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Pandora's Promise and the Problem of "Solutionism"
Lasrick writes "Kennette Benedict of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reviews Pandora's Promise, a new documentary that focuses on environmental activists like Stewart Brand who have gone from vehemently anti-nuclear to vehemently pro-nuclear views. Good points brought up by Benedict that weren't really addressed in the film."
From the article: "The flaw in the film's approach is its zealous advocacy of one solution — one silver bullet — to meet the tremendous challenges of providing for some nine billion people by 2050, while also protecting societies from the ravages of climate disruption. The kind of thinking that led some of these environmentalists to single-mindedly protest nuclear power plants during the 1970s and 1980s leads them to just-as-single-mindedly advocate a push toward nuclear power 40 years later."
Of course they want nuclear power -- they just don't want it here.
The "you can only skip six times an hour" does indeed suck!
The Internet King? I wonder if he could provide faster nudity.
If that doesn't happen, it will be because solar undercut the price of nuclear without the waste or security problems... in that case, even better!
The most important thing for us to be spending our money on is trying to avoid that 9 billion, or at least trying not to go beyond it. Universally available (heavily subsidized) contraception is the first place to start. Secondly try to counter those who actually WANT to increase population numbers, like Erdogan & Romney and their respective religions. Once that's done there'll still be plenty of money left to pay for nuclear power.
Ironically, my mind has almost done the same but in reverse. As a sci-fi buff, and futurist, I love the idea, and have since the '70s, but the potential for megadisaster, though incredibly low, is severe if it ever happens.
Maybe the US and Western Europe can do it right, or right-er, anyway, but what about plants popcorning up all over the world? Will they follow the latest and greatest? Especially if it involves nationalism by local politicians to design it themselves.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Creaating nuclear power efficiently today requires uranium, something that is very limited on this planet.
If Fukashima has not occurred, we would be currently looking at a global uranium shortage in the next 5 years as existing major sources (re-purposing from old warheads) dry up and are not replaced with new mines.
Whenever production of power plants comes back on track, we will once again be facing such a shortage.
As far as I can tell, what's coming out the wrong end of a thorium reactor will be a molten salt soup of toxic, possibly very corrosive, and VERY radioactive materials
As opposed to what comes out of the "wrong end" of any coal-fired plant?
In any case, the above does not sound very pleasant. It sounds expensive and dangerous and potentially hazardous, a lot like how we store spent fuel rods now.
Dangerous *and* potentially hazardous? Well, let's give up and start living in caves then.
There's plenty of info on thorium reactors. Google can help you there. But you're not really interested in anything but spreading FUD. Carry on, then.
(-1, Raw and Uncut is the only way to read)
The review doesn't disagree that nuclear is a big part of the solution, it just complains that the authors sweep aside all other considerations and doesn't like their attitude toward anti-nuclear activists. In other words, it wants the anti-nuclear activists to have a voice.
What is disingenuous about Pandora's Promise is the way the new judgment is conveyed. The film mocks groups that continue to protest nuclear power, treating one-time colleagues as extremists and zealots. An audience discussion after a preview at the University of Chicago made it clear I was not the only one who sensed the self-righteous tone of the newly converted in the film's narrative. In the end, by dismissing the protestors and failing to engage them in significant debate about the pros and cons of nuclear energy, the film undermined its own message.
Nobody loves nuclear power, but what else can provide sufficient power to the world without damaging the climate? Burning carbon, including natural gas, will cause a catastrophe. Wind, solar and geothermal can't ramp up fast enough to meet power demand, AFAIK. Only nuclear power provides sufficient energy without causing more climate change.
Empirically, across a pretty wide range of situations, energy efficiency improvements tend to actually increase rather than decrease net energy usage, an observation known as the Jevons paradox.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
Natural Gas burns clean. Environmentalists are not against natural gas produced conventionally. They are against fracking because it affects the water table and has been shown to affect seismic activity as well. States that are heavily fracking are playing with fire.
If Fukashima has not occurred, we would be currently looking at a global uranium shortage in the next 5 years as existing major sources (re-purposing from old warheads) dry up and are not replaced with new mines.
Whenever production of power plants comes back on track, we will once again be facing such a shortage.
Yes there are limited reserves of uranium like everything else on the planet, but there is a lot more than 5 years... more like 200 according to this article. This is important because it buys us time to get technologies which are actually clean (looking at you, solar energy researchers) up to the speed of our current energy sources. Or find something else
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Best to have a diversified diet. The government needs to do only 2 things: don't subsidize, and make sure every energy form pays for its REAL cost. And that means one motherfucking hefty CO2 tax, and a big piggy bank full of money next to every nuclear plant to pay for dismantling when the time comes.
10 ?"Hello World" life was simple then
Really, those two disasters are some how worse than the tonnes of crap we've been pumping into the air unfiltered the past 150 years and continue doing today and at an increasing rate (here's looking at you China).
And there is a thorium fuel cycle that would use up most of that waste while providing plenty of affordable power for next 500 years. Yes it would probably take 20 years to get the first thorium reactors up, running, and certified for commercial use, but politics happen the be the biggest barrier here, not technology. In particular non-proliferation treaties.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
Doesn't matter if you blame the hippies - the bankers are the ones that are not going to let nuclear happen.
How is fukushima a mega disaster?
Chernobyl was not an accident, they did everything they could to destroy that reactor. Negligence sure, but no way accidental.
High level waste is not that hot after 10 years, much less 10,0000. Things would those kind of half lives are not that radioactive.
people selling snake oil or people whining about "solutionism".
Since when is a documentary required to promote every possible agenda? I haven't seen the documentary, but I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that it does not ignore nuclear power's downsides, especially considering its focus on previously anti-nuclear environmentalists.
"Solutionism" is a thought terminating cliche, a way to dismiss any solution because it doesn't encompass every possible solution. It's a ploy for people who only know rhetoric and politics to wrestle control of the debate from people who know science and engineering.
Consider the vacuous absurdity of the closing of the article:
No one is under any obligation to please you, the head of an anti-nuclear activist group, which is no stranger to zealotry. If you want other options, make your own documentary to promote them. You can make it "fact-based" too!
I think thorim reactors have a lot of potential. It's frustrating if non-proliferation treaties are in the way because thorium reactors don't produce bomb material. You still have the waste-storage problem, though.
[Sir Garlon] is the marvellest knight that is now living, for he destroyeth many good knights, for he goeth invisible.
If Fukushima was a megadisaster, then we should also ban solar panels, coal power plants, hydro dams and just about every other source of power because there have been a lot more deaths for individual "disasters" with those than with Fukushima. Fukushima was a consequence of one of the worst tsunamis ever recorded, and didn't even kill anyone. There were more injuries from hydrogen explosions due to buildup than from radioactivity. Fukushima was transformed into a gigantic backlash because the media played off the fear of the public with anything that concerns nuclear.
Review those designs and accident reports. Two too many failures; but, they could have been mitigated.
Graphite moderated reactors were considered too dangerous for commercial use by the late '50's or early '60's by every country except the U.S.S.R. It was cheap and they needed power so they built quite a few of them. It is difficult to know exactly what happened; but, it appears an ill advised and unauthorized experiment was run on the system, with all the safeties turned off. When the reactor crashed, the operator(s) panicked and they tried to do something which was known to cause explosive power surges which could result in catastrophic failures. And it did. This should not have happened.
Fukushima Diachi was a 1960's design that is considered quite dated and had a few known failure modes. The company operating the reactors basically refused to do all the expensive updates to improve the reactor's safety. They also ignored warnings that the sea wall was inadequate for worst case tsunami, which happened. It flooded their electrical system(s) and generators, which were at or below grade level. Because the earthquake knocked out their grid power supply, they had zero options for power. This led to the loss of cooling. Then, for political reasons, the operator tried to downplay the damage, rather than ask for help when they desperately needed it. It did not have to be this way.
Frankly, with the aging inventory of reactor systems operating in the world, I do not expect these to be the last. Having said that, for the purposed of full disclosure, I live near two large power reactors, a major naval base, and one of the two shipyards where they build, overhaul and test nuclear powered ships in the U.S. I don't fear it.
Waste storage is something we do need to solve. Either through re-use or through deep storage somewhere. I don't have an answer for you that's based on real engineering.
They believe it affects the water table and has been shown to affect seismic activity as well.
As far as I know, there is none of those legendary peer review studies that actually shows it, much less a consensus.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Solutionism?
Seriously?
How deprived of all faculity of thinking must a movement become to come up with the idea of "solutionism" as a critique? There is a problem and people think about solutions. Any solution would, of course, be reason for existential difficulties of the problem. But the problem is the basis of power of said movements. When the problem goes away, so does the power that came with it, when the movement came into existence and so does the only solution the movement sanctioned: complete austerity and refraining from any use of technology and any interaction with nature as much as in any way possible.
"Solutionism" is the latest, most ludicrous and hopefully last, attempt at defending the only solution "environmentalism" ever came up - by denying the adequancy of any solution of their problem whatsoever. Thus perpetuating their claim to power indefinitely - you know, the UNSOLVED PROBLEMS of technology.
Go and rot in hell.
So much money spent chasing different solutions... Billions into solar etc. Why can't we get $200 Million for a 100 megawatt Polywell Fusion plant? It'll either work, or fall on it's ass. Compared to the billions spent on the other pipe dreams a $200 Million dollar yes/no crapshoot seems pretty reasonable to me. The reward is worth it. The risk is pretty minimal. $200 Million that would be wasted in any other area of government.
The summary paints this picture that it's defective motivations that lead people to go from anti nuke to pro nuke. Au contrair. In the 1970s and 1980s it made a lot of sense to be anti-nuke just as it now makes sense to be anti-GMO. Those people did us a huge favor. They forced these industries to account for the unpaid externality costs that they were free ridiing on. The nuke industry was a headlong rush to market paid for with public bonds going into private investors pockets with very little accounting for the costs of downstream waste disposal, the risks of faclities, and under appreciated environmental costs (such as the tennessee rivers being sterilized by excessive heating).
The protestors forced the nuke industry to face a large regulatory and captical risk hurdle to develop new plants. This forced a better accounting even if the actual costs they were including were only proxies for the real costs. IN the mean time the technology has advanced remarkably.
We also have a better grip on the future costs of peower production and an attentiveness to conservation of power that we did no have then. Fracking has come online, renewables are forming a competitive market.
Nuke power now has a good role to play as a major part of a power mix, especially in china where demand is insatiable and the olny alternative is coal.
It makes complete sense to start developing nuclear power under these safe, sober conditions with the externalities properly built into the costs.
thus this is not "soluionism" as a reasoning defect. It's simply good reasoning in both cases. changing your mind as conditions change actually shows these people were not simply hung up on nuclear = evil but rather the nuclear plants of the time in the market of the time were potentially a bad idea.
I'd say GMO and Fracking are at the same level today. There's a gold rush for these with very little accounting for the true external costs (e.g. water aquifer destruction, fugitive methane, and maybe earthquakes, all being uncosted while wars are driving up the price of oil faster than alternatives can replace it. This means market forces now are out of balance and could cause imprudent envirnmental destruction).
But fracking can be done safely eventually but may have to be done away from aquifers and with better technology.
GMO is going to be the next green revolution. But it's fraught with perils. Even the risk of excessive monocropping leading to a potatoe famine like disaster is not absurd. GMO is oversold right nowand is dangerous because of the unkown risk exposure but will be very important later. We need to let a generation of beta testers pass by at very low levels of introduction of GMO before we allow it to spread. By then we will know how to monitor it's hazzards better.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
You seem to be saying nuclear power is safe because the risks were known, but nobody did anything about them. I say nuclear power is unsafe, for exactly the same reason.
It's more along the lines of "Stop pointing at accident performance for 1967 VW beetles when we want to build modern cars".
I want new nuclear plants so we can finally shut down the end of life plants, as well as the nasty by design coal systems.
I don't read AC A human right
Nuclear power is useful, but as a technology, it's frustrating. The power reactor technology that works is basically a simple water-cooled device with a lot of external plumbing. It's a mediocre approach, but everything else is worse.
Many fancier reactor designs have been tried - sodium cooling, pebble bed, gas cooling, breeders, etc. The track record of alternative designs is very poor. Anything with moving parts inside the reactor, which is a very hostile environment, tends to fail. Sodium cooled systems have sodium fires. Pebble bed reactors have pebble jams. Gas cooled reactors leak. Breeders have trouble with the fuel changing mechanism. Anything that fails inside the reactor means a complete cold shutdown or worse. The failed German pebble bed reactor which had a pebble jam can't even be fully decommissioned.
That's why we're stuck with big, dumb water-cooled reactors.
Go fuck yourself.
http://planetsave.com/2011/12/10/newest-epa-report-confirms-fracking-fluids-contaminating-pavillion-wyoming-water-supply/
“The presence of synthetic compounds such as glycol ethersand the assortment of other organic components is explained as the result of direct mixing of hydraulic fracturing fluids with ground water in the Pavillion gas field”
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fracking-linked-water-contamination-federal-agency
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Here's a mind bender: even with that low power density, the Sun still manages to lose 4 million tons of mass PER SECOND.
Mostly random stuff.
The EPA documented that fracking fluids are mixing with ground water.
Yes, this is a draft (not preliminary) report. However, unless the oil&gas industry buys out the EPA completely, they're not going to change their findings.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
"The argument was always that natural gas was less damaging then coal."
In combustion, yes, because gas has more hydrogen to burn than coal.
But in production, even the small % of methane which is inevitably leaked escapes to the atmosphere unburnt where it has a much more potent greenhouse effect (per molecule) than CO2, and could cause substantial climate forcing. Methane though does have a much shorter atmospheric lifetime than CO2.