Part of a very interesting article on nuclear power, problematising considerably the claim that it is a solution to CO2 production associated with energy. Following an analyisis of how quickly useful uranium would be depleted, we then read:
"All processes of the nuclear system ..., except the reactor itself, consume fossil fuels and consequently emit CO2. The nuclear CO2 emission depends on the ore grade, ... With decreasing ore grade, the CO2 emission increases: ... The world average ore grade today is about 0.15% U3O8. and the world average CO2 emission is around 120 g/kWh (with a large spread). When poorer ores are to be mined, the specific CO2 emissions increase steeply with decreasing ore grade."
Nuclear Power – the Energy Balance � Celsias:
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"Spend and tax" not "tax and spend"
I got a response from my MP which got me kind of mad. You'll see why as I reproduce it here. Apologies for the strange changes in types...
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I've been watching the TV series 'Foundation'. I read the books about 50 years ago (I know!) but scarcely now remember anything...
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from: http://static.guim.co.uk/sys-images/Guardian/Pix/online/2012/5/22/1337672561216/Annular-solar-eclipse--008.jpg -
"'Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell yo...
3 comments:
The OPERATION of NPPs have a minimal carbon footprint, Construction and maintenance of facilities or machinery to generate that much power will obviously have a "need for power". The problem, which most people seem to miss is that nuclear can generate the huge amounts of power demanded to keep the U. S. strong and safe with a miniscule and trivial carbon footprint compared to any existing technology with the capacity to efficiently generate for base-load purposes. Baseload generation, whether you like it or not, is mandatory unless you want our country to go back to the lifestyle of the 1800s.
Having worked in that safe, productive, industry for 35 years and I believe thus having saved my children from having to bleed their lives away in a Middle East desert, I am now committed to doing the same for my grandchildren.
Don't worry; no one is going to force a plant into an area where a majority does not welcome one. (I guess those folks will have to base-load with oil and coal ---producing that yummy air!).
I have listened to NPR's extremely bias programming on NPPs for 35 years. It continues: http://www.nhpr.org/node/14199
I suggest you look elsewhere for the energy policy so unreported by the press:
http://www.nrc.gov/reactors/new-licensing/new-licensing-files/expected-new-rx-applications.pdf
This will show you the 24 locations (34 units 1600 megawatt units) that will keep your prodigy and future prodigy out of the Middle East too!
Several problems here: one is that I am in the UK so the appeals to national interest seem a little hollow to me. Though I do agree that decentralising of power production is an important part of energy security and largely helpful in energy terms for world security. The other problem is that you do not wrestle with the central problem posed by this paper which is that uranium is rare, finite and very energy hungry to extract and will become increasingly expensive. As such it can't address the issue you raise in the long term and for a whole world of 6-9 billion people all aspiring to live at USAmerican standards. (In which case we may have to look at the necessity, in some aspects, of living at 1800's levels but maybe we can do more with less?)
Some of what we do will have to be about efficiency and reducing wastefulness, some of it will have to be cultural: expecting to do things differently (as we have always had to do). The base load thing can then be taken care of my more local and small scale methods including more intelligent networking of a variety of supplies.
My worry about your solution (and I take the point about grandchildren) is that not only does it put us in hock to something unsustainable but something which despite 80 years of research we still have no 'comfortable' solution to the waste disposal implications of. And furthermore the storage of which poses both civil liberties hazards as well as a temptation to groups committed to armed menacing of civilian populations for political ends.
And that's even before we consider the costs (financial and energetic) of building and decommissioning ... I fear also the nuclear state and I think you should too for the sake of your grandchildren.
Oh and I forgot to mention that the intermittancy problem is not solved by NPP's; their record shows that outages are not as rare as we'd like and France's experience shows that the kinds of difficulties global warming is likely to throw up increase the likelihood of NPP downtimes. Just search on nuclear on this blog and you'll find a number of references to these kinds of difficulties.
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