Blair set to hit the nuclear button 23 November 05

Bush has promised some future tech magic bullet yet to be conceived, so we can all drag our heels until then. Nuclear is sort of the same. Even if it were safe (which it is not, at least to the uranium miners who have up to a 85 times cancer rate) & did not involve hidden fossil fuel emissions (which it does), people hanging onto it then feel they don’t need to reduce GHGs through energy/resource efficiency and conservation.

ENERGY COMPONENT OF PRODUCTS: I just read elsewhere from an environmentalist who had been in manufacturing his entire worklife that at least 70% of the cost of products is for their energy used in resource extraction, transportation, & manufacture. A cell phone, for instance, costs in actuality $200 (reduced in price to entice customers to sign up for the service), so $140 of that is roughly like burning $140 worth of gasoline. He said for heavy items, such as cars, the energy portion of the price is usually higher than 70%.

I knew there was an energy component to everything, I just didn’t know how much.

So it’s back to REUSE, REDUCE, RECYCLE.

The potential of renewable forms of energy (with energy conservation) is huge. For example, enormous quantities of energy fall as sunlight on the world’s hot deserts and ‘concentrating solar power’ is a proven technology for tapping in to this vast flow of energy (see, for example, www.eere.energy.gov/solar/csp.html). In one of the simplest of several variations, mirrors focus sunlight on to a tank of water at the top of a tower. This raises steam that can be used to generate electricity in the conventional way. Any solar power plant of that kind may, of course, be replicated many times.

For some more about CSP, how it may be stored and transported, and why we really don’t need nuclear power and its many headaches see www.mng.org.uk/green_house/mechanisms/ potential_of_renewables.htm#csp.

This doesn’t relate to the post, but I thought perhaps readers of Mark’s blog might be interested – I’ve got some notes from the climate change meeting in London on Tuesday, at which Mark spoke among others. It was a great meeting- my notes have some of the ideas which were discussed. Please have a read and comment or add any more if you were there. Here’s the link- http://deed.squarespace.com/the-digest/2005/11/24/london-climate-change-public-meeting-nov-22nd-some-notes.html

Or if that doesn’t work, you can find it here -

http://deed.squarespace.com

Cheers- Hardwin

but this sort of reminds me of the alternative medicine issue. Many herbs & foods (diets) can be helpful in preventing and curing diseases. Some of these are weeds that grow in people’s yards. The problem is the drug and medical industries are not going to make heaps of money off of dandelions (which help prevent & cure cancer).

It’s strange re dandelions – we use pesticides to kill them, pesticides which also cause cancer. And yet these little plants help cure cancer (esp. breast & lung cancers).

And the sun, which is right in our own yards, can help us have the energy we need for a nice life-style AND help us reduce GW by displacing harmful energy sources, but it’s probably not a big money-maker, compared to nuclear or fossil fuel energy.

I smell money in this issue. Also central control v. decentralization. Yes, environmentalism is an economic & political issue – those who would take our money & freedoms would also destroy the earth to do so.

The UK has limited light. I don’t think solar energy would be very efficient in these parts… wind more so than solar… perhaps thermal if they could find some geothermal sources…

Exactly!

The biggest problem at the moment in the UK is security of energy supply, brought on largely because natural gas was seen as a silver bullet solution.

Industry in some of the UKs poorest areas is now threatening to move production elsewhere if their gas supplies get cut off, which is a real possibility if the weather gets very cold this winter.

Nuclear could very well have a role to play, but even if it does, it could only contribute 20-30% of electricity production realistically Since nuclear is extermely slow at matching output to load.

This is an especially important consideration on a grid where renewables are set to grow – conventional plants will be expected to meet the fluctuations due to nature from renewable sources. Nuclear is not well suited to this at all! I gather some of the countries who are more advanced with renewable deployment are already having trouble with grid stability – that is matching supply to demand on an instantaneous basis.

So 20% of the electricity supply, which is itself roughly 30% of CO2 source in the UK is a possible saving of 6% in CO2 emissions by nuclear build in the UK.

A creditable reduction certainly. A silver bullet it is certainy not.

The old Central Electricity Generating board aim of a well balanced mix of energy sources holds as well today as it has always done. This in turn means development and application of a wide range of technologies for combatting Greenhouse gasses.

No room for Either/or. We need to do it all.

Martin

OK, I should probably have made myself clearer. Concentrating solar power needs direct sunlight and lots of it. So it is not suitable for use in the UK.

But it is very suitable for the world’s hot deserts and anywhere else with lots of direct sunlight. The amount of available energy in these places is huge.

An obvious problem is that hot deserts are typically a long way from centres of population where the energy is needed.

One option is build long-distance high-tension power lines. But electrical energy gets lost as heat – so conduction over long distances is probably not economic.

Another option is to create hydrogen by the electrolysis of water and then to transport the hydrogen to where it is needed by pipeline or tanker. But this is likely to be expensive.

An interesting possibility is to use solar energy to create finely-powdered metal (eg iron or aluminium) or finely-powdered boron and to use these things as fuel in a diesel engine, gas turbine engine or Stirling engine.

The finely powdered metal or boron is very safe and easy to store or transport on a ship, train or truck.

We are quite used to importing gas, oil and coal but when it comes to renewable forms of energy, people seem to assume that it must all be sourced locally.

One of the advantages of concentrating solar power is that hot deserts and other regions with lots of direct sunlight are widely distributed around the world. This means that there is less worry about ‘security of supply’: being reliant on supplies from a few countries, some of which may be politically unstable.

Links:

www.eagle.ca/~gcowan/boron_blast.html#borotop www.mng.org.uk/green_house/mechanisms/potential_of_renewables.htm#csp www.mng.org.uk/green_house/mechanisms/metal_NS_article.htm www.mng.org.uk/green_house/mechanisms/metals_NS_letters.htm

There is a huge amount of attention being paid to the nuclear issue here in the UK. (BBC, Independent and Guardian amongst others.) Today’s Independent has a very good leader http://comment.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/article329945.ece (sub barrier) and Polly Toynbee wrote an excellent column in Friday’s Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,,1650573,00.html . But some commentators are pointing to the complexity of the debate (Monbiot in Today’s Guardian http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1652869,00.html .)

The arguments were well rehearsed at Open Democracy and here on Mark’s site earlier this year. Instead of potentially making a meal of this we need a short snappy summary. Nuclear is no solution because …

• Nuclear power is fearsomely expensive. Too cheap to meter – you are joking! • Nuclear is dangerous. Accidents can happen, nuclear weapons can proliferate, terrorists can strike nuclear facilities. • Nuclear waste will be around for many, many generations. • Nuclear (the whole process) will produce CO2. • Nuclear facilities take many years to build and commission.

And for a concrete example take a look at the Finnish nuclear experience which gives great cause for concern. See John Large’s analysis of the problems with their latest (5th) nuclear facility. New generation reactor, process rushed, understaffed/lack of expertise, dangers underestimated and so on. Go to http://www.largeassociates.com/PapersReports.htm . And remember pursuing the nuclear option may well detract from interest and investment in renewables.

Take at look at the Woking site http://www.woking.gov.uk/environment for lots of very encouraging information on energy saving and renewables policies pursued by a UK local authority. Take a look at the BP site http://www.bp.com/home.do?categoryId=1&contentId=2006973 for encouraging information on a Big Oil company repositioning itself for the renewables future.

Douglas Coker

I agree with Coker – now more than ever we need a snappy come back to those promoting nuclear.

What is especially disturbing is that nuclear is being promoted as a wonderful clean alternative. And that it will detract from investment in renewable energy.

There is talk about the risks as if this is mere potential. It is not just that leaks can happen they do. As Andrew Neather in the Evening Standard recently wrote, last year “18,000 gallons of highly radioactive waste leaked unnoticed at British Nuclear Fuel’s Thorp plant in Sellafield.”

Today’s Independent (29 11 05) front cover listed pros and cons of nuclear – what they failed to spell out was that no commercial insurance company will cover nuclear so tax payers (ie us!) pay (ask any promoter of nuclear to find you a commerical insurance company happy to back nuclear plants and if they cant ask why…).

What we desperately need is contraction and convergence not nuclear!

I couldn’t agree more with you about the need for Contraction and Convergence.

I also worry about the UK going for large-scale investment in nuclear energy, whilst having no commitment to energy efficiency, or demand reduction, particularly from traffic. I worry because I have heard from at least one well-informed source that Britain’s offshore industry may be far less likely to invest large-scale in renewables if the commitment towards renewables is made.

I have read the James Lovelock article (and radio interview notes) more than once which calls for a vast expansion in nuclear energy. I fear that his optimism about there being enough raw materials to allow for such an expansion is misplaced. However, what he writes about the need to shut down those fossil fuel power stations very, very quickly, and to move towards near 100% emission cuts (yes!) is very well argued, as is all that he writes about the greenhouse crisis. (by the way, I find it very reassuring that he is confident that Gaia will survive the crisis and get back to its healthy state – I don’t know what negative feedbacks he thinks will kick in eventually or how he thinks the climate will become stable again, even if different – I would love to know what he thinks as I hope he is right!).

I find it very difficult to follow the pro or contra nuclear debate. We clearly are not going to go from worldwide electricity of 20% nuclear, 4% renewables, rest fossil fuels to 80% to 100% renewables in the next 10-30 years. Since nuclear power will play a role, I would love to see an honest debate within environmental organisations and the press about this (how much or a role? where? how long? and if we get those nuclear power stations, when exactly will be switch off the coal fired plants?).

But C&C will solve this, if necessary through the markets, because countries will have to turn off the coal fired plants and will have to choose the cheapest and best technology available or risk losing out badly economically.

Almuth

I agree with Coker – now more than ever we need a snappy come back to those promoting nuclear.

Saaay…great idea! Nukyoolur!

Can we store the used stuff in your basement? Why not? You claim it’s safe, right? Right? Oooohhhh…safe enough to store in other states or countries other than yours. Got it.

Best,

D