I still believe in Global Warming. Do You?

[ParkCungHee]

Obviously Wind, like Hydro electric, is a solution that can only work in some areas.

 

[Murky]

To be honest, I hope wind farms get 0% subsidies in this country. I don't want our hills and mountains covered with wind turbines which in this country make about as much sense as PV power, for which we have already wasted billions. Let's rather build a few more nuclear reactors.

I suggest you research it more thoroughly before jumping to conclusion based on false assumptions.

A good energy policy is one where every available source of clean/renewable energy is utilized to the extent it is practical to do so.

Wind farms traditionally have been located away from housing so as not to disturb everyday life. They do need to be situated where they can receive optimal wind input in order to supply enough energy to meet demand. Solar power is coming along nicely too. More people are getting local solar systems installed and the development of solar farms is increasing. Both should be a part of any future energy portfolio.

Nuclear reactors are much more costly and risky. When a Nuclear plant fails, it fails spectacularly and causes widespread disruptions. Think of the major disasters associated with Chernobyl and Fukushima. Also, they don't work well when there are high temperatures because of the cooling requirements. I wouldn't say that I'm totally against Nuclear power. It has it's place, but I don't think we can safely rely on it just yet.

 

[warpus]

The problems with Chernobyl and Fukushima weren't the plants or reactors - it was human error and negligence.

Nuclear power is perfectly safe if you do it right.

 

[History_Buff]

Aye, both of those were the result of gross negligence. Compare that to Three Mile Island, where the result of a failure was essentially nil.

 

[peter grimes]

They [windmills] produce very reasonable amounts of energy, afaik much more that solar panels taken the same usable area. So long as the EROI is positive I don't see a problem. Plus the materials are fully recyclable and maintenance is low if they are well built (that deserves attention - I've already seen one catch fire!). I don't know if anyone compared their output with that of dams (taking into account used area), coal burning (space occupied by mines?) and so on, but in any case it's not as if most of the world lacks otherwise useless hills or shores to stick wind turbines in.

The thing about hydroelectric is that, at least in the developed world, just about all of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. There are only marginal improvements left to make. Not they those shouldn't be pursued, just pointing out that hydro clearly can't make much more than a single digit percent change in our energy resource profile.

For an interesting comparison of Wind and Photovoltaic (PV), see here:
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/12/wind-fights-solar/
It only concerns the US, but it's nonetheless a very interesting comparison.

The problems with Chernobyl and Fukushima weren't the plants or reactors - it was human error and negligence.

Nuclear power is perfectly safe if you do it right.

Yep.
In fact, I'd go one further - Fukushima, as bad as it was, only confirmed in my mind the safety of well-designed and managed nuclear facilities. This thing suffered a high 8.x magnitude quake, got slammed with a tsunami that was higher than the sea-walls, lost back-up power for several days, and the outcome - while not rosy - is a far cry from the damage we see every year from fossil fuel extraction.

I think people suffer from that thing where the commonplace loses its impact. Like how people groan about plane crashes yet will think nothing of getting in a car.

I'd be curious to know how much damage, in billions, hydrocarbon extraction yields per MW produced. I bet it's orders of magnitude higher than nuclear.

 

[Cutlass]

The problems with Chernobyl and Fukushima weren't the plants or reactors - it was human error and negligence.

Nuclear power is perfectly safe if you do it right.

Doing it "right" entails spending 10 times, at least, what is spent on nuclear now, and still has no guarantees. And remember that the major accidents have extremely major consequences. Chernobyl has had a million dead. Fukushima will probably be at least in the 10s of 1000s.

 

[warpus]

Doing it "right" entails spending 10 times, at least, what is spent on nuclear now, and still has no guarantees. And remember that the major accidents have extremely major consequences. Chernobyl has had a million dead. Fukushima will probably be at least in the 10s of 1000s.

Got any citations for the first point? As far as I know the standards at western nuclear power plants are fairly strict.

 

[peter grimes]

Doing it "right" entails spending 10 times, at least, what is spent on nuclear now, and still has no guarantees. And remember that the major accidents have extremely major consequences. Chernobyl has had a million dead. Fukushima will probably be at least in the 10s of 1000s.

Fukushima doesn't even rise to the level of hydrocarbon extraction deaths in a single year. But wouldn't a better way to compare be looking at deaths/injuries/damage per MW generated?

Also, I'm not sure it's fair to include Chernobyl only because it's a design that sacrificed safety for speed and ease of plutonium production/extraction. I don't know if there are any reactors of that design still in use, but they should be shut down. If there are, they are likely to be in the old soviet satellite states. I don't have time to look into it now, but perhaps today or tomorrow.

The more I learn about nuclear the less I find it to be worrisome. You can argue the economics of it, but it's harder to come up with valid safety concerns. Especially when we compare it against just coal!

 

[tokala]

The thing about hydroelectric is that, at least in the developed world, just about all of the low-hanging fruit has already been picked. There are only marginal improvements left to make. Not they those shouldn't be pursued, just pointing out that hydro clearly can't make much more than a single digit percent change in our energy resource profile.

Well, it depends.
Excluding pumped storage you are probably right.
But at least for Central and Northern Europe, pumped storage has the potential to take the sting out of the intermittency of solar and wind, opening the way for renewables getting pseudo-baseload capability.
This is largely a result of Norways pretty favourable hydrological layout, and already existing hydroelectrical installations which would allow upgrading to pumped storage for moderate cost and environmental impact.
Of course there would remain the "minor" problem of laying down transmisson lines with double digit GW capacity to the rest of Europe, but work has at least started.

 

[Bootstoots]

Doing it "right" entails spending 10 times, at least, what is spent on nuclear now, and still has no guarantees. And remember that the major accidents have extremely major consequences. Chernobyl has had a million dead. Fukushima will probably be at least in the 10s of 1000s.

It's hard to accurately estimate the number of deaths caused by radiation exposure, but all reliable sources place the Chernobyl death toll at a small fraction of the number you stated. The WHO report on the disaster placed the number of excess deaths at around 9000. This has been criticized for being too low, but even the TORCH report commissioned by the German Green Party put the number at 30,000 - 60,000. Fukushima will probably be much less deadly than that - I'd be surprised if elevated cancer rates will even be detectable in any population more than a few kilometers from the plant.

For some reason, people tend to vastly overestimate the risks of radiation and underestimate the risks of chemical pollution. The number of excess deaths caused by fossil fuel consumption is truly enormous in comparison with radiation deaths - the WHO found that air pollution alone is responsible for over 2 million excess deaths annually, worldwide. Nuclear meltdowns grab far more attention than a steady pileup of bodies from fossil fuel emissions, but that doesn't make nuclear energy very dangerous on average.

 

[Cutlass]

Got any citations for the first point? As far as I know the standards at western nuclear power plants are fairly strict.

It's hard to accurately estimate the number of deaths caused by radiation exposure, but all reliable sources place the Chernobyl death toll at a small fraction of the number you stated. The WHO report on the disaster placed the number of excess deaths at around 9000. This has been criticized for being too low, but even the TORCH report commissioned by the German Green Party put the number at 30,000 - 60,000. Fukushima will probably be much less deadly than that - I'd be surprised if elevated cancer rates will even be detectable in any population more than a few kilometers from the plant.

For some reason, people tend to vastly overestimate the risks of radiation and underestimate the risks of chemical pollution. The number of excess deaths caused by fossil fuel consumption is truly enormous in comparison with radiation deaths - the WHO found that air pollution alone is responsible for over 2 million excess deaths annually, worldwide. Nuclear meltdowns grab far more attention than a steady pileup of bodies from fossil fuel emissions, but that doesn't make nuclear energy very dangerous on average.

The July Popular Science had an article saying there was a million premature deaths attributable to Chernobyl. Further, they said the standards of safety of light water reactors is 1 serious incident in every 10,000 reactor years. Instead we've had about a 1% partial core melt rate. Most of which were not in and of themselves sever. But the safety rate is not what it should be. And the machines are getting older and older and used more and more.

As for costs, safety can always be improved by adding a lot more money. But eventually people just say "good enough". And that's fine until what they overlooked, like backup power supplies, fails.

And we still do not have a permanent waste storage solution.

So while nuclear has things to recommend it, it's hardly a simple situation.

 

[innonimatu]

In fact, I'd go one further - Fukushima, as bad as it was, only confirmed in my mind the safety of well-designed and managed nuclear facilities. This thing suffered a high 8.x magnitude quake, got slammed with a tsunami that was higher than the sea-walls, lost back-up power for several days, and the outcome - while not rosy - is a far cry from the damage we see every year from fossil fuel extraction.

No one even knows the price tag on the Fukushima disaster, but I bet that it is way higher than cleaning up any coal mine or oil field you care to mention. And I'm only talking about economic costs...
And the fuel pools insanely built on top of the buildings are still not empty. The buildings are still weakened. Another big quake there and they may still have to evacuate Tokyo. That at least might make the pro-nuclear people reconsider their optimism.

I ask, if nuclear power were so safe then why will no insurance company in the world insure a nuclear plant? And if its problems all had solutions how come virtually all nuclear plans in the world keep stockpiling dangerous waste with no long-term plan to dispose of it? Who's going to pay the costs of securing that crap in the future?

The odds of big nuclear disasters keep increasing as nuclear plants age are are still kept in operation because otherwise nuclear power could be unprofitable, and as nuclear waste piles up without any solution to safely store it.

 

[Bootstoots]

The July Popular Science had an article saying there was a million premature deaths attributable to Chernobyl. Further, they said the standards of safety of light water reactors is 1 serious incident in every 10,000 reactor years. Instead we've had about a 1% partial core melt rate. Most of which were not in and of themselves sever. But the safety rate is not what it should be. And the machines are getting older and older and used more and more.

I found that article and noticed a couple of issues.

First, the figure of 1 million dead came from a book that was not peer reviewed and has been nearly universally rejected by the scientific community for a variety of serious flaws. I don't think it should be taken seriously.

A bit less importantly, the Popular Science article mentions that the standard is 1 incident per 10,000 light-water reactor years, and mentions 5 partial or full core meltdowns, 3 of which were at Fukushima alone (and thus weren't independent events). Among all light-water reactors on the planet, 11,500 reactor-years have elapsed, for a total of 1 incident per 2300 reactor-years. That misses the target by a factor of 4.3. The article is correct in saying that ~1% of reactors have failed over the course of their lifetimes, but the way it is worded, it might appear to someone skimming the article quickly that the failure rate is 100 times worse than intended, not a bit over 4. Of course, with such a low number of failures, there is quite a bit of statistical uncertainty as to what the "true" failure rate really is, anyway.

As for costs, safety can always be improved by adding a lot more money. But eventually people just say "good enough". And that's fine until what they overlooked, like backup power supplies, fails.

And we still do not have a permanent waste storage solution.

So while nuclear has things to recommend it, it's hardly a simple situation.

I don't really think of nuclear power as a very good source of power, mostly because of the cost issue. I believe its negative externalities are far better than those of fossil fuels, but obviously worse than renewable energy. Nuclear energy is certainly no substitute for a reliable system based on renewable energy, but I think existing reactors should be upgraded for safety and kept operational until we finally manage to get off fossil fuels.

 

[Cutlass]

Nuclear power plant shut down because it's too hot outside.

Record Warm Water in Long Island Sound Shuts Down Connecticut Nuclear Power Plant
Posted by Joseph Eaton on August 13, 2012

In a sign of the severity of this summer’s record heat, one of the two reactors at Connecticut’s only nuclear power plant has been shut down due to historically high water temperatures in Long Island Sound, source of the facility’s cooling water.

Unit 2 of Millstone Power Plant near New London was shut down Sunday afternoon after temperatures in the sound exceeded 75 degrees for 24 hours, the maximum temperature at which the nuclear power plant has permits to extract cooling water for the unit, said Ken Holt, spokesman for plant operator Dominion.

The outage in southeastern Connecticut appeared to have no immediate impact on power delivery, as the New England grid operator reported that the system operations were normal. New England was expected to have a buffer of 26 percent more electricity supply than peak demand this summer, according to a national reliability outlook published earlier this year.

But it’s a dramatic development for the water temperature in the sound to close the unit. Holt said company records dating back to 1971 show that this summer’s heat wave has led to the highest recorded water temperatures in the sound.

 

[El_Machinae]

This is part of where Steven Chu's ideas have some weight. His idea, for people to start whitening their rooftops, or planting scenic trees with light-colored leaves, would slow the rate at which we heat even if it doesn't slow the rate at which we're putting insulation into the atmosphere. The problem with that powerplant is the heat, not necessarily due to carbon dioxide accumulation.

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

When it comes to big problems like man-made climate change, a lot of people don't want to face reality.

Actually there could be a combination between "don't want to face reality" and "don't want to fully acknowledge the consequence".

Probably the first one tend to be predominant from a "right-wing" approach - while te second one is particulary true for the "left-wing" approach, even if it is far less acknowledged or pointed out.

For example 2 years ago I had a discussion/debate with a friend who is probably one of the few die-hard supporters in Romania of AWG theory & all proposed measures and I asked him why he is complaining about the current world economic crises as long as during this the general consumption ( and particulary oil, gas and so on ) tend to decrease dramatically - and it is far more effective than Kyoto agreement, gov. regulations and so on ? According to his one theories he should praise more free-market and austerity approaches than "stimulus policies" ... even than he does exactely the opposite ( and this wierd approach seems to be the general rule ! ). I basically blocked him - just cried something like "you can't be serious" ... and fortunately from that moment we stop disscusing about this subject anymore - and our Dominion or poker evening are mooore relaxed from that moment.

 

[Tee Kay]

We are doomed.

 

[Murky]

Actually there could be a combination between "don't want to face reality" and "don't want to fully acknowledge the consequence".

There was a recent study done on Climate Change Denial. They are mostly extreme Free Market fanatics or conspiracy theorists. Both camps still refuse to accept reality for the most part. The people over at "Wattsupwiththat" and other climate denier blogs thinks the study is just another part of the bigger conspiracy.

An Australian study says avid climate change deniers tend to be either extreme free marketeers or conspiracy theorists who believe the moon landing was faked or Princess Diana was murdered.

The study, to be published in the journal Psychological Science, also found that those who reject the scientific consensus on the human contribution to climate change are more likely to to reject other scientific findings such as the linkage between tobacco and lung cancer or between HIV and Aids.

The paper, titled “NASA faked the moon landing – Therefore (Climate) Science is a Hoax: An Anatomy of the Motivated Rejection of Science”, was based on a survey of more than 1000 visitors to blogs dedicated to discussion of climate change.

“We find that endorsement of a laissez-faire conception of free-market economics predicts rejection of climate science,” the paper says. “We additionally show that endorsement of a cluster of conspiracy theories (e.g., that the CIA killed Martin Luther King or that NASA faked the moon landing) predicts rejection of climate science as well as the rejection of other scientific findings.”

The paper says that a staunch belief in free markets was an overwhelmingly strong factor in the rejection of climate science and was a stronger factor than conspiratorial thinking.

It surveyed people on attitudes to a range of conspiracy theories, including that the United States allowed the September 11 attacks to occur and that SARS was produced in a laboratory as a biological weapon.

Link to article

Link to Study

 

[Mîtiu Ioan]

There was a recent study done on Climate Change Denial. They are mostly extreme Free Market fanatics or conspiracy theorists.

I agree that this is probably the case now - but if the measures proposed by AGW hardliner will be fully implemented ... I'd bet that alot of "progresists" will found themselves in trouble justifying the effects ...

 

[Murky]

I agree that this is probably the case now - but if the measures proposed by AGW hardliner will be fully implemented ... I'd bet that alot of "progresists" will found themselves in trouble justifying the effects ...

I'm not sure what effects you mean. I do know that the cost of not dealing with goes up the longer we wait. We've already emitted enough green house gas to warm the planet to dangerously high temperatures with devastating effects. If we can get get political will (and that's a big IF right now) it's going to take a tremendous effort to avert total catastrophe. Doing that would employ more people than everyone currently employed by the fossil fuel industries combined. So I'm still not sure what negative effects you think will happen as a consequence of dealing the crisis.