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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.
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.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
How has their position changed? Nuclear was their primary focus as an energy source in 1990, and is still a part of the strategy to move away from fossil fuels, the only shift is that other renewable energy source have grown more viable.
...how they feel about nuclear power as an "eco-friendly" source of "renewable" energy.
And the rest of the growing list of countries phasing it out completly.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_phase-out
Exactly how many nuclear disasters does it take before we figure out how to do what these other countries are already doing?
Sent from my ENIAC
In addition to the well known nuclear waste issue and well proven dangers of plant meltdowns, you also have proliferation issues with rogue states claiming peaceful use, liberation of waist heat dumped to the environment, and even after that, the more nuclear power you create, the more you get people used to unlimited power and the more their thirst for cheap fossil fuel power. The answer is conservation and population control, not escalation of generation.
The problem is that any real measurement of global warming impact has to be done using the Cradle-to-Grave methodology to be true. The mining process is fairly bad in impacts, and the 10,000 year storage and movement and cleanup dilemma makes it a non-starter.
Now, don't get me wrong, I've owned nuclear fission utilities in the past. But it's highly subsidized and not a good choice at all.
On the upside, nuclear fusion research is promising here at the UW, so if your heart is set on nuclear, maybe fusion will pencil out.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Construction "costs" are probably similar to building a coal or natural gas plant of similar capacity. The actual electricity production is the same in all of them; only the "boiler" changes.
"Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it." - George Santayana
> Today, wind can augment hydro, and to lesser degree, other power sources.
Food for thought...
Six months worth of Canada's total power use is currently backed up behind dams on the east side of James Bay.
One of the best wind resources in north america is the east side of James Bay.
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...
Construction "costs" are probably similar to building a coal or natural gas plant of similar capacity.
No, nuclear plants cost a lot more up-front to build, even if you figure per GWh. It really only pays-off in the long term.
Quick cheesy reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
Capital costs (including waste disposal and decommissioning costs for nuclear energy) - tend to be low for fossil fuel power stations; high for wind turbines, solar PV; very high for waste to energy, wave and tidal, solar thermal, and nuclear.
"Claims that nuclear power is a 'low carbon' energy source fall apart under scrutiny, writes Keith Barnham. Far from coming in at six grams of CO2 per unit of electricity for Hinkley C, as the Climate Change Committee believes, the true figure is probably well above 50 grams - breaching the CCC's recommended limit for new sources of power generation beyond 2030." http://www.theecologist.org/Ne...
You would need a large power source that could result in there being some surplus electricity. This electricity could be used for one of the many very inefficient processes of reclaiming carbon from the atmosphere (de-carbonization).
Maybe the hydro, wind, and solar can be enough on their own for that. But a modern nuclear power plant can produce an amazing amount of electricity.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
If you are concerned about carbon in the environment and do not support fission for electrical generation, You Are Not Really Concerned About Carbon.
No, that is complete bollocks.
No. Actually it's not.
If you purport to be concerned about carbon in the environment, and you don't support modern fission for electrical generation?
You, quite simply, have NOT thought through the equation well enough.
While some of the renewables COULD be built to a point that you could use them, in conjunction, for base load, the main problem is that the power STORAGE technology for such an undertaking just doesn't exist.
Without that, the build-out for a complete system is several orders of magnitude LARGER and several more orders of magnitude more intricate. This makes them totally unfeasible from pretty much EVERY logistical standpoint.
Yes, granted, we COULD build enough nuclear capacity to cover energy consumption for the entire planet for years/decades/centuries to come (both base and peak).
That's uneconomical. We're better off building nuclear to cover base load in the truly foreseeable future (basically over the 50 year lifespan of a typical generator), and then augmenting with renewables for peaks.
Once that's done, LOTS of research (and MONEY) needs to be poured into two things.
1: Fusion
2: Improvement of storage technologies/methods.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"You guys, I have to sit in a roomful of hippies (and ex-hippies now in $1000 suits) to produce these Climate Change reports. Seriously, if you are going to tell me I have to advocate Nuclear Power in that setting, I'm going to start expensing the rental of a goddamn shark cage.
-Bill"
-Styopa
The thing that bugs me, is we haven't really even given Nuclear power a very good try yet.
We barely dipped our toes into the technology and then stopped, its only been a few decades worth so far. Imagine if we gave up on other technologies such as electricity, refrigeration, combustion engines, farming, aircraft, boats, or whatever after only a couple of decades of trying.
There is massive potential for engineering solutions to be developed to the problems that are present in these early attempts at nuclear power.
For people to just who totally say "no nuclear power", I say you are taking an ANTI-SCIENCE position.
-- Given enough time and money, Microsoft will eventualy invent UNIX.
The original question wasn't about money cost, it was about "carbon cost". Hence my answer.
"Almost every wise saying has an opposite one, no less wise, to balance it." - George Santayana
Oh, I see, yes. Hmmm.
Since we are in a mostly "carbon economy" the carbon cost is usually proportional to monetary cost. So if a nuclear plant costs more money, it probably consumes more carbon too. I post this because I find it unlikely that a nuclear plant which takes a lot more time and money to build, would have the same carbon cost as a ubiquitous coal or oil plant.
I've read up quite a bit on the fast reactor, so I understand quite a bit on the potential benefits at least in layman terms, but not being a nuclear engineer, I have no clue how well those potentials translates in practical terms.I believe they can be made much safer eventually, but I don't think I understand enough to see if they can really produce less long lived high level waste with cost factored in. Is it possible for them to transmute most of the long lived waste without affecting the economy of power generation too negatively.
Also, I think I understand most of the technical challenges associated with fast type reactors, and it seems to me that most of the challenges should be able to overcome with more trials. Yet, there really aren't production level trials besides BN-600/800 and some research reactors in India. Is it mostly political problems or is there still significant engineering challenges that prevents larger scale trials? And finally, how promising is the BN-600 design really? Is BN-800 off to pretty good start?
I wonder nuclear energy's chance to shine might be sailing away. I have to imagine it'd take another 10-20 years before fast/breeder reactors are ready to replace fossil fuel reactors in large scale, and solar energy probably would be ready for large scale generation by then.
Nuclear plants definitely have a larger carbon cost to build. This is easily seen from the necessity of concrete containment structures - which produce a lot of carbon dioxide from the manufacture of cement (~6% of global CO2 emissions are from cement plants). Their high capital cost must reflect to some degree a high energy cost (and thus higher CO2 production cost) as well.
Second class citizen of the New Gilded Age
I have been to the area around 3-mile Island. I don't know if you have been there recently like I have, but I do know I'm glad I'm not raising a family near there. Their genetic material has been forever altered, and it was clear to me, after I asked a friend, "what is -wrong- with the people around here?" and found out I was only miles from the site. Yes, that is how I discovered I was near 3-mile Island. By simple observation of the population. It was that clear.
I would hope we can come up with a more inventive solution to a technology that clearly has a very deep, dark, downside for innocent civilians.
Or, if you prefer, keep drinking that koolaid 'yall, and keep your family away from the reactors.
Sent from my ENIAC
Imagine the jobs of swapping in and out AA or D cell batteries (if they are forward thinking) to store and release energy as needed.
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
As I means of shortening discussions and ruling out having stupid ones it's easy to follow a simple rule. If anyone is urging a reduction in CO2 emissions, but is NOT pushing hard for more nuclear power, they aren't really interested in a solution and can be ignored.
Disappointing that the IPCC is flirting with failing such a basic litmus test.
Norway is hydro limited by how much water they can store from spring and summer for the winter heating needs. Wind power in Scandinavia produces most power in winter, right when hydro reservoirs are closest to running dry. If Canada is similar, it can integrate amazing amounts of wind power into the hydro system.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
One of the things to remember is that whilst Human Beings have a vested interest in their survival and will do anything to survive, the same can be held true for the Nuclear Industry. The Nuclear Industry has a vested interest in shaping people's worldview to influence the industries' survival and utilizes enormous resources to convince people of their case.
This leads me to the IPCC. In reading the 2007 report I noticed that one of their sources of information to assess the viability of Nuclear energy on climate change is a document produced by an organization with a vested interest in promoting Nuclear power, Vattenfall. I read it back in 2005 (sorry I can't find a link). Rather than a study it's called a "Environmental Product Declaration" which was written to comply with Swedish regulations in 2004, it has not been peer reviewed and was "certified" until 2007. For example, it paints an optimistic picture of the Nuclear Industry's energetic return from mining and Uranium availability through to reactor decommissioning. So it appears this commercial document has been used to deceive the IPCC.
However, a formal, peer reviewed energy analysis from Nuclear Industry Scientists is available to the IPCC in a study called Nuclear Power Insights that uses established scientific methods to arrive at their conclusions. It is a comprehensive and fascinating read, which is in line with the scope and size of the nuclear industry and dispels many of the assumptions surrounding the nuclear industry. In, short the formal analysis assesses the ability of the Nuclear Industry to provide a "net energy return" based on energetic inputs and finds that roughly two thirds of its output is consumed by industrial processes external to the actual production of nuclear power. The carbon intensity of the nuclear industry is also examined.
It was quite confronting to have my worldview of Nuclear Power challenged and I had to take bites out of reading it to avoid being overloaded, however it was worth the effort in dispelling many of the long held assumptions and replacing them with good information and fact.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
Nuclear plants definitely have a larger carbon cost to build. This is easily seen from the necessity of concrete containment structures - which produce a lot of carbon dioxide from the manufacture of cement (~6% of global CO2 emissions are from cement plants). Their high capital cost must reflect to some degree a high energy cost (and thus higher CO2 production cost) as well.
In addition to this, there is a high carbon cost involved in the mining of uranium due to the amount of ore that has to be crushed. I do have the math around, however this alone amounted to a staggering one third of the lifetime output of a new AP-1000 reactor, IIRC.
The next carbon sink was the enrichment process which is also a highly energetic and carbon intense process due to the electricity it consumes. Reactor decommissioning come into this as well and is also quite high and consumes another one third of the output, again IIRC.
My ism, it's full of beliefs.
You really are a crackpot! I see you've been working hard at it.
I'm a big fan of wind power. However wind power cannot go it alone, and alternate renewable are NOT enough to take up the slack. One is a periodic generator, which if there was infinite (or at least sufficient) storage we would not be having this conversation. However storage is even harder than generation. Nuclear is a base generator. I think it can do better, but the difficulty is that the money and resources have not been going into R&D for many years now, partly because of popularity (or lack of it), and partly because non-renewable is cheap and easy so why bother.
That said, wind weirdly enough has seemingly just as many detractors to it's construction. They take up a large foot print of land. They get tons of resistance from "environmentalists", for killing bats, birds, looking ugly on the landscape, and perhaps more importantly, affect the real estate values of those people that can afford to be green and generally live in the country or on the waterfront.
Anyway, in a perfect world, we would have a lot of wind power, and just enough small scale closed loop advanced nuclear options to cover off when the wind isn't blowing.
I seriously doubt any nuclear option slows the progress of wind power. The biggest thing that slows wind power are land owners who don't want wind power in their neighborhood. So basically NIMBY. Unfortunately like a lot of renewable energy, wind is also pretty geographically dependent. It just so happens that those areas also usually have the highest land values, which have the people with the biggest lobby (i.e. wealthy people).
... because according to popular opinion, collateral damage is worth the risk, (See me being modding "troll" for my unpopular opinion, above,) because they are not the ones having to deal with the fallout.
Thanks, America.
Sent from my ENIAC
The 6% number for cement is well known bullshit.
They count all the CO2 liberated in cement production, but don't count the CO2 absorbed when it sets. It does have an energy cost, but it's much lower.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Well, the article points out that the IPCC came around on nuclear in the 2014 report: 'Nuclear is once again grouped with renewable energy as the key elements of a low-carbon energy system, along with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS).' You may be right, but I think part of the opposition to nuclear also has to do with cost, not with the science/safety issue.