Also, I agree that flat blocking of nuclear is unreasonable. But in my opinion disagreement on the issue is a relatively marginal issue in the general sweep of tackling climate change. Again, in the UK, we're just at the end of an open commissioning process for new nuclear, led by the centre right party, with agreement across all major parties.
Despite that level of political support, and a complete lack of protectionism (to the extent that one of the leading bids is funded by a Chinese state-owned energy company!) it is still going to be very expensive, and has a very long development and construction time.
Undoubtedly it's sensible for baseline demand (i.e. continuous 24hr demand which doesn't require scaling up or down), but to me it's not going to be a make or break solution either way. It's not sensible to completely tie yourself in to an expensive, monolithic technology to come online in 20 years, and operate for 50 years thereafter. It's an important hedge which we should definitely take up, but it's not the total solution which people present.
The new DNC platform coming out of the convention this week doesn't seem to agree with you. It focuses solely on renewable sources, sweeping nuclear under the carpet.
70-80% of people agree that anthropogenic climate change is happening
I don't understand why those concerned about climate change continue to insist on putting the word "anthropogenic" in there. It's mostly irrelevant to the conversation, and comes off as little more than finger-pointing. If there's a problem that needs to be addressed, whether it's caused by humans or not isn't really the issue. If there were an asteroid heading toward the earth, we wouldn't say "we didn't throw that rock at ourselves, so we'll ignore it". Likewise, the discussion over climate change should be on the climate change; trying to make the cause of the problem part of its name just creates additional contention.
I strongly disagree that whether or not climate change is human-caused is unimportant. How can you have a consensus on the solution without consensus on the problem?
A lot people who don't think humans are responsible will take the position that change is natural, therefore okay. Or, they will attribute change to other factors which would call for other solutions. If you don't think climate change is driven by the human-caused increases in greenhouse gas concentrations which we have seen, why would you try to tackle natural climate change through altering the concentrations of those gases?
So "finger pointing" to humanity isn't that bad of a tactic to get things done.
There would be a massive media campaign to discredit observations of the asteroid, and dismissal of concerns about it, and someone would run for president on an explicit platform of asteroid denial.
No, we should look at it, we should deal with it (in the best possible way) regardless of it being manmade or not. The anthropogenic part of the argument shouldn't have any weight at all in the decision to act or not to act (I am for acting).
It only should play a role in understanding the causes so to better fight the effects.
If it's anthropogenic then it is a brand new phenomena in geological time and will throw many ecological systems into disarray or destroy them completely because they never evolved the adaptations. If it's not anthropogenic, then no big deal this is a regular cyclical warm period that the Earth goes through naturally. If it's a natural cycle that we're not contributing to then we have nothing to fix.
What in the world does this have to do with asteroids?
Your conclusion doesn't follow. Just because man didn't create it [1] doesn't mean that it's necessarily cyclical. The earth has changed in many ways in its lifetime. Some of those changes are indeed parts of cycles. Other changes are strictly one-way.
[1] hypothetically; I'm not actually making that claim, just following that line of argument
That's not to say that such a thing is without danger. I'm particularly wary of unintended consequences. But the people that are pursuing vast reductions in emissions aren't giving very much thought to the unintended consequences of their approach, either.
My point is that the arguments are being made with a huge amount of assumption on all sides. That's not the way to get to a good answer. We need to really consider what the likelihoods of possible outcomes are, in terms of lost human utility; and we might be able to do about them, including their costs and likelihood of success. I don't see a lot of real pro-vs-con debate - most of what I see is the Al Gore tactic of intentionally exaggerating claims to frighten people into acquiescence.
Mainstream political thought in the US has largely self-sorted into two categories of politicians - ones that don't believe that climate change is happening, and won't do anything about it, and ones that do believe that it is happening, and won't do anything about it. Neither is of any use to us.
This is not entirely accurate. First, I wish the platform mentioned nuclear explicitly; I think that would be healthy. However, while renewable energy sources get a mention, the focus is on "clean power." The platform directly endorses the Clean Power Plan, which has a significant role for nuclear power: https://www.epa.gov/cleanpowerplan/fact-sheet-clean-power-pl...
Nuclear power is part of an "all the above" energy strategy that supports economic growth and job creation, enhances our nation's energy security, and protects the planet for future generations. The Clean Power Plan (CPP) ensures that zero carbon nuclear power will continue to play a prominent and meaningful role in America’s energy mix.
It's absolutely true that the platform doesn't highlight the need for nuclear energy, but it's certainly not about blocking nuclear energy either.
If we aren't causing it (or contributing significantly), then stopping what we're doing won't fix it. So yes, it's important to the conversation that we're actually causing the problem.
That's not correct. If I'm sitting in my car and it starts to roll downhill, it's gravity that's causing the movement, not my car. Yet applying the brakes is still the correct course of action.
Moreover, even if we assume that humans are the cause of the problem, it doesn't necessarily follow that the cessation of human activity is the optimal course of action. There may be other effective alternatives (e.g., large-scale engineered efforts to increase planetary albedo via cloud formation) that are significantly cheaper. It might be that the costs of mitigating the problem exceed the expected damage that the problem is expected to cause.
To be sure, I don't know that either of those possibilities hold in this case, but it's mistaken to simply assume them away.
Really the UK needs some kind of energy strategy other than hoping for the market and the Large Combustion Plant directive to sort it out. It needs to be a "yes, and" strategy - there's no reason to set up a dichotomy between renewables and nuclear, that merely prevents progress on either. We need to keep provisioning renewables until the night-time issue becomes significant. Really we ought to have done more with tidal and wave power rather than allow Pelamis to become bankrupt.
Personally I have 4kW of solar on my roof and take a bus to work.
...
"The rate of new build was biggest in 1984, and had a value of (drum-roll please...) about 30 GW per year – about 30 1-GW reactors."
For nuclear specifically, a mass roll out of nuclear plants is simply too difficult - cost, production bottlenecks, public opposition, production time and delays, etc. Almost no new plants are being built in the U.S. currently - you can't easily go from that to replacing a large percentage of the power system with nuclear plants.
I'm not sure how any reasonable person could see nuclear as being one of the more viable or effective solutions (particularly when compared to low-hanging fruit like increased energy efficiency).
And yet many Asian countries are doing just this.
[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2011-01-11/china-shou...
[2]https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/aug/25/wikileak...
Whether that's an accurate assessment in the long run or not, it's their choice to make, and not one the US would be likely to emulate - after all, we've got Westinghouse and the AP-1000 design right here. We've also got a much more thoroughly developed uranium production pipeline and a similar extent of available reserves, which means we won't face the same structural problems China does in ramping up fuel production - they're essentially having to build that process from scratch, and there's only so far it's worth letting your plant production outpace your ability to fuel the reactors you're building.
> The country should set a 2020 ceiling on reactors in operation at 70,000 megawatts to avoid a shortfall of fuel, equipment and qualified plant workers
> "By bypassing the passive safety technology of the AP1000, which, according to Westinghouse, is 100 times safer than the CPR-1000, China is vastly increasing the aggregate risk of its nuclear power fleet. "
And this is just trying to increase nuclear from ~3% to ~4%.
Maybe the U.S. would do things much better, but we should keep in mind that we just had the first new reactor come online in 20 years. And in that case, it was mostly built in the 80's (construction was halted), it's sister reactor was already running at the plant (since '96), and it still took 9 years to complete (and it's still being tested, it's not commercial yet).
The argument that a main component - some people even seem to argue the main component - of the fight against climate is a large scale switch over to nuclear seems completely divorced from reality.
Here in the US, we're not constrained by fuel shortages, and we don't have to make ourselves beholden to a potentially hostile foreign state in order to take advantage of the AP-1000 design. We also have the world's broadest and deepest reservoir of institutional knowledge on the subject of nuclear power - a technology invented in the United States, and which we have arguably developed to the greatest extent of any nation on Earth, even if we have thus far chosen not to reap the full benefits of our efforts.
You're right that we aren't building out modern nuclear technology as well as we could be. But we aren't facing the same structural limitations China is, and we therefore do not face a similar choice between unpalatable options. The deficit we face is merely one of will - that is, we're not building out new nuclear because we can't, but rather because the very same people who inveigh most strongly against ignoring AGW have an ideological and frankly emotional objection to modern nuclear infrastructure, an objection which arises entirely from industrial accidents which occurred with technology now half a century old, and from which the industry has learned.
To be quite clear, I have significant concerns of my own with how new nuclear is likely to be implemented. Specifically, as I've stated in this forum and others, the existence of a profit motive around the operation and safety management of nuclear reactors is in my opinion a substantial risk. That risk is, however, susceptible of mitigation or elimination by quite realistic measures, and even if left completely as is, collapses into negligibility alongside the risks posed by either continuing to ignore AGW, or building a response that relies entirely on ill-tested, seasonally variable, and enormously inefficient power generation methods to supply life-critical baseload power.
Many nuclear advocates seem to share this misconception. Fighting climate change is not about simply switching all power generation to one and only one alternative source. It's not about whether we are going to rely 100% on nuclear or 100% on solar, and it's not even only about generation.
A large part of the efforts are focused on things like increased efficiency. Alternative energy also plays a role (including nuclear, though it plays a relatively small role). These efforts will help cut emissions until we get below 450 (or 350), not entirely eliminate emissions. We don't need solar (for example) to provide electricity 24/7 - we need it to help decrease the emissions. If we have enough elements that decrease the emissions some amount, we'll eventually get below 450 (or 350).
There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding by some about what the fight against climate change actually entails. It is not about picking the one and only energy source for the future.
> The deficit we face is merely one of will
This ignores the economic and construction issues that nuclear plants have.
Engineering problems with known solutions, were we only to implement them.
> There seems to be a fundamental misunderstanding by some about what the fight against climate change actually entails.
If that's so, it's a result of the rhetoric employed by many on the conventional, non-nuclear anti-AGW side. For example, you're the first person I've ever heard espouse this kind of incrementalism on CO2 figures. For most rhetoric on the subject, "apocalyptic" is not too strong a term.
I think a lot of nuclear advocates adopt their position on the basis that it's the most effective available response if things really are that bad. And then we get confused when people would rather keep technologies that spew filth constantly into the air, instead of accepting a very slight increased risk of localized and contained industrial accidents which are costly but not deadly. (Yeah, I know: Chernobyl and Fukushima. No one is proposing we build RBMKs in the US, and unlike Japan, if we want to build 2nd-gen BWRs safe from tsunamis, we have ample inland territory on which to do so.) If it's a choice between nuclear power and civilizational collapse involving megadeaths, that seems like a no-brainer. If it's not such a choice, it's fair to ask why so many people have done so much to make it seem so.
Honestly, I think the environmental movement has shot itself in the foot here in a huge way. Decades of painting nuclear power as Satan incarnate has made it politically impossible, indeed unthinkable, to include new, safe nuclear as the foundation of a strategy addressing AGW with a truly sustainable generation architecture, so what we're left with is quarter measures and cheese-paring fractionalism - changing lightbulbs to save the world.
The biggest issue with nuclear is that it, by itself, is entirely insufficient to deal with the problem. And the best policy solutions to climate change--namely, a refundable carbon tax--would themselves encourage the proliferation of nuclear to the extent nuclear is actually helpful.
I don't see how we can possibly break out of this cycle without revisiting the notion of an infinite-growth economy. Until we curb human population and energy consumption, we'll continue sprinting from dead-end to dead-end.
And we have, for all current intents and purposes, an infinite supply of nuclear, solar, and wind energy.
Further, I question the notion that solar and wind power are infinite in supply. At some point, absorbing solar radiation that would otherwise heat the surface of the earth must have some effect on global weather patterns, and a similar argument can be made for wind power. I don't think we're anywhere near that point, but it just goes to show that the "infinite growth" mindset is extremely problematic in the long run.
As for human population, this is true of first-world countries, but not universally true. India is an example of extreme demographic growth.
Any way you want to cut it, our power (or, more generally, resource) demands cannot grow infinitely. Where you are correct is in pointing out that the population constraint is fundamentally at odds with the geopolitical and economic need for demographic growth. This is precisely the point I'm lamenting.
1) Paint too bleak a picture: Most people will conclude there's nothing to be done, and take no action. 2) Paint too rosy a picture: Most people will conclude it's no big deal, and take no action.
In terms of change, we have dramatically cut back on CO2 production vs. predictions from even 10 years ago. So we are making progress.
But admittedly the situation may change within the lifetime of a new nuclear station, or even in the 20 years before it's actually built.
Base load power is a misnomer based on coal/nuclear plants having poor responses to changing demand. Without fuel use over production is completely viable. Some net storage for 99.9% reliability for a combo of wind / solar / hydro in the US adds ~10-20% which is still vastly lower than nuclear which is expensive even after massive subsides.
Yes, the grid will look rather different, but backbone power transmission is going to stay a tiny percentage of GDP.
(The gap between max wind output and median output is huge, but the gap between median output and minimum output over a day for a large area is much smaller.)
PS: You see a lot of overly simplistic analysis that fails to account for the hydro power as energy storage and shifting demand east west to shift solar production vs. demand. A massive dam stores a lot of power which can be released on demand at any point in the year. Add some pumped hydro storage for fitting the day to day demand curve which can be thousands of miles from both production and use and storage is already both cheap and a solved problem.
Humanity has always been on the brink of demise. We've always been barely able to feed our people. This took us from hunter-gatherers to the development of agriculture, on to irrigation, fertilization, terraced farming, crop rotation, selective breeding, genetic manipulation.
In terms of energy, as we depleted the forests of wood for burning, we've gone through similar transformations, learning to harness other means of light and heat like wax, whale oil, and so on.
It turns out that the greatest resource we have is not vegetable or mineral, it's the human mind. Intentionally shutting off the creation of new minds - the engines that are going to find the means of solving all the other problems - is counterproductive.
I don't believe the proposition that global warming is not a problem because human ingenuity will fix it.
Our land and oceans are already straining under our population load.
I mean, we stopped denuding the forests to get firewood, so a visitor from, say, 3 centuries ago would be astonished at how well wooded the land is near cities. You can canoe down the Delaware River today and feel entirely surrounded by the trees, yet around the time of the Revolution, those hills were bare.
We hunted whales almost to the point of extinction. But we came up with better energy sources, and while this was recent enough that the whales haven't quite recovered yet, they're not threatened in this manner anymore.
So you'll have to explain to me how this time it's different than the countless other times when our ancestors (look back at Malthus!) claimed that we were on the brink of disaster.
You keep repeating that, but it simply isn't true. The oceans have not been straining in the pre-industrial era in the slightest.
> You can canoe down the Delaware River today and feel entirely surrounded by the trees, yet around the time of the Revolution, those hills were bare.
This is a typical anecdote that falls flat in the face of data. Look at global forestation rates in the pre-industrial era and today.
> So you'll have to explain to me
No one owes any explanation to a person who denies facts when presented with them. You made claims without evidence, therefore your claims can be dismissed without evidence.
There is much more to living than just food. That we can grow enough food is not a persuasive argument that there aren't too many people on the planet. People shit, pollute, destroy, and consume.
But this has ALWAYS been true. You haven't given any reason to think differently.
There is much more to living than just food. ... People shit, pollute, destroy, and consume.
Exactly. Yet we've invented sanitation. And if you look at the trends, our higher standard of living has given us the luxury to curtail the pollution and destruction. America's air and water is MUCH cleaner now than it was when I was growing up (just as the Clean Air Act was getting started).
Thanks to smart scientists and engineers, we've learned new ways to do things that that are far more environmentally friendly.
In a way you're right. The problems will never be entirely fixed, because nothing is infinite. But a very long history shows that while we're always on the brink of destruction, we're also always on the brink of brilliant new insights that break us through those barriers.
The source of those brilliant insights is the minds of the people. Calling for drastic reductions in birth rates would be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs: innovation is what's going to keep saving our butts.
Well, duh, that's why.
There are also involuntary reduction methods...
The problems of the middle east aren't just religious, the region has seen huge population growth in the 20th century beyond the ability of its natural resources to sustain it. This is not hyperbole, Yemen is running out of water.
If it's 54C outside in Kuwait, how habitable is that really? What if it's three or four degrees hotter?
On one side there are the climate change deniers (and the people who don't care about it). They are fine to continue business as usual.
On the other side there are the people who are concerned about climate change. But instead of agreeing to effective solutions (compromises) that allow us to somewhat mitigate global warming (such as nuclear energy) they oppose those solutions and instead propose things that are 1) not realistic to implement in the short-term and that 2) the first group (the climate change deniers) would never agree to.
Basically the outcome is that we're stuck in a grid lock now and nothing happens at all.
Regarding nuclear energy: Most of the people whom I know oppose nuclear energy because of 1) "what happens if there's an accident" and 2) "what should we do with the waste". My response to this: 1) Per TWH nuclear energy is statistically safer than other energy sources: http://nextbigfuture.com/2011/03/deaths-per-twh-by-energy-so... and 2) While there are some more long-term approaches for waste (reprocessing, maybe Thorium) even in the short-term I prefer a well definied disposal site over just blowing the waste into their air (which is what happens with fossil-fuel powered plants. I recommend reading http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/james-lovel... for a few more arguments.