Posts Tagged by nuclear power
Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors
| December 10, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Nuclear |
Frequent commenter and all-around smart guy Frank Eggers points out that there has been no discussion of liquid fluoride thorium reactors here at 2GreenEnergy. He’s absolutely right, and I propose we attempt to rectify this.
Personally, I don’t know what to make of thorium. The brilliantly made two-hour-long video linked above is quite compelling, in that the main presenter, Kirk Sorensen is a super-articulate spokesperson for the technology. Of course, I can find articulate spokespeople for all types of yo-yo stuff. Having said that, I learned a great deal from the video, and again, I invite conversation.
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When the Architect of Fukushima Reactor 3 Is Scared, So Am I
| November 19, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Nuclear |
About once a week, someone asks me for my take on the latest about Fukushima, how concerned we should be, or what the upshot will be in terms of world energy policy (as if there is such a thing). I immediately refer them to Ace Hoffman of Carlsbad, CA, who’s been studying the nuclear power industry for more than 40 years — since he was about fourteen years old. He writes with depth and passion, and I recommend that anyone interested in the subject follow his blog here.
He’s testified at over 100 nuke hearings, and written over a thousand essays, including the one I’ve excerpted here: Read More
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Celebrating a Clean Energy Milestone
| July 7, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Nuclear |
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports that renewable energy rose to a historic high in the first quarter of 2011 – now producing at a greater rate than nuclear power. Renewable energy sources (biomass/biofuels, geothermal, solar, hydro, and wind) provided 11.73% of U.S. energy production (vs. nuclear’s 11.10%).
Of course, most of our renewable energy is large hydroelectric dams and corn ethanol, which have their own ecological issues; less than 2% is solar, wind, geothermal, run-of-river hydro, algae, etc. But hey – one takes good news where one finds it.
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[The Vector] Nuclear Madness (Continued)
| July 1, 2011 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Nuclear |
…continued from an earlier article …
Reason #2 – Danger and Damage
This leads me to the 2nd reason why I am against nuclear energy – the danger and risks. On this point, I have had engineers and nuclear experts argue that the debate is unfair and that nuclear is “safe”, “clean” and “powerful.” They always mention the newer, better plants and that nuclear waste can be “safely” tucked away, and that it doesn’t take so much space and can be monitored. They are enamoured with the power and science of nuclear. But answer me this:
We have no idea how to destroy or neutralize nuclear waste, do you? This incredibly debilitating junk sits and pollutes the earth. It is a killer. God forbid some sort of accident occurs, like at Fukushima or Chernobyl, not to mention other “minor” accidents. So much exposure and death, large swathes of earth polluted and unusable. Read More
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A Few Sobering Truths About Energy Consumption in the US
| June 28, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Renewables - Business |
Here’s a piece from Kentucky-based consulting engineer and frequent commenter John Robbins, who provides some sobering remarks on the truth behind our current push for renewables.
Last week, I was one of 3 teaching a professional seminar about Passivhaus. In case you don’t know, that program (from Germany) actually sets serious (aka “difficult to achieve”) limits on heating, cooling and overall annual energy, also on how much HVAC heating and cooling capacity which can be installed. All that WITHOUT offsets from RE grid-tied storage-free energy. Only main negative about Passivhaus is that it gives certification based on design and construction, like LEED and EnergyStar. None of these popular programs actually require post-occupancy data to verify that designs work as estimated.
The best part of Passivhaus is it separates “reducing demand and use” from achieving net-zero by offsets like grid-tied storage-free RE as is permitted in LEED. I’ve seen new LEED homes in Cincinnati which are merely minimum-code designs with PV on the roof for offsets. With Cincinnati now offering a 15-yr property tax abatement for LEED structures and the local electric utility paying sRECs for grid-tied RE, homebuyers, their designers and builders are pretty much avoiding energy reductions and heading straight to RE offsets. There’s even new “creative” marketing lingo to describe the economics, “net-zero energy cost” – net-zero cost achieved by offsetting actual energy costs with sRECs and tax abatements. None of this would fly in Passivhaus. More importantly, these situations do not represent much reduction in demand for conventional energy, since Cincinnati is a 50% cloudy location, with windy winters but stagnant-air summers. Solar and wind can work here, but certainly not full-time, so structures with grid-tied RE have their un-reduced energy loads carried by conventional energy much of the time, maybe as much as 80% of the time.
We are seeing so much morphing of RE advocacy into marketing. I guess the 1st wave was for/by us who were educated and motivated prior to or away from the current subsidy hoopla. The massive current subsidies seem to attract folks who aren’t really much interested in the traditional movement (aka “less coal, oil and nuke”) but instead need heavy financial incentives to act. Regardless of why or what, as a very aware member of Assn of Energy Engineers where real energy matters are known and discussed regularly, I worry we are seeing so much money, marketing and reporting about nonrealities in our energy world. Even tracking %RE is the wrong thing to track.
As I wrote in an op-ed in SOLAR TODAY a half-dozen years ago, implementers should be tracking how much less conventional energy they demand and use, not how much of what solutions we buy or apply. I wish we tracked how much energy use and when it is used, separately from how much and when we have RE. The net-energy approach has simplified the process for consumers but made the education process more complicated. A utility company rep whose company was co-sponsoring a workshop I taught last year in south-central KY took offense when I told my students about this. All my students rated my class very good to excellent, but the utility rated it poor to very poor, adding that it would never sponsor any of my events in the future. Similarly, a solar installer I know in central KY told me last year that when he mentions efficiency to his callers interested in a solar bid, the most common result is a lost sale or lost opportunity to bid. So while my message is correct, very similar indeed to what we’ve heard for decades from Amory Lovins, it is a message very unpopular with many consumers and utilities, also many of our governments.
I include governments because of an experience I had in Ohio where I proposed how to cut residential energy use by a whopping %, but got no positive responses from the panel representing Ohio government. A professor of economics from Miami University of Ohio pulled me aside after my presentation and told me that Ohio historically forms energy policies not as much based on consumers or energy as how much potential for tax collection. Like most states, Ohio collects a lot of taxes on conventional energy. Also like most states, Ohio’s income tax rates are progressive, going up as incomes rise. The professor said insulators’, caulkers’ and window installers’ wages are tiny compared to union coal miners, utility workers, geothermal and solar installers. He said this is why Ohio incentive plans subsidize the most expensive (higher sales taxes) and most high-wage energy systems. He said this is also why we never see energy-use reduction targets and timelines.
So we cannot be naive and think we are currently implementing or describing THE ENERGY SOLUTIONS which will substantially cut coal and nuke reliance. The current round of RE seems most abt promoting and expanding the RE retail and manufacturing sectors, which is certainly needed. But that is not the same as solving our reliance on conventional energies, especially coal, oil and nuke. As said before, I and my most committed 1st-wave customers and contacts are focused mostly on reducing reliance on coal, oil and nuke. The failure of RE’s “new wave” to understand and address this, especially to accomplish any real conventional reductions, will one day come back to haunt, maybe to backlash.
I asked a colleague attending the midwest USGBC conference last week in Cincinnati how many coal and nuke powerplants will be running if all homes and buildings are net-zero by 2030? He did not respond quickly. So I said, maybe most that are running right now, maybe even more. Nobody really knows, but what we know for sure is that net-zero is a merely a marketing term applied usually to part-time intermittent mostly-daytime RE surpluses applied as offsets against full-time 24-hr-per-day power use. Baseload powerplants like nukes and large coal-fired generators cannot be turned on and off quickly. Even coal-fired needs 10 hrs or more to shutdown and restart. Nukes need days. That’s why they are used for baseloads. To reduce baseload generation, we need aggressive full-time load reduction.
The positive thing is this is possible, already demonstrated, even well written about. We just need leadership and education to keep the information in front of governments, consumers and businesses as they consider the issues and options. As a once-home-designer who now has very little design work in this continuing recession, I’m developing new workshops and writings to educate consumers, designers, contractors, teachers and anybody else who is interested. However, I must report that I do not get or hear much interest from younger people and companies in the RE sector. I suspect that’s because they are busy. After all, there are huge amounts of subsidies in my region going to RE retailers and contractors. That sector is certainly not in recession.
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[The Vector] Nuclear Madness (Continued)
| June 28, 2011 | Posted by Kathy-Heshelow under Nuclear |
…continued from an earlier article …
What is the history of support for nuclear energy, and why?
Professor Parenti reminds us that the a great wave of interest hit after the Arab Oil embargo of 1973, with its subsequent fear and shock on developed economies. Japan and France strongly developed nuclear power at this time. France, a socialized country, was able to develop nuclear widely because the companies that constructed or operated the plants never had to turn a profit and could be paid for by the public, while Japan’s industry was heavily subsidized. The particular generation of reactors of this era make up the world’s majority of 443 nuclear power stations. Read More
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Is Areva Really Involved in Solar? We Can Live With the Truth Either Way.
| June 21, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Solar Thermal |
I’m at a loss to understand something, and I’m wondering if I could appeal to readers to help explain it.
Last year, Areva, the French energy giant, best known (at least in the US) as a nuclear energy company, bought Ausra, the up-and-coming US-based solar thermal company. More than a year later, we Americans hear almost nothing about Areva’s work in solar. In fact, the Wall Street Journal’s article this morning detailing the ouster of Areva CEO Anne Lauvergeon didn’t mention the word “solar” once.
One might suspect the worst: they bought the company only to nullify the threat it represented.
Yet if you Google “Areva” you find dozens of mentions of their accomplishments in solar all over the world. It’s almost as if some sort of disinformation campaign was being waged. Any insights?
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The Nuclear Renaissance is Pushing Ahead? Really?
| June 16, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Nuclear |
Because there are plenty of people writing on the Fukushima disaster, I tend to comment on it quite sparingly. But I just received an email from Areva (the French nuclear giant) that begins: “With the nuclear renaissance pushing ahead, I’m sure you’re aware …”
I always marvel when I see stuff like this. When large, industrialized countries are saying no to nuclear, and its costs are skyrocketing (while renewables are becoming more affordable every month), does it appear credible to anyone that the “nuclear renaissance is pushing ahead?”
And what about the fact that the whole world is learning more about the safety issues every day? I’m not happy to have to say this, but I accept what this article suggests, i.e., that scientists believe Japan’s nuclear disaster to be far worse than governments are revealing to the public, but that it’s only a matter of time before this becomes clear to everyone. “Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind,” Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, told Al Jazeera.
I’m not sure how any of this – and the decisions of Germany and Italy — squares with the “nuclear renaissance.”
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New York Times: Let’s Pretend Renewable Energy Doesn’t Even Exist
| March 26, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Nuclear |
I just learned something quite valuable. To my astonishment, it’s possible for credible journalists to discuss the dangers of nuclear power and the relative safety of natural gas, going on at length about the world energy situation, without once mentioning solar, wind, and biomass. Until I read the above-linked article in the New York Times, I would have said that simply couldn’t happen in the year 2011.
Of course, one question is how safe natural gas actually is, given that its extraction relies on hydraulic fracturing of the bedrock in the Earth’s crust. As journalist Marie Baca notes in her response to the Times article: “What about the concerns that hydraulic fracturing can mobilize radioactive material in bedrock? Or the documented cases of methane migration? Or the San Bruno disaster, anyone? Any of these worth mentioning, maybe?”
But again, the most shocking thing about the piece is its blatent ignoring of the alternatives that truly are safe. Most of the rest of the world is moving quickly toward clean energy. Not only are we refusing to play a leadership (or even an effective followership) role here, some of us, apparently, would like to pretend it doesn’t exist.
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On The Fukushima Nuclear Situation
| March 15, 2011 | Posted by Craig Shields under Sustainability |
A reader suggests that we should have a post about the current Fukushima nuclear power plant situation, calling for me to bring this whole thing into perspective.
I reply…
Thanks so much for the note. I deeply appreciate the trust and respect you have placed in me. But the truth is that I don’t have any greater insight into the extent and ramifications of this disaster than anyone else, and thus I feel that I have no value to add here.
Of course, I could point out that the millions of people (of whom I’m only one) who have been warning the world about the dangers of nuclear power were right — as if that makes anyone feel better. It goes without saying that I’m not into that. In the last few days, I’ve had people from all over the world emailing me about this, a few of them obviously in tears as they wrote. The world is in a state of shock and mourning, as well it should be.
I’m reminded of the BP oil spill, where some of my friends simply couldn’t understand why I wasn’t “capitalizing” on it. In truth, there’s nothing to capitalize on. It’s a disaster, period, and I think that more or less everyone understands this.
Like Chernobyl, the radius of the circle we draw around Fukushima will be hotly debated. And like the BP oil spill, industry spokespeople will attempt to minimize their culpability and the damage to the credibility of the nuclear program as a whole.
But, to the point: Does the disaster bring us all closer to an understanding of the imperative to migrate to clean energy? I hope so. Can I explicate it any further or better than what you’re seeing and reading? No, sorry.
In the last year, we’ve had the BP situation, the $8.6 billion judgement against Chevron in Ecuador, the bloodshed in Northern Africa in reaction to the exploitation that was enabled by oil money, and now, the nuclear catastrophe in Japan. If this succession of events fails to make the case for renewable energy, I hate to imagine what will.
Again, I appreciate your trust and friendship. But, outside of offering my most sincere sympathies, I’m out of words. I’m afraid the facts speak for themselves.
