It's good to see someone considering the whole picture on the problems created by fossil fuel use - and the even bigger problems implicit in ending fossil fuel use.
Too often you hear that the key to reducing CO2 emisions is to rely more on natural gas - the sooner we realise that isn't an option the better. Don't hear it so much in the last 12 months.
I think a lot of people are still in denial about the extent of our reliance on coal. People are quick to demonise coal and call for coal plants to close down - not so quick to admit how totally dependant we are on it for electricity generation at the moment, rather slow to acknowledge the vast amount of work required to put a workable alternative in place.
In the context of global warming I think focusing on liquid fuel use is a distraction. It's not that relevant, except to the degree that a switch to biofuels accelerates deforestation. SUVs make easy targets, but they also represent an opportunity for an easy win - drive something smaller.
The really hard work is in finding a replacement for coal, but people still avoid admitting that nothing else comes close to it yet.
If we are to believe in things we cannot see or touch, how do we tell the true belief from the false belief?
I personally think pebble-bed reactors have a lot of potential, and I'm optimistic about fusion by the end of the century.
However I wouldn't be the first one to point out that there are problems getting fission to scale up with current technology within a useful time-frame.
And you do actually have to get the plants built in a real-world physical location, with the agreement of the local planning authorities. I don't think these are insurmountable challenges - just challenges.
I'm more sympathetic to nuclear than my comment might have indicated - my real thrust was to get across that people don't like to admit that we are dependant on coal because it has a lot of useful characteristics(technically simple, cheap, easy to build,baseload power), and it's hard to find something else to replace it.
Yes it has some horrible side effects. But if it didn't have a lot going for it we wouldn't have become addicted to it in the first place.
My point is that the first step to kicking an addiction is to admit you are addicted. Admit that coal is filling a need, be honest about the dimensions of that need. Then look for alternatives.
If we are to believe in things we cannot see or touch, how do we tell the true belief from the false belief?
"I personally think pebble-bed reactors have a lot of potential, and I'm optimistic about fusion by the end of the century."
As am I (especially once the military gets out of research and we can concentrate on decreasing the half-life of spent fuels instead of Mt of TNT).
However, where are we going to get the helium from if we are past peak NG? Especially if we don't develop Thorium reactors (i.e. really good technology for making alpha particle streams).
Waste is still quite a problem for HTGRs, as the pebbles need some pretty harsh treatment (similar to MOX rods, as I understand it) to be able to be put into Synrock.
I'm optimistic about fusion by the end of the century.
Please look at IEC fusion, whose lead researcher is Dr. Robert Bussrad, we may know by the end of this decade if he has as reactor design @ proof of concept.
Intriguingly, though, the current designs of nuclear power plants relies on massive quantities of cooling water (as to a lesser extent do coal fired plants).
This means in areas where drought is increasingly realistic, meaning it is being experienced now, and with models suggesting such conditions remain likely into the future, an existing nuclear plant in southern Europe or Australia is unlikely to be very useful.
And this should not be equated with the environmental concerns (heating rivers leading to fish die off, for example) which prompted nuclear plants to throttle back in Europe during several 'extreme' summers - in the concrete case of both southern Europe and Australia, the physical quantity of water is insufficient.
Don't count on the world's current investment in nuclear power plants to be as useful as expected. And as for building more of the same - let's just say there is a lot of interest in ensuring profit streams for a number of very well connected large companies, and intelligent debate is not very likely.
Of course, we can discuss other designs and ways to generate electricity using fission - unfortunately, this is a discussion roughly on par with powersats - technically feasible, finacially achievable, and not available today. And very unlikely to be available in a decade either.
If water is an issue, secondary coolant condensers are a very easy solution for new plants. Dump the heat into the air or, better, into a community hot water loop.
Proper thermal management of our lifestyles is a relatively easy step in cutting back home energy use to a small fraction of what it currently is. There are a thousand things you can do to a home, but also things you can do to the cement plant on the other end of town.
In Australia the problem is trivially easy to address. Most of the power requirements are on the coasts, which is where ample supplies of cooling water happen to be. People love to invent doomish problems it seems.
I agree, when reality sets in, the NIMBY attitude will evaporate, methinks. Also, HGTRs would be really useful in Australia for desalination (hey, we could even pump it inland to wash away the last few inches of topsoil!)
Trivial? The "coastal location" is not decisive. What matters is if power plants are cooled by water from rivers (affected by global warming - more evaporation and less rain) or by sea water. In New South Wales, coal fired power plants (12,000 MW) are cooled as follows
20% from Cox River
40% from Hunter River
40% from sea water
"The water shortage across eastern Australia is now so acute it has begun to affect power supplies, and the country is at risk of electricity shortages next year."
Would you mind commenting on the Candu re heat dispersal?
CANDU plants (such as the Darlington station near Toronto, Ontario) use a discharge-diffuser system that limits the thermal effects in the environment to within natural variations.
I imagine there are other systems and solutions and even some positive uses for non-utilized heat production. I wouldn't mind living near a plant if I could use some of that heat to grow a rutabaga or two in winter.:-)
If we begin with the premise that we shall not exceed 450ppm co2, we need to construct a trajectory that keeps that from happening.
We need a moratorium on new coal plants and a phase out of exising ones. Combined with serious conservation, we take care of the deficit for awhile with solar, wind, and some biofuels. If nuclear is excluded, the real challenge is how do we maintain the minimum necessary baseload to backstop the intermittent renewable.
Yes, there is drought, but does that mean nuclear is not an option everywhere. Will the whole world be in drought? I don't think so but would like to see some projections
Further, if we can fall back on sequestered coal, are there water issues there, too.
No, it is not hopeless. Once people understand the seriousness of the situation and the viable options, nuclear will not be excluded. It will become the world's primary energy source. Today's objections to nuclear do not have strong factual foundations. Once the crisis hits, society will make the tradeoffs in favor of preserving civilization.
It may be a bit late by then. It takes 10 years from the inception until a nuclear powerplant produces electricity. By the time we truly feel the crisis, we'll be so for into the slope that we won't be able to get our act together any longer.
That's old, non crisis, thinking. That assumes all the opponents can tie up the permitting for years and delay the construction. Using standard designs, I have heard that they could build the plants and go into operation in about three years. If we could break through all the nimby and obstructionist objections in permitting, that should not take more than a few years. We could build a lot of plants in 10-20 years if we gave it the urgency and resources of a world war. Just look at the hundreds of billions, soon to be trillions, the US has wasted on Iraq and that was not important for its national security. If the French can do it so can the US.
If China is complete one coal plant every week, can't we finish one nuclear plant every month?
Large scale coal generators also require major infrastructure as well---especially the titanic trains coming in with the astonishing quantities of coal, and the trains going out to dump the fly ash waste into non-sequestered unsound 'storage' as pounds of crap with infinite half-lives.
And yet---when there's motivation they get done.
I'm also pro-wind as well. But we need to be realistic about the import of the laws of physics and geophysical facts, with oil, gas, coal, wind, biofuels and nuclear.
Of them all, so far nuclear and wind seem to have the least bad downsides by basic physics, and some modest (wind) to major (nuclear) potential.
Apparently we would need about 10,000 reactors (about 20 times what we have now) to supply the equivalent of the world's total current energy consumption, a large but not unimaginable number. We could take a generation or two to build them. The world could survive with a lot less than the current level of energy consumption and still avoid a catastrophic die-off that would wreck the world.
These reactors would power the current electrical grid but also most transportation and the chemical/fertilizer industry using the remaining low grade hydrocarbon feed stocks. It would take a monumental construction task but does not seem out of the realm of possibility, if the world put in a World War II level effort for 20 years.
To build a nuclear power plant you need two things: Time and Uranium. We don't have too much time. A Nuclear Boom would be required. Do you see that coming? I don't. And to have Uranium you have to dig for it. Check out the Uranium production graph for the past years and tell me in the face that Uranium is an alternative, when it is facing a clear bottleneck in production.
Another point on nuclear, as global construction slowed dramatically after Chernobyl and the collapse of USSR we are approaching "peak nuclear decommission rate" as the existing fleet reaches end of life. We'll be doing well (from a nuclear generating point of view) just to hold global generation flat over the next 10-20 years in the face of this decommission.
"A Nuclear Boom would be required. Do you see that coming? I don't."
If you do not see it, then perhaps you are not taking the crisis seriously. No, it is not happening RIGHT NOW, although there are about 30 applications now in the works in the US after not completing any plants since the 70s. Right now the world is in denial. But when it finally becomes inescapable, people will look at the real options and do what they can to save their lives. Sure, we will build wind and solar as fast as we can. But, our main hope is fission.
I think mankind will rise to the occasion. This is what the start of a boom looks like. Peoples' minds are being changed.
It is absolutely nothing like peak oil. The equivalent in petroleum would have been as if all oil exploration had been shut down for 30 years, and oil production heavily curtailed (all from the four or five known in place oil fields), with the bulk of oil consumption satisfied for years from surplus military strategic reserves.
The uranium industry is but a gnat compared to the oil industry---and if just a fraction of the capital invested in oil would go to uranium (which it will under energy conversion scenarios) the amount of available uranium would be far higher.
There's a bottleneck now for the next 2-7 years. After that, it's only a matter of capital put in.
There is quite recently (3 years) an enormous explosion in uranium exploration and mining. This is real and on-the ground already.
Uranium is not rare, unlike petroleum. And we are using the most uranium-inefficient fuel cycle now because uranium is still so cheap.
The global uranium reserves correspond only to 10 years of the actual power extracted from oil. Uranium is not less rare than oil.
Breeder reactors pose a number of problems that are not yet solved. Letting thousands of tons of plutonium travelling around the world is simply unthinkable, and U-Th process is far from being mastered. Furthermore, there is a maximal rate at which you can construct breeder reactors because you need first to generate fuel, which does not exist in the nature; there simply no way of replacing the decline of oil in real time, not to speak of the very different use (power generation vs transportation).
1. I understand the choice of IPCC of not mixing the subjects of Peak Oil and Climate Change. Politically speaking, Peak Oil is still Taboo and if you want politics on your side, you better hang on to what is politically correct than to cling on increasing numbers of Taboos. Is it the right thing to do? Probably not, and History will teach them that, but it is understandable. It's called pragmatism.
2. Hansen is too much optimistic about the future of CO2 emissions, like his sentence suggests: as long as coal and unconventional fossil fuels are used responsibly. This is the main issue. The moment this planet understands that oil is in scarcity, it will start to burn coal to produce oil. Perhaps not in the US, but I bet China will do it. Environmental questions will be put on the shelves as people think that to mantain global economic from meltdown is more important than the planet they are living within. And those who think that a few US laws will forbid it, I say that "brown revolution" will begin / continue in the third world countries and USA will have no choice if they want to keep up.
3. Coal "Phase Out"? You must be joking. We are within Peak Oil in few years time. People here in TOD are talking about the time when TSHTF, prospects of Blackouts are one of those nightmares of it, and Hansen calls for coal "phase out"? He's dreaming. Or perhaps making an "Earth Sim" for himself. He's not talking about the real world, where nations battle economically (and warfarily) with each other, where magnats fight for power control, and where population won't understand why are there so many blackouts if there is so many coal that it isn't being used for "environmentalists concern".
4. The really hard work is in finding a replacement for coal, but people still avoid admitting that nothing else comes close to it yet.
Alright, we're talking now. But it is not a question of "hard work". It is a question of existence. It doesn't exist, period. Any renewables are still far off in the future before reaching today's coal levels, ignoring any "growth" people would like to witness. What's left? Uranium? We have 40 years of it. We DON'T have a choice.
Unless perhaps we shut the lights out and phase out... the entire economy.
5.In the context of global warming I think focusing on liquid fuel use is a distraction.
No it isn't. I couldn't disagree more. It is devious, but as you said, PO and GW are closely related. Well, if you can't switch your oil-based economy to something sustainable in a short time, you will need a heavy substitute for it. And, like I've said and you've said, only Coal is up to the task. So they are damn right in fighting oil "addiction" for these two reasons:
- avoid the most dangerous consequences of Peak Oil;
- start mitigating an entire oil economy so that the switch to another kind of economy doesn't ask for too much Coal.
The moment this planet understands that oil is in scarcity, it will start to burn coal to produce oil. Perhaps not in the US, but I bet China will do it.
They will both do it, maybe USA will lag a little because of public opposition, but shortages will end this one very quickly. The absence of this point - the substitution of oil with coal is a yelling weakness of the report. It is simply assuming that after oil is gone people will stop driving and flying... what a shame - given the otherwise high level of the analysis.
What's left? Uranium? We have 40 years of it.
You need to check your numbers. Try 1 trillion tonnes divided by 65,000 (the current consumption) or even 650,000 if we increase it tenfold. Should be enough for million years or so. Uranium is not a fossil fuel and we have orders of manitude more from it (as energy content) than from FFs which are of biotic origin. Developing it is just a question of time - and will inevitably happen IF there is the political will to go nuclear. It's simply a matter of choice, political will and a hard work - that is if we still have a choice with respect to Global Warming.
Because of scarcity, the price of fossil fuels will grow much faster than the cost of producing them. Thus, the oil companies will have lots of cash on hand that they may be willing to invest in carbon capture technology.
Burning coal with carbon capture to produce electricity is a pretty decent proposition. Liquifying coal with carbon capture is not such a good idea (because we'll produce more CO2 later in burning the oil), but it's certainly better than without carbon capture. Burning coal without carbon capture is a recipe for disaster.
Carbon capture is the perfect boondoggle technology. There is NOT A SINGLE power plant that demonstrates it on industrial scale. And yet we hear about "clean coal" and "carbon capture" as nothing less than the solution to our climate change threat... the same way we have listening for hydrogen for decades. At the same time there are hundreds of coal power plants on the drawing boards, and NONE of them features carbon capture, nor intends to. And of course there are thousands more that are already operational for which carbon capture will never be applied to for obvious reasons. In short for the foreseeble future it is entirely fictional idea. I'd rather place my bets on fusion than it.
Is it? Look at the following Wikipedia article. In my view, it is realistic to expect larger numbers of coal firing plants with carbon capture technology to come on-line sometime after 2020. It probably won't happen without regulation by law, but it is both technically and economically feasible.
1 trillion tons divided by (10000 gw reactors * 200 tons each) is 500000 years. This is for once through cycles with light water reactors alone.
With molten salt breeder regimes its 120 trillion tons (we can use much lower ore grades) used at 1 ton per gw year. That should last some 12 billion years.
There's something pretty wacky going on when one person can say we've 40 years left and another 12 billion years. How can we develop this argument, terms of reference?
Theres not much point. They're filled with absolute strait lies.
Its 40 years from mines currently open,
Several hundred years from anticipated reserves at current prices at constant demand through the once through cycle.
Several thousand years at constant demand with reasonable price limits from speculative reserves with the once through cycle.
500000 thousand years from ore bodies of 20ppm up in the once through cycle... but at prices that are rather too high to be directly competitive, so fuel stretching from reprocessing and extra enrichment are required. This actually multiplies the resource base by 4-8 times....
Now of course breeder reactor regimes become reasonable to pursue in this price regime since we have to do reprocessing anyways. This multiplies the resource base by some 100 on fuel efficiency over LWR cycles and opens up all ore bodies of uranium and thorium, which multiplies the resource base by 120, for a total multiplication of 120000.
Now if you assume growth, it has to stop at maximum radiative capacity of the earth, somewhere around the level of the solar flux. If you burn the nuclear fuel as fast as possible our 120 trillion tons will only last some 16 million years.
The bottom line is we wont run out of nuclear fuel.
Unfortunately I'm afraid that whatever you say or however you say it, doesn't matter at all. The "40 years" strawman will be repeated again and again without those guys bothering to read spare to respond your arguments. 40 years, 40 years... they need to repeat that 98 times more and it will surely turn into truth, will it?
Nevertheless I have to congratulate you - in this summary you managed to send such a clear message that the only thing that one of them could say is that you have to join the PR campaigns. I liked it - going ad hominem is the final stage of denial, so maybe a bit of realisation will be coming along shortly.
Actually, it is more that the pro-nuclear arguments lean heavily on theoretical possibles, whilst those who are opposed are usually (or should be, since there are a lot of theoretical possibilities) more concerned with reality. In reality there are always human problems, unforeseen or ill-considered issues, and industry sweeping whatever it can get away with under the carpet.
To have an intelligent debate would require non-industry funded studies that are completely independant and consider all aspects of a nuclear programme. Even government commissioned studies usually include funding by the industry, often have panel members from the industry and get information from industry groups such as NEI (see criticism of the recent UK energy paper where these issues are raised). This is not unbiased information. It is called propaganda. Yes, I suggested he join their PR campaign because that is the level of the arguments, not because I was making a personal attack. Use your "going ad hominem is the final stage of denial" catch phrases if you want. It doesn't change the fact we live in the real world.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Actually, it is more that the pro-nuclear arguments lean heavily on theoretical possibles, whilst those who are opposed are usually (or should be, since there are a lot of theoretical possibilities) more concerned with reality.
This is just ridiculous. You add up the numbers for nearly any uranium use scenario with uranium resources and you have such a vast resource base to make the whole argument moot. We have measured reserves from deposits above 200ppm in the hundreds of millions of tons, and reprocessing with double enrichment is proven to multiply the resource base by more than four times at a reasonable cost. Theres 200 years from 10000 light water reactors right there before we get into very reasonable advances in technology and lower grade ores. Extrapolating molten salt breeder reactor regimes or thorium utilization or shale mining isn't stepping off into some fantasyland how you imply... These are demonstrated technologies and the resources are clearly measured and even the Storm/Smith team had to note this.
In reality there are always human problems, unforeseen or ill-considered issues, and industry sweeping whatever it can get away with under the carpet.
So what? This has little to do with the vast resource base of uranium or the demonstrable fact that we wont be running out of it this century.
To have an intelligent debate would require non-industry funded studies that are completely independant and consider all aspects of a nuclear programme. Even government commissioned studies usually include funding by the industry, often have panel members from the industry and get information from industry groups such as NEI (see criticism of the recent UK energy paper where these issues are raised). This is not unbiased information. It is called propaganda.
Hold up the mirror to the storm/smith report and their cascade of lies.
You can fact check numbers and analysis that isn't from the 'industry.' Deffeyes & MacGregor aren'te industry shills, neither is the University of Melborne. This is simple ad-hominem nonsense.
Yes, I suggested he join their PR campaign because that is the level of the arguments, not because I was making a personal attack. Use your "going ad hominem is the final stage of denial" catch phrases if you want. It doesn't change the fact we live in the real world.
It doesn't change the fact you're using simplistic ad-hominems and ignoring reality altogether.
It's good to see someone considering the whole picture on the problems created by fossil fuel use - and the even bigger problems implicit in ending fossil fuel use.
Too often you hear that the key to reducing CO2 emisions is to rely more on natural gas - the sooner we realise that isn't an option the better. Don't hear it so much in the last 12 months.
I think a lot of people are still in denial about the extent of our reliance on coal. People are quick to demonise coal and call for coal plants to close down - not so quick to admit how totally dependant we are on it for electricity generation at the moment, rather slow to acknowledge the vast amount of work required to put a workable alternative in place.
In the context of global warming I think focusing on liquid fuel use is a distraction. It's not that relevant, except to the degree that a switch to biofuels accelerates deforestation. SUVs make easy targets, but they also represent an opportunity for an easy win - drive something smaller.
The really hard work is in finding a replacement for coal, but people still avoid admitting that nothing else comes close to it yet.
If we are to believe in things we cannot see or touch, how do we tell the true belief from the false belief?
The really hard work is in finding a replacement for coal, but people still avoid admitting that nothing else comes close to it yet.
It's because it's not true.
Uranium (and 2050 and on, thorium) fission is a direct replacement for coal-burning plants.
I said "yet".
I personally think pebble-bed reactors have a lot of potential, and I'm optimistic about fusion by the end of the century.
However I wouldn't be the first one to point out that there are problems getting fission to scale up with current technology within a useful time-frame.
And you do actually have to get the plants built in a real-world physical location, with the agreement of the local planning authorities. I don't think these are insurmountable challenges - just challenges.
I'm more sympathetic to nuclear than my comment might have indicated - my real thrust was to get across that people don't like to admit that we are dependant on coal because it has a lot of useful characteristics(technically simple, cheap, easy to build,baseload power), and it's hard to find something else to replace it.
Yes it has some horrible side effects. But if it didn't have a lot going for it we wouldn't have become addicted to it in the first place.
My point is that the first step to kicking an addiction is to admit you are addicted. Admit that coal is filling a need, be honest about the dimensions of that need. Then look for alternatives.
If we are to believe in things we cannot see or touch, how do we tell the true belief from the false belief?
"I personally think pebble-bed reactors have a lot of potential, and I'm optimistic about fusion by the end of the century."
As am I (especially once the military gets out of research and we can concentrate on decreasing the half-life of spent fuels instead of Mt of TNT).
However, where are we going to get the helium from if we are past peak NG? Especially if we don't develop Thorium reactors (i.e. really good technology for making alpha particle streams).
Waste is still quite a problem for HTGRs, as the pebbles need some pretty harsh treatment (similar to MOX rods, as I understand it) to be able to be put into Synrock.
Please look at IEC fusion, whose lead researcher is Dr. Robert Bussrad, we may know by the end of this decade if he has as reactor design @ proof of concept.
http://www.emc2fusion.org/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiHsSAS_SQw
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBfsq80EgOs
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/5/12/171119/055
http://www.askmar.com/ConferenceNotes/2006-9%20IAC%20Paper.pdf
Intriguingly, though, the current designs of nuclear power plants relies on massive quantities of cooling water (as to a lesser extent do coal fired plants).
This means in areas where drought is increasingly realistic, meaning it is being experienced now, and with models suggesting such conditions remain likely into the future, an existing nuclear plant in southern Europe or Australia is unlikely to be very useful.
And this should not be equated with the environmental concerns (heating rivers leading to fish die off, for example) which prompted nuclear plants to throttle back in Europe during several 'extreme' summers - in the concrete case of both southern Europe and Australia, the physical quantity of water is insufficient.
Don't count on the world's current investment in nuclear power plants to be as useful as expected. And as for building more of the same - let's just say there is a lot of interest in ensuring profit streams for a number of very well connected large companies, and intelligent debate is not very likely.
Of course, we can discuss other designs and ways to generate electricity using fission - unfortunately, this is a discussion roughly on par with powersats - technically feasible, finacially achievable, and not available today. And very unlikely to be available in a decade either.
If water is an issue, secondary coolant condensers are a very easy solution for new plants. Dump the heat into the air or, better, into a community hot water loop.
Proper thermal management of our lifestyles is a relatively easy step in cutting back home energy use to a small fraction of what it currently is. There are a thousand things you can do to a home, but also things you can do to the cement plant on the other end of town.
We waste FAR too much fuel generating updrafts.
In Australia the problem is trivially easy to address. Most of the power requirements are on the coasts, which is where ample supplies of cooling water happen to be. People love to invent doomish problems it seems.
I agree, when reality sets in, the NIMBY attitude will evaporate, methinks. Also, HGTRs would be really useful in Australia for desalination (hey, we could even pump it inland to wash away the last few inches of topsoil!)
Trivial? The "coastal location" is not decisive. What matters is if power plants are cooled by water from rivers (affected by global warming - more evaporation and less rain) or by sea water. In New South Wales, coal fired power plants (12,000 MW) are cooled as follows
20% from Cox River
40% from Hunter River
40% from sea water
"The water shortage across eastern Australia is now so acute it has begun to affect power supplies, and the country is at risk of electricity shortages next year."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/power-cuts-bigger-bills-on-the-wa...
Duh.
This has little bearing on future siting of australian nuclear power plants.
Hi Expat,
Would you mind commenting on the Candu re heat dispersal?
CANDU plants (such as the Darlington station near Toronto, Ontario) use a discharge-diffuser system that limits the thermal effects in the environment to within natural variations.
I imagine there are other systems and solutions and even some positive uses for non-utilized heat production. I wouldn't mind living near a plant if I could use some of that heat to grow a rutabaga or two in winter.:-)
If we begin with the premise that we shall not exceed 450ppm co2, we need to construct a trajectory that keeps that from happening.
We need a moratorium on new coal plants and a phase out of exising ones. Combined with serious conservation, we take care of the deficit for awhile with solar, wind, and some biofuels. If nuclear is excluded, the real challenge is how do we maintain the minimum necessary baseload to backstop the intermittent renewable.
Yes, there is drought, but does that mean nuclear is not an option everywhere. Will the whole world be in drought? I don't think so but would like to see some projections
Further, if we can fall back on sequestered coal, are there water issues there, too.
Honestly, is it all just hopeless?
No, it is not hopeless. Once people understand the seriousness of the situation and the viable options, nuclear will not be excluded. It will become the world's primary energy source. Today's objections to nuclear do not have strong factual foundations. Once the crisis hits, society will make the tradeoffs in favor of preserving civilization.
It may be a bit late by then. It takes 10 years from the inception until a nuclear powerplant produces electricity. By the time we truly feel the crisis, we'll be so for into the slope that we won't be able to get our act together any longer.
That's old, non crisis, thinking. That assumes all the opponents can tie up the permitting for years and delay the construction. Using standard designs, I have heard that they could build the plants and go into operation in about three years. If we could break through all the nimby and obstructionist objections in permitting, that should not take more than a few years. We could build a lot of plants in 10-20 years if we gave it the urgency and resources of a world war. Just look at the hundreds of billions, soon to be trillions, the US has wasted on Iraq and that was not important for its national security. If the French can do it so can the US.
If China is complete one coal plant every week, can't we finish one nuclear plant every month?
Large scale coal generators also require major infrastructure as well---especially the titanic trains coming in with the astonishing quantities of coal, and the trains going out to dump the fly ash waste into non-sequestered unsound 'storage' as pounds of crap with infinite half-lives.
And yet---when there's motivation they get done.
I'm also pro-wind as well. But we need to be realistic about the import of the laws of physics and geophysical facts, with oil, gas, coal, wind, biofuels and nuclear.
Of them all, so far nuclear and wind seem to have the least bad downsides by basic physics, and some modest (wind) to major (nuclear) potential.
Apparently we would need about 10,000 reactors (about 20 times what we have now) to supply the equivalent of the world's total current energy consumption, a large but not unimaginable number. We could take a generation or two to build them. The world could survive with a lot less than the current level of energy consumption and still avoid a catastrophic die-off that would wreck the world.
These reactors would power the current electrical grid but also most transportation and the chemical/fertilizer industry using the remaining low grade hydrocarbon feed stocks. It would take a monumental construction task but does not seem out of the realm of possibility, if the world put in a World War II level effort for 20 years.
Wherefore the popularity of defeatism? We have no reason to suspect that it will be 'too late,' whatever that means.
Unless you really are trying to start yet another death cult.
To build a nuclear power plant you need two things: Time and Uranium. We don't have too much time. A Nuclear Boom would be required. Do you see that coming? I don't. And to have Uranium you have to dig for it. Check out the Uranium production graph for the past years and tell me in the face that Uranium is an alternative, when it is facing a clear bottleneck in production.
Another point on nuclear, as global construction slowed dramatically after Chernobyl and the collapse of USSR we are approaching "peak nuclear decommission rate" as the existing fleet reaches end of life. We'll be doing well (from a nuclear generating point of view) just to hold global generation flat over the next 10-20 years in the face of this decommission.
"A Nuclear Boom would be required. Do you see that coming? I don't."
If you do not see it, then perhaps you are not taking the crisis seriously. No, it is not happening RIGHT NOW, although there are about 30 applications now in the works in the US after not completing any plants since the 70s. Right now the world is in denial. But when it finally becomes inescapable, people will look at the real options and do what they can to save their lives. Sure, we will build wind and solar as fast as we can. But, our main hope is fission.
I think mankind will rise to the occasion. This is what the start of a boom looks like. Peoples' minds are being changed.
There may well be a financial "boom" for those making their money in the nuclear industry... the rest of the world - we shall see...
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
Uranium is an alternative.
It is absolutely nothing like peak oil. The equivalent in petroleum would have been as if all oil exploration had been shut down for 30 years, and oil production heavily curtailed (all from the four or five known in place oil fields), with the bulk of oil consumption satisfied for years from surplus military strategic reserves.
The uranium industry is but a gnat compared to the oil industry---and if just a fraction of the capital invested in oil would go to uranium (which it will under energy conversion scenarios) the amount of available uranium would be far higher.
There's a bottleneck now for the next 2-7 years. After that, it's only a matter of capital put in.
There is quite recently (3 years) an enormous explosion in uranium exploration and mining. This is real and on-the ground already.
Uranium is not rare, unlike petroleum. And we are using the most uranium-inefficient fuel cycle now because uranium is still so cheap.
The global uranium reserves correspond only to 10 years of the actual power extracted from oil. Uranium is not less rare than oil.
Breeder reactors pose a number of problems that are not yet solved. Letting thousands of tons of plutonium travelling around the world is simply unthinkable, and U-Th process is far from being mastered. Furthermore, there is a maximal rate at which you can construct breeder reactors because you need first to generate fuel, which does not exist in the nature; there simply no way of replacing the decline of oil in real time, not to speak of the very different use (power generation vs transportation).
Hello. A few points on the subject:
1. I understand the choice of IPCC of not mixing the subjects of Peak Oil and Climate Change. Politically speaking, Peak Oil is still Taboo and if you want politics on your side, you better hang on to what is politically correct than to cling on increasing numbers of Taboos. Is it the right thing to do? Probably not, and History will teach them that, but it is understandable. It's called pragmatism.
2. Hansen is too much optimistic about the future of CO2 emissions, like his sentence suggests: as long as coal and unconventional fossil fuels are used responsibly. This is the main issue. The moment this planet understands that oil is in scarcity, it will start to burn coal to produce oil. Perhaps not in the US, but I bet China will do it. Environmental questions will be put on the shelves as people think that to mantain global economic from meltdown is more important than the planet they are living within. And those who think that a few US laws will forbid it, I say that "brown revolution" will begin / continue in the third world countries and USA will have no choice if they want to keep up.
3. Coal "Phase Out"? You must be joking. We are within Peak Oil in few years time. People here in TOD are talking about the time when TSHTF, prospects of Blackouts are one of those nightmares of it, and Hansen calls for coal "phase out"? He's dreaming. Or perhaps making an "Earth Sim" for himself. He's not talking about the real world, where nations battle economically (and warfarily) with each other, where magnats fight for power control, and where population won't understand why are there so many blackouts if there is so many coal that it isn't being used for "environmentalists concern".
4. The really hard work is in finding a replacement for coal, but people still avoid admitting that nothing else comes close to it yet.
Alright, we're talking now. But it is not a question of "hard work". It is a question of existence. It doesn't exist, period. Any renewables are still far off in the future before reaching today's coal levels, ignoring any "growth" people would like to witness. What's left? Uranium? We have 40 years of it. We DON'T have a choice.
Unless perhaps we shut the lights out and phase out... the entire economy.
5.In the context of global warming I think focusing on liquid fuel use is a distraction.
No it isn't. I couldn't disagree more. It is devious, but as you said, PO and GW are closely related. Well, if you can't switch your oil-based economy to something sustainable in a short time, you will need a heavy substitute for it. And, like I've said and you've said, only Coal is up to the task. So they are damn right in fighting oil "addiction" for these two reasons:
- avoid the most dangerous consequences of Peak Oil;
- start mitigating an entire oil economy so that the switch to another kind of economy doesn't ask for too much Coal.
My two cents. And I'm no expert.
The moment this planet understands that oil is in scarcity, it will start to burn coal to produce oil. Perhaps not in the US, but I bet China will do it.
They will both do it, maybe USA will lag a little because of public opposition, but shortages will end this one very quickly. The absence of this point - the substitution of oil with coal is a yelling weakness of the report. It is simply assuming that after oil is gone people will stop driving and flying... what a shame - given the otherwise high level of the analysis.
What's left? Uranium? We have 40 years of it.
You need to check your numbers. Try 1 trillion tonnes divided by 65,000 (the current consumption) or even 650,000 if we increase it tenfold. Should be enough for million years or so. Uranium is not a fossil fuel and we have orders of manitude more from it (as energy content) than from FFs which are of biotic origin. Developing it is just a question of time - and will inevitably happen IF there is the political will to go nuclear. It's simply a matter of choice, political will and a hard work - that is if we still have a choice with respect to Global Warming.
Because of scarcity, the price of fossil fuels will grow much faster than the cost of producing them. Thus, the oil companies will have lots of cash on hand that they may be willing to invest in carbon capture technology.
Burning coal with carbon capture to produce electricity is a pretty decent proposition. Liquifying coal with carbon capture is not such a good idea (because we'll produce more CO2 later in burning the oil), but it's certainly better than without carbon capture. Burning coal without carbon capture is a recipe for disaster.
Carbon capture is the perfect boondoggle technology. There is NOT A SINGLE power plant that demonstrates it on industrial scale. And yet we hear about "clean coal" and "carbon capture" as nothing less than the solution to our climate change threat... the same way we have listening for hydrogen for decades. At the same time there are hundreds of coal power plants on the drawing boards, and NONE of them features carbon capture, nor intends to. And of course there are thousands more that are already operational for which carbon capture will never be applied to for obvious reasons. In short for the foreseeble future it is entirely fictional idea. I'd rather place my bets on fusion than it.
Is it? Look at the following Wikipedia article. In my view, it is realistic to expect larger numbers of coal firing plants with carbon capture technology to come on-line sometime after 2020. It probably won't happen without regulation by law, but it is both technically and economically feasible.
Hello Levink
You need to check your numbers. Try 1 trillion tonnes divided by 65,000
Well then, I suggest we both check our numbers. To produce enough nuclear power to equal the power we currently get from fossil fuels, you would have to build 10,000 of the largest possible nuclear power plants. That's a huge, probably nonviable initiative, and at that burn rate, our known reserves of uranium would last only for 10 or 20 years.
For a wide picture of this, check this out.
The truth is, 650,000 tonnes is nothing compared to what we generally spend in power. So that spoils the nuclear "silver bullet".
1 trillion tons divided by (10000 gw reactors * 200 tons each) is 500000 years. This is for once through cycles with light water reactors alone.
With molten salt breeder regimes its 120 trillion tons (we can use much lower ore grades) used at 1 ton per gw year. That should last some 12 billion years.
Try again.
There's something pretty wacky going on when one person can say we've 40 years left and another 12 billion years. How can we develop this argument, terms of reference?
Theres not much point. They're filled with absolute strait lies.
Its 40 years from mines currently open,
Several hundred years from anticipated reserves at current prices at constant demand through the once through cycle.
Several thousand years at constant demand with reasonable price limits from speculative reserves with the once through cycle.
500000 thousand years from ore bodies of 20ppm up in the once through cycle... but at prices that are rather too high to be directly competitive, so fuel stretching from reprocessing and extra enrichment are required. This actually multiplies the resource base by 4-8 times....
Now of course breeder reactor regimes become reasonable to pursue in this price regime since we have to do reprocessing anyways. This multiplies the resource base by some 100 on fuel efficiency over LWR cycles and opens up all ore bodies of uranium and thorium, which multiplies the resource base by 120, for a total multiplication of 120000.
Now if you assume growth, it has to stop at maximum radiative capacity of the earth, somewhere around the level of the solar flux. If you burn the nuclear fuel as fast as possible our 120 trillion tons will only last some 16 million years.
The bottom line is we wont run out of nuclear fuel.
You should join the PR campaign.
http://www.prwatch.org/node/5833
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
key words: anticipated reserves, speculative reserves, breeder reactor
Very well laid out.
Unfortunately I'm afraid that whatever you say or however you say it, doesn't matter at all. The "40 years" strawman will be repeated again and again without those guys bothering to read spare to respond your arguments. 40 years, 40 years... they need to repeat that 98 times more and it will surely turn into truth, will it?
Nevertheless I have to congratulate you - in this summary you managed to send such a clear message that the only thing that one of them could say is that you have to join the PR campaigns. I liked it - going ad hominem is the final stage of denial, so maybe a bit of realisation will be coming along shortly.
Actually, it is more that the pro-nuclear arguments lean heavily on theoretical possibles, whilst those who are opposed are usually (or should be, since there are a lot of theoretical possibilities) more concerned with reality. In reality there are always human problems, unforeseen or ill-considered issues, and industry sweeping whatever it can get away with under the carpet.
To have an intelligent debate would require non-industry funded studies that are completely independant and consider all aspects of a nuclear programme. Even government commissioned studies usually include funding by the industry, often have panel members from the industry and get information from industry groups such as NEI (see criticism of the recent UK energy paper where these issues are raised). This is not unbiased information. It is called propaganda. Yes, I suggested he join their PR campaign because that is the level of the arguments, not because I was making a personal attack. Use your "going ad hominem is the final stage of denial" catch phrases if you want. It doesn't change the fact we live in the real world.
"You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created."
Albert Einstein
This is just ridiculous. You add up the numbers for nearly any uranium use scenario with uranium resources and you have such a vast resource base to make the whole argument moot. We have measured reserves from deposits above 200ppm in the hundreds of millions of tons, and reprocessing with double enrichment is proven to multiply the resource base by more than four times at a reasonable cost. Theres 200 years from 10000 light water reactors right there before we get into very reasonable advances in technology and lower grade ores. Extrapolating molten salt breeder reactor regimes or thorium utilization or shale mining isn't stepping off into some fantasyland how you imply... These are demonstrated technologies and the resources are clearly measured and even the Storm/Smith team had to note this.
So what? This has little to do with the vast resource base of uranium or the demonstrable fact that we wont be running out of it this century.
Hold up the mirror to the storm/smith report and their cascade of lies.
You can fact check numbers and analysis that isn't from the 'industry.' Deffeyes & MacGregor aren'te industry shills, neither is the University of Melborne. This is simple ad-hominem nonsense.
It doesn't change the fact you're using simplistic ad-hominems and ignoring reality altogether.