The IPCC's Shifting Position On Nuclear Energy

Lasrick writes Suzanne Waldman writes about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and its stand on nuclear power over the course of its five well-known climate change assessment reports. The IPCC was formed in 1988 as an expert panel to guide the drafting of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, ratified in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. The treaty's objective is to stabilize greenhouse gases in the atmosphere at a safe level. Waldman writes: 'Over time, the organization has subtly adjusted its position on the role of nuclear power as a contributor to de-carbonization goals," and she provides a timeline of those adjustments.

Comments

About time.

[LWATCDR]

Solar's production curve does not match the peak user curve of electrical power. Wind is a good bit better but still needs natural gas peaking plants to back it.
For low carbon base load power you have only three choices.
1. Hydro
2. Nuclear
3. Geothermal.
1 and 3 are location limted.

Re:About time.

[gurps_npc]

Storage is notoriously DIFFICULT.

If you came up with some kind of Shipstone (Heinlein's super battery) then your idea would work.

But using current technology, electrical storage is:

1) heavy

2) Expensive

3) Leaky (slowly losing power, converting it to heat)

4) Relatively short term - see leaky.

5) Limited lifespan (each charge cycle decreases how much the next one can hold).

6) inefficient - it takes 200 units to store 100 units.

So while your idea works in principle, in practice it fails.

Re:Ask Japan...

[digsbo]

Exactly how many nuclear disasters does it take before we figure out we should be using newer, safer, cleaner nuclear technology?

FTFY.

Re:So... nuclear power is still supported?

[ShanghaiBill]

Concerns about rising costs seem to have come and then faded away with new technology.

Concerns about rising costs have NOT faded away. Nuclear costs are higher than ever, and rising, as costs of other power sources continue to fall. Post-Fukushima safety measures will raise costs. Waste storage will raise costs. Reduced subsidies will raise costs. Fuel reprocessing actually raises costs rather than reducing them. New technologies, such as pebble beds, thorium fluoride, traveling wave reactors, are decades away, even if they work at all.

There may be good reasons to build new nukes, but cost is not one of them.

Opportunity cost

[mdsolar]

Nuclear is so much more expensive than wind, that using it slows the progress of clean energy by tying up resources. http://will.illinois.edu/nfs/R...