This is a revisitation of a post that I published in 2011, with the title “The Hubbert hurdle: revisiting the Fermi Paradox“ Here, I am expanding the calculations of the previous post and emphasizing the relevance of the paradox on the availability of energy for planetary civilizations and, in particular on the possibility of developing controlled nuclear fusion. Of course, we can’t prove that nuclear fusion is impossible simply because we have not been invaded by aliens, so far. But these considerations give us a certain feeling on the orders of magnitude involved in the complex relationship between energy use and civilization. Despite the hype, nuclear energy of any kind may remain forever a marginal source of energy.

Post revised and readapted from “The Hubbert hurdle: revisiting the Fermi Paradox” — Published on “Cassandra’s Legacy” in May 2011

https://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/2011/10/hubbert-hurdle-revisiting-fermi-paradox.html //

It seems clear that planets are common around stars and, with about 100 billion stars in our galaxy, organic life cannot be that rare. Of course, “organic life” doesn’t mean “intelligent life,” and the latter doesn’t mean “technologically advanced civilization.” But, with so many planets, the galaxy may well be teeming with alien civilizations, some of them technologically as advanced as us, possibly much more.

The next step in this line of reasoning is called the “Fermi Paradox,” said to have been proposed for the first time by the physicist Enrico Fermi in the 1950s. It goes as, “if aliens exist, why aren’t they here?” Even at speeds slower than light, nothing physical prevents a spaceship from crossing the galaxy from end to end in a million years or even less. Since our galaxy is more than 10 billion years old, intelligent aliens would have had plenty of time to explore and colonize every star in the galaxy. But we don’t see aliens around and that’s the paradox.

Paradoxes are often extremely useful scientific tools. They state that two contrasting beliefs cannot be both true and that’s usually powerful evidence that some of our assumptions are not correct. The Fermi paradox is not so much about whether alien civilizations are common or not, but about the idea that interstellar travel is possible. //

But let’s imagine that an alien civilization, or our own in the future, avoids an irreversible collapse and that it moves to nuclear energy. Let’s assume it can avoid the risk of nuclear annihilation. Can nuclear energy provide enough energy for interstellar travel? There are many technological problems with nuclear energy, but a fundamental one is the availability of nuclear fuel. Without fuel, not even the most advanced spaceship can go anywhere.

The techno-uptopians keep promising us technological solutions to our myriad critical problems that either don’t appear, don’t solve the problem, create many new difficult problems, or keep getting delayed far into the future (fusion-based energy comes to mind). What they never seriously ask us to do is change the way we live. That must be a major reason their “solutions” find such a large audience of ready believers.

Blue hydrogen’s Achilles’ heel is the methane used to produce it. Methane is the dominant component of natural gas, and while it burns more cleanly than oil or coal, it’s a potent greenhouse gas on its own. Over 20 years, one ton of the stuff warms the atmosphere 86 times more than one ton of carbon dioxide. That means leaks along the supply chain can undo a lot of methane’s climate advantages.

Anyone who lives in an area with old pipelines knows that gas leaks are an unfortunate reality. Methane is a small molecule, and it’s great at finding cracks in the system. Gas wells and processing facilities are also pretty leaky. Add it all up, and anywhere between 1-8 percent of all energy-related methane escapes into the atmosphere, depending on where and how it's measured. //

“Combined emissions of carbon dioxide and methane are greater for gray hydrogen and for blue hydrogen (whether or not exhaust flue gases are treated for carbon capture) than for any of the fossil fuels,” Howarth and Jacobson wrote. “Methane emissions are a major contributor to this, and methane emissions from both gray and blue hydrogen are larger than for any of the fossil fuels.”

Wyoming’s political leadership, while making no bones about their total support for coal, announced that Bill Gates’ advanced nuclear venture, TerraPower, had selected Wyoming and a yet-to-be-determined retiring Rocky Mountain Power coal plant, as the site to build and operate the first sodium-cooled advanced Natrium™ reactor, with matching funding from the DOE’s ARDP program.

The Governor’s plan to test the conversion of coal plants to new nuclear is being supported with a combination of private and federal funding as well as advance work by Wyoming’s legislature, which passed HB 74 with overwhelming bipartisan support, allowing utilities and other power plant owners to replace retiring coal and natural gas electric generation plants with small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs). The bill was signed by the Governor immediately and is now House Enrolled Act 60.

Wyoming will see the development of a first-of-a-kind advanced nuclear power plant that validates the design, construction and operational features of the Natrium technology and enables Wyoming, which currently leads the country in coal exports, to get a lead in the form of energy best suited to replace coal—built right at coal plants, potentially around the world. This conversion path not only reuses some of the physical infrastructure at the coal plant but also takes advantage of the skilled people and supporting community that have been operating that plant. //

What makes this announcement truly “game-changing and monumental” in the Governor’s own words, is just how cost-effective and efficient converting a coal plant to advanced nuclear might be. According to the Polish study, retrofitting coal boilers with high-temperature small modular nuclear reactors as a way to decarbonize the plant can lower upfront capital costs by as much as 35% and reduce the levelized cost of electricity by as much as 28% when compared to a greenfield installation.

In July, micro-nuclear reactor company Oklo and bitcoin mining company Compass Mining announced a 20-year commercial partnership in which Oklo will eventually power a portion of Compass' mining activities with carbon-free nuclear energy.

Earlier in July, Akron, Ohio-based energy company Energy Harbor Corp. announced it will provide nuclear power to Standard Power's new Bitcoin blockchain mining center in Coshocton, Ohio beginning in December 2021.

Those in favor of mobile nuclear power for the battlefield claim it will provide "unlimited, low-carbon energy" //

The PM-2A was built in 18 months. It arrived at Thule Air Force Base in Greenland in July 1960 and was dragged 138 miles across the ice sheet in pieces and then assembled at Camp Century. //

The Army called the reactor portable, even at 330 tons, because it was built from pieces that each fit in a C-130 cargo plane. It was powering Camp Century, one of the military's most unusual bases.

Camp Century was a series of tunnels built into the Greenland ice sheet and used for both military research and scientific projects. The military boasted that the nuclear reactor there, known as the PM-2A, needed just 44 pounds of uranium to replace a million or more gallons of diesel fuel. Heat from the reactor ran lights and equipment and allowed the 200 or so men at the camp as many hot showers as they wanted in that brutally cold environment. //

The PM-2A ran for two years, making fossil fuel-free power and heat and far more neutrons than was safe.

Those stray neutrons caused trouble. Steel pipes and the reactor vessel grew increasingly radioactive over time, as did traces of sodium in the snow. Cooling water leaking from the reactor contained dozens of radioactive isotopes potentially exposing personnel to radiation and leaving a legacy in the ice. //

When the reactor was dismantled for shipping, its metal pipes shed radioactive dust. Bulldozed snow that was once bathed in neutrons from the reactor released radioactive flakes of ice. //

The U.S. military's first attempts at land-based portable nuclear reactors didn't work out well in terms of environmental contamination, cost, human health and international relations. That history is worth remembering as the military considers new mobile reactors.

Surprisingly a real-life scenario and not a plotline from The Simpsons

A reactor at Guosheng Nuclear Power Plant in Taiwan malfunctioned on Tuesday morning, triggering an auto shutdown that resulted in the loss of 985 megawatts of power – all due to the misplacement of a chair.

The plant owner, state-run Taipower, said the incident did not cause any grid power outages, although the power supply light turned yellow from green, indicating the system was running at 6-10 per cent of operating reserve ratio.

Both the power company and the Atomic Energy Commission, a government agency for atomic safety, confirmed there was no concern about radiation release.

An investigation by the Association for Natural Energy pinpointed the cause: misplaced furniture. Staff working in the control room moved the chair to clean and, in the process, knocked the acrylic protective cover of a main steam isolation valve switch causing it to tilt, shift, and close, setting off a chain reaction that tripped the main steam turbine and stopped the reactor.

Taipower filed a report on the 6:30am oopsie and by 11:40pm the reactor was approved to restart.

If Joe Biden were trying to injure our energy position in relation to the rest of the world, in particular Russia, he couldn’t have done too much more to be destructive than what he’s already done. //

Townhall.com
@townhallcom
Jen Psaki attributes a 40% increase in gas prices to seasonal fluctuations: //

But Joe Biden has no sense. His solution? Ask OPEC to pump more oil, so the prices don’t go up more. So, he’ll ask them to pump more while he’s cutting our own production ability. As the Wall Street Journal phrased it, “As cognitive dissonance goes, this is a classic.”

We truly have gone back to the Seventies, with a Democrat trying to make us dependent once again, after President Donald Trump had built our energy independence. //

Senator Ted Cruz
@SenTedCruz
Joe Biden’s energy agenda helps Russia and Iran, not America. //

Lauren Boebert
@laurenboebert
Biden wants OPEC to produce more oil while his regime tries to shut down U.S. oil and natural gas production.

If Joe actually cared about good jobs and lowering gas prices, he’d support American energy dominance! //

Brian Sullivan
@SullyCNBC
Lost in the OPEC story is that the market is scared 400,000 new barrels per day won't be coming online.

3 years ago US producers were pumping 2 million more barrels per day than right now.

OPEC back in drivers seat.

As the climate crisis worsens, the discussion intensifies over what role nuclear power should play in fighting it.

BYLOIS PARSHLEY
PUBLISHED MAY 4, 2021

Not too long ago, when the idea of solar and wind energy was still hotly debated, critics used to point out the limitations of these energy sources: the sun doesn’t always shine and the wind doesn’t always blow. But nowadays many countries’ electricity grids are strongly supplied by renewable energy.

The challenge in creating flexible, reliable and affordable energy supply systems with renewables lies in the very different circumstances across countries and regions. Planning and expanding renewable power must consider countries’ local resources and their existing and planned infrastructure. This becomes even more interesting for countries trying to grow their grids and expand their renewables at the same time – like many in sub-Saharan Africa.

One technology that has the flexibility to complement solar and wind power production is hydropower. It can be used as a constant source of electricity, but also compensate for fluctuations in other sources. But it does need to be properly planned and managed if it’s to be sustainable. //

Can increased electricity generation be harmonised with climate change objectives?

Our research shows that combining sustainably managed hydropower plants with new solar and wind power projects is a promising option for the West African region. It could minimise the use of fossil fuels and their negative climate change impacts as the region seeks to expand access to affordable electricity. //

In our paper, we use a new model to examine the synergies of sustainable hydropower generation with solar and wind power in West Africa. The model shows how to manage these sources in combination.

We show that the region can use hydropower, rather than natural gas plants, to ensure grid reliability while increasing solar and wind power. Natural gas is often touted as a bridging fuel in the transition to sustainable energy. But global emissions need to be around zero by mid-century according to the Paris Agreement. Building more gas infrastructure therefore risks missing climate goals. //

Our paper shows one way to start the renewable transition for West Africa is by optimising the use of local solar, wind and water resources while keeping an eye on sustainability criteria. For instance, our methodology ensures that hydropower lake levels and downstream river flows remain within acceptable boundaries. It also underlines the possibility of replacing future hydropower plants with solar and wind.

This will increase the overall ecological sustainability of renewable power generation.

Seven years ago the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) proposed the Inga 3 – a 4.8GW hydropower project on the Congo River – with great fanfare. Third in a series of dams that would form the Grand Inga complex on the Congo river, the project was touted as a solution to southern Africa’s energy deficit woes and a way for the DRC to participate in regional economic development.

Seven years later, development of Inga 3 has yet to begin. The project continues to be stymied by conflicts. For example, earlier this year, one of the partners, a Spanish company, pulled out of the consortium. But DRC president Félix Tshisekedi continues to push to revive the plans.

According to South Africa’s Integrated Resource Plan (IRP 2019), the country plans to import at least 2.5GW of electric power from Inga 3 (or more than half of the original 4.8GW design), a commitment reiterated recently by South African president Cyril Ramaphosa. The largest remaining fractions of Inga 3’s electricity generation would be purchased by the mining industry in the DRC. Less than 10% of the electricity from Inga 3 is expected to supply the DRC’s residential electricity needs. Currently 90% of the population in the DRC lacks electricity access.

Does Inga 3 make sense? //

The hydropower potential at the Grand Inga site on the Congo River, the largest remaining untapped hydropower potential in the world, has drawn the interest and attention of development banks and regional governments for the past several decades. But there’s been dramatic change in the energy sector in the past five years. In particular, the cost of alternative energy sources like wind and solar has changed the game for cost-competitive and sustainable energy generation that can be rapidly scaled up.

There are more efficient ways to address severe energy deficits quickly and cost-efficiently. For example, wind projects take only one to three years to build and most solar photovoltaic projects take a year. Both incur lower costs than similar-sized hydropower projects, which take five to 10 years to build. The latest construction time estimate for the Inga 3 is eight years. //

Longer build times lead to greater costs due to interest on capital. And analysis of data from past large hydropower dams shows that these projects cost twice the amount they quoted before the start of the project.

We found that, even without considering the large environmental and social impacts, the dam is an unsound investment based on plain economics. //

We found that a mix of wind, solar photovoltaics, and some natural gas would be more cost-effective than Inga 3 to meet future demand.

We reached this conclusion after examining the impact of several uncertain factors that could change overall costs. These included: Inga 3 performance, Inga 3 cost overruns, wind and solar performance, and the demand for electricity in the future.

The only scenarios in which Inga 3 was more cost-effective were those that assumed significantly lower than average wind energy performance. //

Of course, economics should be only one of many factors to weigh when choosing energy technologies. Like many other mega hydropower projects, the Inga 3 has been fraught with potential severe social and environmental impacts. At least 35,000 people would be displaced by Inga 3 alone.

The potential ecosystem impacts include the decline of fisheries upstream of the dam, threats to freshwater diversity and mangroves in the Congo delta, and reduced carbon sequestration through reduced organic sediment transport downstream to the ocean. ///

What about the economics of the LCOE over the life of the investment? A hydro power plant should have a life of at least 50 years, double that of any present wind or solar power system. This seems like a very short sighted analysis, very much in line with the recent switch of the World Bank et.al. from infrastructure development goals to "sustainable development", which only serves to maintain the status quo of human development in favor of the environment.

Zimbabwe is one of the African countries that hopes renewable energy technologies will help to address their energy problems. About 42% of Zimbabwe’s households are connected to the electricity grid.

The country has huge and diverse renewable energy potential. Its sustainable energy portfolio could include solar, hydro, biomass and, to a limited extent, wind and geothermal. //

For policy makers, non-governmental organisations, the private sector and some researchers, it’s a given that renewable energy technologies are the answer. They could meet Zimbabwe’s growing energy demand and achieve universal access sustainably. At face value this is appealing – but the devil is in the details.

My research looked into how renewable energy technologies are understood and how they could alleviate energy poverty in Zimbabwe.

I found that they’re only one piece of the puzzle and other pieces are habitually missing. No matter how well designed and efficient technologies are, their effectiveness is linked to the country’s political economy.

Socio-economic and political factors keep conventional energy out of reach of the poor. My study shows that they can do the same with renewable energy. These factors may even worsen inequality. Adding renewable energy technologies into the existing energy sector structures is like pouring new wine into old wine skins. //

The politics of energy and technological dependency: China has become a source of finance for large-scale energy projects in Zimbabwe. This is true for both coal-based and renewable energy generation.

What’s seldom acknowledged is the skewed nature of this relationship. China has global dominance in renewable energy technologies. For example, the Chinese solar PV cell and module makers quickly dominated global sales. And the country’s wind turbine producers are poised for significant exports. //

Energy as a tool of accumulation: For China, energy poverty in Zimbabwe is an opportunity for its economic growth. The unequal distribution of economic power keeps Zimbabwe energy poor. Accumulation is happening at one pole and energy poverty at another. //

Renewable energy technologies would work if, somehow, they did more for the poor than for the powerful. But in reality, the opposite is true.

First, the private partners (independent power producers) aren’t ordinary citizens, but the economically powerful and politically connected.

Second, the flawed nature of the tendering system cannot be overstated. It’s normally associated with corruption and political interference.

What’s more, this elite group tends to benefit from the state’s intervention.

Forward:

A book of this type must often get into discussions of scientific details. Every effort has been made to keep them as readable as possible for the layperson. The more technical details have been put into Appendixes at the end of the book. These can be ignored by readers with less interest in details. For readers with more interest in these, references are given which can be used as starting points for further reading. Personal inquiries about further information or references are always welcome.

Each chapter is broken up into sections. If a reader is not interested in the subject of a particular section or finds it to be too technical, it can usually be skipped over without loss of continuity.

Whither nuclear power? That question has become more important as energy policies evolve to emphasize emissions-free “green” energy and an increased electrification of the U.S. economy. Some environmentalists consider nuclear power to be crucial to reducing carbon emissions; others continue to vehemently oppose nuclear power and believe that our energy must come solely from renewable sources. Asked whether they favor or oppose nuclear power, the public is split.*

Meanwhile, the nuclear power industry itself is in a parlous state for a variety of reasons. These include: (i) decades of construction cost overruns and plant delays because of poor designs, lack of manufacturing expertise, and changing regulations; (ii) political squabbling over spent nuclear fuel disposal; (iii) energy policies, including renewable energy subsidies and mandates, that have distorted electric power markets and made it harder for nuclear plants to compete; and (iv) lower natural gas prices and more efficient gas-fired generators. In the past few years, threatened plant closures have led state policymakers to award subsidies to a number of existing plants, and more such subsidies are likely forthcoming.

Nevertheless, nuclear power provides valuable benefits. It is highly reliable and emissions-free. It provides generation diversity, which can reduce the adverse impacts of fuel price shocks. It does not require backup and storage, unlike wind and solar power generation. New designs for nuclear plants promise lower costs and improved safety. This paper thus concludes that saving nuclear power is crucial to this country’s energy future, especially if that future is based on increased electrification. //

Several policies are necessary to preserve this power source. They include:

• Eliminating subsidies for renewable energy at the state and federal level, including federal production tax credits, state renewable portfolio standards, and feed-in tariffs for renewable resources that are increasingly distorting wholesale electric markets.
• Linking subsidies for existing nuclear plants to wholesale market prices of electricity and combining them with performance incentives that require improved operating efficiency over time. However, before subsidies are granted to prevent a nuclear plant’s closure, a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis should be performed to ensure that the grant is not a futile exercise or is so costly that building replacement generating capacity is a lower-cost alternative.
  .....

https://media4.manhattan-institute.org/sites/default/files/R-0719-JL.pdf

DC Reade
traveling
April 7, 2019
Times Pick
I'm noticing the usual array of objections to nuclear power: 1) that high level waste storage is impractical; 2) that reactors are easy terrorist targets; 3) that radiation is such a horrific form of pollution that only zero tolerance will suffice; 4) that the track record of Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Miles Island demonstrates that the technology is inherently unsafe.

If people were to investigate these objections instead of regarding them as truisms, they'd find that 1) high-level nuclear waste can be reprocessed using fast-neutron reactor technology and reused to consume nearly all of it; 2) nuclear reactors are not exactly soft targets for terrorist groups, particularly in terms of making bomb-grade fissile material available to them; 3) some level of radiation is inescapable simply in the course of residing on the planet, and people incur much more of an additional radiation load as airline passengers than people do by living in proximity to a nuclear power plant; and 4) Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island are more examples of failure to heed ordinary good sense precautions than they are indications of an inherently dangerous technology.

Furthermore, the best and cleanest nuclear reactor designs- Gen III and Gen IV- are only now coming online. There are designs that don't use water for cooling. There are designs that don't even require uranium.

It's imperative to not fall into the trap of obsessing over every problem while objecting to every solution.

318 RecommendShareFlag
10 REPLIES
Lynn commented April 6, 2019
L
Lynn
New York
April 6, 2019
@DC Reade
"high-level nuclear waste can be reprocessed using fast-neutron reactor technology and reused to consume nearly all of it"
So is anyone doing that first with all the waste that's already lying around with no plan to go?

18 RecommendShareFlag
Ian Rasmussen commented April 6, 2019
I
Ian Rasmussen
Chicago
April 6, 2019
@Lynn As my understanding goes, the way to reprocess as @CD Reade mentions is called a Breeder Reactor, and yes, they are used around the world. That's what the authors are talking about when they say "we can either burn the waste as fuel in new types of reactors or bury it underground." For whatever reason we don't use them in America, I'm not sure why, probably politics. Europe and I believe Japan have used them for a while, and China just opened one in the last decade as they push forward on nuclear power. Could be some nuclear arms treaty fine print or something that prevents us in the US, or just the general fear of the word nuclear.

11 RecommendShareFlag
DC Reade commented April 6, 2019
D
DC Reade
traveling
April 6, 2019
@Ian Rasmussen

In the US, the obstacles are based in politics and litigation. I've gotten to view most of that resistance as based in irrational fear- with the (dys)functional result being that high-level nuclear waste products continue to be stored on-site in cooling ponds long after they've cooled enough to be moved, which is a much more potentially hazardous than transporting the material for reprocessing in a breeder reactor, or moving it to a remote storage site that's nowhere near any bodies of water and relatively secure from being mobilized by the wind and weather.

11 RecommendShareFlag
617to416 commented April 7, 2019
617to416
617to416
Ontario Via Massachusetts
April 7, 2019
@DC Reade

"Fukushima, Chernobyl, and Three Mile Island are more examples of failure to heed ordinary good sense precautions than they are indications of an inherently dangerous technology. "

And are we confident that "failures to heed ordinary good sense" are a thing of the past and that we've now entered an era where humans will be free from error, always rational, and never motivated by passion, greed, or anger?

The failure to heed ordinary good sense is a significant risk that any truly rational person can't ignore!

8 RecommendShareFlag
K D commented April 7, 2019
K
K D
Pa
April 7, 2019
@DC Reade
The incident at Three Mile was handled exactly the way it was suppose to be handled. They followed procedures and no radiation escaped.

11 RecommendShareFlag
Cactus commented April 7, 2019
C
Cactus
RI
April 7, 2019
@DC Reade
You've said everything better than I could. I understand many anti-nuclearists think they are protecting life on our planet. If only they would educate themselves----we are so mis-informed. The author's book is a good start as is Gretchen Craven's Power to Save the World.

8 RecommendShareFlag
Anne commented April 7, 2019
A
Anne
Chicago
April 7, 2019
In a few years homes can fully power themselves (https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/green-tech/fuel-cells/solar-panel-prototype-splits-water-to-produce-hydrogen).
That leaves a much smaller production need for industry and vehicles which can be largely covered with other renewables. The US has the open space and latitude for it.

3 RecommendShareFlag
Peter Melzer commented April 7, 2019
P
Peter Melzer
C'ville, VA
April 7, 2019
@Ian Rasmussen,
Russia is the only country that claims to have developed functional commercial-scale fast breeder reactors. France's Superphenix produced power for a few weeks before the project was abandoned because of technical difficulties. Japan's Monju project never went on grid. Construction of the Clinch River reactor in the US was abandoned in its early infancy.

5 RecommendShareFlag
Varsityvic commented April 7, 2019
V
Varsityvic
NJ
April 7, 2019
@Ian Rasmussen I worked as a nuclear engineer on the breeder reactor. Government funded, cancelled a few years after TMI accident for both political and economic reasons. They are much more complex than normal reactors. I’m surprised no mention of geothermal in article or comments by others.

5 RecommendShareFlag
Dirk commented April 7, 2019
D
Dirk
Camden, Maine
April 7, 2019
@K D It may have been handled exactly the way "it should be" but it never should have happened in the first place. What it proves is that nuclear accidents (and blunders) WILL happen. Full Stop.
Therefore we need to expect more of them if we build more of them. You didn't mention the costs of 3-Mile Island. From what I can gather it cost $973M (or almost a billion dollars) to clean up -- which doesn't include the cost of building the reactor. It was new at the time it failed so all the imbedded costs in its construction and startup were lost. These babies are not cheap and some will fail. 3-Mile Island came very close to a complete meltdown. Fukishima is not done melting yet -- it's still a major disaster in progres. But that said, it's predicted to cost Japan over $200Billion (American dollars) over time. Five of those and you have a Trillion. This is playing with fire. Solar is not.

3 RecommendShareFlag
paul commented April 7, 2019
P
paul
White Plains, NY
April 7, 2019
Times Pick
Finally, a voice of reason in an age of anti-nuclear rhetoric. Nuclear power is efficient, economical and safe, despite the fear mongering of people who simply ignore the science and the facts. Look at New York state, where the witless Governor Andrew Cuomo has frightened the residents of the Hudson Valley into the imminent shut down of the Indian Point nuclear power plant. Where will the replacement power come from? How much will it cost? No amount of wind or solar power can generate what Indian Point does, but Cuomo simply ignores the economic realities. Sheer stupidity, or more likely the outright political manipulation of the people.

1 Reply107 RecommendShareFlag
rosa commented April 7, 2019
R
rosa
ca
April 7, 2019
Times Pick
I'm 70.
I was born about the time that nuke-poer and nuke-weapons came on the scene.
Nuke power, they said, was going to be cheap!Evry one would use it for pennies a day!

And they never said anything about nuke waste.
They didn't have to.
There was a terrific site in Washington. All they had to do was scrape a deep trench in the soil, throw in the waste, scrape a cover over it, and, VIOLA! No more problem!

When I left Washington, they had 'discovered' that, ooops, the trenches were leaking. Into the Columbia. Heading downstream. So, don't eat the fish.

You'll forgive me, young men, if I don't believe anyone when they say they have a solution to.... pretty much anything, but especially, nuclear waste.

We still have no solution to Chernobyl.
We have no solution to Fukushima Diachi.
Yucca Mountain? It's one of the most earthquake states, Nevada, that there is.
And what about that nuclear power plant that was built on the California coast?

Sorry.
Never.
There is no industry in the world that is run by a more incompetent bunch, ever.
I am 70.
So are nukes.

Seriously, NYTimes?
Is this the next subject that shall be "normalized"?

Solar.
Wind.
Hydro.
Tidal.
They are all cheaper - and safer.
No nukes - for any reason - until the problem with "WASTE" is solved.

Start with the state of Washington.

88 RecommendShareFlag
3 REPLIES
spike commented April 7, 2019
spike
spike
NYC
April 7, 2019
@rosa Nukes always seem like a great idea on paper, but in the end they always end up much more expensive then alternatives. Any mistake is very expensive to fix, the waste problem is endless. The need to place them next to water and near cities means any problem becomes catastrophic. The huge capital cost means engineers will always be pushed to cut corners so that Diablo Canyon and San Onofre are sited over faults. Hindsight always shows ways that disasters could have been avoided- Fukushima would have survived if the fuel tanks for the back up pumps have been underground so that they were not swept away by the tsunami. But all systems fail at some point. After the Tohoku earthquakes probably the safest place to put a nuke plant is Fukushima- it wouldn't see another earthquake a large for a very long time. Instead Japan maintains nuke plants at other more vulnerable locations. Probably the safest place to dump nuclear waste would be in the deep oceans, where it would be slowly diluted by the vast ocean. Instead it will be placed on land where it will be vulnerable to terrorists, earthquakes, leak into water supplies and always be a danger.

3eeeeeeeddddededeeeee

Blue Moon
Old Pueblo
April 7, 2019
Times Pick
Three Mile Island had a seriously adverse effect on the American psyche. After that, no new nuclear plants were licensed for startup until 2012 (33 years later). And many plants that were being planned at the time wound up delayed or canceled.

China is on track for 100 nuclear generating stations in the near future (as well as robust investment in wind and solar). If they can do it, why can't we? And if we still decide not to do it, that decision isn't going to stop the Chinese.

There is no rational reason for America not to pursue nuclear power in earnest again. We fell off the wagon. It's high time to get back on.

Rod Adams
Rod Adams
Trinity, FL
April 7, 2019
@b fagan Your link points to a graph of installed and projected CAPACITY, not generation.

Because nuclear plants run at 100% of their capacity for major portions of each year, they produce more electricity per unit of capacity than variable sources like wind.

Though nuclear CAPACITY was just 2% in 2016, nuclear electricity generation in 2018 was 294.4 billion kWh. That's 4.2% of the total generation and an 18% increase over 2017.

In 2018, China put 8 new nuclear plants into operation; most of them only generated power for a small portion of the year. Expect another large incremental growth in nuclear electricity production for 2019.

http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2019-01/24/c_137771695.htm

One more thing - China is also building one of the world's largest nuclear powered icebreakers. I'm pretty sure that wind powered icebreaking isn't even a thing.

Blue Moon
Old Pueblo
April 7, 2019
@seattle expat
Natural gas burns cleaner than coal but still pumps CO2 into the atmosphere. Fracking represents an extreme environmental hazard (e.g., water table contamination, earthquakes). Realistically, wind and solar will take many decades to implement effectively for a large portion of the U.S. population, requiring a "transcontinental railroad" infrastructure effort to transmit the power from solar and wind farms to where it is needed. Battery storage capacity will take many more decades to properly develop for commercial applications. We can get nuclear plants up and running within 20 years, in abundance. Natural gas to nuclear to renewables (wind, solar) is the best progression and the way we need to go. Threats from nuclear waste disposal and accidents pale in comparison to the existential threats of global warming and climate change. China certainly has its share of problems, but safely embracing nuclear power generation is not one of them. Nuclear power will provide the path to powering our electric cars of the near future. It is foolish to shun it.

Expanding the technology is the fastest way to slash greenhouse gas emissions and decarbonize the economy.

April 6, 2019

Beyond decarbonizing today’s electric grid, we must use clean electricity to replace fossil fuels in transportation, industry and heating. We must provide for the fast-growing energy needs of poorer countries and extend the grid to a billion people who now lack electricity. And still more electricity will be needed to remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere by midcentury.

Where will this gargantuan amount of carbon-free energy come from? The popular answer is renewables alone, but this is a fantasy. Wind and solar power are becoming cheaper, but they are not available around the clock, rain or shine, and batteries that could power entire cities for days or weeks show no sign of materializing any time soon. Today, renewables work only with fossil-fuel backup.

Germany, which went all-in for renewables, has seen little reduction in carbon emissions, and, according to our calculations, at Germany’s rate of adding clean energy relative to gross domestic product, it would take the world more than a century to decarbonize, even if the country wasn’t also retiring nuclear plants early. //

But we actually have proven models for rapid decarbonization with economic and energy growth: France and Sweden. They decarbonized their grids decades ago and now emit less than a tenth of the world average of carbon dioxide per kilowatt-hour. They remain among the world’s most pleasant places to live and enjoy much cheaper electricity than Germany to boot.

They did this with nuclear power. And they did it fast, taking advantage of nuclear power’s intense concentration of energy per pound of fuel. France replaced almost all of its fossil-fueled electricity with nuclear power nationwide in just 15 years; Sweden, in about 20 years. In fact, most of the fastest additions of clean electricity historically are countries rolling out nuclear power.

New nuclear power plants are hugely expensive to build in the United States today. This is why so few are being built. But they don’t need to be so costly. The key to recovering our lost ability to build affordable nuclear plants is standardization and repetition. The first product off any assembly line is expensive — it cost more than $150 million to develop the first iPhone — but costs plunge as they are built in quantity and production kinks are worked out.

Yet as a former chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission put it, while France has two types of reactors and hundreds of types of cheese, in the United States it’s the other way around. In recent decades, the United States and some European countries have created ever more complicated reactors, with ever more safety features in response to public fears. New, one-of-a-kind designs, shifting regulations, supply-chain and construction snafus and a lost generation of experts (during the decades when new construction stopped) have driven costs to absurd heights. //

These economic problems are solvable. China and South Korea can build reactors at one-sixth the current cost in the United States. //

dozens of American start-ups are developing “fourth generation” reactors that can be mass-produced, potentially generating electricity at lower cost than fossil fuels. If American activists, politicians and regulators allow it, these reactors could be exported to the world in the 2030s and ’40s, slaking poorer countries’ growing thirst for energy while creating well-paying American jobs. //

Currently, as M.I.T.’s Richard Lester, a nuclear engineer, has written, a company proposing a new reactor design faces “the prospect of having to spend a billion dollars or more on an open-​ended, all‑or‑nothing licensing process without any certainty of outcomes.” We need government on the side of this clean-energy transformation, with supportive regulation, streamlined approval, investment in research and incentives that tilt producers and consumers away from carbon.

All this, however, depends on overcoming an irrational dread among the public and many activists. The reality is that nuclear power is the safest form of energy humanity has ever used. Mining accidents, hydroelectric dam failures, natural gas explosions and oil train crashes all kill people, sometimes in large numbers, and smoke from coal-burning kills them in enormous numbers, more than half a million per year.

By contrast, in 60 years of nuclear power, only three accidents have raised public alarm: Three Mile Island in 1979, which killed no one; Fukushima in 2011, which killed no one (many deaths resulted from the tsunami and some from a panicked evacuation near the plant); and Chernobyl in 1986, the result of extraordinary Soviet bungling, which killed 31 in the accident and perhaps several thousand from cancer, around the same number killed by coal emissions every day. (Even if we accepted recent claims that Soviet and international authorities covered up tens of thousands of Chernobyl deaths, the death toll from 60 years of nuclear power would still equal about one month of coal-related deaths.) //

Nuclear waste is compact — America’s total from 60 years would fit in a Walmart — and is safely stored in concrete casks and pools, becoming less radioactive over time. After we have solved the more pressing challenge of climate change, we can either burn the waste as fuel in new types of reactors or bury it deep underground. It’s a far easier environmental challenge than the world’s enormous coal waste, routinely dumped near poor communities and often laden with toxic arsenic, mercury and lead that can last forever.

Renewable energy, carbon-capture technologies, efficiency measures, reforestation and other steps are important—but they won’t get us there

By Daniel B. Poneman on May 24, 2019

Sixty-five years ago, President Eisenhower took the first concrete steps toward implementing his “Atoms for Peace” initiative, presenting Soviet leaders with a detailed outline of the safety and nonproliferation rules that should guide the peaceful development of civilian nuclear energy.

Three more years of determined U.S.-led diplomacy culminated in the establishment of the International Atomic Energy Agency, which continues to be pivotal in maintaining, monitoring and enforcing global nonproliferation safeguards—so that, in Ike’s words, “this greatest of destructive forces can be developed into a great boon, for the benefit of all mankind.” //

The threat of nuclear proliferation abroad should not lead us to abandon nuclear energy at home. Indeed, American nuclear leadership has always been critical to guiding the safe, responsible use of civilian nuclear energy around the world.

For example, a number of American companies are developing advanced generation-reactor technologies that offer a host of safety and nonproliferation advantages. These advanced designs would have “walk away” safety, meaning they do not need any backup power or external cooling systems in the event of an accident. And since many of the new reactor designs would rarely if ever need to be refueled, the risk of diversion of fuel from uranium-enrichment or plutonium-reprocessing plants to a bomb program would be greatly diminished.

The U.S. should lead the way in the development of these reactors so they can be deployed at home and abroad over the next decade. As a growing number of countries around the world turn to nuclear power as a source of carbon-free electricity, it is strongly in our interest that they do so with safe, American-made technology. Countries that adopt the new U.S. reactor designs will also be subject to U.S. nonproliferation requirements, which are second to none. //

The 98 reactors in our nuclear fleet are the workhorse of the clean-energy sector. They provide one fifth of our electricity. Unfortunately, over the past few years six reactors have been prematurely shut down, and another 12 are set to close in the next seven years.

The problem is that the rules governing wholesale electricity markets do not allow the unique advantages of nuclear power to be reflected in the wholesale price, effectively putting new and existing nuclear plants at a disadvantage. These rules were written decades ago to deliver some things we want (low prices and excess capacity to meet spikes in demand) but not other things we want (clean air, lower carbon emissions and grid reliability). //

Nuclear plants are not only emissions-free and carbon-free, they are by far the most reliable assets in our power generation mix, operating 93 percent of the time—even during extreme weather events when some fossil fuel plants may be forced to shut down or curtail their operations. Under current rules, electricity markets are not allowed to value these attributes, even though they are clearly valuable. //

Preserving existing reactors may not sound exciting, but it is a critical first step if we take the climate challenge seriously. Consider that for every reactor that prematurely shuts down, our carbon dioxide emissions rise by about 5.8 million metric tons per year. According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Greenhouse Equivalencies Calculator, that equals the emissions from burning more than 648 million gallons of gasoline—the equivalent of filling up an NFL stadium with gasoline and setting it on fire. //

In the 1950s, Admiral Hyman Rickover’s redoubtable efforts to establish a nuclear navy led directly to a commercial nuclear power industry in the U.S., beginning with the Shippingport reactor in 1957. Today the Pentagon’s need for reliable power can help drive demand for nuclear energy and defray its costs.

It is an essential weapon in the fight against climate change

As demand for energy rises in the developing world, nuclear power could provide one partial solution to the global climate crisis. Large countries such as Russia and China are both investing in nuclear power and positioning themselves to export technology and expertise. But whether developing countries should incorporate nuclear energy depends on a range of factors such as local energy demand and the availability of other energy sources. They should also consider how competitive nuclear energy would be. Most important, countries that go nuclear should have sufficient technological, industrial, and political stability. //

Nuclear expansion in Africa. Energy demand in sub-Saharan Africa is projected to grow by 80 per cent by 2040—that is, at 3.5 percent a year—faster than the global average of 1.3 percent. Ghana, Kenya, and Namibia have expressed interest in nuclear power. Russia is at various stages of negotiating nuclear cooperation agreements with at least 16 African countries. Currently, only South Africa has a functioning nuclear power plant. However, several African countries possess substantial uranium ore deposits. Namibia, for example, has seven percent of the world’s known uranium reserves and has made a political commitment to supplying its own energy from nuclear power in the future. Still, African access to electricity is the lowest in the world, according to the World Bank, and infrastructure in many parts of the continent is scarce. Consequently, large investments and development are needed before technologically demanding nuclear power production will be economically viable. //

decisions regarding nuclear power often result not from common-sense considerations, but rather from bargaining between countries that seek nuclear technologies and countries that can help them master such technologies. Developing countries rely on the IAEA and major powers such as the United States and Russia to provide access to the purposeful and peaceful application of the nuclear energy worldwide.

This situation of dependency creates challenges and opportunities for the IAEA and major powers engaged in providing access to the technology and expertise necessary for nuclear energy production. The challenge is linked to upholding the commitment to provide access to peaceful nuclear use while also detecting the potential diversion of nuclear technologies for non-peaceful purposes. Balancing these commitments should entail preventing the expansion of nuclear power in regions that are unstable and prone to proliferation. The Middle East is currently the most combustible region in this respect, with several ongoing conflicts involving rival states with nuclear ambitions. Limiting or strictly controlling access to nuclear technology may be one way of controlling developments. On the other hand, nuclear states and the IAEA have an opportunity to provide accessible power to regions that are more stable and whose population density make them suitable for nuclear power. If solutions to produce more cost-efficient nuclear power can be found, this will provide one opportunity to solve the dual problem of the growing global demand for energy and global climate change—an opportunity that should not be missed.

This year’s controversial documentary ‘Planet of the Humans,’ produced by Michael Moore, posed some uncomfortable questions to renewable energy enthusiasts. While the film has serious flaws, it gets one big thing right: renewables are not a magic fix-all for our energy problems.

It all comes down to what we mean by ‘renewable’. People tend to think that an energy type is renewable…