What he said

Lateline - 31/03/2011: George Monbiot joins Lateline
www.abc.net.au

GEORGE MONBIOT: Well, it's a horrible, traumatic, extremely dangerous thing that's happening in Fukushima and it's devastating to the lives of many people living around there. But the extraordinary fact is that no-one has yet received what is believed by scientists to be a lethal dose of radiation. And what has happened is that that power station there has been hit by a force nine earthquake, a major tsunami. Those have exposed a horrendous legacy of corner-cutting, poor design and of course appalling siting on an earthquake zone and all sorts of horrible effects in terms of the necessity for evacuation and the spread of low-level radiation and the rest of it. It's about the worst possible nuclear catastrophe that you could envisage and it rates very high on the scale of nuclear disasters. And yet even so, the extraordinary case remains that so far - touch wood, and let's hope very much that this remains the case - no-one has yet received a lethal dose of radiation.

And that has forced me, really, to challenge myself and to re-examine my preconceptions and to think, well, this is a nasty technology. I don't like it at all. But if the result of the great switch-off of nuclear power in Japan, in Germany, possibly in China, possibly the US, possibly in the UK, many other countries in response to this disaster is to move more into coal burning, which already seems to be the case, then we're talking about moving from a bad technology to a much, much worse one. And faced with a choice between those two options, it has to be nuclear.

This is what I have been thinking! Coal vs nuclear, not solar or wind vs nuclear!!

Economic?? Give me a break. Yes, nuclear has failed to internalize all costs... but how about coal? Heh? We are on the brink of destroying our ecosystem because we burn fossil fuels? How much is it going to cost to fix that (even if we could )?

Another thing that I've been thinking about is how much we might have learned about dealing with the problems of nuclear power in the last 40 years if environmentalists had been more open minded to it.

We are going to be doing lots and lots of stuff to save the planet, each with with unknown side affects. So hold your nose and tolerate nuclear as a transitional power source.

HT Paulm over at Climate Progress.

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The Relationship between Nuclear Power and Climate Change

The situation in Japan is undeniably dire. But Jeffrey Eckel, president and CEO of Hannon Armstrong—a company that finances infrastructure technology for sophisticated energy systems—argues that, without nuclear power, we will not be able to reduce carbon emissions enough to avoid the ruinous consequences of global warming. Eckel spoke to Joshua Pringle, senior editor for Worldpress.org, about the tough choices we as a society face in providing energy for the world's ever-expanding population.

The Relationship between Nuclear Power and Climate Change

It's been disheartening to see the traditional environmentalists cling to opinions held since the 70s. No, nuclear is not the solution, it is a bridge that will support us while we build energy systems that do not have lethal consequences, either by operating as designed (coal) or human error and natural disaster (Fukushima).

Embarrassed

The uproar over the nuclear emergency in Japan after a mag 9 + huge tsunami is embarrassing to me.
It is bad, but nothing like Chernobyl. It will not be like Chernobyl, ever, because the containment of the Japanese reactors is holding. Small releases, similar to Three Mile Island, have been intentional.
In spite of the fact that this overwhelming catastrophe is orders of magnitude worse than the nuclear power plants were designed to withstand, they are holding.   There may be a few die of radiation poisoning, but those will be the workers, not the nearby (or far afield) residents. I grieve for them, as I do the 10s of thousands who were swept away by the tsunami.

Chernobyl killed 4000 over all, including those that died due to long term effects of exposure.
How many, total,  have died due to nuclear power plants? It's a minuscule amount compared to those who have died because of coal... not to mention the millions who will die due to CO2 emission.
Get real people!

I figured out the main reason that I am so embarrassed by the climate hawk reaction to these nuclear power plant emergencies. It's because they are ignoring the science, and instead, reacting to their own anti-nuk bias. Much like the deniers scoff at the science of climate change because it does not support their agenda.. For shame.

Bad Samaritans and Bad News

I don't believe there are many sincere climate 'skeptics' still out there. Those who choose to misinform and deceive their listeners are doing so because of a political or economic (read greed) agenda. It disgusts me. They have they turned traitor to the planet and all that lives on it... for purely selfish reasons, or willful ignorance. They are bad Samaritans.


The truth is out there. The situation is worse than predicted. For 150 years we have spewed megaton after megaton of CO2 into our atmosphere. As our understanding evolves we are discovering that all that CO2 has set in motion a set of events that could actually lead to our extinction! The CO2 will remain there for centuries if we let it.


I also find it amusing that there is still stiff opposition to nuclear power. Their main argument is a good one... what do you do with the waste? But what do we do with the waste produced by fossil fuel powered plants? At this point is it any less lethal? If we are to preserve anything close to our current way of life (while helping others achieve it) we must find ways to generate and deliver terawatts of carbon free power within the next decade or two. That will require use of all alternatives, including nuclear.

And we're going to need carbon capture to scrub some of the CO2 our of the atmosphere.

Professor Turney said: “The results here are quite startling and, importantly, they suggest sea levels will rise significantly higher than anticipated and that stabilizing global average temperatures at 2˚C above pre-industrial levels may not be considered a ‘safe’ target as envisaged by the European Union and others.


"The inevitable conclusion is emission targets will have to be lowered further still.”

Exeter scientists publish climate change warning

To add to our woes, peak oil is here or just around the corner.

There may be blood.

Have you heard?

Concerning the Hirsch report

[oil man] - What happened after you published your 2005 report on ‘peak oil’ for the US Department of Energy (DoE) ?
The people that I was dealing with said : « No more work on peak oil, no more talk about it. »


People that were high in the administration hierarchy ?
The people that I was dealing with were high in the laboratory level. They were getting their instructions from people on the political side of the DoE, at high levels.
After the work we did on the 2005 study and the follow-up of 2006, the Department of Energy headquarters completely cut off all support for oil peaking and decline analysis. The people that I was working with at the National Energy Technology Laboratory were good people, they saw the problem, they saw how difficult the consequences would be – you know, the potential for huge damage – yet they were told : « No more work, no more discussion. »


That was in 2006, under Bush administration. Has anything changed with the Obama administration ?
It has not changed. I have friends who simply won’t talk about it now. So I have to assume that they are receiving the same kind of instructions.

Peak oil : “A conspiracy to keep it quiet” in Washington, says Robert Hirsch
Interview with Robert L. Hirsch (2/2)

 HT The Oil Drum

I'm not big on conspiracies... but this has me going a bit.

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• At least 170 people have died from heatstroke and more than 54 000 have been rushed to hospital in Japan's hottest summer on record
• Russian heatwave killed 11,000 people
• Late Season Heat Wave May Reach New York, Philadelphia

Google it yourself. It's scary

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40 years of clean air progress

To this I can attest personally. In the 60s and 70s a trip to LA meant an asthma attack. The air was brown, and you couldn't see the mountains just a few miles away.
Now I live here (behind the Orange Curtain) and I can see the mountains clearly almost every day, and if there is a mist, it's white, not brown. No more asthma either.

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Dealing With the Issues of Nuclear Energy by Steven Chu


The old time environmentalists will have to make peace with nuclear power.