Why James Hansen Is Wrong About Nuclear Power (thinkprogress.org)

mdsolar writes: Climatologist James Hansen argued last month, "Nuclear power paves the only viable path forward on climate change." He is wrong. As the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA) and International Energy Agency (IEA) explained in a major report last year, in the best-case scenario, nuclear power can play a modest, but important, role in avoiding catastrophic global warming if it can solve its various nagging problems — particularly high construction cost — without sacrificing safety. Hansen and a handful of other climate scientists I also greatly respect — Ken Caldeira, Tom Wigley, and Kerry Emanuel — present a mostly handwaving argument in which new nuclear power achieves and sustains an unprecedented growth rate for decades. The one quantitative "illustrative scenario" they propose — "a total requirement of 115 reactors per year to 2050 to entirely decarbonise the global electricity system" — is far beyond what the world ever sustained during the nuclear heyday of the 1970s, and far beyond what the overwhelming majority of energy experts, including those sympathetic to the industry, think is plausible.

Comments

Re: Worthless post

[bill_mcgonigle]

This is Jon Katz level

Damn, dude, that is harsh.

Straying back on target, fast breeder reactors are the only way to clean up the nuclear waste mess previous generations have left us to deal with (leaving 300kilo-year waste is wildly irresponsible - the "greatest generation" were selfish assholes, thematically speaking). Accepting that, decarbonization is a convenient side effect for those who don't want a warmer world.

115 per year is similar to a number I posted here a decade ago - it's only unachievable if you think in terms of NASA, not SpaceX. Unless McAfee pulls off an upset, the US isn't going to be involved in next-gen energy. Thanks for the basic research, national labs - too bad about the commercialization bit.

renewables

[phantomfive]

There are two problems with solar: night and clouds. There is one problem with wind: it's not always windy. Wind installations are typically combined with natural gas burners to supplement electricity when it's not windy enough.
Nuclear is the only power source that can handle a huge load constantly without interruption. That is why Hansen supports it, because if you want to stop releasing CO2 into the atmosphere without messing up our lifestyles, it's the only way with current technology.

The article cites this paper, which claims to have found a way to handle electricity generation from wind/water/solar while dealing with the interruptions. It assumes by 2050 all residential and commercial heating will have thermal storage, like this community in Alaska. It is up to you to decide if that is a reasonable or practical assumption.

Re:LFTR

[Anonymous Coward]

In addition smaller, safer pebble-bed reactors are far safer than traditional designs. Spreading them out will help reduce transmission losses and increase reliability. The only real issue with nuclear power is the fear of the Dirkadirkastani's attacking reactors or making dirty bombs out of them.

Offshore wind

[mdsolar]

Offshore wind looks to have a good chance at getting very cheap. The capacity there is overwhelming.

Re:Offshore wind

[Anonymous Coward]

One can use breeder reactors to enhance low grade uranium, but it still consumes the low grade uranium.

Exactly. Thorium fuel cycle yield Uranium 233 which is otherwise rare. Once the breeding starts however, we might as well consider source of fuel virtually infinite.
Additionaly Thorium reactors can burn MOX fuel which can be the mixture of the reactor's own exhaust. That means more fuel and less spent fuel that goes into long term storage.

Re:That's exactly right

[ooloorie]

The customer prices in Germany are very high (30 cents / kWh) but only 6 cents are for the feed-in tariff for renewables. So this isn't the only one of many reasons for the high price (which is intentionally high). Also part of the industry is exempt and then pays much less than for example in California.

Yes, only 6 cents are for the feed in tariff for renewables. The rest of the difference is consumer prices being raised in order to give energy hungry industries low electricity prices. In different words, Germany has a hidden regressive tax on electricity customers in order to increase corporate profits of energy hungry industries. And I wouldn't be so sure that that is allowed to continue, given that it amounts to unfair competition and trade practices. Both the EU and the US may sooner or later decide to stomp down on these hidden subsidies.