World cannot afford nuclear climate solution: report

[jpak]

http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSL2719243820070627

LONDON (Reuters) - The world must start building nuclear power plants at the unprecedented rate of four a month from now on if nuclear energy is to play a serious part in fighting global warming, a leading think-tank said on Wednesday.

Not only is this impossible for logistical reasons, but it has major implications for world security because of nuclear weapons proliferation, the Oxford Research Group said in its report "Too Hot To Handle - The future of civil nuclear power."

The report fired a series of broadsides against the growing momentum for more nuclear-generated electricity to help cut climate-warming carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels.

"A world-wide nuclear renaissance is beyond the capacity of the nuclear industry to deliver and would stretch to breaking point the capacity of the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) to monitor and safeguard civil nuclear power," it said.

<more>

[NNadir]

1. Let's just be clear that the "Oxford Research Group" is NOT an academic

institution - in particular it is in no way associated with Oxford University.

In fact looking at the board of directors of this antinuclear front group, we see that there is only one member of the group who has worked with nuclear materials and that he stopped doing so in 1957, just two years after the first commercial reactor ever built (Calderhall) operated. Since this fellow finished training, Calderhall operated for 47 years.

http://www.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/about_us/staff.php

The rest of the staff is predictably among anti-nuclear front groups, composed of fund-raisers and social scientists who know, in fact, very little about the subject of energy.

In fact, the world is rapidly gearing up for the production of new nuclear energy and it's really not checking with the vast circlejerk of anti-nuclear websites to do so.

[Solo_in_MD]

3. Not surprising in the least

[jpak]

4. The IPCC clearly stated that nuclear power would play a *minor* role

in reducing GHG emissions.

This group agrees with that assessment

Let the nay-saying whine on...

[Dogmudgeon]

6. ... based on *Carbon Credit Trading*

The "minor" role was 18%. The only thing minor was the increase, and that was from Austria threatening to pull out. (The ruling conservative Austrian Peoples' Party is strongly anti-nuclear.)

You really ought to read these things before you use them as bludgeons or a New-Age Maleus Maleficarium.

--p!

[jpak]

8. Oh, but I have. This is from the IPCC report....

<snip>

Renewable energy generally has a positive effect on energy security, employment and on air quality. Given costs relative to other supply options, renewable electricity, which accounted for 18% of the electricity supply in 2005, can have a 30-35% share of the total electricity supply in 2030 at carbon prices up to 50 US$/tCO2-eq <4.3, 4.4, 11.3, 11.6, 11.8>.

<snip>

Given costs relative to other supply options, nuclear power, which accounted for 16% of the electricity supply in 2005, can have an 18% share of the total electricity supply in 2030 at carbon prices up to 50 US$/tCO2-eq, but safety, weapons proliferation and waste remain as constraints <4.2, 4.3, 4.4>20.

<snip>

renewables trump nuclear hands down in the *real* war against climate change...

[Dogmudgeon]

11. Again, you overlooked the bogus assumptions

1. Carbon Credit trading: at carbon prices up to 50 US$/tCO2-eq (the part you conveniently left un-bolded). According to the same report, carbon was NOT supposed to reach $10 per ton until about 2011; it was around $12 per ton some weeks ago, and a carbon commodities trading bubble would fantastically enrich a small number of people at the expense of the rest of us.

2. The political modification of the report, including several changes other than injecting anti-nuclear bias. The domination of Austrian politics by the OVP has been duly noted.

And of course, the IPCC never explained why nuclear energy will be pursued only 1/15th as aggressively as renewable energy -- unless it was also factoring hydroelectric into the "renewables" category.

In that case, the solar-wind-tidal profile doesn't look quite as attractive.

The policy recommendations section of the report (from which all the quotes are drawn) has already proved to be outdated. As a result, it is ONLY being used by anti-nuclear organizations. So the anti-nuclearists gamed the IPCC to produce a report they can cite as "proof".

It's like the old joke, "I may be guilty of killing my parents, Yer Honor, but you can't send me to prison, 'cause I'm an orphan!"

I hope this "renwables trump" of which you speak happens a lot sooner than 2035, which is the IPCC target, or mid-century, which is Greenpeace's target. I have been waiting for it since 1970, and it hasn't arrived yet. Eighty years is a long time to wait for (supposedly) proven technology to arrive.

--p!

[jpak]

12. Global warming deniers also deny the conclusions of the IPCC.

The IPCC reports are the Gold Standard of climate science and policy.

Deny away....

[Dogmudgeon]

14. Did you read ANY of the posts?

So if the global warming deniers do something, that compels us to act like children in a snit and do the opposite.

Ri-i-ight.

I have been writing about specific problems with the POLICY section, and how they complicate the only subsection of IPCC4 you have ever cited (and with Greenpeace's formatting, no less). The section you use like a club.

Or is IPCC4 all one undifferentiated mass of text to you, onto which you have projected "No Nukes"?

There are a number of flaws with their policy reasoning -- they assume that a carbon market will develop and exert a beneficial effect, controlling greenhouse gas emissions. It is a major part of their econometric model. But carbon markets are unlikely to survive their first "bubble" of speculative greed, a bubble that is getting started NOW.

Perhaps you favor carbon markets. That is a different issue, though. But depending on the future behavior of a derivative commodities market to determine the mix of energy technologies is asking a lot.

The very organization that published the "gold standard" is already amending and revising its policy recommendations, and (as I just said) for many reasons, not simply over the nuclear/antinuclear issue. The IPCC may be beset with political rivalries, but they are not single-minded.

I'm sure that once the appropriate criticisms are registered, the anti-nuclearists will use it to say, "See! We were right! 18% is too many nukes! WE WIN!!!!!!!!!!"

--p!

[jpak]

15. I copied that directly from the IPCC report - no Greenpeace formatting required

And a well designed and executed carbon trading market will reduce GHG emissions and favor renewables over nuclear.

Renewables are just plain faster, cheaper, safer, better

period

[NNadir]

9. Let's be clear that JPak said the nuclear industry would go away.

I'm really not interested in soothsaying.

You started out here saying that nuclear energy is doomed, and now you're reduced to saying it won't grow fast.

I am interested in getting as many nuclear plants built as is possible. In order to do this, to give us our best shot, I will be compelled to fight those who work through distortion and misrepresentation. I fully recognize that the problem of climate change is enormous, which is why I do not advise toys as a means of approaching it.

Note that I could call myself "Princeton Energy Consultants" and this would have no bearing on the truth or falsity of what I say. It would be however something of a misrepresentation of my affiliation and maybe an effort to deceive.

Once again, not that you have any capability with comparing real numbers, here are the production figures for the three largest producers of greenhouse free energy for the last decade and a half:

Nuclear:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table27.xls

Hydroelectric:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table15.xls

All of the non-hydrorenewables combined:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/table17.xls

The numbers speak for themselves, both in terms of growth and in terms of absolute magnitude. I have long understood that you can't interpret numbers, but all the "reports" in the world from all of the various circle jerk of anti-nuclear websites in the world does not change the data.

There are no other options except coal apologetics like that is now being offered in Germany.

[jpak]

13. Let me be perfectly clear

Nuclear power cannot be counted on to address climate change.

Too expensive

Too slow to deploy

Too dangerous

Too unsustainable

[NNadir]

16. Let me also be perfectly clear.

Like the rest of the planet, nobody's interested in your unsupported opinion, especially since you can't compare numbers.

It would appear that you have not opened the spreadsheets, just like you can't identify anyone who has been injured by your opinion of "too dangerous."

As for the "too expensive" part, this is really, really, really, really, really amusing coming from someone who believes that people should pay more than 20 cents per kw-hour to validate your solar fantasies.

Vatenfall, one of the companies building new coal capacity in Germany, released in its 2006 company report an index of spot prices for electricity in Europe:

http://www.vattenfall.com/annual-reports/vf_com/2006/filter.asp?filename=page_014.html

Cheapest in Europe Poland (your favorite dangerous fossil fuel, coal - the same stuff the Poles will be selling to your German friends), Belgium (55% nuclear) and France.

It would, of course, be very surprising if you could compare prices, since your skills with other numbers have been so consistently poor.

As for the "too slow" part, again this is hilarious from someone who is representing that solar energy can save the world. I'd produce the numbers again but it would be useless.

[bananas]

17. BWAHAHA "nobody's interested in your unsupported opinion"

supported by the IPCC and the NEI-funded Keystone report
and many others...
LOL
:rofl:

[NNadir]

19. Actually nobody is interested. The world commitment to nuclear energy is huge.

It's on a tens of exajoule scale.

No other form of energy is close.

You have no plan to phase out dangerous fossil fuels. You don't care about dangerous fossil fuel waste.

This is why you are here all the time talking up Maine, the state where they can't jack up fossil fuel burning enough.

I've linked many times what the situation is, but you don't understand numbers. This is why you giggle.

The fact is, bub, that you started here saying the nuclear industry will go away, and in less than four years on this site, you've switched your soothsaying to representations that nuclear energy will not grow fast enough.

In fact, your statements are basically negative, except for some routine demonstrations that you cannot understand the difference between peak power and energy.

How about another JPak thread, "One brazillion Megawatts of cow fart electrical power under consideration. (Nova Scotia?)"

Speaking of brazillions, how's Governor Hydrogen Hummer's solar roofs bill going. Is it still a pathetic fuck up, or are there now 27 or more new solar roofs in California?

How about a few "Dick Cheney's?" We're always up for some "Dick Cheney's" when you start giggling nervously.

[Dead_Parrot]

20. On the other hand, when you post...

Everybody pays attention, because your rapier wit and keen insight stuns everyone: Reading with their jaws open, they realise that:

:rofl:

Conveys so much more data and passion than one of NNadir's posts.

Seriously dude, I think you're great.

I'm in awe.

No, really, I am.


:loveya:

[Dogmudgeon]

21. And just when I was beginning to think this was a serious issue

As a wiser man than I once almost said, "One touch of ridicule makes the whole world the Internet."
(after Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida, III:3).

--p!

[Dead_Parrot]

22. If one good post in all my life I did...

...I do repent it from my very soul.

:)

[NNadir]

23. Aw, Shucks.

Tell it to Hatrack! Tell it to Hunter!

[bananas]

18. Al Gore said the same thing

as did the recent Keystone report, which was funded and endorsed by the nuclear power industry and several electric utilities.

[hunter]

7. Reuters looks under the sofa -- sees dust bunnies, reports rabbits.

:eyes:

Journalism is dead. I wonder what Paris Hilton is doing today...

[NNadir]

10. She's installing a brazillion solar roofs on her McMansion.

[phantom power]

2. These people are either stupid, or they think we are.

It's "logistically impossible" to deploy 4 terawatts of baseload power via nuclear plants, but we're supposed to believe that it's logistically possible to deploy the equivalent 16 terawatts of PV with the added cost of the gigantic storage facilities to make it baseload? Or the 12 terawatts of wind power (and storage)? Event though all those other options are much more expensive per installed watt? Even though there is less available industrial infrastructure for renewables than there is for nuclear power?

I'm supposed to simultaneously believe that we can't ramp up nuclear infrastructure to build at the required rate, but we can ramp up solar or wind infrastructure at 3x or 4x the rate? Starting from a smaller baseline?

It's not just bogus. It's transparently bogus. It's like asking somebody to believe that 2+2=5.

[Dogmudgeon]

5. Oxford -- as in the "Oxford Capacity Analysis" test?

So I "used the Google" and found the group, which usually goes by its intitials O.R.G.

It seems to be a pundit-credentialing group. They do a lot of bragging.

They appear to have put no research into their anti-nuclear position. They promulgated it in 1982. And they deliberately downplay their antinuclear bias, although it accounts for a large cut of their work. There are a number of reports that promote fear of nuclear terrorism, but fault Brezinski/Thatcher/Bush/Blair for promoting fear of terrorism. They use the same self-referential citation methods as most movement mouthpieces.

Here's a useful OCA link:

Oxford Capacity Analysis

You mean, it isn't associated with Oxford University, either?

You mean a religious ORG would try to deceive us, too?

Ya just can't trust anyone these days!

--p!