the New Internationalist and the nuclear debate

Guy S

website team CRAGger Islington

How coincidental – I also came across this yesterday. Probably because Robert Greenall mentioned this French ‘CRAG’ in his posting on a report for the BBC.

I have to say that I was rather more interested by CRAGs crossing the channel (and further afield – as I now hear from David!) than their pro-nuclear affiliations. However, this is worth looking into, and I suspect within CRAGs we have people from both sides of the debate.

It seems quite natural that a French climate group would end up being pro-nuclear, given the high level of nuclear build in France. Contrast that to Germany, which has obviously gone down the renewables route in a big way (where it hasn’t been burning coal in the Saar). Both routes, of course, are low-carbon. Not zero carbon: but low carbon.

My own position is to say: time is short, and to both cover our energy security needs and cut our carbon over the next twenty years, investment needs to be decided upon quickly. Nuclear decommissioning will leave us with significantly fewer stations within that time unless new ones are built now, and the shortfall needs to be met somewhere. Renewables newbuild has now seen the UK enter the select league of those nations with more than 2MW of installed wind power capacity. Other current sources, apart from hydro(?), are minimal. Essentially, we need more clarity around what proportion of the coming shortfall in generating capacity could be met by renewables, energy efficiency gains, and cuts in demand. As usual, the only protagonists at this detailed level of debate appear to be the government, with their figures, and George Monbiot, with his. But perhaps there is other research out there.

In short, my stance on nuclear is neither dogmatically anti or for. But I fear that I am sitting on the fence waiting for figures. I’m prepared to be persuaded one way or the other – especially if someone can demonstrate investment in new nuclear (!) is guaranteed to strangle more investment in renewables.

On another note (and this probably needs another thread), any more info on these overseas CRAGs available? :)

As above the nuclear debate needs to be revisited.

The so called “environmentalist” lobby have been pushing a position of anti nuclear for a long time. I am not sure about the reasoning behind this other than being short sighted and emotional. I am also not sure that are interested in presenting the facts in a balanced way either.

Whilst nuclear power is undoubtedly risky and it is obvious for all to see why, i.e. short term impact in radiation, fallout etc as a consequence of an accident. Surely the continued and long term use of fossil fules has been even more dangerous though distinctly less VISIBLE. Compare the cumulative deaths from fossil fuels per watt of energy produced and I am sure there is a compelling argument for their immediate discontinuation other than climate change.

Whilst being neither pro or anti nuclear I am pragmatic enough to realise that we need to bridge the energy shortfall without genrating CO2 until we can

1 reduce our energy usage to a point where sustainable energy production is a REALISTIC option
2 Deliver an alternative clean energy source (potentially something like fusion)
3 ‘Learn to use the force Luke’

Let’s hear what everyone has to say!

I am against buiding new nuclear power stations in the UK as the costs are too high, the problems of disposing of nuclear waste are too great and new build would stifle future restructuring of energy provision in the UK. Electricity only forms 20% of the UKs energy needs and nuclear currently provides 20% of that electricity, so in other words nuclear currently provides just 4% of the UKs energy needs. Claims that nuclear rebuild to maintain the current level of nuclear capacity will therefore have a deep impact upon UK carbon emmissions are therefore exagerated, since it will only continue to provide 4%. If the same money were spent on energy efficiency measures we could save the 20% of electricity that nuclear currently produces, but unfortunately it would not have the glamour that politicians crave.

Power companies generally price-in the cost of decommissioning the power station at the end of its life, but with nuclear power stations it becomes the responsibility of the state to decommission them and deal with the resulting waste. This is the only reason that nuclear power can claim to be as cheap as other forms of electricity generation. The government’s own estimate is that the current stockpile of nuclear waste will cost £75 billion to store safely. How we can be confident that we can store it safely for tens of thousands of years is beyond me (only 10 thousand years ago the UK was joined to France, so clearly major geological changes can happen over such timescales).

Finally, tying ourselves to a new generation of huge nuclear power stations will tie us into the centralised generation and distribution facilities which as so inefficient. We need to move towards a decentralised power generation and distribution system which is more local and can cope with small scale generation facilities and include combined heat and power (CHP) plants which work so well in Scandinavia.

Peter.

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

Peter

You might find some enlightening new data by looking at the Cambridge Zero Carbon Society website. A lot of what you say has been long since discredited, even by the likes of George Monbiot, particularly the waste argument. I realise its hard to keep up but you may be a tad behind.

Even so I think you are suprisingly missing the fundamentals. The price per kWh is not as valuable as the gCO2 per kWh surely? One is “financial” and therefore can be abated, the other is “real” and therefore cannot. Not to mention new data is showing the delta between renewables and nuclear and CCS is marginal in terms of price as is the case for their relative pollution… therefore all should be in the mix if we are to find the best soltution.

If you agree with this and still demand that some energy sources are special cases, for reasons other than fixing the climate problem, then I dont think we will fix the problem, the planet will melt worst case, or there will be a very painful transition best case through forced regulation. Rationing wont get a look in.

Best

Robin, Sorry if you think my opinions are out-of-date, but I believe the climate is only one of a host of environmental problems. I would not want to reduce carbon emmissions by a small percentage (as going nuclear would do) just to cause damage and long-term problems elsewhere.
In general, I think we should try to avoid criticising the opinions of other contributors to this site if their opinions do not match our own. Otherwise people may be inhibited from offering their comments in case they are also considered to be “discredited”, “a tad behind”, or “missing the fundamentals”.

Peter

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

Peter thanks for your comments, I think I understand you and I dont feel that criticised (:

I’m still further behind than many on this topic and I’m trying to seek as much truth as possible. I too look for verification in places that are uncomfortable to me, such as nuclear. I force a single priority on what is most important (IMO) and then work top down from there which is where we may differ. I see this priority as the threat to civilisation from our current fossil based economy. Nuclear power is a reluctant truth to me based on a broad set of scientific, economic and political data points, pointing to our most likely chance of success.

I’d be interested on your views on what is published on the web site in question here. Have you had the chance to review it?:

http://www.ecolo.org/base/baseen.htm

Why dont you take some time to look over it and let me know your thoughts, I’d be really interested to hear your responses. If you want to, email me direct on robincsco@hotmail.com

Hi Peter,

Not building 10 new nuclear power stations to replace our existing ones would put our emissions up by about 50million tonnes of CO2 or about 10%. [1]
Another way to calculate is that fossil electricity is 2.5x more expensive than fossil fuels directly, so your 4% in final-energy terms is 10% in CO2 terms.
Building 40 nuclear power stations (~cost £40bn total over 20 years, £2bn per year) would reduce UK emissions by jnearly 40%.

Decomissioning is costing £1 BILLION per reactor in the UK, roughly SIX TIMES more than the US ($300m per reactor) [2]

UK safety standards are exceptionally high, but still I think someone is taking the UK taxpayer for a ride. [3]

More than a third of the UK is suitible for a waste depository: clay is particularly suitible. http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11119-much-of-uk-suitable-...

Building CHP will just lock us into gas dependence, unless we use biomass and then we won’t have any space for growing food.
Heat pumps are much more effective.

If you want to solve the climate problem, we should build 100 Nuclear Power Stations (plus solar thermal hot water, renewable electricity when good value, some coal plants with CCS, plus electric cars and ground source heat pumps as standard). Problem solved.

S

[1] (UK fossil Electricity ~636g/kWh = 636tonnes/Gwh, nuclear ~36g/kWh = 36tonnes/Gwh; UK 2005 generation 81,000Gwh/year
600*81,000 = 48 600 000tonnesCO2/year)
http://www.dti.gov.uk/files/file36183.pdf p36
[2] http://nuclearinfo.net/Nuclearpower/WebHomeCostOfNuclearPower
[3] James Lovelock “The only mutant monster I noticed [in a tour of Sellafield] was the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority, whose stated objective is the complete
dismantling of our nuclear power stations to the point where they could be playgrounds for children. All this at a cost of £70 billion which includes £6
billion for the `decommissioning’ of our stocks of plutonium fuel, worth in energy terms the equivalent of £150 billion of oil or gas. “
From http://www.prospect.org.uk/html_version/4651_4452810721-31.html

david

website team CRAGger Sevenoaks

I too, Guy, am willing to go with the figures on this one. I think those depend on (as usual) what you include in the life-cycle analysis, the big one being dealing with all the new and legacy waste. Another point is that fuel supplies are limited and imported, undermining the security argument. On the whole, though, I think we need every low carbon technology we can throw at the climate problem.

Nuclear pushes all the right buttons to heighten many peoples’ risk perception: catastrophic potential, advanced unfamiliar technology etc., and I think that obscures the debate somewhat – especially if groups tap into and ramp up the threat to build their own organisations.

A lot of nuclear supply from France (via EDF) powers south-east England, and nobody seems too bothered about that! Out of sight, out of mind, perhaps?

andy_ross

website team CRAGger Glasgow Leamington

Life cycle costing depends crucially on the discount rate you use. If you apply a rate of say 3.5%, then costs in 20 years time only count for half of what they do now (I think!). So the projects with big end-of-life costs seem better value than maybe they are in reality. The present value of costs 100 years out that are discounted at 3.5% are tiny! Hmmm.

In this finite, uncertain world, maybe the precautionary and intergenerationally equitable approach is to value present and future on an equal basis i.e. with no discounting. I cannot see us sensibly investing in nuclear in such a world.

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

I think you have nailed it here…accidentally in favour of a nuclear renaissance!

A fixed price on capital from a world without either inflation or deflation is exactly what investors in large scale long term capital projects want (in your imaginary Rising Tide world, I suppose this would be a public service). Perfect for a nuclear build, and imperfect for other things that should be in the mix such as renewables.

Long-term markets suit renewables too.
They suit anything that involves investment (genuine saving) rather than consumption of fuel.
So renewable and nuclear are perfect from a longer-term point of view.
Some projects (PV, offshore wind) have a shorter life than others (nuclear, hydro).

Current UK markets are very short term – market (not social) interest rate (high); electricity markets are determined on an hour-by-hour basis – fine for gas generators with low fixed cost and high variable costs but rubbish for renewables and nuclear.

At present renewables are directly subsidised to the tune of maybe £1BILLION per year later in the decade, for little gain. This is a waste of money and needs to be much better targetted.

I agree on technical social discounting point.

However, I feel that putting the waste in geological storage is a perfectly adequate option. Clay is pretty stable. Even if sea levels rise (like they were much lower in the Ice Age) then the stuff should be safe. Natural reactor at Okla in Gabon has been pretty stable for last ~ billion years³

I do think nuclear waste and nuclear proliferation are very serious issues to consider. I just think that the incremental effect of renewed nuclear build on these risks is pretty small – if we are to have a nuclear industy we might as well get all our energy from this source. It’s one of the few reliable zero carbon sources of power we actually have.

The Stern review argued (with Ramsey¹) that you should discount (utility) (only) to account for the probability that civilisation might collapse (example given was an asteroid impact).[2] But other risks should be discounted by climate risks (threat to civilisation) and vice versa.

There’s no point painting the walls when your house is on fire.

[1] “A Mathematical Theory of Saving” 1930
[2] Further comments here: http://www.zerocarbonnow.org/wiki/index.php?title=Philosophy_%26_Economi…
[3] Cowan, G. A. 1976. “A Natural Fission Reactor,” Scientific American, 235:36.
Also see: http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0010.shtml

Hello Guy.

Your old ration card online was what intrigued me about CRAGS in the first place. I started a CRAG for Maryland, a state in the US that is right next to Washington DC. I do not have any members yet but do have a site thanks to Andy and Robin (go to groups and click on Maryland). AND- if you scroll on the UK map on the groups page all the way west and then go south a bit you will actually find our CRAG!

I think it looks like a ploy of the Nuclear industry to embrace the CRAG concept. They would definitely see us as a natural ally because nuclear power results in zero carbon emissions.

To solve the problem you’ll need about 100 NPPs, to account for electricity plus heating plus electric cars. Add in the maximum renewable capacity (given economic and planning constraints ~20?-50GW), some CCS, plausible efficiency savings, and you could solve the problem, in 20-30years. Of course we can’t do this now, since we don’t have enough engineers. But we could borrow some Frenchmen and train some more.

So cost of ACTUALLY solving the problem is likely to be about £1bn per NPP (1GW).
So 100 new nuclear power stations would cost say
£5billion a year for 20 years.
Not too bad! Compare NHS expenditure of £70bn per year (or other figures quoted earlier!)

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

Robert, thats easy. Call George Monbiot

2 – Uranium Reserves

a) Short term (next 10-15years) – Uranium may be tight, since few mines have opened in the last 20 years. But it’s going to take a while to build new reactors on a serious scale anyway.

b) Medium term (15-25 years) – there’s at least 20,000GWy already identified (>50years of reserves with current/planned ~400GW of reactors – (~160tU/GWy)).

[As the price rises in anticipation of any shortages, new mines will be opened (the economic system works very efficiently with resources – sadly not with the
climate).
Just to make a comparison, oil reserves are now higher than at the time of ‘limits to growth’, a point made very well in this classic article:
[1] “World Uranium Resources”, by Kenneth S. Deffeyes and Ian D. MacGregor, Scientific American, January, 1980, page 66,
How much Uranium is in the ground?? According to [1], Graphic: http://zcarb.net/papers/graphics/Uranium/uraniumreserves_medres.PNG
Up to 3000ppm (0.3%) Uranium, about 2 million tonnes
Up to 300ppm (0.03%) Uranium, there should be about 100 million tons
in the ground. (600,000GWy), or – 40 years at 15,000GW (~current total
world energy consumption), with very low CO2 footprint [2].
Up to 100ppm (0.01%) Uranium there should be about 2billion tons
(12,000,000GWy) – 500 years at 30,000GW (~2050 estimated world energy
consumption) with low CO2 footprint.]

c) Long Term (25+ years) – Uranium from Seawater – quite doable using Japanese – 1000 years of Uranium. – Thorium reactors, such as the Rubbia ‘Energy Amplifier’ – A Huge amount! – Better (Generation IV) forms fast reactors, perhaps producing hydrogen- 40x more than the once through cycle.
In otherwords, in the long term nuclear energy can be considered a renewable resource.

d) Very Long Term (60+ years)
All sorts of new technologies may have arrived, so long as we have a habitable earth on which to enjoy them!

2 – CO2 Emissions. Nuclear does not directly produce any pollution, and the total lifecycle greenhouse emissions are similar to wind and lower than other ‘renewable’ technologies – and a small fraction of those from fossil fuels. [1]

[Evidence from the UK Parliamentary office of Science and Technology
: “…A 2006 study by AEA Technology calculated that for ore grades as
low as 0.03%, additional emissions would only amount to 1.8gCO
2eq/kWh. This would raise the current footprint of UK nuclear power
stations from 5 to 6.8gCO2 eq/kWh (Fig 3).” (Compare
[1] http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/postpn268.pdf
Graph here: http://zcarb.net/papers/graphics/Lifecycle%20CO2/FIG3.PNG
Also see the Vattenfall study – best practice nuclear has 1% the GHGs of fossil fuel emissions.
This website was constructed by Melbourne University Physicists: http://nuclearinfo.net/]

angelaelizabeth

CRAGger Redland Bristol

not having any expertise in the field of energy sources, I found the explanation in James Martin’s book (meaning of the 21st century) v useful, as with Steve’s reply above Martin emphasises that nuclear technology has moved on and that Fourth Generation nuclear power would be, in Martin’s words “incomparably safer than allowing the public to drive cars” and the waste disposal problem is much reduced. Martin also acknowledges that up to now nuclear power has been accompanied by outrageously false accounting and public misinformation, at huge taxpayers expense, and that Chief Execs in other industries would have gone to prison for such schemes. So I don’t think we should be at all surprised if the public generally are extremely cautious about believing anything that govt or the nuclear industry tell them in relation to this issue.

Angela
Bristol
www.sustainableredland.org.uk

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

These are good points i think. The latter about false accounting sounds much like biz as usual compared to larger corporations (which dont make it OK!). My research shows this is largely a defence mechanism in response to the outragously and history will write down, criminaly unjustified claims made by the anti nuke lobby over the past 30 years… which they persist in making. A shame given the public perception of it when it didnt need to happen. Now we are faced with sourcing a low carbon energy supply and the resource most likely to help is not on the table! The alternative suggested by radical greens is a move to zero or negative growth! Thats nice isnt it? Sorry but I blame the anti nukes for one of the biggest contributions to the climate disaster. They know this and are not brave enough to admit it

Robin.

angelaelizabeth

CRAGger Redland Bristol

I agree that theres a problem when people say ‘i won’t even look at any possible use of nuclear power on principle, and i wont look at any new facts about safety efficiency or economics’. Same problem will apply with use of GM crops, and we see it in other arenas with anti-vaccine lobbies and fears about genetic manipulation.

I think its worth avoiding terms like ‘antinuke’ as this is very non-specific, covers weaponry and energy, and covers people who have raised legitimate concerns about safety, waste disposal, energy costs of extracting uranium etc. I also think the world is in such a mess that although we need to understand the driving forces that helped get us in the mess, once you start the ‘blame’ thread running it can be quite destructive and can divert energy from finding the positive ways forward.

Angela Raffle
Bristol
www.sustainableredland.org.uk

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

Ditto on the GM. It seems this is now largely an anti corporation action judging by Monbiot’s language and followers. And the poor might need a lot of GM when they cant grow any food in 20 years, due to our appeasement of the responsible. This sounds too political (:

You are right about the blame game, better to be positive even when blaming? We already know the forces that got us here. Appease them for too long and its not a stretch to imagine Churchill having to run the country again.

I think you’ll find there are more illegitimate concerns on this one, paricularly the “danger” ones. ie Its dangerous compared to what exactly.. breaking a leg, coal mining, road deaths, war, earth melting?

There is quite a good article on facts, blame and perceptions here which talks a lot to what you say: http://www.world-nuclear.org/sym/2002/grimston.htm

Best
Robin, Wokingham
www.gco2e.com

PS like the redlands web site

For figures on CO2 emissions, the commission for sustainable development evidence papers give a comprehensive overview, and the organization can hardly be accused of being biased in favour of nuclear.

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/Nuclear-paper2-re…

Note that coal has 1000gCO2/kWh, gas 400gCO2/kWh, coal with CO2 sequestration 150gCO2/kWh
Photovoltaics around 50g/kWh

I’m saying nuclear is somewhere around 5-20gCO2/kWh, worst case 50gCO2 for very low grade ores, if you use the WISE calculator.

For a more general assessment of the CSD’s report, I put my response on my personal blog:
http://www.stephenstretton.org.uk/?p=5

It is an infuriating situation, since there is a wall of distrust – but I think Greenpeace is just as guilty as the military-civilian nuclear complex has been in the past. No to bombs, yes to power!!

Positivity is the key
S

P.S. Note that much of the green discourse on purportedly significant CO2 emissions from nuclear is dominated by the work of Storm van Leuwen and Smith (SLS). This was not quoted by the commission for Sustainable Development, since their website is neither peer reviewed nor published in any scientific journal. It has however been widely quoted by David Flemming, Keith Barnham, Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and others. An assessment by Australian scientists is found here.
According to SLS, one of the uranium mines in Namibia should consume more energy than the entire country in which it is located (a logical contradiction).

The present thinking in Government seems to be that Nuclear gives us the best chance of meeting the present carbon targets.

Nuclear is carbon free in terms of generation (the embedded carbon in building a nuclear facility is another matter). After the fuel is spent there are expensive and (in the long term) potentially dangerous problems surrounding storage and transportation. Whilst the power station is working there is always the potential for an accident however stringent the safety protocols. It would appear that Chernobyl was the result of human error as much as design.

Nuclear power was originally touted as the solution to all our energy problems, there were even tales of electricity becoming so cheap that it would be unnecessary to meter it!

After WW2 huge amounts of money were invested in the Nuclear programme – I suspect the motivation was more military than domestic i.e. to supply the necessary materials for the nuclear deterrent.

There are other sources of power available to us – wind, wave/tidal, and solar/photovoltaic. As far as I know none of these have the potential for catastrophe that nuclear will always have.

If the government were to decide to build just one nuclear power station today many years would pass before the facility comes online and the cost would undoubtedly be greater than any initial estimates. The running costs of such a facility will always be high, staff must be highly trained and constantly monitored, and security will always be expensive. The same amount of money spent on offshore wind and wave generation could produce good results in the same time – and fund research which would leave us without the necessity for nuclear in the long term.

Renewables combined with common sense reductions of the amount of electricity we use could give us a future which does not require the use of nuclear

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

And use the same psychology that the climate denial lobby uses very successfully. Tell you something you want to hear… and you are very likely to believe it. Personaly I find myself fighting the climate change battle on 2 fronts. On the left the anti-people environmentlists and on the right the anti-poor deniers who do not want to come to terms with those they have not shared wealth with for so long. In the middle is us trying to figure out the facts from myth, perception and an appalingly unnacountable media. On the nuclear debate left is linked with anti and right with pro. This is a political illusion that must be exposed if we are to select the best options for our future.

The perceptions in this comment stem from the left. The green movement has undertaken a brillant and successful marketing program to “prove” in this order how nuclear power is a) dangerous, b) there is an insoluble waste problem c) radiaton is dangerous in any quantity d) its high carbon e) its not renewable f) its expensive due to hiden costs g) proliferation. Almost none of it is science or economics though. Its pure politics. We are the victims of a political agenda which has almost no bearing on the climate. The problem now is that the stakes are so high, they are unable to admit it. So we really should no longer leave the climate to environmentalists. It should be a post environmental movement that deals with it.

There is plenty of partial and impartial data and science to argue the reverse of a-g above. So who is telling the truth? Well just like climate change, I believe the best science and economics. Steve has spent a lot of time above pointing us to this data but i get the feeling no one is reading it. This is critical because we may really be denying a major part of the solution because its a little bit uncomfortable.

One has to have the courage to learn about what you believe the least to get there. I challenge anyone to prove me wrong, have been asking this for years and no one has done it. I want to be shown that nuclear power is not the answer just as much as I want to be shown that mankind is not repsonsible for the climate. But the data is overwhelimg and the reality is harsh.

Best
R

I am a little surprised to have my political beliefs and susceptibility to psychological manipulation so confidently predicted after posting an honest statement of my thinking on the subject of renewables.

To say the least the left/right rhetoric is a bit outmoded. After all the Soviets embraced nuclear technology with at least as much enthusiasm as the West. Furthermore, it was a Labour government that was in power post WW2 when the groundwork for Nuclear energy was done.

I do not think it is unreasonable to state that the military uses of nuclear material played a part in the political decisions necessary to spend the large amounts of money involved in the early nuclear programmes, it would have been seen as practical politics at the time. I was not using this argument as part of the current debate, there is plenty of nuclear material around to destroy the planet if anyone wishes to – though I doubt if anyone (including Al-Quaeda) does so wish.

My intention in mentioning the military imperatives which helped drive the original programme was to point up the fact that where there’s a will there’s a way (cliche if you like, but cliches become cliches because they contain a truth).

With respect to figures and economics: figures abound on all sides and I am not qualified to take issue with any of them. Business will follow profit and if business feels it can make a profit from non-nuclear renewables it will go down that road.

The safety issue is also debatable. I agree that improvements in technology will make any new nuclear facilities safer than the older ones but (another cliche) accidents will happen. The consequences of nuclear accidents are far-reaching and unpleasant and, as Chernobyl demonstrated, they do not stop at national boundaries.

I agree that on current statistics road transport is far more deadly than nuclear power (earlier post in this thread) but that is a separate issue and not part of this debate. Many things are deadly (smoking, overeating, heroin, alcohol to name a few) but they are not relevant.

despina

CRAGger Leeds

Hi

I think with issues like this, like with which climate change scenarios are more likely, we can’t know – unless we are experts. The experts disagree, so the best we can do is make an informed choice about who to believe.

Not having read much about using nuclear power as a means of reducing our carbon emissions, having been exposed to both views and tending not to believe everything I read or hear, I think I’ll go with the Union of Concerned Scientists (http://www.ucsusa.org/ucs/about/): there are reasons for concern (http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/nuclear_safety/) and, while it is reasonable for research to continue, nuclear power is not currently a viable solution (http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/solutions/nuclear-power-and-climate…).

Despina

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

So I’m not suprised I’m misunderstood and mistakenly accused of personal attacks. And you are perfectly qualified to discuss this. Its still a free world. The point about the psychology of fear is that nuclear energy and the tiny amount of radiation released from it (including the accidents) gets treated as a special case compared to other far more deadly areas of our lives. Why?

I can only guess its another one of those irrational fears that we have in the western world. This hall of infame might include:

1) Cancer – but most of us will live to 90 if not run over or hit by too many stray cosmic rays first!
2) Terrorism – has killed relatively few people but it gets top showing
3) Radiation – manmade killed almost nobody, except maybe for the pollonium in fags
4) Any more takers? Foreigners, GMO, God/s

So its perfectly acceptable to debate the pshycology here… in my opinion of course (:

And I quote “let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance”, Franklin D. Roosevelt circa 1932

We have two nuclear power generators in Maryland. One of our environmental groups recently discussed them briefly in “A Blueprint for Action: Policy Options to Reduce Maryland’s Contribution to Global Warming” that came out this month.¹. The discussion is on page 27. Basically the issues they highlighted were lack of a repository for uranium waste, potential terrorist interest in the waste, and environmental impacts from heated water discharges and the death of 100,000 fish per year.

Guy S

website team CRAGger Islington

In some ways it’s unsurprising that this thread has lasted so long and provoked some strong opinions. Nuclear is clearly still a hot topic for many. But I’m interested to see if anyone else besides Robin is a clear supporter of nuclear. This isn’t because I want to try to ostracise Robin (perish the thought mate – you make some good arguments, many of which I agree with), but because I’m looking into the subject of environmentalists who’ve turned to nuclear as the answer. (Or part of the answer.)

As Robin has noted, nuclear has been a totemic issue for greens for a very long time; perhaps even one of the founding touchstones for modern environmentalism. Is this changing? Is there a significant number out there prepared to give it a second chance? James Lovelock, I know, for one. But are there others?

I’ve done some research into this and I think I can answer your question, Guy. It seems to me there’s been no major shift of opinion in either direction. Groups like FoE and Greenpeace are still solidly anti-nuclear and haven’t detected growing dissent in their membership (though it’s possible they could be trying to play it down, I suppose). As far as I can tell there’s not really much evidence of conversion, among greens at least, and that includes people like James Lovelock, or Bruno Comby of Environmentalists for Nuclear Power, who I understand have always been pro-nuclear. It would interesting, though, to see how opinions are split throughout the CRAG movement, which I suppose we can say is relatively neutral on this issue. How about a vote?

angelaelizabeth

CRAGger Redland Bristol

I’ve been involved in policymaking on contentious health issues for a while. If you ask people to take pro or anti sides on narrowly formulated questions you encourage confrontation, oversimplification and a situation where all ‘facts’ are judged according to which camp appears to be saying them, rather than by their validity as relevant evidence.

What I would ask for is a process for formulating energy policy that asks the right questions, that assembles the best evidence clearly presented and explained, that is open and transparent, and that separates the political task of decision taking (crunch time) from the analytical task of assembling best knowledge and evidence on all the possible options (decision making).

I think we need to keep looking forward, and not waste time on ‘its all the fault of big business’ or ‘its all the fault of anticapitalist environmentalists’. We’re all in this mess together, and its only together that we have a hope of using human ingenuity to lessen the mess.

Angela Raffle
Bristol
www.sustainableredland.org.uk

robinsmith3

website team CRAGger Islington Leeds Wokingham WSP

Trouble is if you dont look at the facts objectively, the outcome will be decided politically. I do keep asking this thread to read the docs out there but no one seems to be doing it. Why not? Anyway events are overtaking us and the decision is likely to be political. ie Govt’s will get the measure of the public, see if its a risk to election and adopt the energy policy that fits that outcome. This is happening now. Security of supply has become more improtant than the planet too so when the public are simply not prepared to accept a negative growth economy, drammatic reductions in so called quality of life, a passion to share their wealth with the globalised society and there is no large scale low carbon alternative energy supply to deliver this, nuclear is a no brainer. BTW I do have a scienctific paper that show uranium to be a renewable energy resource if anyone is interested in discussing it (lasting longer than the earths lifetime)

I have been open to a scientific debate on this from the start. No one else has really wanted to enter it though, preferring to argue about who makes the best argument. Seems avoidance is a comfortable position much like in the climate change debate?

shane

website team CRAGger Bedford

Has anyone spotted the irony of this thread. It started with an email to CRAG from the New Statesman saying “I’m slightly surprised about your links with Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy, could you explain what the relationship is please?”

you may want to send a belated reply to that email pointing out Mark Lynas’ article in the Aug 2008 New Statesmen? Called “How nuclear power can save the planet”
see it here;
http://www.newstatesman.com/environment/2008/08/lynas-climate-nuclear-co…

i have to say that i think that it’s testament to the CRAGers that people in this network are often on the cutting edge of environmental thought and are willing to openly discuss environmental taboos and look past the hype and fears for serious answers to a serious problem. That’s not a pro nuclear statement, it is what it is.
This thread debating nuclear power was a full 18 months before the one on the NI site and there’s no place for side lining possible solutions.

I’m interested to know why this discussion was silenced. Was it a question of two many emails? or is it part of CRAG posting policy?

people struggling with the nuclear power pros and cons may wish to read mark’s blog with a lot of well informed responses
http://www.marklynas.org/2008/8/18/how-nuclear-power-can-save-the-planet
including a response from Greenpeace.
http://www.marklynas.org/2008/11/14/nuclear-power-greenpeace-responds

i suppose it’s only fair that i come off the fence and give an opinion. When this thread originally ran i wouldn’t have entertained the idea of nuclear in the future energy mix for all the traditional reasons but also because radical reductions in energy consumption would have forced us to go through a cultural cold turkey on our consumption addiction and give us a real chance of a new level of quality of life. A lot of us involved in community level action are finding a real improvement in a “sense of community” and quality of life.
But i’ve been going through a process of reevaluating everything that i once held dear (environmentalism as usual will not solve all our environmental problems) and i now feel that if some of the more neutral science can be proven to dispel the tradition arguments against nuclear, then we should throw everything at the problem of climate change, including nuclear. i’m still a little concerned that we’re being hoodwinked by the nuclear lobby, so more informed debate and proof is needed.
the usual caveats apply; the focus must be reducing demand and increased renewables but in history only economical crisis demonstrates a national reduction in demand led carbon emissions and i now work full time (voluntary and paid) with energy reduction and renewables and every renewable initiative seems to be met with a mass of “logical” objections and the pick up of renewables is gruelingly slow.

in a way it’s a shame because either though nuclear or Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) or even some other technofix we could probably meet the energy gap, which means we’ll have to make a decision to decouple happiness and material consumption without being forced by energy shortage. It then, for the time being, becomes a luxury issue left to the moral/political realm and like most junkies i don’t think we have the balls to make a good choice. However, we will be forced a little later down the line by running out of natural resources, which will involve further risky degradation to our ecosystems.

Shane