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Is nuclear a green fuel? « Voices from Ghana

Is nuclear a green fuel?June 1, 2009 · Voices From Ghana “…………….some forecasters predict an uptick in nuclear power.

Yet, for nuclear energy to contribute to a significant degree to greenhouse gas abatement, the rate of construction would need to vastly accelerate. Offsetting even 10 percent of global carbon emissions by 2050 would be an immense undertaking, requiring some 2,200 new plants, or more than one per week in the coming decades.

The nuclear power option faces a set of vexing problems that should temper enthusiasm for an expansion of this scale.

Safety and Cost

Although no plant design can be risk-free, new research has brought claims of a new generation of nuclear reactors with advanced safety features. However, they have yet to be tested at full scale, and all reactors on order now use conventional technology. Moreover, nuclear power plants are now considered plausible targets for terrorist attacks. Whether caused by accident or malice, a sudden dispersal of radioactivity would have severe community impact, perhaps exacerbated by inadequate evacuation plans. If such an event triggered a renewal of anti-nuclear sentiment in the general public and led to demands for a nuclear moratorium, the resilience and sustainability of the energy system would be greatly compromised.

The full economic costs of nuclear energy are difficult to determine. A comprehensive accounting would include accident insurance, safety assurance, decommissioning, and radioactive waste disposal — costs that are often buried in generous public subsidies for the nuclear industry or shifted to future generations. As the experience in the U.S. with the first wave of nuclear plants indicated, projected costs will soar as the full costs of the nuclear-fuel cycle are reflected in the price of electricity. Of course, high costs might not be a key issue if nuclear power were the only option for climate mitigation. It is not.some forecasters predict an uptick in nuclear power.

Yet, for nuclear energy to contribute to a significant degree to greenhouse gas abatement, the rate of construction would need to vastly accelerate. Offsetting even 10 percent of global carbon emissions by 2050 would be an immense undertaking, requiring some 2,200 new plants, or more than one per week in the coming decades.

The nuclear power option faces a set of vexing problems that should temper enthusiasm for an expansion of this scale.

Safety and Cost

Although no plant design can be risk-free, new research has brought claims of a new generation of nuclear reactors with advanced safety features. However, they have yet to be tested at full scale, and all reactors on order now use conventional technology. Moreover, nuclear power plants are now considered plausible targets for terrorist attacks. Whether caused by accident or malice, a sudden dispersal of radioactivity would have severe community impact, perhaps exacerbated by inadequate evacuation plans. If such an event triggered a renewal of anti-nuclear sentiment in the general public and led to demands for a nuclear moratorium, the resilience and sustainability of the energy system would be greatly compromised.

The full economic costs of nuclear energy are difficult to determine. A comprehensive accounting would include accident insurance, safety assurance, decommissioning, and radioactive waste disposal — costs that are often buried in generous public subsidies for the nuclear industry or shifted to future generations. As the experience in the U.S. with the first wave of nuclear plants indicated, projected costs will soar as the full costs of the nuclear-fuel cycle are reflected in the price of electricity. Of course, high costs might not be a key issue if nuclear power were the only option for climate mitigation. It is not.

Proliferation and Security

Nuclear power cannot be de-coupled from nuclear weapons. Two paths lead from a nuclear energy program to weapons-grade material; one involves uranium and the other plutonium.

Nuclear Power Deflects Us From the Path to Sustainability……………….With its long-term legacy of heightened risks and toxic burden, nuclear power violates a fundamental principle of sustainability: passing on a resilient world to future generations. At the least, a world laced with nuclear power plants and crisscrossed with commerce of fissionable materials would require a strong international regime of security and control, a world more consonant with an authoritarian Fortress World scenario than a Great Transition.

Is nuclear a green fuel? « Voices from Ghana

June 5, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change, environment | antinuclear, nuclear, nuclear costs, radioactive | Leave a comment

Member of German Parliament Sounds Death Knell for Carbon Energy

Member of German Parliament Sounds Death Knell for Carbon Energy ecoworldly by Tom Schueneman June 3rd, 2009 In Europe“The conventional energy industry is the biggest corrupter in the world”“If there is no change by 2030 there will be a bigger economic crash than the recent banking collapse”“The system must change”“Renewables are the only solution”- Hans-Josef Fell, member of German Parliament, Spokesperson for Energy and Technology, Faction Alliance90/The Greens……………

………………….. these words from Green party member Hans-Josef Fell express the nation’s determination to lead the world to a new energy economy……….

………Carbon capture and storage is unreliable and leads to similar problems as with nuclear energy – the inability to guarantee that our waste doesn’t pollute the lives of future generations.

Member of German Parliament Sounds Death Knell for Carbon Energy : EcoWorldly

June 3, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change | antinuclear, nuclear, uranium | Leave a comment

Climate crisis will not be solved by nuclear power

Guest column: Climate crisis will not be solved by nuclear power greenbay pressgazette.com Bill Christofferson • May 27, 2009 Concern about climate change has sparked a campaign by the nuclear power industry to try to sell itself as a “clean” energy solution, with Wisconsin a key target……….the campaign to persuade the Legislature and governor to open the door to more reactors in Wisconsin, which has not built one since 1974……..
……….Nuclear power makes no more sense today than it did when the law was passed in 1983. Wisconsin must address the climate crisis, but renewable energy and energy efficiency technologies are faster, cheaper, safer and cleaner strategies for reducing greenhouse emissions than nuclear power………………

Guest column: Climate crisis will not be solved by nuclear power | greenbaypressgazette.com | Green Bay Press-Gazette

June 1, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | 2 WORLD, climate change, environment | antinuclear, nuclear, radioactive, renewables, uranium | Leave a comment

Can Clean Energy Revive Manufacturing?

The New York Times By Kate Galbraith 4 May 09

The manufacturing sector in the United States continues to shrink — but could the renewable-energy rush spur a manufacturing revival?

A number of solar-panel factories are coming online in the United States, as I reported on Sunday. Makers of wind turbines are also establishing factories in the heartland, where the factories’ proximity to wind farms on the Plains slashes the cost of shipping the giant machines from Europe…………………. many renewable-equipment manufacturers want to set up operations in the United States because they perceive it to be the largest market for the technologies in the years ahead. (Tax credits in the stimulus package for domestic production of renewable-energy equipment also help.) A key factor in bringing SolarWorld to Oregon, said Mr. Klebensberger, was the work force — and especially Oregonians’ “belief in change and how important renewables are.” Proximity to a cluster of semiconductor factories, some of whose workers SolarWorld has recently poached, was another attraction…………………….

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/04/can-clean-energy-revive-manufacturing/.

May 5, 2009 Posted by Christina Macpherson | climate change, ENERGY, USA | renewables | Leave a comment

iafrica.com | technology | news | science Climate change heats up

Climate change heats up iafrica.com By: Marlowe Hood 1 Dec 08 “………………………..

Arctic meltdown……………..When the reflective ice surface retreats, the Sun’s radiation — heat — is absorbed by open water rather than bounced back into the atmosphere, creating a vicious circle of heating.

“We had always known that the Arctic was going to respond first,” said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado. “What has us puzzled is that the changes are even faster than we would have thought possible,” he said by phone………………………

Rising oceans New data on the rate at which oceans might rise has also caused consternation.

“The most recent IPCC report was prior to … the measurements of increasing mass loss from Greenland and Antarctica, which are disintegrating much faster than IPCC estimates,” said climatologist James Hansen, head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York.

Unlike the Arctic ice cap, which floats on water, the world’s two major ice sheets — up to three kilometres thick — sit on land.

Runaway sea level rises, Hansen said, would put huge coastal cities and agricultural deltas in Bangladesh, Egypt and southern China under water, and create hundreds of millions of refugees.

The IPCC’s most recent assessment “did not take into account the potential melting of Greenland, which I think was a mistake,” said Watson, the former IPCC chairman.

Were Greenland’s entire ice block to melt, it would lift the world’s sea levels by almost seven metres, while western Antarctica’s ice sheet holds enough water to add six metres…………………………Atmospheric issues The accelerating concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, and signs of the planet’s dwindling ability to absorb them, are also causing some scientists to lose sleep…………………..

One potential source of both gases is frozen tundra in the Arctic and sub-Arctic regions, where temperatures have risen faster than anywhere else on Earth.

“The amount of carbon that is locked up in permafrost that could be released into the atmosphere is just about on a par with the atmospheric load the world has right now,” said Serreze.

These higher concentrations of greenhouse gases come at a time when Earth’s two major “carbon sinks” — forests and especially oceans — are showing signs of saturation.