Guest essay by Eric Worrall
In the face of the utter failure of large investments in renewables to deliver CO2 reductions, greens are increasingly embracing nuclear power as the solution to climate change.
Nuclear Power Can Save the World
Expanding the technology is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonize the economy.
By Joshua S. Goldstein, Staffan A. Qvist and Steven Pinker
Drs. Goldstein and Qvist are the authors of “A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change and the Rest Can Follow.” Dr. Pinker is a psychology professor at Harvard.April 6, 2019
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Where will this gargantuan amount of carbon-free energy come from? The popular answer is renewables alone, but this is a fantasy. Wind and solar power are becoming cheaper, but they are not available around the clock, rain or shine, and batteries that could power entire cities for days or weeks show no sign of materializing any time soon. Today, renewables work only with fossil-fuel backup.
Germany, which went all-in for renewables, has seen little reduction in carbon emissions, and, according to our calculations, at Germany’s rate of adding clean energy relative to gross domestic product, it would take the world more than a century to decarbonize, even if the country wasn’t also retiring nuclear plants early.
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But we actually have proven models for rapid decarbonization with economic and energy growth: France and Sweden. They decarbonized their grids decades ago and now emit less than a tenth of the world average of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. They remain among the world’s most pleasant places to live and enjoy much cheaper electricity than Germany to boot.
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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/06/opinion/sunday/climate-change-nuclear-power.html
The rise of mainstream green advocacy for nuclear power is long overdue.
I have never understood how anyone who thinks CO2 is a looming threat can argue in good faith against the evidence of two countries which have affordably reduced their CO2 emissions to a tenth of what everyone else emits, by embracing nuclear power.
Some have suggested that much of the hysteria around Global Warming was created in order to build public acceptance and overcome fear- based rejection of nuclear power.
The Germany situation is counter to this, although it is true that mainstream environmentalism is anti-nuclear.
I find that hard to believe as most groups that push global warming propaganda also actively pushed a rabid anti-nuclear agenda for decades.
Because the “greens” of today are the “environmentalists” of the 1970’s. The “environmentalists” of The China Syndrome. I know … because I was one of them … until … I witnessed their unhinged, irrational, hate and attack on Nuclear power. They screamed that everyone involved in the Nuclear industry were LIARS. Liars that didn’t have a solution for melt downs, liars about storage of nuclear waste. Liars about how much they should pay in insurance policies. Liars about birth defects next to power plants. Liars who created three eyed frogs living next to Homer Simpson’s Nuclear Power plant workplace. Until … I learned it was these rabid, zealots fighting Nuclear Power who were the LIARS. They’re the same ones who are tethered to their cell phones … but are also fighting the 5g technology and new cell towers being built in their neighborhoods. My own little leftist N.CA town is spending time and money searching out ways to STOP the FCC from allowing 5g cell towers in our town. And you wonder why China is beating US to the 5g technology. These “environmentalist” “greens” are all luddites driving Teslas.
In other words crazy stupid people that have always existed but are now allowed to put their hands on the controls.
Very succinctly put.
And I might add crazy stupid people are now regenerating crazy stupid people in all levels of our schools … ensuring an endless supply. It’s frankly amazing there are ANY young people who can think for themselves.
They are too busy worrying about what gender they are.
as usual they ignore the fact that CO2 is not a problem.
That was reportedly the rationale behind Margaret Thatcher’s founding the Hadley Centre in 1990. She had a hate on for the coal miners’ union and wanted some sort of theoretical justification for moving from coal to nuclear as the main source of electricity in the UK.
The pro-nuclear phase didn’t last long; it was determined that nuclear option was “too expensive”. But the Hadley Centre and then the CRU assumed lives of their own and are now part of the foundations of the climate science industry.
You could hardly find a better illustration of the “law of unintended consequences”.
“She had a hate on for the coal miners’ union”
As did any rational person.
Mark W
So all those having to make their living by going down the mines were not rational.
Maybe I wouldn’t be too rational if I had to spend my days working underground in those conditions. So nice logic there.
You can hate the unions without hating the miners.
Yes you can.
Mike, retired, but still getting the ALPA magazine in the mail.
Have you ever been down a coal mine, a working mine?
I have.
Back in the 1960s.
When £10 a week was a living wage.
If I were a coal miner I’d want the sort of salary that only politicians command, for the shortened lifespan, filth, dirt and lung disease.
Britain had picked the low hanging fruit of mining by the 1960s. The industry was in decline and needed to close most mines. Nuclear was an alternative, but flirtation with the EU and the Euro put interest rates so high (as well as a billion in Soros’ pocket) that the capital cost was excessive: However North Sea Gas was coming onstream, was cheap, used much less labour and it was easy enough to bang in Rolls Royce jet engines to run off it, and strap a steam plant on the exhaust and an alternator on the back of that, and generate very flexible electricity for less than the interest payments on a nuclear power station.
Now with interest rates close to zero, and gas prices much higher, nuclear makes sense – or would except for the massive regulatory overburden thrown at it by an anti-nuclear EU – yet another reason to leave the EU.
I said nothing about workers.
That you equate the two is just your particular perversion.
MarkW. Am I to assume from your statement that you are rational? I can understand you having a profound dislike, perhaps even hating Scargill, but to hate the miners union and by implication the miners, I pity you
Hold on there, I don’t know uk politics but it’s possible to hate a union without hating the minors.
That you assume that anyone who hates unions must also hate the workers is an entirely irrational position.
“Some have suggested”
That would explain why the vast majority of those who push the global warming myth are also 100% against nuclear power.
I got 2 words for you “therapy” – kidding, I’ve always wanted to use that line from So I Married An Axe Murderer
Actually 1 word – redistribution >>> according to the LEFT, global warming, as caused by the horrendously harmful CO2, is a planetary problem so any rational thinking group would be “for” things that reduce that oh so terrible CO2 gas – like say nuclear power generation. Alas they, the left, are against such power generation – which only goes to show that this global warming issue has NOTHING to do with their concerns of rising planetary temperatures, it only has to do with how to redistribute monies eg. taxing people with money and spending it frivolously as governments see fit.
They are wrong about the real reason
Support or hostility for nuclear energy is a simple dividing line for Greens who claim to “believe” in catastrophic climate change. Nuclear energy, in all but the weirdest green fantasies, creates at most only a series of focal risks, never a general “destruction” of the planet. Catastrophic climate change threatens total global destruction, maybe in as little as twelve years (cf. the most worthy source of science, AOC).
So logically believers in catastrophic climate change must support rapid conversion to nuclear energy, the non-carbon technology that is proven to work 24/7/365, unlike solar and wind.
Those who deny nuclear energy yet clearly promote catastrophic climate change reveal themselves to be phonies. What they hate is industrial civilization and the wonderful life it has permitted for the majorities of humans. Or they are just morons.
Well they are absolutely wrong.
The Green movement hates nuclear because the Green movement is a wholly owned subsidiary of extant petroleum fossil fuel companies itself
That is why renewable energy does not work.
That is why Greens are anti-nuclear.
That is why Greens are anti-fracking.
This is why Greens are anti-coal.
That is why Greens are pro any technology which has little or no impact on the consumption of existing reserves of fossil fuel.
That is why Greens are pro any technology that increases the price of electricity, thus allowing more profit margin for gas operators.
“the Green movement is a wholly owned subsidiary of extant petroleum fossil fuel companies itself”
A good psychiatrist can help you with your delusions.
Leo
You forgot your /Sara tag.
If you get overly cynical, do you need a /Mark tag?
The Greens are going to have a hard time convincing the more fanatical leftists. Nuclear power has been verboten for decades. I wonder if we’ll see a circular firing squad develop as the leftists attack each other for promoting a policy that is outside the message.
The real issue the Left wants out of the climate change scam is world socialism led a small powerful groups of elitist leadership.
We need to adopt a large scale nuclear build-out not because of CO2 emissions.
We need nuclear power build out to commence now simply because fossil fuels are finite resources that will be increasingly difficult to extract as easy reserves become ever more depleted.
Waiting until you don’t have the easy high-density chemical energy (diesel fuels) to build out very energy intensive manufacture and construction of nuclear plants will make that inevitable transition all the more slower and costlier when the energy crisis returns.
That needs to be the rational argument, not the contrived climate problem whose origins lie in socialism.
“We need nuclear power build out to commence now simply because fossil fuels are finite resources that will be increasingly difficult to extract as easy reserves become ever more depleted.”
WE, KEMO SABE???
The future will deal with the future. Mind you own business.
The Aesop Fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper argues that rational planning on a foreseeable event. The foreseeable event is the end of easily recoverable, abundant fossil fuels. We don’t know the year that peak will occur, but we can be confident it is coming. By ignoring that WE accept a fate of energy poverty from the inevitable decline of fossil fuels, and continue the build out false wind/solar solutions that only put money in crony capitalists’ pockets. China is cleverly content on sending the West subsidized solar panels for a reason. Cheap solar panels from China are the cotton candy version of energy for Leftist children.
Or we can do as China has clearly decided what is the rational approach on nuclear build-out. We use the abundant fossil fuels we have now to prepare for a future when those fuels are readily available by investing in nuclear now while we can afford it.
Our natural gas reserves can then be better used as a transportation fuel as CNG and as the feedstock for fertilizers rather than burned for grid electricity. Oil is better used as the feed-stock for plastics. Make our baseload grid power from nuclear as Sweden and France has done saving fossil fuels for transportation and food needs. Nuclear is an investment in the future.
A clear analogy.
Wise people fund their IRAs and 401Ks while they are abundantly making money during their productive years. The foolish spend all their money and do not invest in an IRA or 401K retierment savings, waiting until it is too late to build one when they need it the most. That is the analogous choice we have with nuclear now.
The Ant and the Grasshopper Moral story is the choice we face on energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ant_and_the_Grasshopper
Where is your evidence that so-called fossil fuels will run out? We have more now after decades of using them. More and more are found on a regular basis.
Physical limits on fossil fuels and their extraction exist.
Fracking for tight shale oil is more difficult (and thus more expensive and resource intensive) than conventional oil.
Fracking for shale gas is similarly more difficult than conventional shallow gas.
Oil from tar sands is more expensive than either conventional or shale oil and has an even higher cost on water resources.
Surface coal mining and the transportation of coal is inherently a petroleum fuel-intensive endeavor.
Each step in the evolution along the fossil fuel path becomes more expensive and limited.
Eventually, even the abundant shallow, surface mined coal of Wyoming’s Powder River Basin will play out in economic terms because it takes copious amounts of diesel fuel to run the giant trucks and bulldozers. The long coal trains with engines that move the coal hundreds of miles to be burned uses copious amounts of diese- based fossil fuels.
When don’t know when each fossil fuel resource will be economically non-viable because economics are a human endeavor. But physical limits apply and fossil fuels will increasingly become more difficult to extract and turn to useful fuels.
Petroleum is better used for plastics for the long-term.
Natural gas is better used for fertilizers and as transportation fuel rather than a base load electrical source because nuclear can be the base load electrical generation power source.
I am not arguing against using fossil fuels. I am arguing the physical reality that they are limited resources. And we need to use the petroleum in a more long-term sustainable manner for materials rather than burned as energy where possible.
Currently, nuclear power for the entire continental US from thorium and possibly U-Pu breeder reactors for plutonium is well within what is technically achievable.
Spent fuel radioactive waste disposal is the currently the big hurdle that the US must solve. But that is a political problem, not a technical problem.
The sun going nova as it runs out of hydrogen is a foreseeable event.
However I’m not going to start making plans for it now.
Making plans for an event that won’t happen for hundreds or perhaps thousands of years is a fool’s errand and a complete waste of time. It’s a waste of time because the technology that will be available to those who do have to face the problem will be something that we can’t even imagine today.
Sheri,
It is true that people have projected peak oil almost since the first Pennsylvania well in 1859 and they have been wildly wrong about it for going on two centuries.
But surely you recognize that oil and gas supplies are finite? Since you say “so-called fossil fuels”, should we infer that you think oil and gas is abiotically generated and not formed by organic sediments, or only sometimes formed by the conventionally accepted processes?
If one accepts the theory of fossil fuel formation, and dismisses abiogenesis, then it must be obvious that these fuels are finite (even abiotic oil would be finite btw). What is relevant in any case is how much can be extracted more affordably than using nuclear or other sources. If abiotic oil and gas is continuously flowing up into the crust from a practically limitless supply, then I could understand your point. But if that is in fact your belief, then where is your evidence that abiotic oil and gas is real?
My view is that investing modestly in thorium and other advanced nuclear technologies is a wise plan. There is no need to invest heavily in a crash program to “decarbonize” immediately, because CO2 emissions are net beneficial, but eventually “decarbonizing” will be thrust upon us as Joel has argued.
I doubt that we risk much by delaying the start of a build-out for several decades though. The objective should be to build cheap, modular units that are passively cooled and inherently safe. This technology is not quite ready yet. Rushing it on a false premise would be a wrong approach.
“The foreseeable event is the end of easily recoverable, abundant fossil fuels.”
“Foreseeable event?” What do you think will be the global demand and average price for oil and natural gas in, say, 2050?
Fossil fuels are a finite resource. However we have hundreds of years supply. At least.
No need to rush into something else due to a fear of running out.
Let’s keep using them, allow technology to advance on it’s own, and then let our great, great, great grandchildren use the best available technology replace fossil fuels when they do start to run out.
Yes, that’s pretty much my view as well. Although it seems prudent to continue to fund research and development on advanced nuclear designs which may prove to be even cheaper than natural gas.
Of course the best approach is to let markets work and just have government focus on eliminating the process-as-punishment regulatory apparatus and frivolous litigation that is unfairly crippling the nuclear power industry, leaving only prudent public safety regulations.
It is well established that the use of nuclear saves lives. Per terawatt.hour of electrical generation it is estimated that coal fired plants lead to premature deaths of 15 Americans while. Per terawatt, oil kills 36, gas is estimated to kill 4, solar 0.44, wind 0.15 and nuclear 0.09. This estimate for nuclear includes Chernobyl. Nuclear energy is estimated to have saved 1.84 million lives worldwide and they represent only 10 percent of the electrical supply.
Estimates of deaths vary depending on source but the above values seem to be representative.
Technology is not a living creature that develops on it’s own, someone has to develop it.
That means that someone must have a reason to fund research on it. In the special case of nuclear we have so much regulation that a pure private initiative is difficult.
The government can play a crucial role in speeding up the realization of the fourth generation nuclear reactors which are safe from meltdown and eats it’s own fuel.
/Jan
As long as government doesn’t get in the way, technology always advances as individuals and companies try to find cheaper/more efficient ways to do pretty much everything.
A rational argument for cheap electricity is that the EV eventually becomes less expensive than petrol. Sufficiently so that the range and durability issues melt into the background.
At least that would be an argument to use against the fact-resistant Left
We are nowhere near running out of oil, gas or coal. New quantities are continually being created deep underground and pushed towards the surface. Essentially we will never run out. No matter how we eventually generate electrical power, we will always need hydrocarbon molecules to produce a wide range of products, many of which have yet to be visualized.
If you think CO2 is the cause of a warming climate, if you think that a warming climate is a problem and if you think electricity is the solution then the only way to go is nuclear.
I don’t think a warming climate and increased CO2 are problems, but nuclear power is a good way of producing electricity.
If costs could be reduced and overblown safety concerns addressed, then perhaps the market would support nuclear power and its potential to lower CO2 emissions. I find merit in utilization of EVs to reduce actual pollutants in numerous urban locations.
Nuclear power became so heavily regulated that you could build a nuclear power plant but it’d bankrupt you to do it. Obama was trying to do the same thing with coal fired plants.
I’d be happy to use any type of vehicle cheaper to run at similar performance to competing technology. These days i use either public transport – a diesel bus, or a bike for short trips. Neither being particularly environmentally friendly, diesel fumes and a carbon fibre frame. On the other hand I do long trips several times a year from Central England tto Central France and Central Scotland. Until an EV can do the France trip on a single refuel they are not really an option.
Nuclear power is the right answer today and going forward regardless of the effect CO2 has on the surface temperature. Unfortunately, both the fear of atomic energy and CO2 alarmism arise from the same fundamental human frailty of believing the worst about what’s not understood. It’s just far too easy to scare weak minds with fear mongering.
Well, for the next 10 years, until Fusion is functional. 10 years from today, from tomorrow, from next year, and 10 years from the end of the next decade. Solutions are always 10 years away
Traditionally the number given since the 1950s has been 30 years. But maybe to be consistent with GND timelines, that’s why we have recently seen 5- or 10-year promises.
They will still be funding tokamak research when fossil fuels really do run out!
My favorite speculative fusion source is MEMS based micro-fusion. Rather than use high temperatures to randomly get atoms to close enough to fuse, direct ions together one at a time using high E-fields. You might be surprised how powerful the electric field arising from 1 Volt across 1 nm is.
If they were actually being totally honest they would have started without this genuflection statement, “Wind and solar power are becoming cheaper,..”
wind and solar have declined from “ungodly expensive”, to simply “very expensive.” methods to make unreliable electricity. The sooner they stop trying to bow to the wind-solar rentseekers like crony-capitalist Tom Steyer, the better.
What do you want to bet that Steyer has diesel or natural gas generator power backup at his properties?
The only reason ‘renewable’ energy is down to ‘very expensive’ is due to subsidies. Unfortunately, those pushing alarmism don’t count subsidies as part of the cost as the mindset pushing alarmism and other socialist nonsense is that money is as free as the paper it’s printed on.
They consider subsidies — which is when a government gives you money for a certain action — the same as tax breaks — which is when a government lets you keep money you earned.
“They consider subsidies … lets you keep money you earned.”
Except that the only money they’re ‘earning’ is from the subsidies. Otherwise, they would be taking a loss on every Joule.
For the benefit of those who don’t know that 1 Watt is 1 Joule/sec, 1 Joule == 2.77778e-7 kw-hr. When you purchase kw hours of electricity from the power company, you’re buying Joules. If a light bulb can’t tell the difference between 1 Joule and any other, how can the planet tell the difference between the next W/m^2 of forcing and all the others such that the next one results in 3.4 W/m^2 of surface emissions above and beyond the forcing, while each of the others increases surface emissions by only 0.62 W/m^2 beyond the forcing?
I’ve asked this question many times in many ways, some might even say too many times in too many ways, and not one alarmist has even tried to come up with an answer, unless they did and realized a truth whose consequences to their political identity are so harsh, they have no choice but to deny the obvious.
@co2isnotevil: Agreed: And there is also the mis-use of the word subsidies. The left think that so called “big oil” is subsidized, when in fact their tax revenue is huge…. and they equivocate that subsidies on green energy is lower. But in fact, green energy is given other people’s money (truly subsidized) whereas oil energy is not given other people’s money!
To most on the left, if you still have more money than they do after paying taxes, then the government is subsidizing you by not taxing you enough.
Exactly… it’s not our money, it’s what the government fails to confiscate.
How much copper and other mining messes are needed to electricate the transportation sector?
An extension cord the length of I-80?
Make 4th gen Molten Salt Reactors the standard, low-pressure safety, no water, no pressure domes, walk away safe. Build them on assembly lines. See Seaborg.co 250 MWs Thermal, 20′ 30-ton shipping container. Perfect for microgrids or modular power plant use. Case for the Good Reactor https://spark.adobe.com/page/1nzbgqE9xtUZF/
Show me even 1 that actually works. Theory is fine. Results are better.
https://youtu.be/tyDbq5HRs0o
We have the optimum solution for a thermal spectrum, burner design reactor.. The problem is the public and congress do not know that, as the solution is too good.
The problem is the solution, molten salt mass produceable burner design, is commercial destructive, it so much better in all categories, that it will make the fuel rod, water cooled reactor design obsolete.
Why are we still building fuel rod, water cooled reactors?
We need a pro/con discuss of the different designs that are ‘Fourth’ generation. Why is there a fourth generation fuel rod , water reactor with water?
We need to convince the public that the design is safe.
It needs to be a cheap as coal and needs to be mass produceable.
There is a Canadian company with US affiliate that is at stage 2 approval in Canada for the standard, simple, optimum burner, thermal spectrum, molten salt reactor.
There is no new engineering required to construct a molten salt reactor.
We built a molten salt reactor 50 years ago and then did not document the results of the test.
The molten salt thermal reactor is six times more fuel efficient than the pressure water reactor, roughly 1/3 to 1/5 the cost, and produces 1/9 the amount of long lived waste as compared to the pressure water reactor.
The molten salt reactor is cheaper as it does not have the catastrophic failure modes that the pressure water reactor has.
The Molten salt reactor has not been developed commercially yet.
No one knows how much it will cost.
It’s protagonists worship it with all the fervour of climate change alarmists…
meanwhile e.g. a bog standard BWR is available at sensible cost IF government regulations (which haven’t yet got started on molten salt) were relaxed to sane levels.
As far as long lived isotopes go, so what? long lived isotopes are as scary as CO2..in the real world.
You need enough pressure to keep the water from boiling before it reaches the turbines.
The same as every other type of power generation plant.
Mark,
You are either completely ignorant of how nuclear power plants work, or you are just throwing out your comment to be controversial.
I hope it’s the latter please confirm.
Rod, you are either completely ignorant of how power plants work, or you are just trying to show off your ignorance. I’ll leave it to the peanut gallery to determine which.
In the MSRs the reactor coolant (molten salt) is at very low pressure in comparison to the PWR designs, no massive, vastly expensive, over engineered pressure vessel is required – no “lid” to blow off, no sudden phase change failure to cater for. Have a look at the British design undergoing licensing procedures in N.B.
https://www.moltexenergy.com/
WOW now I have seen everything!!!! The NYT has actually printed an article that can be considered to be politically not correct.
It is an opinion piece – not necessarily representative of the NYT’s view. But it’s a start.
1. Its about time.
2. They’re gonna get letters. Nasty letters.
They might even print some.
1087 comments so far.
Comments were closed at 1087.
If it takes so long to build a nuclear reactor, would the building of new gas-fired electricity generators not quickly offer us a considerable reduction of carbon dioxide compared to say the coal and buy us more time till the technology improves sufficiently for us to have unsubsidized cleaner alternatives?
The following chart answers the question, “How much carbon dioxide is produced when different fuels are burned?” I cannot find one including wood and wood pellets. Can someone help?
https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=73&t=11
Once again ignorance abounds as to current nuclear power technology – old facts never die – they are repeated by those who are ignorant that thy no longer are “nuclear facts”
Your comment is unhelpful. You do not say if it is my comment that reflects ignorance nor do you attempt a brief answer to any of my questions.
Michael, don’t take it personally. From what I’ve seen Kent would advise the nuclear option if you’d asked for a knitting pattern, though I’m pronuclear myself.
Does this help?
https://www.volker-quaschning.de/datserv/CO2-spez/index_e.php
You can only understand their thinking, to date, if you travel to their Magical Land Of Make Believe. You get their by clicking the heals of your ruby slippers together 3 times while repeating their is no place like a CO2 free Home.
The adults in the room always understood that it was never a matter of IF they will embrace Nuclear Power it was always a matter of when.
State of the art nuclear power stations now installed and working are miles better than most of the world’s current fleet.
We don’t have to wait for new technology. The complaints about nuclear power are based on outdated designs. Current technology is safe*, efficient, and economical.
*People will argue that the old technology was safe. Let’s say that the up-to-date technology won’t have the kind of high profile incidents that gave nuclear power a bad name in some quarters.
If some of the promising technologies now under development eventuate, then so much the better.
Then why is construction of Vogtle units 3 and 4 (AP1000 designs) so far behind schedule and over-budget?
Reactors 1 and 2 (Westinghouse 4-loop) started construction in 1976 and went online in 1987 and 1989 respectively (11 and 13 years to complete). Total cost was $19.071 billion USD. Reactor 3 started construction in March 2013 and was originally projected to be in operation in 2016; that has now slipped to November 2021. Reactor 4 was started in November 2013 and is currently projected to begin operation in November 2022. Current estimated cost for units 3 and 4 is now $25 billion USD.
Meanwhile China has put 4 AP1000’s into production. They have even have an EPR on stream, ahead of the struggling French and Finnish projects.
Subtle sabotage.
You can use regulations to slow and or halt construction.
For example steel that is used in high neutron flux environments needs to be quite special in the elements it is made of.
So lets say someone orders that steel, to the specification, but fails to request a full audit trail of all the tests needed to priove it meets that spec.
Two years later, the nuclear auditor requests the paperwork, and it is nowhere to be found. Ok random sampling will show that the steel is in fact OK, but no, the auditor says it must be all torn down and replaced with steel for which the correct paperwork exists.
Or perhaps instead of 20 safety circuits the nuclear authority decides it needs 21. So new cables to new sensors must be run. But the design plans that were signed off 5 years ago don’t show this cable. New plans must be drawn up FOR THE WHOLE PLANT and certified – in itself a massive expensive time consuming process.
Bureaucracy, zealously applied enough, can kill anything.
I had a golfing friend a few years ago that was a quality control inspector at Jenkinsville. A fully trained and licensed engineer. He said it was his job to look over a welder’s shoulder to inspect every weld he made. He wasn’t alone. There were two other engineers with him. Every welder had 3 engineers.
But if we accept that the whole green scam is just a smokescreen for world government i.e. Communism, then no way can they,
the top people, ever accept Nuclear, just as they will not accept Hydro, which has to be the cleanest ever possible.
Perhaps the younger Greens are slowly realising that no electricity will mean no fun playing with their electronic toys, then yes they would go for Nuclear. Looking forward to the Civil War within the Green movement
MJE VK5ELL
The fanatics won’t be converted. Reasonable people, on the other hand, will wonder why we shouldn’t use nuclear if CO2 is such a problem. That will make it much harder for the fanatics to use CAGW as a tool to push their political agenda.
“That will make it much harder for the fanatics to use CAGW as a tool to push their political agenda.”
A really good point IMO.
In the electricity sector only.
Ah, so its not important then.
The population of the UK is about 64 million. The population of France is about 67 million. France uses twice the electrical power of the UK because they use electricity instead of gas to heat their homes. Carbon free nuclear electricity. If it matters.
General De Gaulle, thanks to whom we have a reliable nuclear plants in France, testing the sound installation before delivering a speech:
“Vive la France !”
The solution will NOT be the creations of obsolete gen 2 or even gen 3 massive , expensive light water reactors.
Molten salt small modular reactors, built in factories installed with little needed for site preparation, inherently safe,inherently cheap to build and to operate, capable of producing power cheaper than any
technology – $40 per MWhr (4 cents per kWhr) levelized costs, air cooled – no need for cooling body of water – can be installed virually anywhere – within a town or city . China and India rushing development of their
particular designs.
“The rise of mainstream green advocacy for”…blaming countries that have reduced their emissions
..and not blaming countries that have increased theirs
This is not our problem……in the mean time…’other’ countries are building 100’s of new coal plants
If the honestly believed their global cooling/global warming/climate change claptrap, then yes the green forest elves would support nuclear with fuel reprocessing. Instead, this is just the latest move to get rid of coal, especially coal-fired electricity, so let’s focus on unicorn farts and pixie dust as our alternative source of energy.
I’ve always been a supporter of nuclear power. And, yes, I would accept a nuclear power plant in my vicinity. One of the problems is what to do with the nuclear waste (spent fuel). AFAIK, it is still being stored on site. And although a perfect solution was found, everyone is still suffering from the NIMBY syndrome.
Ahhh, and I see that The New York Times’ function isn’t only to report the news, but create the news.
It’s more expensive but currently Russia, France and England reprocess spent fuel. If you can remove certain elements like plutonium 239 and use it as fuel than the remainder will have reduced its radioactivity by 98.9% in 40 years.
Gates proposal for a molten chloride reactor would use current stockpiles of waste as fuel.
There are an estimated 176 million lbs of spent fuel rods sitting in onsite cooling pools in the US. That is a potentially catastrophic externality that has never been dealt with; the can just keeps getting kicked down the road. I don’t think reprocessing that much “waste” is realistic, nor dumping something produced in one state in another state that doesn’t want. IMO the only reasonable solution would be to consume that material in gen 4 reactors. Kill two birds with one stone.
No, you don’t think.
That’s about 1000 cubic meters, so a block 10m x10m x 10m
Smaller than a condo.
Not really very big. (uranium is VERY heavy).
Of COURSE its reprocessable. It simply isn’t cost effective as uranium is dirt cheap.
OK, genius, how long would it take in the US to reprocess 400 metric tons of fuel rods (include loading and transport times to reprocessing facility)? That’s what was in reactor 4 at Fukushima Daiichi (about 1535 rods).
France’s Le Hague plant reprocesses 1700 tonnes of fuel per year:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/information-library/nuclear-fuel-cycle/fuel-recycling/processing-of-used-nuclear-fuel.aspx
It hasn’t been dealt with because the anti-nuke kooks won’t permit reprocessing nor will they permit any kind of permanent storage.
Then the useful stooges use the fact that spent fuel rods are backing up as evidence that nuclear is just too dangerous to permit.
My first comment went into moderation. I have a theory that I will now test (don’t use the word k!ll). Repost:
There are an estimated 176 million lbs of spent fuel rods sitting in onsite cooling pools in the US. That is a potentially catastrophic externality that has never been dealt with; the can just keeps getting kicked down the road. I don’t think reprocessing that much “waste” is realistic, nor dumping something produced in one state in another state that doesn’t want. IMO the only reasonable solution would be to consume that material in gen 4 reactors. K!ll two birds with one stone.
My theory appears to be correct. Typing k!ll instead of you-know-what allowed my comment to sail past moderation.
Let’s see if I can kill that theory. Posting at 10:09am PDT
I replicated your theory. My reply to your message went into moderation. This reply at 10:13am PDT doesn’t have that word
Comments that go into moderation appear immediately, but say “unapproved”. Sometimes they come out of moderation quite fast, but not always.
That happens to me every time I post the link to Oak Ridge’s Molten Salt Reactor video. Never know how long it will take to post. People always want proof that Molten Salt Reactors have actually been proven to have worked.
Every comment of mine incurs a delay (minutes, usually) before appearing. I attribute that to WordPress throughput, i.e., the time it takes to filter comments. Comments that go into WordPress moderation (i..e., somebody has to examine it before approving its appearance) appear immediately with the annotation, “Unapproved” (that wording also appears in the URL)
Define “worked.”
There is a list of words that automatically trigger moderation, for obvious reasons (as I’m sure you can imagine).
As for how quickly it makes it through moderation, well, that just depends on when a moderator logs on and sees it. The perfect storm is when all the moderators decide to go drinking together, and nobody’s minding the tiller. 😉
rip
It only needs to be stored on site for a few months, after which it can be sent to a re-processing plant. If the US would permit such plants to be built.
I guess it was too much to hope for that the NY Times would actually be aware of the advanced nuclear technology which will make totally obsolescent the massive light water nuclear reactors which they are recommending. Incredible stupidity. Apparently never heard of molten salt small modular reactors. They are only the object of massive development efforts by a dozen private companies and two national govts (China, India).
Scott Adams, in his “Deep Dive” into “Climate Science” is finding a lot of BS, speculation and “we don’t knows”, implying the “science isn’t settled”.
Every engineer in the US has read Dilbert and with the majority of Newspapers sold in the US are for “the comics”.
Scott Adams in pushing Gen IV Nuclear, hard, his reasoning that “Bill Gates is for it” and if catastrophic AGW is a real or not, it is obviously worth pursuing by both sides of the Climate debate to “save the world”.
The New York Times is hedging its bets that Scott Adam’s Gen IV crusade might get traction and if his deep dive into “Climate Science” reveals “Mostly BS”, the Times’s full on embrace of “we’re all going to die!!!! Warmunists” for the last 20 years will come back to bite them with the people that read their crap.
Adams is pushing Gen IV Nuclear from a persuasion standpoint. Bill Gates was a persuasion point rather than the actual rationale. Adams is applying some significant persuasion-fu to Gen IV as a vehicle to take climate change off the table as a 2016 issue. He is speculating whoever adopts it first wins 2020. The opening statement includes Gen IV Nuclear energy, safe, and burns nuclear waste for fuel. Given his success in not only predicting Trump’s win in 2016, but explaining how he did it during the campaign, I’d pay close attention as the ground seems to be shifting. The other thing he mentioned was good work by Rick Perry and that good work not being mentioned by anyone. If you aren’t beating your own drum in the complete absence of media coverage, nobody will ever know. Cheers –
As I understand it, Gates is pushing standing wave nuclear technology, which is extraordinarily complex and difficult to implement (according to Eric Sorensen). I’m not aware of his advocacy for MSR.
Bulk of this could have been written 30 yrs ago when the global warming scare was in its infancy. NYT and others have been “deniers” ever since.
WOW. If the NY Times is for it, what they are actually saying is that they are against it.
Demoncrat reasoning.
Like John Kerry on the Iraq war: “I was for it before I was against it.”
Jim
It’s a single guest editorial in the New York Times; I wouldn’t assume that constitutes a trend.
Dr. Plinker is a psychologist; Dr. Goldstein is an International Relations professor. Only Qvist appears to have a relevant professional background:
And besides, saving the world from climate change is the wrong reason to embrace nuclear; a larger supply of inexpensive, clean and reliable energy are the right ones. Recent experience indicates that CCGT is the better near-term choice to get there.
The New York Times is not pushing anything.
The article you quoted and linked is an “op-ed”. Op-eds are written by people who are not members of the NYTimes staff or editorial board. They are published, on a page that is opposite the editorial page, to show case ideas that are different than those proclaimed by the unsigned editorial opinion pieces on the editorial page. Those are the official opinions of the NYTimes.
Op-eds do not show anything about the opinions of the editorial board or the staff journalists of the NYTimes. AFAIK, the NYTimes has not renounced its opposition to nuclear power and to the continued operation of Indian Point.
Call me when the NYTimes has really changed its mind.
Eventually, of course, even left-wing people will have to bow to reality, and embrace nuclear. At that time the left will simply revise their history and will claim credit for the world-saving transition. However, the evolution will be difficult, and probably nasty. Jane fonda was quoted in the mid-1970s about failure of the left to completely halt construction of a nuclear power plant as “at least we cost the capitalists a lot of money.”
The left have always hated nuclear power–at first because successful opposition would have aided the USSR.
It is still powered by Russian propaganda and money and Arab oil money too.
Why would the Arabs care. Only a tiny amount of oil isn’t used to generate electricity.