Nuclear VS. Renewables, EVs, and Jobs - Truth in the House!

[WetEV]

Two points, Wet.

One point, AndyH, you still haven't told me what the worst case outcome from fossil fuel combustion is.

Fossil fuel, you know, like all that coal Germany is burning to replace nuclear power.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-13/german-energy-plan-schizophrenic-as-coal-beats-gas-greens-say.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[WetEV]

Until a solution is found for nuclear waste - primarily "spent" fuel - that is safe and feasible on the scale needed, it's irresponsible to just shrug at the issue and hope it will be resolved *after* the technology is put into place. That's what gave us that decrepit, badly damaged "spent" fuel pool, sitting 100' in the air at Fukushima.

Geologically, there is a tested answer. Probably not the best, but still, more than good enough.

Natural nuclear reactors. Where did the spent fuel go?

 

[AndyH]

Two points, Wet.

One point, AndyH, you still haven't told me what the worst case outcome from fossil fuel combustion is.

Fossil fuel, you know, like all that coal Germany is burning to replace nuclear power.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-13/german-energy-plan-schizophrenic-as-coal-beats-gas-greens-say.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seriously? You put anti-renewable propaganda up as fact? I've busted this on this forum at least five times now - let's do it again...

Quick answer - more generation taken off-line than added, new plants are more efficient and cleaner, Germany's target of 85% renewables by 2050 still requires some fossil fuel and more efficient plants are better, and - most importantly - Germany's 0.9% rise in CO2 emissions in 2012 (compared with the UK's ~3.9%) is slight considering that they've exceeded their Kyoto reduction obligation and reduced their CO2 emissions more than 28%.

Yes, these are 'blog' links. I personally know and trust the author and have confirmed that source documents are linked.
http://climatecrocks.com/2013/05/15/no-more-coal-plants-in-germany/
http://climatecrocks.com/2013/08/16/amory-lovins-on-the-big-lies-about-germanys-transition/
http://climatecrocks.com/2013/04/03/germany-quadruples-energy-surplus/
http://climatecrocks.com/2013/02/11/germanys-10-huge-lessons-about-solar-energy/

http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?p=330885#p330885
http://www.mynissanleaf.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=14744


The coal plants highlighted in the Bloomberg piece were in planning before Chancellor Merkel turned the country towards the Third Industrial Revolution - they were not cancelled outright because German law did not allow them to be. Many have been cancelled for many reasons - primarily because Germans don't want them and because the energy companies that planned to build them no longer need them. Of the ones that will be built, they are new plants that must meet current emissions requirements while more generation capacity from old coal plants are being decommissioned.

http://www.renewablesinternational....-to-renewables-myths-and-facts/150/537/33308/

Won’t switching from nuclear to natural gas increase carbon emissions?
Yes, but that’s not all. It will also cut German production of the most radioactive nuclear waste.

But if you are concerned about climate change and support the Kyoto protocol, you will have to admit that Germany actually has the right to increase its carbon emissions since it completely blew past its Kyoto target of a 21 percent reduction. In August, the German Environmental Ministry reported that the country had actually reduced its emissions by 28.7 percent. Renewables have been indispensable in reaching that goal.

If you are worried about carbon emissions, no industrial country had a more ambitious target than Germany, lots of countries (like the US) did not sign on to the Kyoto Protocol at all, and almost all of those who did missed their targets (like Canada).

This summarizes why and where Germany's heading:
http://hyfleetcute.com/data/MEP Green H2 Declaration.pdf

WRITTEN DECLARATION

pursuant to Rule 116 of the Rules of Procedure

by Zita Gurmai, Anders Wijkman, Vittorio Prodi, Umberto Guidoni and
Claude Turmes

on establishing a green hydrogen economy and a third industrial revolution in
Europe through a partnership with committed regions and cities, SMEs and
civil society organisations

The European Parliament,
– having regard to Rule 116 of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas global warming and costs of fossil fuels are increasing and having regard to the
debate launched by the European Parliament and the Commission on the future of energy
policy and climate change,

B. whereas a post-fossil fuel and post-nuclear energy vision should be the next important
project of the European Union,

C. whereas the five key factors for energy independence are: maximising energy efficiency,
reducing global-warming gas emissions, optimising the commercial introduction of
renewable energies, establishing hydrogen fuel-cell technology to store renewable
energies and creating smart power grids to distribute energy,

[more at link - cannot cut/paste it here.]

edit...here's the page and chart I was looking for:
http://climatecrocks.com/2013/03/26/german-renewables-still-busting-gas-and-nuclear/

 

[AndyH]

Natural nuclear reactors.

No. Such. Thing.

Nature performs her energy conversions in water at room temperature without waste without harming future generations while improving the environment.

 

[WetEV]

Natural nuclear reactors.

No. Such. Thing.

True, not today. But in the past.

Didn't know about such? Google or Bing can help.

 

[AndyH]

Natural nuclear reactors.

No. Such. Thing.

True, not today. But in the past.

Didn't know about such? Google or Bing can help.

I'm not living in the past - I'm living now. My son will be living in the future.

Snark search=not useful.

 

[WetEV]

Two points, Wet.

One point, AndyH, you still haven't told me what the worst case outcome from fossil fuel combustion is.

Fossil fuel, you know, like all that coal Germany is burning to replace nuclear power.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-13/german-energy-plan-schizophrenic-as-coal-beats-gas-greens-say.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/04/26/us-germany-browncoal-idUSBRE93P0PI20130426" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-07-28/merkel-s-green-shift-backfires-as-german-pollution-jumps-energy" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Seriously? You put anti-renewable propaganda up as fact?

Oh, and the Green Party is "anti-renewable"?
Since when?

“What we are seeing is the schizophrenic situation of the renaissance of lignite plants while efficient power plants don’t get a chance to enter the market,” Stefan Wenzel, a member of the opposition Green party, said Sept. 11 in an interview in Munich.

 

[AndyH]

Fossil fuel, you know, like all that coal Germany is burning to replace nuclear power.

Seriously? Did you not at least SCAN the reply I made? I answered your question with sources and pictures.

Bloomberg is anti-renewables, not the German Green Party. :roll:

Do you really think that massive cuts in both hard coal and natural gas use, along with efficiency and adding massive amounts of wind and solar generation is outdone by a slight uptick in brown coal use? Especially when the hard coal plants that were taken off line were old, inefficient, and dirtier while the remaining plants are newer, cleaner, and more efficient?

You can keep adding links to lies, but that doesn't change the facts.

 

[WetEV]

Natural nuclear reactors.

No. Such. Thing.

True, not today. But in the past.

Didn't know about such? Google or Bing can help.

I'm not living in the past - I'm living now. My son will be living in the future.

Learning what happens to spent nuclear fuel after millions of years is useful for the future, assuming we care about what we do with nuclear waste.

 

[TomT]

It IS fun watching all you kids play King Of The Hill! :lol:

 

[planet4ever]

Natural nuclear reactors.

No. Such. Thing.

True, not today. But in the past.

Actually, we have a huge natural nuclear reactor running today, and without it none of us could survive. It's about 93 million miles away from the planet, and happens to use a fusion, rather than fission, reaction. It is, of course, the ultimate source of all "renewable energy" on earth.

Now, it might be nice if we could duplicate that on a small scale somewhere close to earth, and hence improve the efficiencies by thousands of orders of magnitude. But that's a pipe dream right now. We can and do control nuclear fission, and should not automatically exclude that source of "renewable energy" (literally, new energy created out of mass). The objections raised by Andy and others seem more political than scientific. It would not, technologically, be impossible to build new reactors within ten years. Indeed if it became a world priority I believe it could be done in five years.

Of course it should be a world priority to stop producing energy from coal. But that is just the dirtiest form of hydrocarbon. It also needs to be a world priority to stop producing energy from oil and natural gas. They are all destroying the earth. I don't buy the argument that we should try to slow pumping of carbon into the atmosphere by pulling ever more carbon out of its safe storage underground.

Some Americans are obsessed with the trillions of dollars of debt we are passing to future generations. That's not good, I agree, but it pales to insignificance compared with the quadrillions of dollars our children and grandchildren are going to be forced to pay to get all that excess carbon out of the atmosphere and ocean and back safely underground again. Forced, because if they don't do it climate change will become an existential threat to the survival of the species.

Ray

 

[LeftieBiker]

It IS fun watching all you kids play King Of The Hill! :lol:

Sitting back and laughing is kind of hard to distinguish from doing nothing and being proud of it...

 

[WetEV]

Fossil fuel, you know, like all that coal Germany is burning to replace nuclear power.

Seriously? Did you not at least SCAN the reply I made?

At least twice. Before the three edits and after the three edits.

Bloomberg is anti-renewables, not the German Green Party.

So shoot the messenger, eh?

AndyH, you still haven't answered the question:

What is the worst case outcome from fossil fuel combustion?

 

[TomT]

But is far more productive and enjoyable than you folks snipping back and forth at each other, accomplishing nothing! :lol: :lol:

It IS fun watching all you kids play King Of The Hill! :lol:

Sitting back and laughing is kind of hard to distinguish from doing nothing and being proud of it...

 

[stjohnh]

Natural nuclear reactors.

No. Such. Thing.

True, not today. But in the past.

Actually, we have a huge natural nuclear reactor running today, and without it none of us could survive. It's about 93 million miles away from the planet, and happens to use a fusion, rather than fission, reaction. It is, of course, the ultimate source of all "renewable energy" on earth.

Now, it might be nice if we could duplicate that on a small scale somewhere close to earth,
Ray[/quote]

The liquid core of the earth is heated by radioactivity (natural nuclear reactor)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradien" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"The major heat-producing isotopes in the Earth are potassium-40, uranium-238, uranium-235, and thorium-232.[2] "

 

[AndyH]

We can and do control nuclear fission, and should not automatically exclude that source of "renewable energy" (literally, new energy created out of mass). The objections raised by Andy and others seem more political than scientific. It would not, technologically, be impossible to build new reactors within ten years. Indeed if it became a world priority I believe it could be done in five years.

I really appreciate your insights - and have from the beginning of this forum. I cannot, however, agree with your 'renewable energy' label as there's nothing renewable about extracting finite radioactive materials from the planet and tapping the heat. We're not creating energy anyway as that would violate the laws of thermodynamics.

I've worked to clearly and accurately state my objections to using new nuclear generation to solve our carbon problem and have cited sources, and my position is absolutely not political. If we assume that we're going to build enough current tech light water reactors to replace fossil fuel use and thus satisfy WetEV's obsession with the Keeling curve over all else then the science is clear - we do not have enough skilled people to build the plants we need in the time we need them, and we do not have enough fuel available on the planet in 'carbon neutral' quantities to refuel those reactors for the period of time we need to lock our climate where it will be on the day the reactors are finished. We're already tapping lower quality, more energy intensive uranium sources just as we're tapping lower-quality and more energy intensive fossil fuel supplies. All of that completely ignores politics, planning, environmental impact statements, and diminishing water resource availability on a warming planet.

Pro-nuclear folks will say (and have in this thread) that we have enough uranium in sea water to power the planet's fission reactors - all we have to do is sift it out - one molecule at a time. It is also true that atoms and molecules of metal fall off our metallic eating utensils and end up in our carpeting and in the water pumped from the dishwasher - but nobody in their right mind suggests that we should start super-vacuuming the house when one of our teaspoons goes missing. Again - the laws of thermodynamics at work. Entropy is...

Of course it should be a world priority to stop producing energy from coal. But that is just the dirtiest form of hydrocarbon. It also needs to be a world priority to stop producing energy from oil and natural gas. They are all destroying the earth. I don't buy the argument that we should try to slow pumping of carbon into the atmosphere by pulling ever more carbon out of its safe storage underground.

Some Americans are obsessed with the trillions of dollars of debt we are passing to future generations. That's not good, I agree, but it pales to insignificance compared with the quadrillions of dollars our children and grandchildren are going to be forced to pay to get all that excess carbon out of the atmosphere and ocean and back safely underground again. Forced, because if they don't do it climate change will become an existential threat to the survival of the species.

Ray

The people fixated on our national debt are not stopping to realize that our entire monetary system - and our entire system of economics - is based on debt. It's not just based on debt, it's based on the absolute NEED to continue to increase that debt. If We the People were to write a huge check and 'pay off our debt for the benefit of our children' our entire economy would crash. Good luck finding little Freddy a job after THAT happens. Good luck building a nuclear power plant - or anything else - as well. http://hiddensecretsofmoney.com/videos/episode-4

Ray, since we cannot take the planet's (or country's or state's or even county's) power grid off-line for an overnight upgrade from fossil fuel generation to wind, water, and solar generation, the best we can do is to continue to measure emissions and keep working to make those numbers go to zero as quickly as we can. As far as I can tell, that means that we must get comfortable with the fossil fuel plants that keep running today as we count down to the day that they aren't. Not great, but I think it's best we can do.

 

[AndyH]

The liquid core of the earth is heated by radioactivity (natural nuclear reactor)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_gradien" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

"The major heat-producing isotopes in the Earth are potassium-40, uranium-238, uranium-235, and thorium-232.[2] "

How many people live there?

 

[AndyH]

So shoot the messenger, eh?

No, Wet, I'm not shooting the messenger - my figurative cross-hairs are planted firmly on the false message - written to suggest that the one country on this planet that is walking their talk is somehow not.

AndyH, you still haven't answered the question:

What is the worst case outcome from fossil fuel combustion?

The worst case outcome from fossil fuel combustion is that a highly-concentrated supply of energy is converted from a useful state to a state that is no longer useful for performing work.

You can continue to fixate on the Keeling Curve above all else - and while I'm not a fan of obsessive behavior I am a fan of the curve. But your repeated implication that terrestrial-based boiling water fission power plants are REQUIRED in order to bring atmospheric CO2 levels back under control is just as harmful and dishonest as the other 'messengers' you've selected.

Nothing personal, but I cannot agree with either your sources of information or the decision you've apparently made based on them. I don't think false equivalence is useful.

 

[WetEV]

AndyH, you still haven't answered the question:

What is the worst case outcome from fossil fuel combustion?

The worst case outcome from fossil fuel combustion is that a highly-concentrated supply of energy is converted from a useful state to a state that is no longer useful for performing work.

What? No toxic materials can be produced? No carbon monoxide? Nitrogen oxides? All that "smog" stuff? :lol:

Not to mention climate changing CO2.

Or, if we release enough greenhouse gases (and more than just CO2 is needed) a runaway greenhouse. The end of life on Earth, forever.

You can continue to fixate on the Keeling Curve above all else - and while I'm not a fan of obsessive behavior I am a fan of the curve. But your repeated implication that terrestrial-based boiling water fission power plants are REQUIRED in order to bring atmospheric CO2 levels back under control is just as harmful and dishonest as the other 'messengers' you've selected.

So James Hanson is harmful and dishonest.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Hansen" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

 

[AndyH]

You can continue to fixate on the Keeling Curve above all else - and while I'm not a fan of obsessive behavior I am a fan of the curve. But your repeated implication that terrestrial-based boiling water fission power plants are REQUIRED in order to bring atmospheric CO2 levels back under control is just as harmful and dishonest as the other 'messengers' you've selected.

So James Hanson is harmful and dishonest.

<snip>

I've provided you concrete examples that clearly show that we do not need a 'nuclear option' to get the job done. Period.

In addition, centralized nuclear generation does not fit into a smart grid, or a decentralized grid - the decentralized grid allows us to move to zero carbon emissions sooner with less money and energy expended than simply replacing all the centralized fossil plants with nukes.

So yes, I do think that it's harmful for anyone to propose a solution that is in conflict with where our power grid is going and cannot solve our carbon problem, and dishonest to hold out a currently unavailable tech as the solution to a current problem.

I'll not answer this question again. Bring another question if you wish.