How Green Is Nuclear Power?

[RestoreGore]

How Green Is Nuclear Power?

By Mark Clayton,
The Christian Science Monitor,
March 7, 2007.

"As part of a 'carbon-free' solution to climate change... at least 11 new nuclear plants are in the design stage in nine states, including Virginia, Texas, Kansas and Florida, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute website.... But that carbon-free pitch has researchers asking anew: How carbon-free is nuclear power? And how cost-effective is it in the fight to slow global warming? 'Saying nuclear is carbon-free is not true,' says Uwe Fritsche, a researcher at the Öko Institut in Darmstadt, Germany, who has conducted a life-cycle analysis of the plants.

'It's less carbon-intensive than fossil fuel. But if you are honest, scientifically speaking, the truth is: There is no carbon-free energy. There's no free lunch'... Nuclear power has more than just a little greenhouse gas attached to it, when mining uranium ore, refining and enriching fuel, building the plant, and operating it are included. A big 1,250 megawatt plant produces the equivalent of 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year during its life, Dr. Fritsche says... Nuclear power may not fare as well when its life-cycle cost of reducing CO2 emissions is compared with other energy alternatives. An Öko Institut study last year found that countries would get more bang for their buck by moving to other forms of energy - such as biomass and even some natural-gas power plants - rather than nuclear power.

Wind surprisingly has about the same carbon footprint as nuclear when manufacturing and load factors are included. But wind power also doesn't produce long-lived nuclear waste - storage of which includes an energy cost that's unknown and is not factored into the Öko or most other analyses - yet... For those energy experts who have done life-cycle analysis of nuclear power, the big concern is that policymakers may be misled into believing that just because nuclear CO2 emissions are low, the cost of nuclear as an option to address climate change would be a bargain.

Better, they say, to take the huge amounts of money needed for nuclear plants and use it to build lower-cost solutions that will displace more coal. 'It's easy to show that building more reactors makes climate change worse than it should have been,' says Amory Lovins, chairman of the Rocky Mountain Institute, an energy think tank in Snowmass, Colo. 'That's because a dollar put into new reactors gives two to 10 times less climate solution for the amount of coal-power displaced than if you had bought cheaper solutions with the same dollars.' Environmental groups, too, are well aware of the conundrum surrounding the claim of carbon-free energy. Most of them maintain that nuclear is not the answer to climate change. But their antinuclear arguments have centered on environmental damage from nuclear waste, potential accidents, and terror threats. 'First, nuclear was supposed to be too cheap to meter; now, they're framing it as a solution to climate change,' says Erich Pica, director of economic policy for Friends of the Earth.... 'We hope this Democratic Congress will be skeptical of that claim.'"

end of excerpts

http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0307/p01s04-sten.html
~~~~~~
I believe the nuclear industry is now clamping onto the "green" movement trying to give nuclear power credibility as an alternate energy when it is not, and I have yet to be convinced it is. If we really want to save this planet-NO NUKES.

[greenman3610]

1. proliferation is the show stopper

excellent interview with Amory Lovins on Charlie Rose

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4569577556800822039&q=Amory+Lovins

article here:
http://www.corporateknights.ca/content/page.asp?name=lovins_nuclear


lovins is the pre-eminent energy theorist and forcaster of the
last 30 years. The record shows he has been right more often than
anyone else.

[jpak]

2. Note: ChimpCo is not going to bomb Iranian wind farms or rooftop solar hot water heaters

They are going after their nuclear power infrastructure.

And North Korea's power reactor at Yongbyon produced plutonium for their nuclear weapons program.

Just so people make the connection here...

[Tin Man]

24. I wouldn't bet on it...

...those Iranian rooftop solar heaters look alot like WMD fermenters.

[RestoreGore]

32. They are that, and they want the water too n/t

[RestoreGore]

4. Thank you for these links

I respect Mr. Lovin's views on this very much.

[hunter]

22. Lovins irritates the hell out of me.

He's beholden to the people who pay him -- he makes a good living greenwashing. But I really don't need to hear self-righteous stories about cars and commuting from some guy who probably uses ten times more oil than I do.

Part of it is that I can't stand listening to him. He reminds me a lot of George W. Bush. He may be a little smarter than Bush, but when he's answering questions Lovins' speech is punctuated by a steady stream of condescending sighs and grunts.

Unlike Bush, he can answer with a stream of actual numbers (he is not innumerate... I think) but sometimes those numbers are irrelevant to the intent of the actual question. He will almost always use a percentage sort of figure if it sounds better than the raw data he's got. (Pharmaceutical companies are always pulling that kind of crap too, so I have a sensitive ear for it.)

What irritates me most is that in a single paragraph he can put together numbers to express his adoration and support of the market economy, and then use those same numbers in a way that demonstrate the market economy's failures. You see, to him, the market economy is good, even when it's not. His points of view spin so rapidly I get dizzy.

[Journeyman]

3. Let's ask Ms Chernobyl her opinion. . .

[imfreaky]

5. This is an interesting twist

http://blogs.chron.com/sciguy/archives/2006/04/greenpeace_foun.html

Greenpeace founder: I was wrong about nuclear power

This is certainly an intriguing about-face from Patrick Moore, the co-founder of Greenpeace:

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.

[RestoreGore]

6. Oh well, I think he is wrong

And sure, we wouldn't have climate change if we blow ourselves up. Nuclear power is not any cleaner and it is dangerous. You don't have to even be an environmentalist to see that.

[jpak]

8. He also believes that global warming is a Good Thing

Greenpeace co-founder praises global warming

http://the.honoluluadvertiser.com/article/2006/Jan/13/bz/FP601130327.html

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

That was the message delivered to a biotechnology industry gathering yesterday in Waikiki. However, it wasn't the message that was unconventional, but the messenger — Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore. Moore said he broke with Greenpeace in the 1980s over the rise of what he called "environmental extremism," or stands by environmental groups against issues such as genetic crop research, genetically modified foods and nuclear energy that aren't supported by science or logic.

Hawai'i, which is one of the top locations nationwide for genetically modified crop research, has become a focal point in the debate about the risks and value of such work. Friction between environmentalists and other concerned groups and the biotech industry surfaced most recently in relation to the use of local crops to grow industrial and pharmaceutical compounds. Last year that opposition halted a Big Island project planning to use algae for trial production of pharmaceutical drugs.

Zero-tolerance standards against such research by environmental groups delay developments that could help those with unmet basic needs, Moore said. Instead Moore called for compromise rather than confrontation on the part of the environmentalists.

<more>

Moore is a loon and makes Big Bux telling Morans what they want to hear...

Ex Greenpeace Pres Spews Spin Over Science

http://consciousearth.blogspot.com/2006/09/ex-greenpeace-pres-spews-spin-over_24.html

Prior to becoming a professional spin doctor, salmon farmer, and apologist for unsustainable forestry, Patrick Moore was the cofounder of Greenpeace and served as that organization's president from 1977 to 1986. Proving that a man's beliefs follow his income, he has now become the latest "skeptic" in the lucrative business of misrepresenting the legitimate scientific evidence of global warming.

Last week the esteemed Royal Society, the world's oldest scientific society, issued a letter to Exxon rightfully criticizing them for funding groups that misrepresent the scientific facts of climate change. In that letter, the Royal Society accurately outlined the current scientific consensus on global warming, while quoting peer reviewed studies referencing more than 300 scientific papers that confirm the role of human generated CO2 in rising world temperatures.

In a response that wouldn't hold water in a junior high school debating club, Patrick Moore accused the Royal Society of repressing science.

"It appears to be the policy of the Royal Society to stifle dissent and silence anyone who may have doubts about the connection between global warming and human activity," said Patrick Moore, "The last thing the world needs is for the Royal Society to cast a chill over science. That kind of repression seems more suited to the Inquisition than to a modern, respected scientific body".

<more>

**yawn**

[NNadir]

9. Ah but Moore is an asshole.

You cannot be anything but an asshole if you belonged to Greenpeace. Membership in Greenpeace does not confer credibility, rather it is placing a sign on your forehead confessing to abysmal ignorance.

Nuclear power is superior to everything else, because it is the only greenhouse gas free form of energy that exists on an exajoule scale and is scalable further. One does not need to appeal to authority to know this: One only need understand <em>energy</em>.

Anyone who argues that the world can mitigate climate change without nuclear power is a big, big, big, big part of the problem.

Opposing nuclear power is murder, pure and simple.

[RestoreGore]

11. It is nuclear weapons that are murder n/t

[Greyhound]

25. As soon as you can answer how we can guarantee, for at least 30,000 years,

that the spent fuel can be neutralized/converted/stored, I'll be happy to support it. Until then, go find your own planet to experiment with, we need this one.

We have the capability to utilize several other distributed systems to supply a significant portion of our required energy needs, and they are being implemented in other countries right now. The longer we wait to start, the further behind we will be.

[hunter]

36. How many people are going to fall off towers and roofs in 30,000 years...

...installing and maintaining solar and wind equipment?

Oh, I forgot, being radioactive dead is worse than being fall-off-roof dead. Radioactive dead and maybe you rise again and wander around sucking out peoples' brains.

The awful truth is that human beings are far more toxic than the worst sort of nuclear waste. Besides man, the ecosphere really doesn't care how much nuclear waste we spread around.

If the nuclear waste stored at Hanford exploded in the worst possible way tommorrow, it would create an instant national park, cities would have to be evacuated, farms abandoned, and the land would quickly return to the way it was before humans arrived.

But that's not what's going to happen. We'll keep burning fossil fuels, the oceans will rise, and more and more people will be forced to relocate or simply die than if we simply buried nuclear waste like we now bury ordinary trash, in carefully lined and located landfills (not that I'd advocate that...)

[NNadir]

38. Until you can guarantee that dangerous fossil fuel waste won't be toxic for eternity,

I will continue to insist on new nuclear power.

In fact it is reasonable to assume that dangerous fossil fuel waste will remain toxic for eternity since unlike so called "nuclear waste," it is not subject to decay and thus the establishment of equilibrium.

I could easily disprove your arbitrary evocation of "30,000 years," but I doubt very much that you would prove able to comprehend it.

[Greyhound]

44. I seriously doubt you could that you can conceive of anything beyond my

comprehension, you have no idea who I am nor what my capabilities of comprehension are, you do however make it abundantly clear that you are simply a pompous ass with delusions of superiority.

Fortunately, we are not yet so bereft of intellect and creativity that we have to depend on pathetic wannabes like you to solve these problems.

[greenman3610]

17. Lovins answers Patrick Moore

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-6IqCKWAzfrLlzHFAL37elhA-?cq=1&p=669

If you spend the same 10 cents (U.S.) instead on micropower or efficient use, you get two to 10 times as much coal displacement for the same money, because those options are cheaper — you get more per dollar. They're also faster, so you get more carbon displacement, coal displacement, per year.

[hunter]

23. That's funny.

The kettle arguing with the pot.

[phantom power]

7. This unkillable "all energy sources require CO2" meme is fucking ridiculous.

Solar energy does not "require" net CO2 emissions to be implemented.
Wind energy does not "require" net CO2 emissions.
Nuclear does not "require" net CO2 emissions.

The mining and manufacturing processes currently used to manufacture, deliver, install, etc, these energy sources involve fossil fuels, and so involve CO2 emissions.

Do people really need it spelled out? Resource extraction and manufacturing can be accomplished with energy that doesn't come from fossil fuels. To claim otherwise is fucking obtuse.

[Dead_Parrot]

10. Ah, but we don't care about "all energy sources"

It's only nuclear that has to be fossil free. You're perfectly OK to burn gas because the wind's not blowing, or turn a forest or two into charcoal for the silicon smelters, because there's no "dangerous nuclear waste". Admittedly it hasn't killed anyone, so technically it's less dangerous than rollmop herrings, but it sounds scary.

C'mon PP, lets ignore the dying planet and the millions of corpses from fossil fuel waste and get with the groupthink. I bet we'll get a little "I'm on the bandwagon!" badge or something.

[RestoreGore]

12. What other source leaves nuclear waste? n/t

[Dead_Parrot]

13. You missed the point

How dangerous is it? Has it killed 10 people? 100? How 'bout 450?

450 is the number of people who have died from fossil fuel waste since the OP was posted. Doesn't that trouble you at all?

[RestoreGore]

26. How many die from contracting cancer every year living near one?

And people have and do get cancer from living near these plants. What was Chernobyl? Three Mile Island? What is happening at Indian Point? You bet it is dangerous, just as climate change exacerbated by fossil fuel use is, which is why I speak out against them too. Why would you assume that anyone posting this article would not agree with that? And of course, don't mention that our nuclear plants already on line are not up to snuff regarding safety regulations in many locations in this country.

NUKES in any form in my view are dangerous, and the waste they produce will kill this planet. And on what do you base your number of 450 people dying? Is that worldwide? Because I actually think it would be more when you take into account the occupation of Iraq. And more will die because nuclear power is abused as well as we are seeing with Iran, North Korea, and other countries including our own.

The point of posting this OP was not to have a "competition" between nuclear and fossil fuels, but to illustrate that those who are constantly hawking nuclear energy as some sort of savior are misleading people. Perhaps you should ask those who fought so hard to put the bosh on Divine Strake if they think nuclear energy is safe. I can't fathom how anyone can defend what has the potential to render this planet totally unliveable. I don't support the use of fossil fuels leading to what we are now seeing in this world, and I don't support the use of nuclear power.

[phantom power]

27. CO2 is killing this planet, not nuclear fuel.

How you cannot see this, I have no idea.

[RestoreGore]

28. And nuclear power produces it as well

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0415-23.htm

And I do so see that, and if you read my other posts on climate change you would know that. Nuclear is not a substitute for fossil fuels, it is no better and the waste it makes leaves a toxic legacy for generations to come. And that I do see.

[phantom power]

30. The fact you consider that a valid argument doesn't up your credibility.

[RestoreGore]

33. Dr. Helen Caldicott is not credible?

Then where is your refutation of her words?


Published on Friday, April 15, 2005 by the Australian
Nuclear Power is the Problem, Not a Solution
by Helen Caldicott
excerpt:

The incubation time for cancer is five to 50 years following exposure to radiation. It is important to note that children, old people and immuno-compromised individuals are many times more sensitive to the malignant effects of radiation than other people.

I will describe four of the most dangerous elements made in nuclear power plants.

Iodine 131, which was released at the nuclear accidents at Sellafield in Britain, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Three Mile Island in the US, is radioactive for only six weeks and it bio-concentrates in leafy vegetables and milk. When it enters the human body via the gut and the lung, it migrates to the thyroid gland in the neck, where it can later induce thyroid cancer. In Belarus more than 2000 children have had their thyroids removed for thyroid cancer, a situation never before recorded in pediatric literature.

Strontium 90 lasts for 600 years. As a calcium analogue, it concentrates in cow and goat milk. It accumulates in the human breast during lactation, and in bone, where it can later induce breast cancer, bone cancer and leukemia.

Cesium 137, which also lasts for 600 years, concentrates in the food chain, particularly meat. On entering the human body, it locates in muscle, where it can induce a malignant muscle cancer called a sarcoma.

Plutonium 239, one of the most dangerous elements known to humans, is so toxic that one-millionth of a gram is carcinogenic. More than 200kg is made annually in each 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant. Plutonium is handled like iron in the body, and is therefore stored in the liver, where it causes liver cancer, and in the bone, where it can induce bone cancer and blood malignancies. On inhalation it causes lung cancer. It also crosses the placenta, where, like the drug thalidomide, it can cause severe congenital deformities. Plutonium has a predisposition for the testicle, where it can cause testicular cancer and induce genetic diseases in future generations. Plutonium lasts for 500,000 years, living on to induce cancer and genetic diseases in future generations of plants, animals and humans.



Do you dispute this?

[phantom power]

34. It's not about whether nuclear materials can kill people or make them sick.

Everybody knows perfectly well that radioactive materials can make people sick or kill them. I promise that you will never hear me claim otherwise.

It's how many people that will be killed or made sick, compared to how many will be killed or made sick if we don't use nuclear power to reduce and eventually eliminate CO2 emissions as quickly as possible.

If nuclear reactors uncontrollably spewed all their waste into the atmosphere and water (like coal plants do), then they'd be a non-starter, for the same reasons that nuclear weapons are a non-starter. But they don't. The waste stays in solid form, and it's actually pretty straightforward to keep it that way. We've been keeping it that way for 50 years. There isn't any credible reason that we can't continue keeping it that way. It requires a certain level of committment and vigilance. Which we all will be needing for now until forever anyway, to continue living on this planet. If we are so lucky as to survive our CO2 problems.

[RestoreGore]

41. ONE killed by either is too many

You won't convince me that nuclear power is safe and clean, so if you thought you would, you should stop now.

[phantom power]

54. I engage in these dialogues because silence = consent.

And I don't consent to putting off CO2 mitigation while we wait for renewable energy to make good on promises its been making for 50 years.

Other people read these dialogs, and I want them to know that there are good reasons to use nuclear power. There is more to energy policy than the "nukes are bad, renewables will save us in 5 years!" narrative that is currently enabling the construction of coal plants at a breakneck pace while the CO2 we're emitting wrecks the biosphere.

And, I figured I might convince you. If not, well there's still the other reasons.

[hunter]

37. No, Dr. Caldicott is not credible.

But the coal industry sure likes to watch her dance.

[RestoreGore]

40. Why should anyone as biased as you be considered credible then?

You say someone is not credible and all you can offer to back it up is ... what exactly?

[hunter]

46. She's a relic. Aren't we all?

I met her a couple of times, maybe twenty five years ago. I've probably got notes stashed away somewhere, but it always scares me to look through that stuff. I was a loon who got kicked out of university twice. I graduated the third try, but only after burning through a few advisors with my odd obsessions and complete lack of tact. I could tell an expert in their field that I thought something they'd just said was stupid, and most of the time I was wrong, but I guess I was valued for the few times I wasn't.

Bad karma all around. I'll probably be reincarnated as some sort of irritating insect.

I was a dumpster diving anti-nuclear activist then. But these days most of my accomplices are sort of embarrassed by it; the joys of misspent youth, there was some very good skinny-dipping, but only a few of us are still stuck on it, playing the same old songs.

I have learned Mother Nature can be perversely twisted. Helen Caldicott did good with her opposition to nuclear weapons testing and such, but in our efforts to stop nuclear power, coal became the fuel of choice for our power plants, and thus we've ended the Holocene catastrophically.

I've already written this society off, our Darwin Award is in the mail, but I have quite a bit of optimism that we can create a new society that is sustainable and much less damaging to the earth and the human spirit. But we're not going to do it using tools that haven't worked, as a society we've graduated from Ronald Reagan Morning in America rosy memory disorder to Bush WTF??? madness.

The biggest problem I see is that high living Americans, Australians, etc., have zero or negative credibility. We screwed everything up, but we're not the ones who are going to suffer the worst consequences, yet we are still talking like we can still wave some magic wand and continue to drive our cars and live in air conditioned houses while people in other places, and even in the USA, will be starving and homeless simply because we were greedy and stupid and believed in fairy tales of good and evil and manifest destiny.

[Dead_Parrot]

42. Err, are we still talking about nuclear waste?

"What other source leaves nuclear waste? n/t" You said.

I asked why nuclear waste is a problem. I see you didn't answer it. Instead, you wandered off onto nuclear plants, which have indeed had problems, like Chernobyl. But the 450 dead people I mentioned are still dead, and have now been joined by several thousand other dead people.

And that's the number of people worldwide who die from inhaling fossil fuel fumes. Two million per year. It doesn't include the tens of thousands who have died from extreme weather caused by climate change. It doesn't include the tens of thousands who have died in the oil war, but have a kudos point. For remembering them for once. It doesn't include the farmers who have blown thier own brains out because their farm is dying. It's just ordinary people. Do you give a shit about ordinary people? Jpak doesn't, he thinks continuing to burn fossil fuels for the next 50 years is a renewable future. Do agree that burning fuels is good? You say "I don't support the use of fossil fuels", so do you agree that the Greenpeace plan of fossil fuels for the next 50 years is ecocide? Or will you jam you fingers in your ears, ignore the billion dead people and continue to drivel about the dozens of people who nearly died?

You are right, there is - or shouldn't be - a competion between nuclear power and fossil fuels. The competition is between climate change and life on Earth. Which side are you on?

"it is dangerous, just as climate change exacerbated by fossil fuel use is"

No, it isn't. It's not in the same ball park. It's not even the same ball game. If you really think nuclear power is as dangerous as climate change, you really have no fucking idea what is happening to our planet.

[jpak]

15. Add up the body count from spent fuel in 2600 AD and again in 240,000 AD

Those are the important dates to remember...

[phantom power]

16. Believe it or not, Scientific American published a study on that.

At the time, they were studying specifically the Yucca Mtn. storage scenario. It was a projection of deaths out to, I think, 100,000 years. The expected number of deaths from stored waste was 10K people. Or, maybe it was projected to 10,000 years and the total deaths were 100K.

I should really try to find that.

[phantom power]

19. Dammit, I just paid 8 bucks for the wrong issue.

Does anybody remember the article I'm talking about? They had a graph of expected mortality over time. 10K years, or 100K, something like that. Pretty sure it was in the 1990s, but conceivably early 2000s. I now know that June 1996 isn't it, although it has an article on Yucca.

maybe it was American Scientist?

(anybody? anybody? Bueller? anybody?)

[Dead_Parrot]

20. Sorry, there is nobody available to take your call

To help Ecocide International route your call, please press 1 to be disconnected, 2 to speak to somebody who has never heard of you and doesn't know what you are talking about, 3 to leave a message no-one will listen to, or 4 go round and round in circles until you scream.

Have a nice day. :)

[jpak]

21. Pardon me, but I am highly amused by your misfortune...

:rofl:

:evilgrin:

[Dead_Parrot]

18. Tell you what...

You work out many charcoal workers would die if PV was scaled up 100x, and I'll work out how many people would die from nuclear waste.

You've got the easy side, BTW, since charcoal workers every year and extrapolating the numbers should be easy. I've got to invent stuff and make it sound convincing.

[eppur_se_muova]

14. Thank you for speaking my mind :^) . nt

[Nihil]

53. Agreed.

> Solar energy does not "require" net CO2 emissions to be implemented.
> Wind energy does not "require" net CO2 emissions.
> Nuclear does not "require" net CO2 emissions.
>
> The mining and manufacturing processes currently used to manufacture,
> deliver, install, etc, these energy sources involve fossil fuels, and
> so involve CO2 emissions.

:applause:

Now if only people would hold every other power generation alternative
to the same standards as they would like for nuclear ...?

There again, it would be quicker to just let 5 billion or so people die
than to expect any significant improvement in intelligence ... easier too!

[Greyhound]

29. The bottom line to the "nuclear energy debate" is simple. It is the only viable source

of energy that allows the current consortium to maintain its stranglehold over production and distribution of energy. The other alternatives are undesirable because they end the revenue steams that the energy industries depend on. They are systems that, once bought and installed, provide no additional income, nor any means of control, to industry until they need replacement.

[RestoreGore]

31. And that's why Bush and Cheney push it so much

http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/011007EB.shtml

excerpt:

Nuclear Power Not Clean, Green or Safe
By Sherwood Ross
t r u t h o u t | Guest Contributor

Wednesday 10 January 2007

In all the annals of spin, few statements are as misleading as Vice President Cheney's that the nuclear industry operates "efficiently, safely, and with no discharge of greenhouse gases or emissions," or President Bush's claim that America's 103 nuclear plants operate "without producing a single pound of air pollution or greenhouse gases."

Even as it refuses to concede global warming is really happening, the White House touts nuclear power as the answer, as if it were an arm of the Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI), the industry's trade group. NEI's advertisements declare, "Kids today are part of the most energy-intensive generation in history. They demand lots of electricity. And they deserve clean air."

In reality, not only are vast amounts of fossil fuels burned to mine and refine the uranium for nuclear power reactors, polluting the atmosphere, but those plants are allowed "to emit hundreds of curies of radioactive gases and other radioactive elements into the environment every year," Dr. Helen Caldicott, the antinuclear authority, points out in her book Nuclear Power Is Not the Answer (The New Press).

What's more, the thousands of tons of solid radioactive waste accumulating in the cooling pools next to those plants contain "extremely toxic elements that will inevitably pollute the environment and human food chains, a legacy that will lead to epidemics of cancer, leukemia, and genetic disease in populations living near nuclear power plants or radioactive waste facilities for many generations to come," she writes. Countless Americans are already dead or dying as a result of those nuclear plants, and that story is not being effectively told.

end of excerpt.

[hunter]

55. India and China and other important nations don't care what we think.

The false premise is that the freakish politics of the United States actually matter. We are the mad Rottweiler behind the fence, and no longer "leader of the free world" or whatever other silly military title we choose to decorate ourselves with.

Dick Cheney's (probably feigned) support of nuclear power is about as relevant to the real world as the Marshmallow Man of Ghostbusters.

Essentially, the facility to build nuclear power plants no longer exists in the United States. If we choose to expand nuclear power we will end up importing the technology.

"Countless Americans are already dead or dying as a result of..." any number of stupidities, and nuclear power is among the least of them.

Beer kills more people than nuclear power, kills people who don't even drink beer, and they still advertise that on television. So why do you freak out about nuclear power and invoke the name of a corrupt and ineffective toad such as Dick Cheney?

If you are trying to scare me to gain my support, you've failed.

[IChing]

39. Very True......

Control

[Dead_Parrot]

43. Yeah, 'cos all 6,500,000,000 people can afford to live off-grid

:eyes:

[Greyhound]

45. The nations where the majority of that 6.5 billion live do not have, nor can they afford to build

a grid to begin with.

Without the naysayers like yourself grasping at profits and fighting to stifle development of alternatives, we would already be 40 years further along in developing the technologies for the distributed systems that are their only hope.

Congratulations, millions more will suffer and die while you figure out a way to extract the last dime from what is left of their resources.
:eyes:

[Dead_Parrot]

47. What the fuck has profit got to do with it?

You will be amazed to learn that the majority of the world's population now live in cities. All of those cities have grids, even Port-au-Prince, even if a lot of the people there cannot afford to be connected to it: The way to fix that problem, and the problem of climate change, is to install fossil-free power that they can actually fucking afford.

Pointing out that the 3,000,000 people in Port-au-Prince don't have the US~$40 billion they'd need for off-grid solar isn't "Nay saying", it's pointing out the fucking obvious.

If you want nothing but decentralised, renewable power, billions will continue to live in in poverty. But I'm guessing you're not one of them, so I don't really expect you to give a flying fuck.

[Greyhound]

48. I don't give a flying fuck about raving morons and their offensive nonsense.

If you ever feel like having a discussion, fine we can do that, otherwise piss off you nitwit.

[Dead_Parrot]

49. And that's your response, is it?

Faced with the fact that most people do live on, or next to, a grid, and can't afford to be self sufficient in power any time in the next 200 years, you'll jam your fingers in your ears and tell me piss off.

Denial ain't a river, sunshine. Those people want to live, too.

[Greyhound]

50. As I said, until you want to have an actual discussion, you have nothing to add but noise. n/t

[Dead_Parrot]

51. Yeah, Whatever

Facts are noise, poor people are rich, and the truth can indeed be inconvenient.

I'll leave you to your faith-based reality.

[Greyhound]

52. Answer this, which is more possible for the nation of Haiti, the poorest

country in the western hemisphere, with a per capita GDP of $1,800 (not income mind you), and virtually no skilled workers.

To come up with $6,000,000,000 - $10,000,000,000 to build a nuclear power plant (that takes 12 years to build in a first-world country) then upgrade the distribution facilities for their new-found electricity for an additional $3,000,000,000 - $4,000,000,000 and then operate and maintain this technological wonder. All this assumes, of course, that the plant will actually be built by a government, or first-world contractors, both so well known for their honesty and working diligently for the benefit of its people. Then they get to pay for the storage of the waste this plant produces.

Or is it more viable to spend the $10-$18 per house for thin-film solar panels that require a few nails to tack up?

So who's living in a fantasy world?

[hunter]

56. Hmmm, I'm trying to decide which is the bigger Haitian fantasy...

Nuclear, or thin film solar?

Sorta like asking a guy you find bleeding to death on the street what kind of soda he wants, Coke or Pepsi?

[Dead_Parrot]

57. $18 doesn't even buy 5W

Here's a suggestion: Try living for a year with only a 4W PV panel as a source of power. You can't even boil an egg.

You may be happy leaving these people in poverty, but I'm not and I'm damn sure they're not. So go ahead, spend millions giving everyone in Haiti a totally useless source of power. It won't change their lives one bit.

[Greyhound]

58. Apparently, you are just not up to date on the development of

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/national.aspx?ID=BD4A114801">thin-film solar panels, and you didn't address any of the issues involved in the construction of a nuclear plant in a third-world country.

As I said, again, if you want ot have a discussion, fine. If all you are interested in is hurling invective and name-calling, well, talk to somebody that is interested.

[phantom power]

59. We are up to date on all the latest uncommercialized prototypes.

I have to wade thru posts about uncommercialized prototypes every morning here in E/E.

Like so many others, you are confusing some technology that hasn't even been commercialized yet, forget commericalized at a price that dirt-poor people can afford, with sources of energy that actually exist.

Is it really so hard to understand what's wrong with that? It would be like me trying to advocate fusion power as a solution to our problems. Sure, it "exists," and people have even run fusion reactors. But there is no such thing as a commercialized fusion technology. Maybe someday, but what does "someday" do for us when we need to displace CO2 emissions now. Or really, five years ago?

[jpak]

61. Those thin-film PV plants are in operation or being constructed today

They have been commercialized and production capacity is growing by leaps and bounds (that's why you have to wade through "those" posts every day :evilgrin:).

They have long ago advanced beyond the "prototype" stage...

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=45227

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/03/moser_baer_to_b.html

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/partner?cid=1795

http://www.renewableenergyaccess.com/rea/news/story?id=9850

and much more if you wish to wade through a Google search for "thin film PV"

[Greyhound]

62. Things are moving rapidly and commercialization is well under way.

Stan Ovshinsky, the inventor of the Ni-Mh battery, as already built the world's largest thin-film solar sheet(?) factory and production is under-way. Obviously, the use of this and/or similar products is superior to, and more practical in places like Haiti where neither the resources, infrastructure, organization, or technical support for Nuclear power production exist.

The idea that any country, where the life expectancy of a government is measured in months and corruption is rampant, can successfully undertake a project with the cost and scope of a Nuclear plant is beyond hope. Even if they somehow raised the billions of dollars required, history has clearly demonstrated that it would evaporate into off-shore bank accounts and the people would be left holding an empty bag.

It is true that we are not there yet, but consider that it took the U.S. 12 years to build Palo Verde and the costs doubled during that time, and even when "complete", major components had to be taken out and re-built, what would happen in a place where basic literacy is exceptional and most of the people barely subsist on a day-to-day basis.

I just don't see how there is any reasonable hope that it could be pulled off. Of course the rulers and foreign contractors would all make out like the bandits they are, but in the end nothing else would be accomplished. We have to direct the resources to what is likely to work, not what is most profitable to various corporations.

[Dead_Parrot]

60. I'm not going by press releases...

I'm going what's real. Again, sorry if that's a problem, but I really don't share your faith in articles from 2005 saying how great things are going to be.

Finding the money to give Haiti a decent power supply would be easy, if the US stopped playing hide-and-die in Iraq for a few weeks. That it would leave a lot of Haitians with new skills and create several thousand jobs would just be a bonus.

I'm quite happy to have a civil conversation, BTW, with the sole proviso that it be based on reality. Which is a pisser, because in reality Haiti will be left to rot by everybody.

[jpak]

63. Unisolar Ovonic is real, Nanosolar is real, Sharp is real, Honda is real, ErSol is real, etc....

Those companies are producing thin-film PV today (and some for several years).

Thin-film plant capacities are being ramped up to produce hundreds of MW of thin-film PV modules per year.

That is why those press releases are posted on this forum.

Get it???

:evilgrin:

[Dead_Parrot]

65. And US$3.64/W is real, too.

I didn't say there was no such thing as thin film PV, did I? Hang on, I'll check...

...nope. I said $18 wouldn't buy 5W, and that appears to be correct. Unless you're going to accuse Solarbuzz of lying: That'd be fun to watch.

[jpak]

66. No - dissed the Dreaded Thin-film PV Press Releases

and I showed you the error of your ways...

:evilgrin:

[Dead_Parrot]

67. Did you? where? nt

[Greyhound]

64. Your last sentence is absolutely correct and the reasons for that are

another conversation, but it is mostly our fault.

As for it being real, check out the information on the commercial production facility already built Stan Ovshinsky, the technology is here and practical and getting better every day. Apply Moore's law to the development of these technologies and project it forward for the 12 years (an estimate so overly optimistic as to be ludicrous) it would take to build a nuclear facility and the inescapable conclusion is that, once completed it would be nothing but an obsolete, non-functional, boondoggle. Maybe it would find new life as a hurricane shelter.:shrug:

The resistance to solar and other alternative technologies is driven by one thing only, the energy consortium's lack of control over it.

[Dead_Parrot]

68. Not being an energy consortium...

...my personal grudge has nothing to do with control, but the fact that 95% of the world cannot afford it. That a significant chunk of the other 5% seem to be insisting that they buy it anyway strikes me as downright belligerent.

Hey, if you can afford solar, do it. Just try not to rip too much money out of the state budget while you do it, the schools seem to be bad enough.

There is a form of power that works day and night, now for less than a dollar a Watt (if you do if right), that would serve these people much better: Whilst not emission free, it has lower emissions than everything except hydroelectricity (which actually has killed thousands of people, although nobody seems to worry about that). The arguments against it are based more on fear than a desire to solve problems.

[Greyhound]

69. OK, you're obviously not interested in learning nearly as much as you're

interested in being right, even if it is only in your own mind. you have been shown multiple sources that prove you preconceptions regarding the costs and viability are no longer true, yet you persist in "parroting" them over and over.

You have ignored all of the reasons that your scheme of nuclear power in the third world is a fantasy at best, and another disaster for the people that will suffer the consequences at worst.

Fortunately, the world doesn't need you, or your input, to change for the better. We'll keep making better and you can fold your arms, shut your eyes, and pretend that you know best.

Good luck with that.

[Dead_Parrot]

70. Really?

In #61, Jpak said "Those thin-film PV plants are in operation or being constructed today". I see no reason to disagree with that.

Over at Solarbuzz, they are claiming the cheapest thin-film solar is currently US$3.64/W, and I see no reason to disagree with that, either.

Perhaps you'd like to explain if Jpak is lying, or Solarbuzz?

[hunter]

71. How much did your solar installation cost?

I mean both you and the taxpayers, if your installation was subsidized.

Maybe we should devolop some kind of Haitian home exchange program here. You can swap houses for a year with some Haitian who doesn't have electric service. You can bring your solar panels with you if you like, and nail them to his roof, but you have to do that on his income. I wonder how much nails sell for in Haiti? Should you buy nails, or should you eat? I don't know, it's a hard decision, I'm sure.

Here's what I don't get... How are the desires of some guy making less than two dollars a day different than yours? How come you get a 100 amp electric service, and he might get a few watts of solar? I mean it's like eating a huge meal at your own table, while you toss the poor fellow a few crumbs. You think he doesn't want a lot of electric lights in his house, a television, a computer, an oven, a microwave oven, a stove, a refrigerator, and all those nice things that electricity makes possible? Or are you just living out your fantasy of decentralized power at some anonymous person's expense? Yeah, he'll be satisfied with a few LED lights while you live high on the hog burning through the world's limited resources like there is no tomorrow.

You've really backed yourself into one of two very unpleasant corners here, greyhound1966. Either you don't know what you are talking about, or you are blinded by the old curse of manifest destiny -- that it is somehow your innate right to live better than most of the people on this earth, that it is a consequnce of God's Will and your own hard work, when in fact, it is mostly an accident of your birth.

I'm not belittling whatever accomplishments you may have, but when you get right down to it, most of what we accomplish in life has more to do with the circumstances of the community we find ourselves in than it does our own determination.

If you want to know a place like Haiti as something more than an abstract playground for solar fantasies you can ask people who do work like this:

http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/haiti.cfm

[Greyhound]

72. What a bizarre reply. You haven't addressed one of the issues brought up,

nor have you made a single workable proposal to alleviate the situation, yet you are quite swelled up with righteous indignation.

Come back when you have something constructive to add. Sheesh.:eyes:

[hunter]

74. Your issues have been addressed in this thread.

You simply didn't like the answers. Your fantasies about the capabilities of solar power, the dangers of nuclear wastes, and the hidden consortiums that supposedly control your energy supply choices are more important to you than the reality of the situation.

If you don't have your own solar power system, why not? Did someone tell you you couldn't, or was it just too expensive and too much bother?

I'm not building sandcastles and calling it "constructive." How about you?

[Nihil]

73. There is a nugget of truth in what you say ...

For example, this ...
> Apply Moore's law to the development of these technologies and project
> it forward for the 12 years (an estimate so overly optimistic as to be
> ludicrous) it would take to build a nuclear facility ...

... can be turned into the truth ...
> Apply(ing) Moore's law to the development of these technologies ...
> (is) an estimate so overly optimistic as to be ludicrous ...

... as, unfortunately, Moore's Law is not transferable in the way you
would like to believe.

Don't get me wrong, solar technology is improving and will become cheaper
over time but it is not subject to Moore's Law so extrapolations such as
your one above are naive (at best).

[BrightKnight]

75. economic forces

You don't have to call it Moore's Law but there are economic forces at work.

PV prices are artificially high because demand exceeds supply. The increased efficiency of thin film technology has yet be be realized because of the high demand. Production capacity will increase dramatically in the near future. The demand for PV in the developed world will continue to increase as prices go down. There will be increasing economies of scale. The production possibilities frontier will continue to expand as more money flows into the industry.

Nuclear power is not as practical as some suggest in the developing world. Developing countries may have a basic grid but nothing like what is needed to support a massive power plant. Large groups of people are simply unable to pay a developed world electricity bill.

---
I am in favor of both PV and nuclear power. For the developed world a combination of renewable, distributed PV, and nuclear power appears to be the best available answer to the problem.

There are also technologies in the pipeline to reduce or eliminate nuclear waste. They will probably be expensive. I don't think that it is reasonable to assume nuclear waste will be left to degrade naturally.

[Nihil]

76. I totally agree with you about "economic forces" ...

... it's simply that Moore's Law is a completely different scenario
and I wanted to correct that buzz-phrase abuse.

> I am in favor of both PV and nuclear power. For the developed world a
> combination of renewable, distributed PV, and nuclear power appears to
> be the best available answer to the problem.

Agree with you on this one too! We have to use the appropriate technology
for the situation.

:hi:

[BrightKnight]

35. 1,780 lbs of coal * 36,000,000 pellets in the reactors of 1 plant...

http://www.txucorp.com/power/plants/comanche_peak.aspx


"Each pellet of uranium fuel produces as much heat energy as 149 gallons of oil; 157 gallons of gasoline; 1,780 pounds of coal; or 19,200 cubic feet of natural gas. There are more than 18,000,000 fuel pellets in each reactor."

What is the carbon cost of mining, transporting and burning 1,780 pounds of coal? What is the total carbon cost of burning 1,780 lbs of coal * 36,000,000 pellets in the reactors of 1 plant. TXU refuses to put modern pollution controls on their coal plans.

This plant has 450,000 cubic yards of concrete and 63,000 tons of reinforcing steel bar. That is not a small carbon footprint but over the life of the plant it appears to be a lot less than coal.

----

I live less than 100 miles from this plant. Living near this if better that living near more huge dirty coal plants.