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'No Quick Fix' From Nuclear Power
humoly writes to tell us BBC News is reporting that while many are calling for nuclear power, new nuclear plants are not the answer to combating climate changes or the wavering energy concerns for the UK. From the article: "The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) report says doubling nuclear capacity would make only a small impact on reducing carbon emissions by 2035. The body, which advises the government on the environment, says this must be set against the potential risks. The government is currently undertaking a review of Britain's energy needs."
While I am a fan of alternatives, the problems for alternatives is that stable power plants are built to handle the worst loads. That is, when you design your grid and your sources, you use the dependable sources as the figuring of the input energy. Well, we may add more alternatives, but we still need to increasethe plants that can be counted on. Why? Because almost all energy is at the whim of mother earth. Of course, there is tidal, geothermal, and hydro available, which can be counted on. But most of the alternatives showing a great deal of promise are in wind and solar. They can NOT be counted on. So until a good viable way to capture the excess energy is created (hydrogen is a LONG ways off), then we will have to use on the normal types (coal, oil, gas, and nukes).
And personally, I think that Nukes is about the only good choice left.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Unfortunately, as they point out, instead of resulting in a decrease in carbon use, what it might do is simply give people the ability to blithely continue the current climb in power usage (i.e. no real decrease in carbon emissions). Worse yet: knowing that an increase in power capacity, people might just continue increasing their power usage, rather than holding back in the knowledge that a wall was up ahead (i.e. the result would be (at least in the short term) an increase in carbon emissions.
And, on top of that, a massive increase in nuclear power would have notable structural and political downsides.
It's nice when the answers in life are simple, but it's rare.
OS Software is like love: The best way to make it grow is to give it away.
Electric cars certainly produce less particulates against ICE cars. coal power stations go to a lot of trouble to remove particulates.
As for CO2, a coal powerstation is about 35% efficient at converting C to electricity, a LiIon battery is about 80% efficient round trip, and electric transmissions are about 90% efficient. The overall efficiency is thus about 25% C to miles.
ICE engines are on average about 15% efficient at converting C into miles.
Plug in hybrids probably make more sense.
Yeah, I'm with you there.
Next time I run down to the store to pick up a new computer, I'll bring in back home on my bike. Of course, it won't be in a box, so I'll take a blanket with me to the store to wrap it in for safety.
And, when I go for additional RAM, NATs, graphics boards, etc., I'll bring my own anti-static bags.
And then there's the candy and cookies for the kids. Buy in bulk or make our own, and when we take it with us we'll re-use baggies. Or wrap it in leaves.
Of course, since we'll be changing our suburban lifestyle, we won't be taking the kids to piano lessons all the time, that's less auto usage and less need for candy or cookies or other junk the can get quick energy on the road from. (On the other hand, if they are riding bicycles, they need more energy.)
Actually, this is not so much sarcasm as it might appear. I actually picked up my last sempron box with LCD monitor in Mikage, carried the bundle back to the train on foot (about a mile and a half if I remember right), and carried it from the local train station to home on the back of my bike.
My back was a little sore for a couple of days -- should have borrowed one of those wire-frame luggage carriers or something.
And my wife already does a lot of making and/or packaging her own quick food for the kids. Got to give her more credit for that.
From the article, these are the five major disadvantages identified by the CDC:
* No long-term solutions for the storage of nuclear waste are yet available, says the SDC, and storage presents clear safety issues
* The economics of nuclear new-build are highly uncertain, according to the report
* Nuclear would lock the UK into a centralised energy distribution system for the next 50 years when more flexible distribution options are becoming available
* The report claims that nuclear would undermine the drive for greater energy efficiency
* If the UK brings forward a new nuclear programme, it becomes more difficult to deny other countries the same technology, the SDC claims (emphasis mine)
While the first four are significant, the last one is an interesting angle I hadn't considered. If going nuclear becomes the model for leading first world countries, second and third one countries are going to demand the technology in order to follow the dominant pattern. If they're refused it, they'll probably feel very littlle remorse in cranking up their fossil fuel plants and polluting like elephants with dysentary in order to set up a little environmental blackmail. If every tinpot dictator is given nuclear tech, the chances of someone turning Manhatten or heaven forfend, downtown Vancouver into a radioactive cloud go up dramatically. Just on that point alone, it seems like going nuclear would only buy a respite of a few decades before the energy squeeze moves further down the chain and gifts us with a whole new set of problems.
What oil crisis?
Oil today (NYMEX): $61.47/bbl.
http://www-formal.stanford.edu/jmc/progress/nuclea r-faq.html
Electric cars that have been put out have ranges of about 100 miles, which is plenty for most people's weekly commutes. Part of the problem, though, was that it was just relocating the pollution - instead of it coming out of your tailpipe, it was coming out of a coal power plant. Nuclear power makes that go away completely.
Nuclear power + electric commuter cars = far less carbon emissions. I'm sure many people would buy a reasonably-priced electric car as a daily driver nowadays if it were marketed well enough (and have a second gas-powered car for longer trips).
The only way to really solve this problem is to stop wasting energy. The way to think about this is: if you have to live with using only 5% of the energy that you use now, what will you choose to use it on? Take it as a thought experiment - you're not allowed to invent ways to produce your own energy; assume that this has already been done. So what will you keep? A car? Your fridge? Your computer? How about not buying stuff that comes in unnecessary packaging? Avoiding ready made meals, drinks, snacks etc?
Perhaps 5% is not what we will have to live with in the future, it could be more or less, but I suspect it won't be far off at least for our children.