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 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.
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 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.
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/
WOW now I have seen everything!!!! The NYT has actually printed an article that can be considered to be politically not correct.
1. Its about time.
2. They’re gonna get letters. Nasty letters.
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
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.
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
In the electricity sector only.
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.
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.
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.
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.