Bitter

Friends of the Earth seems bitter about John McCain's "we should curb climate emissions but only if a huge giveaway to the nuclear industry is involved":

I oppose huge giveaways to the nuclear industry, but would consider them a price worth paying if necessary to stop global warming. But what kind of person would, on the merits, take the view that stopping global warming is a good idea if and only if it can result in huge giveaways? Note that any carbon-pricing scheme would, as such, be a pro-nuclear measure even without additional subsidies.

Comments

The attached link indicates that China has now passed the US as the worlds' greatest source of CO2. It should be apparent that, unless China (and in the future India) can be persuaded to switch away from coal burning power plants, nothing that the US of the EU can do will slow down the global climate change express, now roaring into high gear.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7347638.stm

Posted by SLC | April 15, 2008 6:16 PM

I favor big giveways as a price worth paying to stop Bigfoot.

Posted by I'm Scared of Bigfoot | April 15, 2008 6:17 PM

Matt: don't get suckered into thinking that nuclear power has a prayer of curbing CO2 emissions as needed to stop increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. Check out Nathan Lewis' work on this: http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html

I'm a huge proponent of nuclear energy (most physicists are). I'm not naive, though. The nuclear industry already receives a bigger effective subsidy in the form of the Price Anderson act than any other type of energy. Nuclear energy is clean and convenient, but the ability to ramp up generating capacity as needed to meet increasing electricity consumption just isn't there even if you assume regulators across the world turn their backs tomorrow, the price of fissile materials stays where it is forever, and communities stop giving a shit about plant placement and waste storage/transport.

Posted by Zach | April 15, 2008 6:48 PM

Matt: don't get suckered into thinking that nuclear power has a prayer of curbing CO2 emissions as needed to stop increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration. Check out Nathan Lewis' work on this: http://nsl.caltech.edu/energy.html

I'm a huge proponent of nuclear energy (most physicists are). I'm not naive, though. The nuclear industry already receives a bigger effective subsidy in the form of the Price Anderson act than any other type of energy. Nuclear energy is clean and convenient, but the ability to ramp up generating capacity as needed to meet increasing electricity consumption just isn't there even if you assume regulators across the world turn their backs tomorrow, the price of fissile materials stays where it is forever, and communities stop giving a shit about plant placement and waste storage/transport.

Posted by Zach | April 15, 2008 7:01 PM

"Nuclear energy is clean and convenient, but the ability to ramp up generating capacity as needed to meet increasing electricity consumption just isn't there even if you assume regulators across the world turn their backs tomorrow, the price of fissile materials stays where it is forever, and communities stop giving a shit about plant placement and waste storage/transport."

Include the cost of recycling nuclear material and disposing of the waste from reprocessing. But for me, the first "downside" you cite is the argument ender. I can think of no other way to ramp up nuclear short of heavy involvement from the federal government (excluding the plain old cash payments McCain is suggesting. Shit, the feds start givin' money away, you bet you're gonna see a lot if "investors" that want to get thier pinch of those fed dollars and turn them in euros or yuan).

If, on the other hand, McCain along with a Democratic congress agreed to assist with developing nuclear assuming it would result in a full panoply of Public Utilities along with investments in research and education (thereby keeping the Public's money in house) well, then I'd have to review my assumptions regarding the timeframe required to build the nuclear capacity needed to have a significant impact on climate change.

By no means am I certain that such a "solution" can achieve success, but it's nice to think of the shiver it sends down the spine of your average Republican... Come on, you just KNOW McCain would do something like this just to piss everyone off. He's a Maverick, he can't help himself.

Posted by Rihilism | April 15, 2008 7:23 PM

A minor point in response to Zach (which, admittedly does not refute his overall point):

Even if the price of fissile material increases, this does not represent a significant problem for the sustainability of nuclear power. In Canada, it's estimated (according to the Canada Energy Research Institute) that if the price of uranium doubles, the cost of nuclear energy would only increase by 5%. By contrast, doubling the price of crude oil increases the cost of energy from oil by approximately 60%.

The reason for the relative immunity of nuclear energy to fuel prices is that nuclear energy comes with a relatively massive capital cost. The capital cost is, of course, a big part of the reason why increasing generating capacity is considered so difficult, but at least it comes with some side-benefits.

Posted by Khaled | April 15, 2008 8:16 PM

@Rihilism

I can think of no other way to ramp up nuclear short of heavy involvement from the federal government.

Which is what we have right now, really, with liability for waste management and civil liability being largely subsumed by the Feds. We could very well oversee an unparalleled increase in nuclear generation in America in the next generation. Stolen from the link I posted, but we could conceivably train a whole bunch of nuclear engineers really quickly and start commissioning a new reactor a month. This would only put a dent in the global CO2 emissions problem. We don't trust most governments in developing with nuclear power, and even if we did there wouldn't be enough to go around.

This is just a guess, but I'd bet that if you crunch the numbers you'd see that the CO2 emissions reductions seen from a total conversion of American electricity generation to nuclear energy would be completely wiped out by projected increased in coal generation in the developing world, primarily from China. Good luck convincing China, with its famous water management issues and cheap, available coal that they should go nuclear, even if there were enough uranium to go around.

Posted by Zach | April 15, 2008 9:38 PM

But what kind of person would, on the merits, take the view that stopping global warming is a good idea if and only if it can result in huge giveaways?

Remember when Matthew was complaining the Jamie Kirchik (in his review of Matthew's book) was attributing views to Matthew that Matthew didn't actually hold?

Pot - kettle

I mean, what kind of moron would actually believe that McCain thinks that "stopping global warming is a good idea if and only if it can result in huge giveaways"? You'd have to have an IQ of 3 to believe that McCain really thinks that.

Posted by Al | April 15, 2008 11:27 PM

But what kind of person would, on the merits, take the view that stopping global warming is a good idea if and only if it can result in huge giveaways?

Anyone whose job included lobbying for the particular industry which might benefit from "huge giveaways" tied to policies regarding global warming.

What a stupid question on its face.

Posted by El Cid | April 15, 2008 11:32 PM

I'm pro-nuclear power as well, but the problem is that instead of subsidizing dirty energy, and then being forced to subsidize clean energy *even more* in order to give a competitive advantage to the latter, we should be taxing the dirty energy and exempting the clean energy from taxation. But no. They way things work in the U.S. is that no energy policy will go forward until all major energy interests have massive government handouts.

Posted by Colatina | April 16, 2008 1:01 AM

I hate to burst the love bubble but you need to look at the WPPSS (pronounced "whoops," the acronym for the Washington Public Power Supply System) bond 'n' nuclear plant debacle in Washington State. Those reactors were partially built in some cases but never completed because of the massive financial disaster, cost overruns, and other unfortunate aspects of what was to be the beginning of nuclear America.
Toshiba's mini-reactors have great promise but nobody is ever going to get over the invisible radiation cancer fear.

Posted by Captain Reality | April 16, 2008 2:32 AM

"This is just a guess, but I'd bet that if you crunch the numbers..."

Agreed. Just trying to spark a conversation and trying to convince advocates that nuclear is no panacea. The Chinese will hopefully come to the same conclusions regarding coal (doubtful, but there is, I believe, only one logical conclusion that they can eventually come to) but we musn't ignore our complicity in the Chinese economic juggernaut.

One way to reduce emissions from China is for us to quick buying so much cheap junk...

"I hate to burst the love bubble but you need to look at the WPPSS (pronounced "whoops," the acronym for the Washington Public Power Supply System) bond 'n' nuclear plant debacle in Washington State."

Not so much love as "interested party". Just curious, since I'm not familiar with the case, was there a private utility involved and any idea who did the design, engineering, and construction including cost estimation and construction timing? Just wondering.

Posted by Rihilism | April 16, 2008 8:42 AM

That'd be "quit" not "quick", or better "quickly quit".

Posted by Rihilism | April 16, 2008 8:45 AM

@Captain Reality

WPPSS...

One of the bigger conceptual problems that'll confront an expanding nuclear industry (w/ or w/out more government aid) is making the pitch that places that already get plenty of cheap, hydroelectric power (the Pacific Northwest primarily) are also prime sites for nuclear generation. Not that NIMBY sentiment was the only reason for failures in Washington, but it was a primary factor.

Posted by Zach | April 16, 2008 9:54 AM

One of the biggest hurdles that knee-caps Nuclear is the from the start-up cost. But a large portion comes from the constant fighting/delaying that is inflicted on them.

A massive process streamlining needs to be worked out, so the NIMBY's can't constantly delay it (which as previously mentioned leads to a lot of cost problems.)

If we can legalize fuel reprocessing at the same time, we have a very good chance at making this economically feasible.

Posted by Evinfuilt | April 16, 2008 1:23 PM

A dollar spent on end-use efficiency improvements, enabling the same services to be delivered for less energy, frees up more energy than the same dollar spent to construct a nuke, by a factor of two to five. Even if the factor were 1.2, or 1.1, building a nuke would involve a serious opportunity cost. Nuclear power as a CO2-abatement technology is thus a canard; it would suck up funds better invested elsewhere.

For details, see the numerous energy papers at rmi.org. Their numbers have stood the test of time, and not for lack of opposition.

Posted by Fingal | April 16, 2008 11:55 PM

A dollar spent on end-use efficiency improvements, enabling the same services to be delivered for less energy, frees up more energy than the same dollar spent to construct a nuke, by a factor of two to five. Even if the factor were 1.2, or 1.1, building a nuke would involve a serious opportunity cost. Nuclear power as a CO2-abatement technology is thus a canard; it would suck up funds better invested elsewhere.

For details, see the numerous energy papers at rmi.org. Their numbers have stood the test of time, and not for lack of opposition.

Posted by Fingal | April 16, 2008 11:57 PM