Satan speaks: Patrick Moore writes in the Wash. Post on nuclear energy.

[NNadir]

Patrick Moore used to be a "good guy," although not in my opinion, because he helped found Greenpeace.

Now, according to some (not me), he is Satan, because he contends, along with me, and a few million other people who understand energy, that nuclear energy is essential to human survival.

I have a very, very, very, very low opinion of Greenpeace, which I regard as an organization of consumerist sloganeers, and personally I don't know what to make of Patrick Moore, of whom, at the end of the day, I am mostly blissfully unaware, having long ago discarded any positive interest in that pixilated organization or its history. I note that he is now working with the Repuke coal apologist Christie Whitman, my former Governor, who, in my opinion has a lot of blood on her hands and is an environmental murderer, owing to her disgraceful tenure as EPA administrator.

No matter. I don't do "Guilt by Association," fallacies.

In today's Washington Post, Moore writes a guest opinion.

In the early 1970s when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html

My views as I am always saying LOUDLY have changed as well. I agree with the last sentence of his opening paragraph, of course, but I note that irrespective of who Patrick Moore is and is not, many environmentalists are already there.

[movonne]

1. This might be very true, but I wonder what we do with all the nuclear

waste?

[NNadir]

2. Do you ever wonder what we do with carbon dioxide waste?

[neoblues]

3. What? Make soda pop?

Feed the plants, and breathe it in... oh, and simply let it all out into the atmosphere, it's invisible after all, so, out of sight, out of mind.

Of course, people living in the higher latitudes, especially the arctic regularly face very cold weather... so maybe using it as a nice greenhouse gass will help to keep them (and the Polar Bears) warm? (note however, that warming things up makes life even more difficult there (and the Polar Bears are on their way to being extinct from toxic pollution, so we need not worry about keeping them warm))

Then again, regular old rain doesn't seem as effective as it might be in washing cars... so unnaturally, if we just add a little (alot of) CO2 and thereby make the rain into a weak carbonic acid solution... soon we have cleaner (if duller or more rusty) cars! (note however, that it seems to kill a few trees (by the forest))

Between the pollution of the oceans (and the air, and the land), the evident global warming, the growth in human populations and subsequent reduction in available habitat, direct human threat/poaching/over-fishing etc... (and as the warmer oceans will have killed most of the shellfish and the sea-life that depends on them, and the pollution kills off all the sea mammals (ie. no new whales), Polar Bears, and human poaching devastates Lions, Tigers, Elephants and Rhinoceri (list is endless) and human encroachment extincts the great apes... and so on...), soon we simply won't have to worry about wildlife. Actually, we'll probably, selfishly, be more concerned with the millions (and perhaps billions) of human lives that will be coming to an early and unattractive end (drought, starvation, natural disasters, pestilence and disease)(and perhaps war (over resources)?). Ahh, but some need not worry because their God will come take them to a better place--so they don't have to worry about the environment; they can take their profits at the expense of the environment now and enjoy them before they go.

Global Warming? Melting of gigantic glaciers? Nah... Couldn't possibly be the puny invisible gas that makes my drink fizzy...

Final incongruent thought for the day?

Ever think about how big a ton (2000lbs) of a gas is? Answer: at regular atmospheric pressure (at sea level), it's bigger than a bread basket.

Note: Volcanic activity now releases about 130 to 230 teragrams (145 million to 255 million short tons) of carbon dioxide each year. Volcanic releases are about 1% of the amount which is released by human activities. (from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide )

[Massacure]

8. The solution to pollution is dilution, silly.

Everyone knows that the waste storage program for carbon dioxide is superior to that of spent nuclear fuel. Get with the program, dump the spent fuel in the ocean. :sarcasm:

[Dead_Parrot]

4. At least he's learned and adapted

Puts him further up the evolutionary ladder than most talking monkeys...

[Coastie for Truth]

5. For many years I was associated with Ivan Itkin

(he is the PhD nuclear engineer who became a state legislator in PA - hard line, Progressive Dem, ACLU board member in Pittsburgh, fought the good battle against Tom Ridge for governor, Clinton's Asst Energy Secy for Yucca Mtn., etc.) -- and all of us alumni of the old Westinghouse Electric Nuclear (Churchill, Ardmore, and Bettis) -- 14th Ward Democratic CLUB and Churchill Boro Democratic CLUB- whether we were a Club or Cabal or Mafia - never lost faith in nuke power.

And I had Clarence Miller for my Intro to Nuke E class.

[NNadir]

7. I checked out Dr. Itkin, seems like an impressive guy. n/t.

[Coastie for Truth]

9. One thing about a GreenPeace type recognition of the "good" of nuke power

is that the down sides of running away from nuclear power are:

a). The Malthusian recession (depression? collapse?) that Kunstler predicts as petroleum becomes ever more expensive.

b). The resource wars that everybody from the right wing PNACers and Neocons to Michael Klare and Walter Simmons predict, also as petroleum becomes ever more expensive.

My own gut feeling is that nuclear power is a more benign power source then fossil fuels. I grew up in coal country where Dad was a United Mine Workers lawyer, and until coal was effectively "banned" for residential uses in the late 1940's I had all sorts of pulmonary and asthmatic and respiratory "things" - like most kids did in that region. Donora PA and Clairton PA were part of our "micro climate."

Worked for an alternative, renewable, green energy "think tank" for a long time - and nuclear power was for the "naive and uninitiated".

But I was always convinced that the future was:

a). Nuclear power for base generation;

b). "Ceramic" fines metal hydride for H2 distribution, e.g., to end locations for thermal burning (flame) or electrochemical (fuel cell) burning;

c). Solar - (structurally integrated with batteries if necessary) - for lots of niche applications (I have photovoltaic cells for the inevitable earthquake - especially to recharge all of those Li and NiMH batteries).

d). Ultimately - cars will be "pure electrics" (nuclear grid) and "fuel cell" (electrolytic H2 from nuclear generated electricity) - and even those cars will be like the Toyota Yaris and Scion and Mercedes Smart Car and Mini Cooper, but our personal transportation will be mass transit based - and more of us will live and work in "transit villages."

e). Fossil fuels will cease to be "fuel" - and will be limited to "chemical feedstocks." (Shades of Professor Mains - predicted that almost 50 years ago).

But it all depends on overcoming our irrational fear of nuclear power.

[NNadir]

10. Well one fear I have of nuclear power is that it may make things seem

too easy.

We have to learn the lesson that energy has risks, that its availability does not give an intrinsic right to orgiastic behavior. This should be the lesson of the end of the oil age, but I'm not sure it will register.

I don't believe that the hydrogen of the future - if there is a future - will be made electrolytically mostly; I think the thermochemical approaches will prove better. I also don't see fossil fuels - to the extent they are still available - as chemical feedstocks in the long run. If we are to become sustainable, we must develop an industrial carbon cycle, which means carbon dioxide fixation. The latter is possible. It will require significant development, but it is possible.

[Coastie for Truth]

11. Might be fun

I don't believe that the hydrogen of the future - if there is a future - will be made electrolytically mostly; I think the thermochemical approaches will prove better.

Do you mean something similar to ?

If we are to become sustainable, we must develop an industrial carbon cycle, which means carbon dioxide fixation.

Or from sewage, etc. Through MeOH or EtOH?

[NNadir]

14. No. I am speaking of thermochemical catalytic cycles like...

...the sulfur iodine cycle.

http://www.aspentech.com/publication_files/TP51.pdf

Many similar cycles are known. These cycles are being actively investigated in Asia.

Typically they are operable at temperatures lower than 1000C.

When I speak of carbon dioxide fixation, I am talking about equilibrium driven industrial processes that are modeled on, but not dependent upon, photosynthesis. Such a system, far more speculative than the sulfur iodine cycle, might be driven by reversible fuel cells where rather than releasing hydrogen, actually use hydride shifts to hydrogenate carbon dioxide directly.

I note that carbon dioxide can be separated from air by membrane driven processes. At the right price, such systems may prove economic.

I am not optimistic though that much will actually happen technologically. I don't think there is time.

[Odin2005]

6. Greenpeace = Naive, idealistic, upper middle class suburbanites.

[Viking12]

12. Given that Moore denies climate change, his motivations ARE suspect

I'm not sure what you're trying to say with respect to Moore. If you're using him as some sort of authority to supplement your case, you're barking up the wrong tree. If you're just using him to bash Greenpeace, you may be doing so inadvertantly by pointing out what a wanker one of the founding members is:

Greenpeace co-founder praises global warming

"Global warming and nuclear energy are good and the way to save forests is to use more wood.

-snip-

"In direct opposition to common environmentalist positions, Moore contended that global warming and the melting of glaciers is positive because it creates more arable land and the use of forest products drives up demand for wood and spurs the planting of more trees.

-snip-

http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060113/BUSINESS11/601130327/1071


Moore is not an environmentalist who is supporting nuclear power because he thinks it is the best way to prevent global warming. On his web site he recites the usual skeptic talking points (the "18,000 scientists" thing is a reference to the Oregon Petition):

- The global climate is warming. A large number of scientists claim there is a "consensus" that our greenhouse gas emissions are the cause of global warming. Yet there can be no proof either way, and more than 18,000 scientists and experts have signed a petition opposed to Kyoto.

- The world's climate has always been changing; it is impossible to tell if our activities are responsible for global warming.

- Global warming will not be all bad; northern countries like Canada, northern Europe and Russia will benefit from milder winters and longer growing seasons.

http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2006/04/patrick_cofounder_of_greenpeac.php

[NNadir]

13. I have, again, no interest in who Patrick Moore is or isn't.

I, of course, detest Greenpeace, and for me to suggest that Patrick Moore has some credibility because of his association with an organization which I regard as having, itself, no credibility, would be at best disingenuous.

I am not familiar with Mr. Moore's opinions beyond what he writes in the Washington Post, but I note that almost everything he writes in this case is basically true.

He does NOT deny the implications of global climate change here. On the contrary he writes, as I noted in the opening post of this thread:

Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster: catastrophic climate change.

The bold is mine.

Basically the subordinate clause in that quotation is true, if one ignores the use of conditional words like may or possible.

As for my intentions, probably I intended all of the things you suggest.

As for the question of whether Moore is an environmentalist or is not an environmentalist, it is of little consequence. I describe myself as an environmentalist. I sometimes accuse people of not being environmentalists because they reject nuclear power. Other people accuse me of not being an environmentalist because I am loudly in favor of nuclear power.

Moore pals around with Christine Todd Whitman, who I despise, not only because of what she did to my state with her insipid ill conceived tax cuts, but because of the complete lack of decency she displayed as EPA administrator. She says she supported Kyoto, but then did not resign immediately when Bush (according to her) double crossed her. But this is neither here nor there either. What Moore writes in the article referenced is more or less true.

I don't care why people support nuclear power, so long as they do so. Unlike Moore, I don't think that we may prevent a possible disaster. The disaster is occurring and cannot be "prevented." However, from my perspective as a father, as a husband of a woman younger than myself, as a citizen of the world, we must do whatever can be done to ameliorate the scale of the disaster.

Let me get unbearably philosophical about why I even bother.

One might argue that the nonexistence of humanity will have little bearing on the universe as a whole, that it is merely amusing that we will suffer what we deserve, that life here does not matter and if it goes, it will be worthy of no remark. I say I am an atheist, and I am. Even so, there is something precious, something sacred in this tiny remarkably stable system in space. Here live beings who have deduced the structure of the universe, who have answered questions, who have seen back almost to the beginning to time itself. The price we have paid is high - to do what we have done we have chosen technology; we have chosen to divorce ourselves from the natural world; we have elevated ourselves far beyond the other beings with whom we share this planetary system. This exercise has given the Faust myth all of its cogency, I know.

And further I know that I am among the sleep walkers. I am an American, a consumer, a watcher of TV, a driver, an overweight person, a purchaser of throw away plastic trinkets. What is worse, I have been aware of what I am doing. I knew oil was wrong back in the days of SAVAK and the Shah, 30 years ago. Were I honest, I would confess that I have no moral superiority to Mr. Moore, the full set of Greenpeace circus clowns, or really to any of those whom I abuse in various ways for their "environmentalist" imperfections.

Still, with a mixture of fear and wonder, I wish for it all to continue a little longer. Moreover, I strongly suspect that the only mechanism by which it will do so is for humanity to grasp at the life raft nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is not free, not without danger, not without risk. It is merely better than its alternatives. Some may say that I am merely Faust refusing to deny Satan ever, but it is with love that I hope, in full service to my doubts that anything has been learned, that this time we will have learned our lesson, that the nuclear option will give us just enough time to see a little further, to be better servants of our vision.

This is why I am such a nut case on the issue.

[Viking12]

15. So you admit that Moore has nothing substantial to add to the discussion..

but you use him as a shill to create yet another rant. You often have worthwhile contributions but just as often your posts are little more than school-yard rants. Your trolling behavior is getting old and has dramatically reduced the usefulness of the E&E forum.

[NNadir]

16. If you find my comments useless, put me on ignore.

It works. I have recently put a poster on "ignore" and in my view, improved my experience of the E&E forum. If you become owner of the site, or moderator, you can rule on who is and is not worthy of posting.

I don't consider my posts trolling, but if you do, take it up with site administration. There is also an alert button on DU and like all other posters, you are free to use it.