I see that the global warming industrial complex wants to spend $45 trillion to combat CO2.
My attitude has long been that the science on much of this is suspect, as is always the case when money and politics intersect with science. However, I see that they’re strongly recommending massive ramp-ups of nuclear power. Since I’ve believed for decades now that we need to do this–it is the cleanest, safest form of power generation ever invented by man, exceeding even solar power electrical generation in safety and low emissions–that’s a compromise I can live with. If the Anthropogenic Global Warming enthusiasts will compromise and stop demonizing nuclear power, I’ll give them what they want on the other stuff even if I’m skeptical. Hey, that’s what good politics is supposed to be about, right? People who can’t agree reaching a compromise?
(Thanks Texas.)
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the science on much of this is suspect,
Understatement, my friend. The science on this has been engulfed in a strange, secular religion of anti-capitalism and anti-growth.
Remember "Save the Whales?" Remember "Split Wood, not Atoms?"
Remember that old Public Service Announcement with the Indian with a tear in his eye, watching all these spoiled Americans polluting a stream with McDonald’s wrappers?
All of these were effective, but much too low scale. Ya gotta think bigger to change a way of life.
So, it’s not just pollution is bad for the air; it must be, unless we stop it, we will destroy the entire eco-system! (Please pay $45 Trillion for necessary remedial work. Check and Visa accepted).
I love the mountains, rivers, parks, oceans, grassy meadows, forests, green valleys– and think we should protect them. However, I now oppose all this nonsense about global warming.
HB
Anyone got a more permanent link to this story? Yahoo links are ephemeral and I hate placing them on ma’ blog.
So $45 trillion huh? How much will it cost if we don’t do anything?
Debateable. If the threat is as bad as they say, then the costs will probably be astronomical.
On the other hand, $45 trillion invested in nuclear power alone would probably be money very well spent and save money–lots of it–in the long run.
I haven’t bought an American car since 1984 when I bought my first car, a Dodge Omni from my mom. When that died at 60k miles I swore off American cars and have only bought Japanese since. But I am already looking forward to the Chevy Volt which may come out in 2010 (is that calendar year or model year?).
Fuel costs in our household – thanks to Dr. Wife’s commute – are running $700-800/month.
Electricity prices (peak) in my area are running at $.113/kwh. Dr. Wife’s commute and car is currently the worst offender consuming the bulk of that figure.
For $650 I can buy over 5700 kwh of electricity. That’s a lot of electricity for a car, and I would expect that in the end it will be cheaper to run the Volt than her current car.
When that happens it will signal a paradigm shift for our family and possibly for our country. Electric vehicles would most often by recharged at off-peak times, so new power plants wouldn’t be required at first. In addition it would take awhile for them to replace gas powered engines, but perhaps not too long when gallon of gas is running over $5/gal. New power stations can be brought on gradually, be they nuclear, solar or coal.
The market is going to solve this mess if we let it; my concern is that the 70′s rejects from the Carter administration that infest Obama’s campaign are going to ruin the economy today just like they ruined it back in the 1970s.
Waiting for the change is painful. I’m already cut out most of the non-essential driving that I can. However Dr. Wife has another year of this commute and then she will be free to find a job closer to home – or more likely a home closer to her job, preferably in a red southwestern state.
While I am no longer the fervent believer in "The Market Uber Alles" philosophy so popular with libertarians and (some) conservatives, I would mostly agree that the market will be what provides most of the important initiatives here; as the price of gas goes up, the economic incentives to develop alternatives gets better and better. Although government still has a role in terms of both getting out of the way where they’re a nuisance but also in things like tax incentives, emissions regulation, etc.
Personally, what I’d *really* like to see is greater expansion of telecommuting. Which would have massive benefits on all sorts of areas. And there’s plenty government could do to encourage that in terms of tax incentives and such. Not that it would help Mrs. Dr. Wife very directly, but…
Dean
The problem with telecommuting and IT is that there is the assumption that if you can do your job from your home, then an Indian can do your job from his Bangalore office. It’s not true of course, but it’s a very entrenched idea – and no one in IT that I know wants to test it.
There are probably a lot of supply chain problems that would slow down any attempt to greatly expand the use of nuclear power. For example, I’ve read that there is one factory in the world (in Japan) that has the ability for make the large single-piece forgings that are preferred for nuclear containment vessels.
At least in the U.S., though, the main problem will be the endless litigation and regulatory maneuvering by various activists and local interested parties.
Scott: There are others in IT already doing it that I know personally, or know of. I don’t think John Eddy will think I’m betraying any confidences if I mention that they let him telecommute at least part time.
I can see the fear in some circumstances though.
David: I don’t know that such a supply chain problem would be a real issue long term, but I would certainly agree that, overwhelmingly, the main issue with nuclear power is the widespread paranoia and luddism so typical in the anti-nuclear power. NIMBY too, but most of that is caused by the same; no one whines about getting the local coal or diesel plant away from their community, even though these are (demonstrably) more dangerous and more a threat to the health of the surrounding community than either a nuclear power plant OR a nuclear waste storage facility (paranoia over nuclear waste is even worse than the paranoia over the plants themselves).
Dean,
nuclear is SAFER than solar energy? i honestly have never even thought about looking into this, so i’m not saying i disagree, but it’s such a strong claim it’s got me curious.
zach
I was intrigued by Dean’s comment too. The only reference I’ve found so far searching Google is to this 1978 paper. According to the abstract solar power is ranked as more dangerous due to construction hazards of decentralized solar power systems. I suppose it makes sense: falling off roofs, solar panels blowing off in high winds and striking people… That doesn’t include the dangers of the volatile chemicals used to manufacture the panels themselves.
I’m extremely suspicious of decentralized power generation whether wind or solar. It’s good in theory but when you look at it from an engineering perspective it falls apart.
Decentralized solar will make sense in some niche situations–for instance, someone is selling a product for mall parking lots which combines shade for the cars with solar electricity generation which can help power the mall. But in general, grid power will make more sense. One technology I think is promising is solar-thermal, in which is the sun is not used to generate electricityvia solar cells, but rather used to boil water and spin a turbine in the old style. The big advantage is the ability to store energy, typically via molten salt. Electricity that is "dispatchable"–ie, available when needed–is far more valuable than electricity that shows up when it feels like it based on sun or wind conditions.
Any new solar or wind facilities for the grid, however, will require new transmission lines, and every single mile of these lines will be a protracted court- and regulatory-agency fight with various activists.
Zach: Scott’s got it right. This was also covered in depth in a book called "Before It’s Too Late" written by a physicist that I read some years ago. Large scale use of solar power for electrical power is more dangerous than nuclear. All you have to do is look at the dangers inherent in installation and maintenance of miles upon miles of solar cells and the danger becomes manifest. But, you also need to look at the chemical wastes involved in not just their manufacture, but also their disposal when their useful life has passed, and, also, the lethal chemical wastes involved in all the battery storage that you have to use to make this power source useful.
Solar power is overrated because people are distracted by how innocuous it seems. Yes, free energy, from the sun! That can’t be dangerous! Well yes, it can.
Although, let’s be clear, solar is cleaner and less dangerous than burning coal. But in terms of safety and environmental impact, solar does a lot more damage and is significantly more dangerous than nuclear power. And solar power waste is more polluting and dangerous than nuclear waste. And, while the anti-Nuke people love pointing out that some nuclear waste has a half-life that will leave it dangerous for thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years, they rarely acknowledge that numerous chemical wastes will be poisonous for millions of years after they’re used.
[shrug] As you can see, I’m a nuclear energy proponent. The luddite fear of nuclear power did a lot to drive me away from the environmentalist movement. This is the safest, most environmentally friendly form of mass electical generation ever invented. Demonizing it has cost countless lives and done massive environmental damage. Good luck getting certain people to admit that though.
David F.
Thanks for the term "dispatchable." I’ve been trying to explain to people that the electricity I am using this instant to power the TV was produced an instant before from energy released via a split atom from the nuke plant in Jersey or from the burning of coal in PA. If I was solely reliant on wind or solar, what would happen if the wind eased while demand spiked – or if I was writing this at night?
I think solar plants using molten salts may be useful in the southwest, but that will power the southwest. What about those of us in the Midwest or Northeast? People gloss over things like transmission losses – and the environmental fights over power lines powered by the NIMBY syndrome.
I wish Steven Den Beste would weigh in on this topic today although perhaps he hasn’t because things haven’t changed all that much. Years back he wrote what I consider to be one of the best posts ever on the topic in which he proved that alternative energy sources simply aren’t feasible from an engineering perspective.
As a business analyst in the financial industry I’m struck by how poorly thought through a lot of the talk is about alternative energy sources. People shout "solar" power and then forget that the sun shine 24/7. Or they scream "wind power" and then ignore the fact that wind is not constant and the fact that to bird lovers the windmills are giant cuisinarts.
Nuclear power is the source of energy that comes closest to meeting all the constraints set on energy production by consumers, business, government and environmentalists. With electric cars and more nuke power plants we could essentially end our dependence on foreign oil – the goal of neocons like me – and cut CO2 emissions – the goal of liberals like Al Gore – faster than any proposed IPCC schedule.
What Scott said.
There are facts about solar power that need to be considered. The first and most important is what’s called the Solar Constant, which is how much power the sun light that reaches the ground actually contains. That is 100 watts per square meter of space, about enough to power a bright lightbulb. Sounds great, right? But that’s the total potential energy, and you lose a good bit of it in the conversion to electricity. Let’s say you have amazingly efficient conversion, like 50% efficiency, which would be borderline incredible. That gets you 50 watts.
And, that amount is what you get only when the sun is shining at high noon. Add clouds, add twilight, add night time to the equation, and now what you’ve got that’s useful is down a lot more. In order to be truly useful, therefore, you’re going to have to have either very specialized applications, or, you’re going to have to use batteries to store the power for when you need it. Which involves a lot of chemical waste (not counting the chemical waste created in manufacturing and disposal of the units).
So, as I noted above, the waste issues and manufacturing and maintenance issues actually–and this has been shown definitively in countless analyses–makes solar actually more dangerous than nuclear, even if it’s less dangerous than coal. And, in terms of practical utility, it’s very limited unless you do some very impractical things. Yes, specialized applications are good–a wristwatch, a calculator, possibly some air conditioning units, etc. But for everyday use? No, it’s not practical. Wind is even less useful except in very limited places where wind is more or less constant and reliable.
Mind you, there is a way to harness sun power that gets around the solar constant, AND also reduces all the wind and weather and night/day issues: massive solar collectors in orbit, which can collect much greater amounts of power and do it constantly since they’re constantly in the sun. It’ll still vary somewhat depending on solar weather but the amount you’ll get in even bad conditions is very good.
The only problem is that to do it you’re going to have to beam it down as microwaves or something similar. There’s going to be loss in that conversion, but the bigger issue will still be safety. What you’ll basically have is an orbiting megawatt microwave generator, which creates some environmental concerns (people will freak, anyway) and arguably it becomes an orbiting weapon if you make it transmit powerfully enough.
I did a talk about energy for a high school program last month, and spent some time looking at the "renewable" sources. If you overlay a map of the U.S. population with a map that describes where wind, solar, geothermal, biomass, and hydro power have potential:
wind and solar turn out to be viable only in low population areas with a couple of minor exceptions (oddly, one in upstate NY).Â
Biomass has high potential for large population areas (not intuitively obvious to me).Â
Hydro power actually has pretty good coverage for populaiton centers, but is already utilized about much as possible.
Geothermal based electrical production has good potential in a very few high population areas.
And Dean, orbiting collection stations with microwave beams was at least thought of when I was a kid but never really exploited. Even back then I wondered if there is a frequency distribution that will not warm the air.
P Mike: Yeah that all looks pretty on-the-money. Although I’ll quibble and note that when you say "Hydro power" I’m assuming you mean water, i.e. using dammed rivers and such. Which, yes, works fine for some areas, although it also causes massive ecological disruption and has obvious inherent dangers.
I only quibble because there’s a large subset of people out there (including even the likes of Newt Gingrich) who are convinced that hydrogen power, i.e. burning hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe, is the wave of the future. And, like solar power, it sounds great. There’s more hydrogen than anything else in the universe! It’s all around us! It’s in the air! It’s in seawater! It’s got enough energy to last millions of years!
The problem there is that pure hydrogen burns less efficiently than hydrocarbons, storage of the stuff is a significant hazard and expense, and, finding away to turn it useful economically is a *huge* issue. No one’s come up with a way (that I’m aware of) to separate out hydrogen from water or other sources in a way that takes less energy than the hydrogen itself produces, i.e. you typically have to expend more fuel to make the usable hydrogen than you get hydrogen fuel.
The primary waste of burning hydrogen is also water, pure water. Which also sounds wonderful to a lot of people–who could object to that?–but it turns out that if your issue is the greenhouse effect, well, water vapor is a much, much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, by at least an order of magnitude if I’m remembering properly. Burning hydrogen would only give us more greenhouse effect.
More water vapor in the air would also cause an increase in mold and mildew, by the way, so that would also constitute a hazard and an environmental impact. Just for the hydrogen enthusiasts to consider.
I wouldn’t include hydrogen as an energy source because, as you note:
No one’s come up with a way (that I’m aware of) to separate out hydrogen from water or other sources in a way that takes less energy than the hydrogen itself produces, i.e. you typically have to expend more fuel to make the usable hydrogen than you get hydrogen fuel.
It’s more of a storage & transmission media. It doesn’t solve (just changes or adds to, depending on your assumptions) energy problems.
Yep.
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