Oils4AsphaultOnly said:
[Snip]
Hey Mr. Copper Shots, turn on your brain a little and understand the articles you've linked to. Both are simply distractions and wastes of time and resources as they are inherently self-contradictory and run counter to the desired outcome of reducing the use of fossil fuels, namely the reduction of global warming.
Case in point (first article):
"Today the vast majority of hydrogen needed across industries is manufactured using fossil fuel technologies (primarily natural gas), but nuclear energy has the potential to deliver both the electricity and the heat needed for hydrogen production in a sustainable, low carbon and cost-effective manner"
nuclear might be zero CO2 emissions, but it leaves behind radioactive waste that has to be securely stored for centuries. That's why people all over the world have been pushing to decommission existing nuclear power plants. That makes Francesco Ganda's analysis myopic, since nuclear power is neither sustainable, nor cost-effective.
And the second article is about using methanol in a combustion engine. How is that anywhere near a step towards the goal?
For a site called "Green Car Congress", they sure do highlight a large amount of pointless efforts. You should read from cleantechnica, or insideevs, or even electrek for more useful content.
Nukes are going to be around a long time, even assuming that we'll eventually be able to do without them, which is by no means clear. Many countries simply don't have the RE, so will be dependent on others if they're willing to be so dependent.
I belong to the breed of environmentalists known as eco-pragmatists. While I'd certainly prefer a world without fission nukes, given the choice between nukes or coal and natural gas for baseline electricity, I'll take nukes hand-down. Germany's panic decision after Chernobyl to decommission their nukes and keep their coal plants not only increased the amount of coal used to generate electricity, it also made them more dependent on Russian natural gas.
Long-term storage of radioactive waste is an issue, but not an insurmountable one, especially if we move to fast-burn reactors. They produce a much smaller quantity of high-level waste, which is far more radioactive than the current tech leaves, but also decays much faster, so that it's safe after maybe 500 years instead of tens of thousands. Let's talk worst case: the UN, having done a long-term epidemiological study, calculated that Chernobyl would ultimately cause an extra 4,000 deaths. You can find much higher claims, albeit with much less scientific rigor, such as this one:
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/...rnationally,result of the radiation exposure.
For the sake of argument, let's say that Chernobyl, an unsafe reactor design operated incredibly stupidly with safeguards disabled, will over time ultimately result in 1,000,000 extra deaths worldwide, far above the levels even in the above article. Sounds horrific, right? Ban nukes!
But keep coal and NG instead?
Coal is responsible for over 800,000 premature deaths _per year_ [emphasis added] globally and many millions more serious and minor illnesses. In China alone, around 670,000 people die prematurely per year as a result of coal-related air pollution.
Natural gas also has both GHG and local air pollution effects. How about annual air pollution deaths from all fossil fuels? Various studies are cited here; some include both anthopogenous and natural sources, others only Anthropogenous ones:
https://ourworldindata.org/data-rev... that the death,fifth of all deaths globally.
Here's one:
WHO: 4.2 million premature deaths per year due to outdoor air pollution from anthropogenic and natural sources
The WHO estimates that 4.2 million die prematurely every year as the result of exposure to outdoor (or ambient) air pollution. As of November 2021 this is the latest WHO estimates of air pollution’s death toll and it refers to the year 2016.
The 4.2 million deaths from outdoor air pollution are premature deaths “due to exposure to fine particulate matter of 2.5 microns or less in diameter (PM2.5)”. The WHO does not include the deaths caused by other air pollutants (such as ozone) and it should therefore be considered to be a somewhat conservative figure.6
The outdoor air pollution considered by the WHO stems from both natural (such as dust from deserts) and anthropogenic sources.7
How about just anthropogenous air pollution?
The study by Vohra et al. (2021) suggests that the death toll from outdoor air pollution caused by fossil fuels is much higher than other studies suggest. They estimate that 8.7 million deaths globally in 2018 were due to the air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels.10 8.7 million premature deaths are almost one-fifth of all deaths globally. The uncertainty intervals in this study are extremely high.
The authors only focus on particulate matter exposure; other pollutants (including ozone) are not considered.
Much of the paper focuses on estimates for the year 2012 for which the authors estimate a global death toll of 10.2 million premature deaths. The authors explain that the death toll has declined between 2012 and 2018; they attribute this to a decline in pollution in China.
The authors arrive at their very high estimate because they rely on a concentration-response function (CRF) that is different from the CRF in previous studies. This new CRF is taken from a recently published meta-analysis of long-term PM2.5 mortality association by Vodonos et al (2018).11
That's the highest estimate I've seen, so for the sake of argument let's assume 1 million deaths/year from air pollution by burning fossil fuels. So you tell me, given the above ANNUAL death toll vs. my Chernobyl estimate/WAG of 1 million total deaths ultimately over time, which poses the greater risk, continued use of nukes to make electricity until (if) we can ultimately do without them, or using fossil fuels instead?
Some other Eco-pragmatists views of electricity from nuclear fission, quoted in David Mackay's "Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air:
We made the mistake of lumping nuclear energy in with nuclear weapons, as if all things nuclear were evil. I think that’s as big a mistake as if you lumped nuclear medicine in with nuclear weapons.
Patrick Moore,
former Director of Greenpeace International
https://www.withouthotair.com/c24/page_161.shtml
Mackay also quoted James Lovelock in "The Revenge of Gaia" in favor of nukes in the book, at least for the mid-term, but I keep getting SQL errors so can't quote it. You'll find the quote here:
https://www.withouthotair.com/c1/page_2.shtml
Or you can read his original 2004 op/ed here:
http://www.jameslovelock.org/nuclear-power-is-the-only-green-solution/
Given the large increase in both PV and wind in the past decade, whether Lovelock has altered his views on nukes since he first expressed them in 2004 I couldn't say. As fossil fuel use has also increased over that period, I doubt it, and judging by this 2019 interview he's still in favor of nukes:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/201...nuclear-power-and-if-ai-can-stop-warming.html
Mackay quotes people on both sides of that and other environmental debates. I strongly recommend that anyone interested in RE read this book, and you can do so for free online or as a download:
https://www.withouthotair.com/
Oh, one more, not from Mackay:
Stewart Brand’s Strange Trip: Whole Earth to Nuclear Power
When the founder of the Whole Earth Catalog embraces nuclear power, genetically engineered crops, and geoengineering schemes to cool the planet, you know things have changed in the environmental movement. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Stewart Brand explains how the passage of four decades — and the advent of global warming — have shifted his thinking about what it means to be green.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/stewart_brands_strange_trip_whole_earth_to_nuclear_power
