Add a Gigawatt a Day to Keep the Climate Crisis at Bay
You'd think that after all the press coverage that global warming has received that the public would be pretty well educated on exactly how fast we need to install clean power to avert an irreversible climate disaster. But the public has no clue.
As far as I know, only one member of the press has asked the right questions to figure it out: Joshua Green, a senior editor of The Atlantic Monthly. Green wrote a great piece in the current issue entitled "The Elusive Green Economy." It's long but it's a great read. Green points out that the IPCC set 450ppm as a level we shouldn't exceed because otherwise climate change becomes both irreversible and catastrophic. But at the very end of his article is the real gem: he points out that we need to develop 13,000 GWe of carbon-free power (within the next 25 years) if we're to limit atmospheric carbon concentration to 450 ppm. Australian climate scientist Barry Brook was kind enough to double check the math and came up with a similar figure. I also ran it by a top scientist at DOE and he didn't even raise an eyebrow when I quoted that figure. It is also about the same as the 11,500 GWe that Saul Griffith derived. Green next points out that current global solar-power production today is only 10 GWe. In fact, in 2008, the peak solar capacity was 13.4GWe, but the average powered delivered was only 2 GWe. Yikes! That's about the capacity of a single nuclear plant.
Compare that 2 GWe to the 13,000 GWe we need and you get a sense for the magnitude of the task ahead of us. The point is this: after decades of installing renewable power, we are nowhere close to making a small dent in the problem. In other words, if we think we are going to make the goal from solar, wind, and other renewables alone, we must be smoking something. And even if we added the big elephant of clean power, nuclear power, which can be installed in huge capacities relatively quickly when the political winds are blowing in the right direction, this is still an almost insurmountable goal. That's why at the Aspen Energy Forum held earlier this year, all of the renewable experts agreed that every clean power technology, including nuclear, has to play a role in solving the climate crisis.
I'd like to give you a sense for what that 13,000 GWe figure means. Let's be generous and assume we have 30 years to install the 13,000 GWe of power we need. If we were to build a large nuclear plant every single day for the next 30 years, that would still not be enough to avert the 450ppm limit.
Without nuclear as part of the mix, it's even harder and it's also a lot more expensive to meet the goal. We would have to be installing more than 1,500 large (2 MW, with enormous 100m diameter blades) wind turbines every day for 30 years. If we used desert-based concentrated solar thermal (which is much more efficient than solar photovoltaic), we'd have to install 80,000 huge 37 foot diameter dishes covering over 100 square miles every day for 30 years. Or some combination of those two. And then we'd have to cost-effectively store a lot of that power and deliver it when it is needed so you have reliable base load power all without generating any CO2 emissions. Storage is less of a problem with wind if you have a huge geographic area (which we have in the US), you massively overbuild to account for the unpredictability of wind, and you have a national transmission grid so you can move huge amounts of power when and where it is needed (which we don't have). And even with all of that in place, it's still not a guarantee that you won't have power outages when the wind is particularly low. With solar, to supply base load power, you'd need something like what Ausra is doing where they store power for up to 16 hours. Andasol uses such a thermal storage system and its electricity will cost 38 cents per kWh to produce, which makes it nearly 10 times more expensive than nuclear or coal.
We aren't anywhere close to installing clean power of any type that fast. Not only are we not doing it, but we aren't even close to just talking about the need to install power that fast!
Furthermore, our best nuclear technology, according to a multi-year multi-national study commissioned by the DOE, is the technology Clinton canceled in 1994. This design (the Integral Fast Reactor) remains on the shelf today, collecting dust, despite the fact that it can produce power cheaper than coal, is 100 times more efficient than today's nuclear technology, and can consume our nuclear waste and generate power from it (virtually solving our nuclear waste problem). Other countries want to build that design because it is safer, cheaper, and more proliferation resistant than the nuclear plants they have now (and because it gets rid of their nuclear waste). But we won't let them. Where is our sense of urgency?
Doesn't anyone get it?!?!
Have you ever in your life heard any politician mention how insanely fast we need to install new clean power on the planet to meet the 450ppm goal? I sure haven't. And none of the environmental groups will tell you that. They don't give you any numbers at all. Al Gore never mentioned it either.
The best job of public truth telling on how aggressively we have to build clean power that I've seen so far doesn't come from an environmental group at all.
Saul Griffith's Wattzon Game Plan does a great job of giving concrete examples of how fast we need to move to save the planet. Just watch the last 14 minutes of his highly entertaining Scarcity and Abundance video.
The "Climate Change" page of the upcoming State of the World Forum also does a great job of laying out the need to act a lot more aggressively than our political leaders would have us believe. Here are a couple of excerpts from their climate change page:
It is for these and other reasons that when he accepted the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Head of the IPCC, said "If there's no action before 2012, that's too late. What we do in the next two to three years will determine our future. This is the defining moment." Thousands of scientists around the world agree. Lester Brown states bluntly that we are facing the demise of human civilization itself if we do not take action now.
Even more troubling is that reality that even if the governments are successful reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, this accomplishment would be essentially irrelevant to dealing with global warming in any meaningful way. A recent study by MIT states that if all the governments completely fulfill their current promises, which essentially are pointed toward reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, we will have reached over 600 ppm of CO2 by then and global temperatures will have risen at least 4 degrees Celsius.
This contradiction between what the governments are negotiating and what the science says is the most crucial fact in the climate change crisis today.
We do not have until 2050 to reduce our carbon emissions by 80%. We need to do this by 2020 and we only have until 2012 to make perhaps the most obvious decision in human history. Yet not a single government in the world is willing to recognize the obvious. Dr. Pachauri recently stated that the governments are engaging in "tragic inaction." Never before has there been a such a dearth of imagination, courage and leadership.
We believe that the world must mobilize around what is scientifically urgent, not around what is politically expedient.
What our governments are negotiating for 2050 must be accomplished by 2020.
So let me be real clear. Here are five key things that I think every American should know about the climate crisis:
1. If we are to have any hope of avoiding a climate crisis, we have to be installing about 1 GW of new clean power somewhere in the world every single day for the next 30 years.
2. We are nowhere close to that rate today.
3. All options for clean power have to be on the table.
4. Based on today's technologies and costs, our best chance of getting anywhere close to that rate (and at a cost we can afford) is to aggressively install lots of nuclear power as the centerpiece of that strategy.
5. Our single best clean power technology, the Integral Fast Reactor, remains sitting on the shelf in a government research lab in Idaho, collecting dust. Ray Hunter, the former Deputy Director of the Office of Nuclear Energy, Science, and Technology at DOE is furious about this. If the US wants to be a world leader in clean tech, suppressing our best clean tech technology is not a good strategy to get there.
The sooner we realize the magnitude of the solution and start acting on it, the better our chances of saving the planet.
It's time to stop putting our head in the sand thinking that cap and trade and the House energy bill is going to solve the climate crisis. It's not going to make much of a dent. In fact, because it allows existing coal plants to continue operating, it actually makes things worse, not better. Japan adopted cap and trade and their emissions have continued to increase. Canada adopted a straightforward carbon tax and it's working. Yet our Congress thinks it is better for the country to adopt a system that hasn't worked anywhere in the world for reducing CO2 emissions than to copy a system that actually works. Go figure.
Senator Lamar Alexander is the member of Congress who is the closest to advocating what is needed. He's advocating building 100 new nuclear power plants in the US over the next 20 years. That's still not nearly enough, but it would be a good start. Nobody else in Congress is advocating anything close to that.
I'm waiting for a member of Congress to tell Senator Alexander that he's seriously underestimating the magnitude of the problem; that there are over 1,500 coal power plants in America and we need to put the pedal to the metal and install at least 1,000 new nuclear power plants in the US over the next 20 years, not 100. When that happens, we'll have a chance.
Today, we have complacency where we should be having a sense of urgency. After all, even if we deploy all the King's soldiers and and all the King's men, it's not clear at all we can run fast enough to save the planet.
One thing's for sure: we are never ever going to get there at the snail's pace we are on now.
Who will be the first one to tell America the truth about how fast we need to be installing clean power to save our planet?
Addendum: to date, we're only installed just 40 days of clean power worldwide:
Data for installed (peak) capacity are available. See BP Statistical Review of World Energy June 2009.
In 2008, for technosolar, peak capacity for solar was 13.5 GW and wind was 122 GW. The amount of wave power and hot dry rock geothermal is trivial (small scale demonstration only). Volcanic vent geothermal is 10.5 GW.
Based on average capacity factors of 0.15 for solar, 0.25 for wind and 0.75 for geyser-derived geothermal, that represents a total average 'renewable energy' power (excluding biomass) of 40 GW, globally, in 2008.
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U233 is not a proliferation risk. You cannot make nuclear weapons out of it. It is contaminated with u232 which is a very high gamma radiation producer. The radiation burns up the electronics and other explosives in the bomb. This makes it extremely difficult product to work with. Now that is for countries like Russia and the US. If you were somehow able to separate the u232 from the u233 then you would also be smart enough to know that is is much easier to use u235 and plutonium.
30,000 nuclear weapons in the world none of them use U233.
"It is also possible to use uranium-233 as the fission fuel of a nuclear weapon, although this has been done only occasionally. The United States first tested U-233 as part of a bomb core in Operation Teapot in 1955.[2"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uranium-233
http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=20&t=50973&p=1335211
research
The teapot tests proved that U233 is not the way to make a bomb. There are to many parasitic reactions that take yield away. Making it unpredictable.
from your own Wikipedia reference:
A nuclear explosive device based on uranium-233 is therefore more of a technical challenge than with plutonium, but the technological level involved is roughly the same. The main difference is the co-presence of uranium-232, that makes uranium-233 very dangerous to work on, and quite easy to detect.
U233 is not a proliferation risk because we ( and any one else)can see where they are. To make one, IF one can be made with any kind of reliable yield, requires a level of expertize that you would need to make one out of plutonium. Therefore any country would make one out of plutonium. Just like we did. That is why you see Iran trying to enrich their uranium instead of breeding their thorium to u233 and setting one off. what good does it do to tell everyone you have 100 nukes when by using u233 everyone knows you have maybe 1/2 of one and it is located at coordinates x and y. Your enemy then proceeds to drop mustard gas ( delivered by donkey)on your missile silo and SHAZAM no more nuke. or worse yet he turns it on you.
Energy supply is a huge challenge and risk for society. Whether your main concern is global warming, air pollution, or energy security there are very solid societal reasons for developing alternatives to coal and oil.
Yes IFR and LFTR are technologies that need more work before we build 1,000 GWe worth. But both are very promising and if they live up to their promise can provide 1,000 GWe while also reducing the long-lived nuclear waste below our current levels. We should do that R&D now then decide if they provide the right answers. We can fully develop both technologies for about one months oil import bill. So no, we should not bet the ranch on them. Just one month's oil bill.
Wind and solar should also be developed. But there are serious questions about the costs of using them for more than 20-30% of the energy.
Develop the technologies and then let the market sort out which ones are best suited for what purpose.
I agree we need more R and D. When Clinton shut down the reactor called EBR II ( IFR) he said he wanted to keep the fuel processing technology.
For those interested check out
http://www.nuclear.gov/pdfFiles/Goff_Electrochemicalposting.pdf
The concepts in IFR are pretty mature. LFTR concepts are less so but hold much promise if the right materials can be developed
U233 is not a by-product of pyroprocessing unless you have it in the fuel to begin with. Any that might be there you would just mix it back in with the u235 of the new fuel rod you make anyway.
photovoltaic cells use a ton of electricity in their manufacture. Most from china will be made using dirty filthy coal. Coal as you know releases tons of uranium into the air every year. Many tons of mercury are also released. So , as you sleep at night thinking of your green cells think of the children in china eating the mercury ...and maybe sending it here in products we consume.
Let the Market decide? Sure, then take away the Government insurance of last resort for the nuclear reactors.
Let the market decide the way the market decided in california a few years back when they had rolling blackouts. California is still wheeling from that.
Let's also take away the government subsidies ( both state and federal ) for wind and solar.
Price Anderson indemnity act is not a fee ride. In exchange for this max level of indemnity the Government gets to beat them up( fine) regularly , when they do not behave. The result is a well regulated industry.
To censors: please put all my comment in the post.
Dear Dear OneVoiceInACrowd,
George Philander's book, Our Affair With El Niño, chapter 7:
1. Earth with no atmosphere-, the average surface temperature of earth would be -18�C (0�F), far colder than the average temperature of our earth, which is 15�C (59�F). Worse, the surface would cool down to around -160�C (-250�F) soon after the sun set.
2. Earth with a static atmosphere and no ocean. If the earth had a static atmosphere with the same gases it has now, but with little water vapor and no ocean, the average surface temperature of earth would be 67�C (153�F).
3. Earth with an atmosphere and ocean Earth has an atmosphere and ocean, and the average surface temperature is a comfortable 15�C (59�F). Water evaporates from the ocean and land, cooling the surface. Winds carry the water vapor to other latitudes, and sometimes high up into the air, where heat is released when the vapor condenses to water. "
As you can see George Philander confirm that water vapor actually cool the air. In #2 the average surface temperature of earth would be 67�C (153�F). In #3 the average surface temperature is a comfortable 15�C (59�F). George Philander confirms: “Water evaporates from the ocean and land, cooling the surface. Winds carry the water vapor to other latitudes, and sometimes high up into the air, where heat is released when the vapor condenses to water. "
PROPERTIES OF WATER THE BEST COOLER OF THE AIR!
It must understand everyone.
Steve Kirsch
"Add a Gigawatt a Day to Keep the Climate Crisis at Bay"
Dear Steve, I have better ideas how to be
energy independent,
fight global warming with only USA, Canada and Canada,
make 100% of employment and therefore insured in USA
You are Entrepreneur and philanthropist, let start cooperation to make real differences.
Michael Ioffe
Thanks Mioffe, I will take a look at that book.
It will be interesting to see how George draws his conclusions.
Security of nuclear power plants:
"NRC required the nuclear industry to develop and train a “composite adversary
force” comprising security officers from many plants to simulate terrorist attacks in
the force-on-force exercises. However, in September 2004 testimony, GAO
criticized the industry’s selection of a security company that guards about half of U.S.
nuclear plants, Wackenhut, to also provide the adversary force. In addition to raising
“questions about the force’s independence,” GAO noted that Wackenhut had been
accused of cheating on previous force-on-force exercises by the Department of
Energy.10 Exelon terminated its security contracts with Wackenhut in late 2007 after
guards at the Peach Bottom reactor in York County, Pennsylvania, were discovered
sleeping while on duty.11 EPACT requires NRC to “mitigate any potential conflict
of interest that could influence the results of a force-on-force exercise, as the
Commission determines to be necessary and appropriate.”
good one.
"Failed Security Exercises
To make matters worse, many reactors in the country do not have security systems in place sufficient to meet even the current, very weak regulations. The NRCs Operational Safeguards Response Evaluation (OSRE) Program tests reactor security by running black hat mock attacks. Even with six months advance warning of when the test attack will occur, nearly half the reactors in the country have failed these tests---meaning that the attackers simulated destruction of a "target set," which is defined as set of redundant safety systems needed to maintain cooling of the core and prevent a meltdown. "
http://www.nci.org/01NCI/12/react-prot.htm
The next sentence (pg. 6) in this quote is:
"NRC’s 2007 annual security report to Congress found that the industry adversary
teams 'continued to meet expectations for a credible, well-trained, and consistent mock adversary
force.' "
http://www.dtic.mil/cgi-bin/GetTRDoc?AD=ADA496903&Location=U2&doc=GetTRDoc.pdf
I conclude from is report that (1) there is oversight provided by DOE, (2) industry responds to deficiencies (terminating contracts), (3) there is oversight provided by GAO, and (4) there is transparency since we are privy to this information - i.e. no cover up. Problems found and solved - sounds like they are doing their job.
Dear guinganbresil,
"Problems found and solved - sounds like they are doing their job."
If after 6 years after 9/11/2001 "in late 2007 after guards at the Peach Bottom reactor in York County, Pennsylvania, were discovered sleeping while on duty", Who will guarantee, that the same will not happen again.
Here we have simple psyhology problems than more secure reactors than more probabilities that vigilance will fail.
Dear guinganbresil,
"I am not convinced of AGW; however, our current society relies too heavily on ground water resources. These are not (very) renewable and we need to use them carefully."
Sorry I do not pay attention on this part of your comment.
About AGW:
We are increasing GHG level.
Tilling of land decreasing at least during one month reflection of direct sun radiation and evaporation of water.
Soot on snow also decreasing reflection of direct sun radiation.
Roads creates long distance influence on climate, etc.
Effects of all these activities of mankind prevail GHG.
About ground water use:
We watering corn mostly in summer time, when it is difficult to achieve 100% of humidity to hope on additional rain.
If we will grow forests for wood energy at least in spring ant fall we have huge possibilities for rains, which will restore ground water use.
Poor Steve, can't accept that thin film solar panels are so cheap that you can get large installations for 2$ per peak watt.
I'm sorry, Steve , that you anted up you reputation on this nuclear fiasco, It's very painful to admit you are wrong. But it will free you to move on in life.
It's over Steve. PV thin films solar wins.
Nuclear loses. Thank God.
See Steve Kirsch's Profile
Poor research. He can't even name one single person in the USA who is paying 3 cents per kwh over 30 years for their solar rooftop.
poor Steve, can't admit nuke are apocalyptic, ten to 20 years away, 25 cents per KWH, and that solar has stolen your thunder. 1.55$ watt solar, 25$ per panel to install and 10 cents per kw inverter, is just too straight forward for ya. Any handy person will DIY on their roof. http://www.atensolar.com/EPV. Poor Steve doesn't believe large solar rooftop customers are getting 2$ per installed watt, even though the retail numbers indicate that's correct. Poor Steve will have to read about it in a case study, 2-3 years from now, after the wave has passed.
Almost every single time I read someone Blog about energy, I don't see the blogger mention two points...
ONE...ELECTRIC UTILITITES DON'T REALLY CARE MUCH ABOUT SAVING ENERGY..THEY GET PAID FOR MORE USE NOT LESS
TWO....
UP UNTIL 50 YEARS AGO, MOST FOLKS HAD A DARK SKY AND COULD SEE THE MILKY WAY IN ALL IT'S GLORY...
TODAY WE CAN'T...
AND IT'S REALLY AN INDICATOR OF HOW MUCH WE WASTE ENERGY...
MOST AMERICANS LIVE IN SUBURBIA AND CAN'T SEE THE STARS ...
BECAUSE WE LIGHT UP THE UNDERSIDES OF CLOUDS, BIRDS AND AIRPLANES...
THAT ENERGY WASTE AMOUNTS TO AT LEAST $2 BILLION PER YEAR ACROSS THE UNITED STATES...
WE HAVE A TERM FOR THIS WASTE
IT'S CALLED
LIGHT POLLUTION...
WHY DO ENVIRONMENTALISTS KEEP MISSING THIS?
See Steve Kirsch's Profile
Power companies care about keeping costs low because it improves their profits. The best way to get power companies to clean up their energy mix is to offer them a lower priced alternative.
What is the power companies biggest expense? Afternoon power peaks.
What does 3 cent per KWH solar (2$ per peak watt for the calculation impaired) supply?
Afternoon peak power.
Dear SonofLiberty1,
Of couirse we could save in lighting, but please analyse that 40% efficiency of engine are moving as person as, at least ten-times heavier car.
If we will calculate real efficiency of this kind of movement it will be less than 1% (energy needed for liquid fuel production, for heating-cooling car, etc).
Mass transportation is good only for long distances, but also not so efficient.
In huge power plant we are loosing 80% of energy in vain- we could send electicity from San Diego to Boston, but economicaly heat could be transfered in area around 10-20 miles.
In these directions we could make real revolution for energy use.
Dear Steve Kirsch, to reduce Global warming we have only one the cheapest way-increase evaporation of water in continents.
North America is only one huge land from France to Japan. Mexico, Canada and USA working together could achieve more than all nation in the world to stop melting ice on mounts in the world.
Trees evaporate more water than any others plants and will save wood energy during 100 years. In small power plants wood will provide more usefull energy, than oil products right now.
I invite ypu to put your energy and knowledge in these direction.
USA must study nuclear energy and stay away from it.
Sun is only one nuclear reactor which we must use in nearest future.
If we have global warming it mean that we have more than enough sun energy.
I think the whole concept of ever growing energy consumption needs to be challenged. The fact is that we consume nearly twice as much energy as many other industrialized nations. If the government was looking for an industry to save our economy, energy saving retrofits of buildings and industry have multiple benefits. Reducing consumption is by far the most cost effective method of dealing with a lack of generating capacity. As far as the scary numbers of how many windmills and solar panels we will need, remember that in WW2 we managed to convert factories from making cars and refrigerators into making Tens of thousands of airplanes and megatons of munitions in a matter of months. Nuclear plants take a decade or more to come online, while a windfarm can start sending energy to the grid after the first turbine has been built, and the same thing is true for solar (to a lesser extent). I agree with the author that it is a huge task and that many sources will be needed, but if we are willing to learn and change we will survive.
It isn't just growing energy consumption that is an issue which I agree needs to be a topic for discussion. We do waste a lot and that needs to be discussed.
However, there are many coal generating plants that will reach their end of life over the next two decades and need to be replaced just to maintain our current level of power production. Addtionally older generation carbon emitting plants will be retired early when whatever form of carbon tax and tax credits are approved and kick in several years from now.
So do we want natual gas plants that throw tons of GHG's into the atmosphere themselves, are subject to daily price fluctuations of their feedstock, and have proven deadly supply lines or do we want to finally move to nuclear? Solar and wind have their place but my vote is for new generation nuclear and nuclear recycling technology for the large scale GW's we need.
I think we at least need to have the discussion about nuclear. Without the histronics.
We could use any source of energy, if we will increase evaporation of water on continents.
Properties of water is the best and the cheapest cooler of the air. If you do not believe me Google Richard Lindzen.
Forest is the best tool to evaporate water.
This evaporation of water will additionally provide us with the cheapest in the world wood energy, which will be stored in forest for hundred years.
Decays of old trees take oxygen and put GHG in air. It is nothing wrong to fire old trees in oven for electricity production.
We could solve GHG from wood in water to watering these forests with the best nutritions together with ashes to grow forests
Evaporation of water on continents will cool air, increase rain in continents, and solve GHG from atmosphere to feed vegetation.
It will work better than cup-and trade and give us time to prepare for real not histrionic or political agenda about Global Warming.
As Democrats, as Republicans, as mass media as you are wrong about science of Global Warming and that is bring every day as wrong message as wrong solutions.
Hi Mioffe, long time since I have seen you around...
So I started with this one (1992):
http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv15n2/reg15n2g.html
Then I went to this one:
http://www.logicalscience.com/skeptics/Lindzen.htm
both google results in the top ten.
It is possible that he is right, but it doesn't appear that he supports his position with much, if any, real data.
I still stand unconvinced.
Why don't we pick an energy source that does not have Global nuclear War as a consequence.
Nice rip into the 1GW/day nuclear energy post RP.
Oops, sorry, research, I thought it was you
See Steve Kirsch's Profile
Because commercial nuclear kills less people every single year for the past 50 years than pretty much any other power technology you can name, that's why.
And the second reason is because it emits less co2 than everything except hydro.
And the third reason is because it costs less than just about anything except hydro.
hydro isn't scalable. So that's why.
How is global nuclear war an automatic conclusion from commercial nuclear power?
It isn't.
dolphy: "Let's remind everyone. NUCLEAR PLANTS ARE SOFT TARGETS. MINIMUM EFFORT, MAXIMUM RESULT."
I am agree with you, dolphy, and invite you, author and everybody in this post to reevaluate science of Global Warming.
Al Gore is good writer. He and scientists who advised to him have right on their mistakes.
Put their dogmas in our Government reality-cup-and trade, nuclear, wind, solar cells, geothermal and other are crime without punishment!
We must stop it as soon as possible!
It will bring to environment and our economy so huge damage, that will be impossible to repair.
Steve Kirsch has good intention, the same as Al Gore and members of our Government.
Dante told better than me about good intentions.
I disagree about the soft target, minimum effort, maximum result premise.
Any terrorist attack on a nuclear power station is NOT an attack on a school, church, nightclub or shopping mall.
Nuclear power stations have trained security and controlled perimeters. Even if a station were overtaken by a terrorist team, it would take a lot of specific, detailed knowledge and lot of time to induce a significant radioactive release. Even an airliner impact would likely not cause a significant radioactive release.
If everything went right for the terrorists, a significant radioactive release would be immediately known, and a evacuation of the surrounding area could be executed to minimize the exposure and health effects (time-distance-shielding). We would have the time and knowledge to be able to mitigate the effects - which we would not be able to do for a multitude of other potential targets (see Beslan...)
red flag teams easily penetrated a nuclear power plants and took complete control with some 6 "commandos". Soft target.
I'll repeat this here at the top because you might miss this comment. Siting PG&E for their cost at Diablo is like asking W for the reason he invaded Iraq. I'm from San Francisco and WE know how PG&E operates.
Who is resaponsible for censorship in this post?
I will put this truth about HP in every place, where it is possible.
Michael Ioffe
Common, Mioffe, you are getting plenty of good comments posted.
Don't bite the hand that allows you to post in the first place.
It's not censorship, it editing.
Dear research, editing is when somebody will found mistakes in your statement and make improvement with which author agrees.
When my comments about disasters in nuclear plants did not appear without any pending it was censorship, like in former USSR, Nazi Germany or others dictators states.
It was not first time and must be punished in mass media of USA.
Who is responsible for censorship in this post?
To put stupid ideas is good, to name them stupid is bad.
Why is that, Steve?
In one town alone, there were 50,000 refugees from the Chernobyl accident. Multiply that by 1,000,000 for the litigious population of the US and that is a staggering 50,000,000,000 for one town. 10 billion as a total pool for ALL operators is not even enough to pay off one town of 50,000 people. The so called insurers will collect today's premium, use it to live like kings and then file for bankruptcy when asked to pay up.
Fortunately we learned the lessons of Chernobyl in 1950.
“7/18/2008 PARIS (AP) — First, an overflowing tub at a French nuclear plant spilled uranium into the groundwater. Then a burst pipe leaked uranium at another nuclear site, raising an alert on Friday. The two accidents within two weeks, both at sites run by French nuclear giant Areva, have raised questions about safety and control measures in one of the world's most nuclear-dependent nations, and given fodder to anti-nuclear activists. Environmentalists said the incidents are a wake-up call, raising doubts about an industry in which France has staked out a leading role internationally.
France has 59 reactors churning out nearly 80% of its electricity, and the French state owns Areva, which exports its nuclear technologies around the world. French Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo insisted that the incidents were minor, but he nonetheless ordered an overhaul of the country's nuclear supervision and information processes, as well as checks of the groundwater around all nuclear plants in France.”
posted Jun 27, 2009 at 23:47:54”
“Man gets probation for Ohio nuke plant cover-up.”
Please go to Wikipedia and do some research for cover-up and not cover accidents.
What's about lessons of 9/11/2001?
It is suicidal directions in full my respect for you and author.
Until we have a real solution to storage of wastes - whether they are at risk of being weaponized or not - it seems rather short-sighted to build so much nuclear generation. What's the per year quantity of waste from so many reactors? What's the per year cost to transport and store them? Is that added into your cost/KWh? If not, you're just externalizing costs - which all power generation has been doing for decades.
If there were some relatively fool-proof way to get rid of these wastes you might be on to something. Otherwise, you're just externalizing current costs and passing on a legacy of wastes with a half-life of 10s of thousands of years.
See Steve Kirsch's Profile
We've had a solution to nuclear waste for nearly 40 years now. It's proven it works. Clinton cancelled it in 1994 just before they were going to scale it up. Chu will very likely restart the project.
the nuclear club asked the us to cancel the project because of the vastly increased proliferation risk from the enrichment plants. The Nuclear club want's the once through cycle to limit proliferation of enrichment plants, leading to bombs. Duh.
B.C. will be adding half the Hoover Dam worth of electric power from a new project in 4 years.
They plan on selling that to Washington State.
We dont need a nuke plant its centralized enegy.
Solar heat and solar electric are economical now.
If you live near a coal fired plant its your duty to do it now as a protest!!
The BC Hydro website states they have a gap of about 15% that they need to fill to meet their own electric demands. Site C the only major dam project underway at BC Hydro and it is not expected to be a power generator until 2016 or beyond. So how are you stating BC Hydro power will be sold into Washington State within 4 years?
And how does selling large a quantity of hydro power from Canada solve our nationwide power problems? One large hydro project in Canada does not solve the problem of the thousands of GW we will need for our own future needs.
Also how are solar heat and solar electric economical now if subsidies and DOE guaranteed loans are needed to build the facilities or rooftop installations currently being discussed?
you want solar to creep along, suffering from every bump in the economy, or do you want ot cause billions of investment to do what private industry does best: cheaply mass produce and install stuff, faster than planned economies, due to new small companies.
rooftop pv at 2$ per peak watt, works out to 3 cents per kwh over 30 years in 6 hours full sun equivalents areas and good roofs. Since you are not paying the utility for power, that makes rooftop solar the cheapest power you can buy. lFed Ex roof scale projects 1$ per peak watt panels, plus 1$ for installation and misc for a total installed of 2$ per peak watt, which works out to 3 cents per kwh. 2 thin film solar companies claim they make the panels for 14 cents per watt. so they do great selling at 1$. You will read of solar panel companies going out of business, because it's shakeout time. Thin films has set the bar too low for crystal and amorphous.
Wa
Correction to my post:
It should have been "And how does BUYING large quantities of hydro power from Canada solve our nationwide power problems?"
Two other points about hydro power from Canada
First, there are two political parties who are coming into power that are looking to ban any future hydro power across Canada. So this will make BC Hydro's Site C and the independant power producers of BC vulnerable to stagnant hydro growth for quite possibly the next decade. Site C may not be built if the Green Party gets it way.
Second point about hydro power from BC Hydro. Most of what they sell into the States goes to California as peaking power not as baseload generation which is needed for cost effective commercial and industrial needs.
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