Slashdot Mirror
Citi Report: Slowing Global Warming Could Save Tens of Trillions of Dollars
Layzej writes with news carried by The Guardian about a report published by the Global Perspectives & Solutions division of Citibank (America's third-largest bank) examining the costs and benefits of a low-carbon future. The report examined two hypothetical futures: one "business as usual," and the other (the "Action" scenario) which includes an aggressive move to reduce energy use and carbon emission.
From the article: "One of the most interesting findings in the report is that the investment costs for the two scenarios are almost identical. In fact, because of savings due to reduced fuel costs and increased energy efficiency, the Action scenario is actually a bit cheaper than the Inaction scenario. Coupled with the fact the total spend is similar under both action and inaction, yet the potential liabilities of inaction are enormous, it is hard to argue against a path of action."
But there will be winners and losers, says the report: "The biggest loser stands to be the coal industry, where we estimate cumulative spend under our Action scenario could be $11.6 trillion less than in our Inaction scenario over the next quarter century, with renewables, wind and nuclear (as well as energy efficiency) the main beneficiaries."
>> the Action scenario is actually a bit cheaper than the Inaction scenario
Did you write that with a straight face? In any "strawman" study like this (with only two possible courses), the "take my specific action" will ALWAYS be shown to be the smarter/cheaper/faster/better option.
(Now, back to TFA article - I want to see what this one's about.)
That is all.
If you'd stop calling them "nukes", it would help. That word is usually associated with bombing and deaths. And anyone who's pro-environment and anti-nuclear doesn't make any sense. Just because some nuclear power plants are badly designed and/or badly run doesn't mean the concept itself is flawed.
Yes, what is interesting about this is who wrote it-- this is one of the first detailed analyses of the methods and costs of dealing with global warming that I've seen that is not from an advocacy group, and is written by people who actually have a clue about real world economics.
Not true. "Nuke" is usually associated with food.
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
So if we just call them a fundamental global cooling device we may get people to agree to a nuclear winter bombing?
I agree with the statement that we probably should do something before it becomes an unfixable problem assuming it hasn't already become an unfixable problem. It's like maintenance for your car. You can get lazy and wait till something breaks but at that point it will probably cost you a great deal more and be far more inconvenient than if you had kept up with maintenance. The reality or problem is that people are rarely ever pro-active and on top of that people who make a living on the "stay the course" lifestyle obviously don't want change because it threatens their living even if it were to all come crashing down someday. And crash it will, although we might be able to weather this storm, there's many in poorer countries that are the end of their rope so to speak. When you have no future, food or home because its underwater there's nothing stopping you from trying to take it by force.
History I suspect will show that we either finally as a species managed to find some sort of co-operation and saved our world or we followed our own selfish interests and imploded.
If you'd stop calling them "nukes", it would help. That word is usually associated with bombing and deaths.
I have to agree. It was purely an anomaly, what happened at Fukushima, Onagawa, Fleurus, Forsmark, Erwin, Sellafield, Atucha, Braidwood, Paks, Tokaimura, Yanangio, Ikitelli, Ishikawa, Tomsk, Cadarache, Vandellos, Greifswald, Chernobyl, Hamm-Uentrop, Tsuraga, Saint Laurent des Eaux, Three Mile Island, Jaslovské Bohunice, Lucens, Chapelcross, Monroe, Charlestown, Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Chalk River, Vina, Kyshtym, Windscale Pile, and Chalk River.
Source: http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2011/mar/14/nuclear-power-plant-accidents-list-rank
Carbon emissions only happen because they're cost effective.
And they're only cost effective because of heavy cost externalization. (Pollution is a cost you force on everyone else.) And market distortion (Regulatory capture, trade protection, mineral exploitation of poor countries with corrupt governments, etc)
If we develop cleaner tech now, the prices will come down in the future and become competitive. The market will solve the emission problem at that point. We can help the process by ending market distortion that favors pollution energy sources. (Subsidizing clean energy is an imperfect, but politically easy way to do this too)
Just look at solar. Solar's been developing for a long time now and it's now clear that it will be cheaper than most other energy sources in the near future. For many it's already a viable alternative. Once we build a smart, decentralized, elastic power grid with local storage you'll see shiny blue fields and rotating blades everywhere. It's inevitable. Gas powered cars will follow in short order.
Fission via cookie cutter design. We need to make modern reactors, something you build in a factory, something that has a standard interface, and general has a design life.
Companies are trying to get this going, things like sealed reactors that are expected to got back and get refurbished, scrapped or whatever in 30 years.
Right now we keep building one off's as to get the political support you need to hire a pile of construction workers for years to build everything. Problem is they cost massive amounts to build and operate.
No sir I dont like it.
As opposed to all the radiation being released every day by coal plants?
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
There's no such thing as a disaster that's a disaster for everyone. War is a disaster for people in general, but it's great for munitions makers. Hurricanes are no good for the people who live through them, but very good for companies that sell them building materials.
Every catastrophe is a windfall for someone. If the public saves tens of trillions of dollars by slowing down climate change then that's tens of billions of dollars of revenue somebody won't be making.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Compare deaths from nukes vs deaths from coal. There is no comparison. For each person killed by nuclear power generation, 4,000 die from coal. Nuclear is by far the safer option - http://www.the9billion.com/201...
Yeah, at this rate all of the nuclear accident deaths (~40k up to ~300k depending on who you trust) will catch up with pollution deaths (7 million a year) in a few hundred years if we were to use nuclear power for everything.
In the short term, however, I am fairly confident that successfully slowing global warming will cost a pretty tidy penny itself
This has not been true so far. The biggest reductions in CO2 have come from:
1. Gas produced from hydraulic fracturing, replacing coal
2. Efficiency improvements, such as LED lighting, variable speed DC motors, etc.
These have SAVED money.
Of course, massive government subsidies for solar power and electric vehicles have cost a lot, but those haven't actually contributed much to CO2 reductions.
"That word is usually associated with bombing and deaths."
The flat-earth lobby will associate any other term with bombing and death also. Because years ago it decided to come out against the whole upper region of the periodic table, any use of nuclear against AGW will have to take place over their dead bodies. Time to warm up the legal steamroller now.
Who gives a damn about the coal industry? I mean, what about the heroin industry? Dealers have a right to make a living, right?
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
So Citibank made billions in bad loans, almost went under, took massive bailouts and then awarded their executives huge bonuses.
What does this say about their knowledge of financial matters?
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
If we really took this problem seriously, we'd be pushing hard on nuclear fusion research. I suspect we could have had fusion plants up and running before 2000 if there had been research funding. Now it's 2015 and we've got lots of fusion research projects limping along on shoestring budgets, plus ITER which is paralyzed by bureaucracy and international politics. (Remember the 20 years they wasted arguing over where to build it?)
If we managed the Apollo Program the way we've managed ITER, people today would still be laughing at the idea of space travel and joking that "A moon landing is thirty years away -- and always will be!"
Solar is only cost effective because of heavy cost externalization (Taxes for Solyndra subsidies is a cost you force on the middle class).
For some unknown reason, seeing a BANK funded study makes me not trust it.
Some things need to be said...
Yep you're off the standard left-right conspiracy axis and off into imaginary space.
A goodly chunk of the One Percent _want_ AGW-fueled (emphasis on FUEL) disasters, as it will 'thin the herd' of the underclass (starting with foreigners but eventually even the domestic useful idiots), all the while turning a hefty profit. It's just "Make Room! Make Room!" with a sound ROI.
But THIS time their predictions are accurate, and they really mean it. Sure, the goalposts keep moving, but the important thing is their prediction is apocalyptic, so you HAVE to listen and take action. The actual accuracy of the predictions isn't important.
Oh wait, you are interested in actually dealing with reality instead of an agenda?
That seems like a long list until you look at what is on that list. You are placing Atucha in the same category with Fukushima. At Atucha one worker was exposed above the annual limit. That is very different than a meltdown. Of that list there have been 3 releases of radioactivity. Three Mile Island of those was 35 years ago. Chernobyl was built 35 years ago. Technology changes and gets better over time.
I have to agree. It was purely an anomaly, what happened at Fukushima, Onagawa, Fleurus, Forsmark, Erwin, Sellafield, Atucha, Braidwood, Paks, Tokaimura, Yanangio, Ikitelli, Ishikawa, Tomsk, Cadarache, Vandellos, Greifswald, Chernobyl, Hamm-Uentrop, Tsuraga, Saint Laurent des Eaux, Three Mile Island, Jaslovské Bohunice, Lucens, Chapelcross, Monroe, Charlestown, Santa Susana Field Laboratory, Chalk River, Vina, Kyshtym, Windscale Pile, and Chalk River.
You are having trouble, I see, distinguishing commercial nuclear energy events from cold war nuclear activity& related waste events, and also from distinguishing events with radiation releases from other events, and likely don't understand the relative impact of any of them.
1952, Chalk River, Canada: A reactor shutoff rod failure, combined with several operator errors, led to a major power excursion of more than double the reactor's rated output at AECL's NRX reactor.
Many of the other "nuclear accidents" (OMG!! OMG!!!) you're trolling are equally exciting, and this one is rated at 5 on a scale of 1-7.
They reason EV's haven't contributed much to CO2 reductions is because there isn't enough of them. They represent but the a tiny fraction of just 1 percent of the total number of vehicles out there.
Between that and the fact that much of the main power grid, from which electric vehicles ultimately derive their power, is still often using less than environmentally friendly approaches to power generation, it is hardly surprising that EV usage has not contributed very much to CO2 reduction. The fact that it has produced as much reduction as it actually *has* speaks volumes to how much of a difference it could make if such vehicles became the norm instead of the exception.
But yes.... it will be expensive. Believing otherwise is only putting idealism ahead of realism.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Add other energy improvements such as insulation, higher efficiency HVAC, etc. Also, extending the life of existing nuclear plants in the US has offset huge amounts.
Or 'a Cola' ....
"If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear." - Every fascist, ever
That list is clearly bogus. For example it lists Onagawa. The plant did shut down a couple times due to earthquakes but those shutdowns went by the book and so can't properly be considered nuclear incidents at all.
Of the ones that don't represent things going exactly as expected, or non nuclear incidents at a nuclear plant (a fire in an administrative building, REALLY?), most are industrial accidents that released no radiation into the environment (because the safety systems worked as designed).
For all the FUD, TMI released less radiation than a typical coal plant does in normal operation.
That fictional disaster show wasn't accurate? Shocking!
Insurance is more believable than Citibank - which relies on loans and investment in capital growth areas for income. (of which Coal and other established utilities are not)
Insurance has it's own flaws. Many of the WTF provisions in the building code (wired, networked smoke alarms without requiring a central management point or cutoff, residential sprinkler systems, head heights, deck railing requirements, etc.) have been written by the insurance industry to reduce their risk. Still, on a long term, overview approach to reducing risk and costs, they're pretty astute.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
So let's see..we'll make a list of the people who cannot be trusted when it comes to climate change:
1. Climate scientists
2. NASA
3. The Insurance Industry, which is already figuring climate change into their actuarial tables
4. The energy industry, which is already using climate change models in their strategic planning
5. The military, which is already using climate change models in their strategic planning
6. The financial industry
I guess all that's left for you to trust is Alex Jones, Breitbart, Fox News and Jesus. Good luck with that.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I prefer to think of it as banks will play along with whoever is in power. Or, on may cases, both parties. Look how their political contributions go to both opposing sides.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
Those subsidies will pay off in the coming decades when those things become cheap enough for everyone.
Not true. West Texas doesn't subsidize solar, and there are mammoth solar arrays being installed there. Note that this is the Wall Street Journal, not a particularly liberal paper.
I love Mondays. On a Monday, anything is possible.
If you are worried about the radiation then you have another good reason to switch from coal to nuclear. "the fly ash emitted by a power plant—a by-product from burning coal for electricity—carries into the surrounding environment 100 times more radiation than a nuclear power plant producing the same amount of energy." - http://www.scientificamerican....
And then you need to consider the turnover time of CO2 in the atmosphere is measured in centuries, not years. - http://www.ipcc.ch/publication...
"The biggest loser stands to be the coal industry, where we estimate cumulative spend under our Action scenario could be $11.6 trillion less than in our Inaction scenario over the next quarter century, with renewables, wind and nuclear (as well as energy efficiency) the main beneficiaries."
Wrong.
The main beneficiaries here are humans, as we wise up and discover more and better ways of creating energy that do not rely upon resources that are depleting and will eventually no longer exist for our use.
I grow tired of seeing only a capitalistic viewpoint as we look to define winners and losers in this ever-growing problem that the human race faces. Buggy-whip manufacturers are not viewed as "losers" today. Their technology was merely replaced, just as coal and oil will be one day.
Those subsidies will pay off in the coming decades when those things become cheap enough for everyone.
It is not clear if this is true. Some economists believe the subsidies are counter-productive, because they have encouraged the mass production of inferior technologies, and drained resources away from research into technologies that actually make sense. Subsidies for R&D are probably a good idea. Subsidies for mass production, not so much.
Where will all those miners go to get their tumors?
I guess all that's left for you to trust is Alex Jones, Breitbart, Fox News and Jesus. Good luck with that.
You've placed Jesus on the wrong list. He's on side with the economists/scientists/etc (so sayeth the pope): http://www.christianpost.com/n...
Also, this is prima facie false (althpugh liberals often rely on it being true):
> it is hard to argue against a path of action
Not at all. Here ya go:
Sticking a pencil in your eye is a path of action.
Sticking a pencil in your eye is obviously stupid.
Therefore, the path of action is stupid.
The question isn't "should we get out of bed and do something today?" The question is "WHAT should we do today? Should we go to work, rob our neighbor's house, plant a tree?" Another important question that is often debated, though in different terms, is "who is this 'we'?"
It's pretty obvious that things need to get done.
WHAT should be done? HOW should it be done? WHO should do it? What are the COSTS? How will it be PAID for? What are the alternatives? These are the questions of the day, and of every day.
Many, if not most, discussions with liberals follow this pattern:
Something should be done.
Plan X is something.
Therefore, plan X should be done.
Note they don't bother to read plan X. Plan X is something, and something should be done, so we should do plan X.
You have to pass the bill to know what's in it.
The other question about "we should do something" is "who is we"? My wife and I have a daughter. She's a year old, so she can't read yet. We should teach her to read. Who is the "we" who should teach her? My wife and I? The local school district? The federal government? These are questions worth discussing.
In the inaction scenario the technology and costs are fairly certain and predictable. But there is a possibility that they may be avoidable if warming turns out to be less than predicted.
In the action scenario there is a risk that all the abatement expenditure was fruitless, either because it didn't work, was too late to be of use, or because it just wasn't needed in the first place. Even so, the commitment will have been made and adaptation and cost avoidance impossible - money down the drain.
So without a huge economic benefit to either option, it comes down to risk and flexibility.
Also remember that there are more than these two options, having their attendant risks. Geoengineering, for example.
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
Still no resolution to the waste issue.
Now start the "things we could do in theory" discussion.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
You do know that underground coal mine fires in China produce as much CO2 as the US vehicle fleet, right? Coming up with a good way of extinguishing those fires would help reduce CO2, but it's a lot harder than it sounds. There have been some fires in Australia that have been burning for thousands of years.
Not sure where you got your numbers, but you appear to be comparing total nuclear deaths to rate of pollution deaths. What is the rate of nuclear deaths?
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
we had a resolution, and spent billions on it, only for the nimbys and enviros to screw that all up
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
And for the "climate change" nazis,
Hi, Nazi here.
overdue for a mini ice age phenomena.
The word "phenomena" is plural. You should say "a ... phenomenon" to make it singular. Thank you, that is all.
Of course, massive government subsidies for solar power and electric vehicles have cost a lot, but those haven't actually contributed much to CO2 reductions.
lol that's the saddest thing I've read all day. In a hilarious way.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Those subsidies will pay off in the coming decades when those things become cheap enough for everyone.
Unless, of course, that doesn't happen. Just because you assert something will happen doesn't mean it will.
The article still mentions federal subsidies as well as local subsidies (10 year tax abatements). An article linked in the comments or you linked article even talks about how the projects have slowed since the State stopped handing out subsidies.
Of course that's just my opinion...... you could be wrong!
Is Slashdot modding up posts that judge science by fictional TV shows?
No goalposts were set since that show wasn't making actual scientific predictions. It was a pseudo-reality TV disaster show. People were even encouraged to send in their own footage imagining future disasters caused by global warming. It was called "Earth 2100" because the depictions of the year 2015 were just setups for the disasters that would happen 100 years later in the show.
Here's a quote from the producer: ... we are not saying that these events will happen..." According to the linked article, some of the scientists consulted on the show didn't think the scenarios were plausable even in 2100.
"this program was developed to show the worst-case scenario
Let us not judge science by TV shows. If we did, I'd be complaining about the lack of robots with vacuum-cleaner hoses for arms. :-)
You actually thing global warming is a hoax?
If so, there's no point in trying to reason with you since you've managed to shut out mountains of evidence. All that's left is to point and laugh at the silly people.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
I do not have time to fully read the report, but doubt they address Javon's Paradox. From Wikipedia: "In economics, the Jevons paradox (sometimes Jevons effect) occurs when technological progress increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises because of increasing demand.[1] The Jevons paradox is perhaps the most widely known paradox in ecological economics.[2] However, governments and environmentalists generally assume that efficiency gains will lower resource consumption and are an effective policy for sustainability, ignoring the possibility of the paradox arising.[3]"
Choosing the lesser of two evils is a choice for evil.
Yeah, please do stop referrring to nuclear power as 'nukes' because it does sound like you're talking about weapons of mass destruction. And, I agree with you about extremist environmentalists. Of course they're against any kind of power generation, I think if they had their way we'd be back living a subsistence existence with no technology beyond muscle power, but then they don't want to give up their iPhones or Priuses now do they? Many of them talk the talk but can't walk the walk.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
Windscale was not a nuclear powerplant. Trying to claim it as a nuclear power accident is deeply disingenuous. TMI which is the third worst leaked almost no radiation and is completely stable.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Plus it was so bad, he mentioned it twice. I remember the time I died of radiation sickness after visiting the barren wasteland that is Chalk River
0/year.
Seriously, the only way to get a number of deaths from nuclear is to include mining accidents (falling rock...not radioactive fallout) and all the deaths from the bombs dropped.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Why do you think climate scientists predict the price of milk or gas? You're confusing disciplines here. (Or, more likely, you listen to the news for your predictions. Here's a hint: only the crazies make the news. The guys doing the real work seldom do.)
There are many resolutions to the waste issue, it is just that environmental wackos won't let them happen, it is far better for the waste to sit outside the plants in ponds.
Reprocessing
Bury in salt mine
Vitrification
Reprocessing!
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
That's my answer to "global warming".
See "Zetetic Astronomy", which contains a number of proofs that it's not a globe.
"They"[1] have their work cut out for them, but of course, they placed one in the first classroom we were ever in, thus indoctrinating us before our critical thinking skills kicked in.
[1] -- They talk a lot, don't they. -- Pulp Fiction
I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
I say we follow them home and remove the power meter from their houses. It is what they want for everyone, how about if they live the life now.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Wouldn't we also need to include all deaths from explosives throughout the centuries when calculating the deaths from fossil fuels (i.e. gunpowder and TNT)?
Sounds good to me. It is along the lines of including the suicides when talking about gun violence.
APK likes to ask for responses to the same things over and over. Maybe he just likes the responses?
Executive orders are rescinded as easily as they are passed. The next sane president will open it up.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
The point of subsidising a new technology is to kick start adoption while the market is still small. You won't see the real gains and benefits until the market scales up (which is clearly well underway with solar, and at an earlier stage with EVs). Try to take a longer view.
Why would anyone engrave "Elbereth"?
I believe Austria has one that started during the Roman empire.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
it's perfectly safe.
Yeah, at this rate all of the nuclear accident deaths (~40k up to ~300k depending on who you trust).
Are you kidding me. What tabloid propoganda scare-group has been serving you the anti-nuke coolaid? You need to try diversifying your sources. As of now, deaths from Chernobyl are in the hundreds, and from any other nuclear power plant accident there are essentially zero deaths from radioactive exposure. The report on Fukushima just came out and they determined there will be no deaths or even illnesses attributable to the Fukushima event, that includes subsequent generations. I know it is hard to believe when you've lived hearing all the FUD. Try to be a little skeptical.
No "to nuke" is a verb which is mostly associated with microwaving food (at least here in the states). This is not the same as "nukes", a noun which typically refers to nuclear weapons.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
Plain old economics is what is holding back nukes, not "envirowackos", if "envirowackos" had that sort of political power then why are we still building new coal plants? The fact that changing to renewables for electricity generation is both good for the environment and good for the economy has been recognised by sane capitalists since the "Stern Report" (2005 IIRC). The insane ones still believe AGW is a UN plot to strip mine their wallet and their "freedoms".
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
And what was the actual impact of most of those? Even the dreaded Three Mile Island didn't expose most people to more than a chest x-ray's worth of radiation. And how many of these accidents were caused by old reactor designs that have no relevance to modern reactors?
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
with renewables, wind and nuclear (as well as energy efficiency) the main beneficiaries.
.... right, because everyone knows that leftists will just up and embrace nuclear, any day now.
That combination isn't on the table.
People keep saying slowing global warming will be costly but they never consider that we would be spending nearly as much building conventional energy infrastructure as we would building renewable energy infrastructure. That's kind of what this report points out. The real cost of switching to renewables is not that great and probably actually negative if you consider the externalities of fossil fuel energy production.
Way to miss the point. Well done. Continue with your agenda. Apparently it's all you know. My point is that if a bank is pointing towards a particular option it's because it's the one they are going to make the most money on (read that as it's the one everyone else is going to lose the most money on), period. Banking is merely legalized theft.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Approximately 5 years.
The hand waving about a closed box and net imbalance is conjecture.
No, there will be no mini ice age. Warming will continue unless there is a massive volcanic eruption or the Sun does something completely unexpected.
Your standard reply on every climate change story is getting so cliched that nobody even bothers to mark you as a troll anymore. Why don't you try something different.
I know the arguments:
"Climate scientists are all getting paid billions by fat Al Gore"
"The media is in the tank for climate change because they want to destroy the economy"
"If climate change was real, then why was there so much snow last winter? Boom!"
"The numbers that Citi came up with for climate change cannot be trusted because they're all getting paid billions by fat Al Gore and they took a bailout in 2009"
"Insurance companies projections on climate change should be ignored because they're all being mind-controlled by the Marxist/Fascist Obama. And fat Al Gore (who owns his own fleet of jets piloted by John Travolta and leaves his air conditioner running 24/7, even in the winter)."
Am I missing any?
That is partly true. But banking itself isn't legalized theft, but it is the way Citicorp does it. However, Citicorp is a huge conglomerate with shareholders and divisions and investments in lots of industries and probably stand to lose a lot more from climate change than they stand to gain.
And how exactly is slowing climate change supposed to mean staggering new profits for Citi? The entire carbon credit industry is projected to get as big as $30 billion. This is about half as much as Citi pays in fines every few years.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm sure the study is worked out using a model with no more unknowns than say, the Drake Equation.
It's hard to measure but statistically uranium miners have a high death rate from cancer. There has also been some radioactive slurry pond leaks down in Navajo territory that also boosted cancer rates quite a bit. All in all, mining uranium may be more dangerous then mining coal, at least per pound. Of course the saving grace is that much less needs to be mined so over all it is much safer but it is totally misleading to claim it is 100% safe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inverted_totalitarianism
"to nuke" is a verb which is mostly associated with microwaving food (at least here in the states)
I think it's regional. I never heard that until I went to university. Consequently, it sounds stupid and uneducated to me. (In the States.)
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
If it means we can make way for the cylon-human hybrid race, I'm all for it.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
The catholic Jesus. The evangelical Jesus is with the denialists.
Plus it was so bad, he mentioned it twice. I remember the time I died of radiation sickness after visiting the barren wasteland that is Chalk River
He mentioned Chalk River twice because two accidents happened there - did the radiation also burn that from memory?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
1952, Chalk River, Canada: A reactor shutoff rod failure, combined with several operator errors, led to a major power excursion of more than double the reactor's rated output at AECL's NRX reactor. Many of the other "nuclear accidents" (OMG!! OMG!!!) you're trolling are equally exciting, and this one is rated at 5 on a scale of 1-7.
That accident totally destroyed the building and the reactor core, not to mention the thousands of curies of fission products that were released into the atmosphere, and a million gallons of radioactively contaminated water had to be pumped out of the basement and "disposed of" in shallow trenches not far from the Ottawa River.
. If you decide to invest billions of dollars to have a single plant provide a large percentage of your countries power supply, you'd hope that it didn't just blow up and become useless with such a "harmless" incident. Completely ignoring the radiation, it's fiscally insane.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Windscale was not a nuclear powerplant.
Windscale was used to recycle fuel from and for NPPs. You can't just ignore it to brighten up your safety statistics.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
Several evangelical groups have praised Pope Francis' major encyclical on the environment released on Thursday, which warns that climate change is real and is impacting all of God's creation, including impoverished people in different corners of the world. Francis said that it's wrong to treat nature and other living creatures as "mere objects" for "human domination."
"We are grateful that the pope has joined with over 300 Evangelicals like Rick Warren, Rich Stearns, and Bill Hybels, and other Christian leaders who understand climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time and the greatest opportunity for hope. It's time to make hope happen by fueling the unstoppable clean energy transition, stopping the ideological battles, and working together," said in a statement Rev. Mitch Hescox, president & CEO, Evangelical Environmental Network.
"Creating a new energy economy that benefits all and addresses climate change is not about a political party but living as a disciple of Jesus Christ. We urge all people of good will, especially fellow Christian conservatives, to read and study these timely words from Pope Francis." Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/n... Read more at http://www.christianpost.com/n...
- http://www.christianpost.com/n...
Windscale was used to recycle fuel from and for NPPs.
The infamous Windscale fire had nothing to do with reprocessing.
You *specifically* noted the Windscale Pile which was (a) where the fire was and (b) nothing to do with nuclear power. It was a device for making plutonium for nuclear bombs.
You can't just ignore it to brighten up your safety statistics.
Touche my man, touche.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
Again, I ask the question to you and anyone else. We have progressed through disease, famine, war, natural disasters and for the lasts 3 million years we've evolved into who we are now with 7 billion people on earth and yet, we are being told that progress must halt because of warming. Why? How did we get to this point with all of the adversity of simply living to have the highest standards of living and ways of life never seen by anyone before in human history. Even the utter destitute have fared by orders of magnitudes better then their predecessors. And yet we are being told we are doomed if we don't do something. All the while people like you invoke special interests and greed as a reason for why we live the way we do and totally and utterly ignore what is before you. The way you are living now, which is better than anyone else ever. If you want to hobble yourself for the sake of stopping global warming, you go ahead and do that, but do not presume to make or force others to follow suit and resist the temptation to castigate others who don't subscribe to your ideas on the subject.
Nobody has told you that "progress has to halt because of warming". Nice strawman argument. After that, not one thing you say can be taken seriously.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I'm just pointing out a generous acceptance of the numbers still produces far less deaths than polluting power sources.
Got it....., sorry. I do that too sometimes.
Okay, now watch this: https://www.youtube.com/playli...
Actually there were three if you count the release of heavy water and tritium they experienced in the past decade . Sorry must have missed that due to all the cancer I've developed from spending 12 years living downstream from Chalk River.
Ultimately it doesn't matter how you cut it. Nuclear has come out on top even with environmental crazies have stacked the figures against them by including bombs dropped, excluding mining etc.
Economics hold back nuclear adoption due to the intangible cost associated with building a plant thanks to unfairly stacked requirements that the environmental movement have managed to place on nuclear and nuclear alone.
If you level the playing field, remove all subsidies, and give every plant the same regulatory and legal overhead then nuclear turns out far cheaper. But alas we need to cover loans to the value of the cleanup of a complete meltdown for a nuclear plant whereas we don't consider failure of a coal ash slurry dam, groundwater pollution etc to be a credible risk.
Economics suck when you're playing by someone's arbitrary rules.
Are the only "solution" and Envirowackos won't go for them.
Bravo! By using obscure, mock-insider terms like 'nukes' and insulting people who care about the environment, you have paved the way for constuctive dialogue; success is assured. How would we ever overcome our differences and solve our communal problems if we didn't have people like you?
You do know that underground coal mine fires in China produce as much CO2 as the US vehicle fleet, right?
Is what you "know" right however?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_seam_fire#China : "It has been estimated that some 10-200 million tons of coal uselessly burn annually" assuming metric tons that makes 436 million metric tons (or Tg) of CO2.
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/climat... : U.S. Transportation GHG Emissions by Gas, 2012 (Tg CO2 Equivalent) - only the CO2 produced by passenger vehicles: 759.8.
Where I come from that's almost a factor of 2 more for US cars (and only cars, not even light duty trucks . which may include some SUVs and of course poseur trucks) compared to China's underground coal fires.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
That's because the vats majority of C02 doesn't come from cars. It comes from the power grid and industrial processes. According to the EPA transportation is only 13% of total C02 production
For values of 13% that are actually twice as high.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.