks have been denying the method of science. The atmosphere does provide a warming or at least a modulating effect. That has been well known for a long long time. We started the denial of science when we decided to tilt the scales by calling the “atmospheric effect” as the “green house effect”. That was doing “science” by changing the definitions for a political reason.
We also allowed the alarmists to claim that if temperatures rose or fell then only CO2 could be the reason. WTF? Really?
But worst of all, folks on both sides refuse to question the very heart of the scam. Does CO2 even warm the planet or does it, on net, cool the planet? Certainly CO2 does cool the upper atmosphere and everyone I ever encountered was ok with that part.
But the biggest problem is that the alarmists and the luke-warmers can not even hold a decent debate on the facts as verses the politics of the matter. And the skeptics that hold that CO2 does not warm the surface at all (as verses the atmosphere which does have an effect) can’t even post in many “skeptical” parts.
Oh well. Someday when the CO2 delusion is over, we will get back to science I hope.
Mark,
I read your comment and agree with you. 🙂
Same.
Mark, I always read your comments…and it’s NOT because my name just happens to be Mark also..well, kinda, sorta….
But it is a magic gas, it causes this global warming that causes about every kind of doom laden omen a man might imagine.
Amazing what plant food can do.
Indeed you are correct, the denial of sound scientific practises and appalling appeals to imaginary authorities is the Alarmed Ones game.
Then when one inquires into the methodology, they respond with personal abuse.
Not scientists, just public relations hacks.
I love it when they start eating each other.
Bob Dylan is enough to make my oceans boil.
Attacking the source and ridiculing your opponent are logical fallacies that we are all familiar with.
But the same fallacies are happily exploited by the shameless nuclear fanatics who reject or ignore any evidence undermining the purity and safety of their carbon reduced fantasy.
================
Thyroid Cancer Detection by Ultrasound Among Residents Ages 18 Years and Younger in Fukushima, Japan: 2011 to 2014.
Tsuda, Toshihide; Tokinobu, Akiko; Yamamoto, Eiji; Suzuki, Etsuji
[…]
Conclusions: An excess of thyroid cancer has been detected by ultrasound among children and adolescents in Fukushima Prefecture within 4 years of the release, and is unlikely to be explained by a screening surge.
http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Abstract/publishahead/Thyroid_Cancer_Detection_by_Ultrasound_Among.99115.aspx
=====================
On the very day of the tsunami, a gaggle of fanatics appeared on blogs to flood comments with a talking point about how nobody had died from the nuclear disaster yet, whereas dozens of Germans had recently died from eating tainted sprouts.
The message was clear: if you don”t die instantly from an event, it doesn’t count. Therefore, a nuclear power plant disaster must be safer than eating sprouts.
French pride for their nuclear industry led to the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand.
I’m not disputing current generation nuclear is dangerous, but compared to what? If a few thyroid cancers, however distressing for the people afflicted, is worse than global warming, WTF is all the fuss about?
Eric Worrell,
Dangerous, no; having specific risks, yes. And every form of energy production has specific risks.
John
I’m a fan of nuclear power John – but I think given that passive safety seems to be a real option, continuing to build reactors which require active safety is a bit nuts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_nuclear_safety
Kudos to youf for repeatedly acknowledging the significant risks attached to current forms of nuclear power, Eric. The investment in pretending otherwise only promotes suspicion.
If (i) a “few” thyroid cancers is worse than global warming, and
(ii) global warming (wherever it might exist: I haven’t seen any for ~18years) has been and will continue to be caused by CO2 enrichment of the atmosphere by humans (a thesis not supported by paleo-climatic proxy data) then
(iii) a fuss about promoting nuclear power is justified, given the meaning of the word “worse” 🙂
Probably you meant, “if the health impacts of global warming are worse than a few thyroid cancers, and global warming is caused by human activity, then what is the fuss?”
In which case I would agree, assuming that your premises were correct about (a) the existence of global warming and (b) its causes.
But I don’t think those premises are correct.
Given 18 years without global warming and a glut of cheap oil, what exactly is the problem we are trying to solve with an expensive and “dangerous” alternative?
“glut of cheap oil”
I thought we were discussing electric energy.
We’re discussing nuclear energy because this post is about Hanson’s solution to the Catastrophic problem of runaway global warming.
But…. If there is NO runaway global warming, then there is no problem, so you’d be right to question whether nuclear is better than coal. And that’s a good discussion to have.
Those on this blog have noticed that 18 years of no warming is inconsistent with the theory of CAGW, therefor we are not convinced that the theory is correct in it’s original stated form. There have been of coarse many shifts of the goal post and variations to the theme. None of which have demonstrated any predictive skill.
Like it or not, electricity can be produce with coal, gas and oil:
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EG.ELC.PETR.ZS
There is a tremendous supply of all the above available at present, despite your enthusiasm for expensive nuclear generated electricity.
So thanks for the snide interjection inferring that oil can’t be used to produce electricity. You were confidently wrong again!
Nuclear is extremely cheap.
France enjoys cheap electric power thanks to nuclear.
You were confidently wrong again!
Eric Worrall,
A reactor design having multiple types and large redundancy for each type of ‘active’ emergency systems, whether BLWR or PLWR, has risks that are proven to be reasonable and effective, including the estimated risks associated with location of the plant which are used in the design basis accident, but there is vital caveat. Active emergency system design is low risk EXCEPT when you are grossly wrong (as was what TEPCO used) about the risks associated with the location where their reactors were built; in the Fukushima Daiichi site case the design basis tsunami was probably a magnitude too low. Going forward, that was the only key lesson learned; you got to be much more conservative in your estimation of what the worst case tsunami will be.
Passive emergency system(s) designed reactors have vulnerabilities (risks). Think about a passive emergency system design BLWR or PLWR that is sited at the exact location where 1F1, 1F2, 1F3 and 1F4 are and it having a tsunami design basis that is a magnitude too low; that means the emergency systems would be designed based on the way too small tsunami risk estimate. All bets are off that such an under designed passive emergency system reactor could survive the actual tsunami that caused failure of the existing TEPCO plants.
As to you being a fan of nuclear, I am not a fan but a proponent of a diverse number of reactor designs in a country’s electrical supply system, and I am as well a proponent of a diverse inclusion of oil, coal, natural gas, hydro, etc in that very same country’s electrical production system. Balance in the force of the electrical supply system kind. : )
John
Despite the current glut of oil, it should be remembered that oil production takes years to ramp up in the event of large increases in demand.
i for one am hopeful that growth will resume in our economies and those of other nations around the world, and when it does, the price of oil will rise quickly and possibly higher than ever.
By having diverse sources of power, we can avoid using petroleum to make electricity and blunt such price shocks.
Be aware that the current glut is man made, and purposely so, and thus artificial. The Saudis and other OPEC producers have a very deliberate plan to increase costs in the long run by bankrupting higher cost producers at the margins of affordability, at which point they will again slow production.
The Saudis have a long stated goal of having oil somewhere around $80 per barrel or higher.
“An excess of thyroid cancer has been detected by ultrasound among children and adolescents in Fukushima Prefecture within 4 years of the release, and is unlikely to be explained by a screening surge”
You can’t make conclusions on no data.
“unlikely” is “expert opinion” is a guy who thinks he knows.
There is no science here.
“The message was clear: if you don”t die instantly from an event, it doesn’t count.”
No, you are making this up.
“French pride for their nuclear industry led to the bombing of the Rainbow Warrior in New Zealand.”
No, Redwar (aka Greenpeace) interference in France strategic defense preparation did.
It doesn’t surprise me in the least that you would attempt to justify a French terrorist act with a faith-based victim-blaming story that you confabulated in moment of excessive national pride.
But do you think anyone will believe you?
==================
The sinking of the Rainbow Warrior, codenamed Opération Satanique,[1] was an operation by the “action” branch of the French foreign intelligence services, the Direction générale de la sécurité extérieure (DGSE), carried out on 10 July 1985. During the operation, two operatives sank the flagship of the Greenpeace fleet, the Rainbow Warrior in the port of Auckland, New Zealand on its way to a protest against a planned French nuclear test in Moruroa. Fernando Pereira, a photographer, drowned on the sinking ship.
[…]
Operation Satanique was a public relations disaster. France, being an ally of New Zealand, initially denied involvement and joined in condemning what it described as a terrorist act. The French embassy in Wellington denied involvement, stating that “the French Government does not deal with its opponents in such ways”