I’m sure that all of us informed and reasonable people already knew
this: that nuclear power has saved many more lives than nuclear power
has killed. However, it’s nice to have the calculations done properly,
in a peer reviewed paper, and from NASA itself so no one can start
arguing that it’s all a plot by the nuclear industry to confuse us.
The idea strikes me as being obviously conceptually true anyway:
nuclear power plants, yes including the disasters like Chernobyl,
actually release into the environment much less radioactivity than the
coal burning industry does (yes, this really is true, collectively
there’s a lot of uranium and thorium in the fly ash from coal burning).
Therefore, even if low levels of radiation really does murder us all in
our beds then we should all be dying from the coal burning and lives
would be being saved by the nuclear power.
What James Hansen (yes, that James Hansen) and his colleague Karecha
have done is look at something slightly different. They’ve looked at the
air pollution that comes from coal burning and calculated (or, rather,
looked up in the scientific literature) the number of people who die
from that. Then they’ve looked at the number that have been killed by
civilian nuclear power and we find that, very clearly, nuclear, by
displacing coal fired generation, saves lives, not takes them.
The paper is here: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/notyet/inpress_Kharecha_Hansen.pdf
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Showing posts with label Green House Gas Emissions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Green House Gas Emissions. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 2, 2013
Thursday, May 30, 2013
Nuclear is the greenest energy
Tom Horton's recent commentary on nuclear energy is excellent and
provides the beginning of a rational discussion of green energy in
Maryland ("Embracing nukes," May 23). He includes data which shows that
wind farms on average operate at 30 percent of design capacity versus 90
percent for nuclear power. Solar power systems
operate on average at 15 percent of design capacity. Wind and sun power
are erratic. Nuclear plants operate constantly, and the 90 percent
utilization factor is due to planned maintenance.
There is no current capability to store power on a large scale. In order to produce reliable power, generating companies that are forced to take wind power must have thermal backup
power and cycle or spin their turbines, inefficiently wasting steam to
instantaneously replace sudden decreases in wind power. Denmark, the
poster child for offshore wind farms, shows essentially the same level
of carbon dioxide emissions from 1999 when the country's frenzied
construction of wind mill capacity began to 2007 with zero population
growth. No thermal plants were shut down in Denmark when the wind farm
was built.
The United Kingdom is another country where wind
power can be isolated. Stuart Young Associates analyzed wind power from
November 2008 to December 2010. During the study period, wind
generation was below 20 percent of capacity more than half of the time,
below 10 percent one-third of the time and below 2.5 percent of capacity
one day in 12.
In 2011, in a comprehensive study of U.S. wind power, "The Wind Power Paradox," Bentek Energy
assessed emission reduction performance based on actual generation and
emissions data across a variety of regions of the country. This study
shows that actual carbon dioxide reductions through wind generation are
either so small as to be insignificant or too expensive to be practical.
Denmark and Germany have high levels of subsidized wind and solar power
with costs including taxes of 43 and 30 cents per kilowatt hour
respectively, compared to an average of 11 cents per kWh in the U.S.
France is Europe's lowest cost power producer at about 6 cents per kWh before tax and 19 cents after tax. France has the world's most sophisticated energy policy, producing 75 percent of their power with nuclear plants. France reprocesses its spent fuel rods and is the leader in high speed electric rail transportation. France is also Europe's lowest producer of carbon dioxide on a per capita basis at about one-third of our production.
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operate on average at 15 percent of design capacity. Wind and sun power
are erratic. Nuclear plants operate constantly, and the 90 percent
utilization factor is due to planned maintenance.There is no current capability to store power on a large scale. In order to produce reliable power, generating companies that are forced to take wind power must have thermal backup
power and cycle or spin their turbines, inefficiently wasting steam to
instantaneously replace sudden decreases in wind power. Denmark, the
poster child for offshore wind farms, shows essentially the same level
of carbon dioxide emissions from 1999 when the country's frenzied
construction of wind mill capacity began to 2007 with zero population
growth. No thermal plants were shut down in Denmark when the wind farm
was built.The United Kingdom is another country where wind
power can be isolated. Stuart Young Associates analyzed wind power from
November 2008 to December 2010. During the study period, wind
generation was below 20 percent of capacity more than half of the time,
below 10 percent one-third of the time and below 2.5 percent of capacity
one day in 12.In 2011, in a comprehensive study of U.S. wind power, "The Wind Power Paradox," Bentek Energy
assessed emission reduction performance based on actual generation and
emissions data across a variety of regions of the country. This study
shows that actual carbon dioxide reductions through wind generation are
either so small as to be insignificant or too expensive to be practical.Denmark and Germany have high levels of subsidized wind and solar power
with costs including taxes of 43 and 30 cents per kilowatt hour
respectively, compared to an average of 11 cents per kWh in the U.S.France is Europe's lowest cost power producer at about 6 cents per kWh before tax and 19 cents after tax. France has the world's most sophisticated energy policy, producing 75 percent of their power with nuclear plants. France reprocesses its spent fuel rods and is the leader in high speed electric rail transportation. France is also Europe's lowest producer of carbon dioxide on a per capita basis at about one-third of our production.
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Everything you thought you knew about the risks of nuclear energy is wrong
Kamakura, Japan—Chances are pretty high, based on
prevailing public opinion, that you will think my wife and I are a tad
crazy, maybe even guilty of child abuse. During the March 2011 accident
at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear plant, which is a couple hundred miles
from where we live, we stayed put while thousands of others fled the
Tokyo area and many foreigners left Japan for good. Not only that, we
buy as much of our fruits and vegetables as possible from Fukushima
Prefecture, the Connecticut-size jurisdiction where the plant is located
(we even specially order boxes of Fukushima produce) while millions of
others in Japan take extreme care to consume only food from the far west
and south of the country. And yes, our whole family, including our 12-
and 10-year-old sons, eats Fukushima food. We’re convinced it’s
perfectly safe, and we like helping people whose products suffer from an
unjust taint.
Are you recoiling in horror, perhaps even wishing the Japanese child welfare authorities would seize custody of our kids? If so, you are the ideal audience member for a provocative new film, titled Pandora’s Promise. This documentary focuses on five thoughtful environmentalists who were once terrified of radiation, and thought nuclear power was imperiling the planet’s future, but after educating themselves, they gradually realized that their assumptions were wrong. For people who are instinctively opposed to nuclear power but open-minded enough to consider evidence that goes against their predilections, this film will, and should, force them to question their certitude.
The five people whose intellectual journeys are chronicled admit the superficial incongruity between their environmentalism and their enthusiasm for nuclear power.
Thus, in some of the early scenes the five establish their Green bona fides. “The slogan was ‘No compromise in defense of Mother Earth.’ That was the original Earth First slogan. And it’s one that I still subscribe to at a very deep level,” says Mark Lynas, a British author and journalist, recalling his “hardcore activist” days. “Well, I [thought] nuclear power was evil. No doubt about it.”
Likewise, Gwyneth Cravens, a writer who participated in protests against the Shoreham nuclear plant on Long Island, recounts the fear she felt when news broke in 1979 of the accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania: “Are those rays coming out of Three Mile Island going to come to New York and harm my daughter?” And Richard Rhodes, whose 1986 book The Making of the Atomic Bomb won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, tells how he wrote a number of articles about the dangers of nuclear power for national magazines some years ago, but changed his mind by talking to physicists and other experts in the field “until it finally got through my head” that his basic premise was mistaken.
Making slick use of a pulsing sound track and camera shots of scenes from bustling metropolises in Asia and Latin America, the film engagingly explains why nuclear power, which is greenhouse-gas free, is so essential to the prevention of climate change. Michael Shellenberger, a consultant to major environmental groups who co-founded a center-left think tank based in Oakland, California recalls having “gotten the religion” as a student that energy efficiency and renewable sources could save the planet.
After scrutinizing the numbers, “I ended up feeling like a sucker. The idea that we’re going to replace oil and natural gas with solar and wind, and nothing else, is a hallucinatory delusion,” Shellenberger says, citing projections that global energy demand will likely double by 2050....
Read More....
Are you recoiling in horror, perhaps even wishing the Japanese child welfare authorities would seize custody of our kids? If so, you are the ideal audience member for a provocative new film, titled Pandora’s Promise. This documentary focuses on five thoughtful environmentalists who were once terrified of radiation, and thought nuclear power was imperiling the planet’s future, but after educating themselves, they gradually realized that their assumptions were wrong. For people who are instinctively opposed to nuclear power but open-minded enough to consider evidence that goes against their predilections, this film will, and should, force them to question their certitude.
The five people whose intellectual journeys are chronicled admit the superficial incongruity between their environmentalism and their enthusiasm for nuclear power.
Thus, in some of the early scenes the five establish their Green bona fides. “The slogan was ‘No compromise in defense of Mother Earth.’ That was the original Earth First slogan. And it’s one that I still subscribe to at a very deep level,” says Mark Lynas, a British author and journalist, recalling his “hardcore activist” days. “Well, I [thought] nuclear power was evil. No doubt about it.”
Likewise, Gwyneth Cravens, a writer who participated in protests against the Shoreham nuclear plant on Long Island, recounts the fear she felt when news broke in 1979 of the accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania: “Are those rays coming out of Three Mile Island going to come to New York and harm my daughter?” And Richard Rhodes, whose 1986 book The Making of the Atomic Bomb won the Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction, tells how he wrote a number of articles about the dangers of nuclear power for national magazines some years ago, but changed his mind by talking to physicists and other experts in the field “until it finally got through my head” that his basic premise was mistaken.
Making slick use of a pulsing sound track and camera shots of scenes from bustling metropolises in Asia and Latin America, the film engagingly explains why nuclear power, which is greenhouse-gas free, is so essential to the prevention of climate change. Michael Shellenberger, a consultant to major environmental groups who co-founded a center-left think tank based in Oakland, California recalls having “gotten the religion” as a student that energy efficiency and renewable sources could save the planet.
After scrutinizing the numbers, “I ended up feeling like a sucker. The idea that we’re going to replace oil and natural gas with solar and wind, and nothing else, is a hallucinatory delusion,” Shellenberger says, citing projections that global energy demand will likely double by 2050....
Read More....
Nuclear Power Saves Lives And Reduces Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Global use of nuclear power has prevented about 1.84 million air
pollution-related deaths and release of 64 billion tons of greenhouse
gases that would have resulted from burning coal and other fossil fuels,
according to a paper in Environmental Science&Technology.
Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen of Columbia University state that nuclear power has the potential to help control both global climate change and illness and death associated with air pollution. That potential exists, they say, despite serious questions about safety, disposal of radioactive waste and diversion of nuclear material for weapons.
Concerned that the Fukushima accident in Japan could overshadow the benefits of nuclear energy, they performed an analysis of nuclear power's benefits in reducing carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution deaths.
The study concluded that nuclear power already has had a major beneficial impact, based upon calculations of prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions for the period 1971-2009. Nuclear power could prevent from 420,000 to 7 million additional deaths by 2050, and prevent emission of 80-240 billion tons of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming, the study found.
Read More...
Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen of Columbia University state that nuclear power has the potential to help control both global climate change and illness and death associated with air pollution. That potential exists, they say, despite serious questions about safety, disposal of radioactive waste and diversion of nuclear material for weapons.
Concerned that the Fukushima accident in Japan could overshadow the benefits of nuclear energy, they performed an analysis of nuclear power's benefits in reducing carbon dioxide emissions and air pollution deaths.
The study concluded that nuclear power already has had a major beneficial impact, based upon calculations of prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions for the period 1971-2009. Nuclear power could prevent from 420,000 to 7 million additional deaths by 2050, and prevent emission of 80-240 billion tons of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming, the study found.
Read More...
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