The Nuclear Energy Denier

 Cross-posted from Consumer Energy Report

I was rebutting a comment I found under a CER News Desk article titled: Utility Head: Japan Can’t Afford Renewable Energy, Needs Nuclear when I realized I had generated enough material for an article. Here is a similar article titled Green energy to hit Germans' bills.

What labels would you choose for yourself?

1. Renewable Energy Advocate
2. Nuclear Energy Advocate
3. Renewable Energy Denier
4. Nuclear Energy Denier

I would choose labels 1 and 2. I used the term "denier" in my title only to make a point. I don't know who first applied the term "denier" to global warming skeptics but I have never used the term quite simply because it is hateful. I've also seen the terms "green energy denier" and "Chernobyl denier" used (see Radioactive Wolves!).

Global warming skeptics are not in any way analogous to the nut jobs who deny the Holocaust or the AIDS epidemic as the term is meant to insinuate. From Wikitionary:

Person who denies something.

Holocaust denier (see Wikipedia:Holocaust denial)

Global warming denier (see Wikipedia:Global warming denial)

AIDS denier (see Wikipedia:AIDS denial)

The renewables verses nuclear debate is as disingenuous as it is nonsensical. They are not mutually exclusive. They both replace fossil fuel as a source of carbon emissions. Renewables should be viewed as an alternative to fossil fuels, not nuclear.

Read The Nuclear Enhanced Renewable Grid (NERG) and Reframing Nuclear Power as an Ally of Renewable Energy.

As usual, environmental journalist George Monbiot is ahead of the curve on this issue. In a letter he penned to David Cameron earlier this year countering the letter sent to him "by four former directors of Friends of the Earth" Monbiot says:

"For nuclear and renewables, as the Climate Change Committee has rightly pointed out in numerous reports, this is not an either-or choice; we need increasing deployments of both in the UK’s energy mix in the future (see appendix 1). Thirdly, the 12 March letter focuses significantly on economics, in short, arguing that nuclear is too expensive. We would point out that even if this were true, the writers themselves would have helped make it so by devoting decades to campaigning against the technology during their tenures at Friends of the Earth. In addition, if anyone has yet invented an inexpensive low-carbon energy source, we have yet to hear about it – Friends of the Earth today campaigns vociferously in favour of the retention of the solar feed-in-tariff, which delivers perhaps the most expensive, unreliable and socially regressive electricity ever deployed anywhere. Once again, we would refer you to the Climate Change Committee, which found that nuclear was potentially the cheapest of all low-carbon options available by 2030 (appendix 2)."

Although not a single talking point in the following comment I address is novel (few thoughts are), and not a single footnote to a source was proffered, the comment serves a larger purpose by providing me an opportunity to express some critical thought. I don't want the commenter to feel singled out and welcome him to continue to participate, but I would also like to suggest that he take the time to provide links to sources so the audience knows who the originators of the talking points are and so they can assess the quality of the sources of the information he passes along. I know of one site that does not allow unsourced comment. I don't think this is necessarily a good idea because it has a tendency to spill over into censorship.They do this in an attempt keep the comment field from becoming a come-one-come-all liar's club (although most people are inadvertently passing along information they don't realize--or care--is bunk).

George Harvey said:  

"According to the US Department of Energy in 2011, based on data taken in 2010, hydro, wind, biomass, and geothermal are all less expensive than nuclear..."

Which, if true, is at odds with the 2011 Department of Energy Quadrennial Technology Review that promotes the use of small modular reactors:

"The United States has traditionally taken a leading position in crafting the international civilian nuclear technology “rules-of-the-road” and has helped develop a sound technology base to implement and enforce those rules. With a current global deployment of 442 civilian nuclear power reactors and an additional 65 reactors currently in some stage of construction, civilian nuclear energy sits at the nexus of energy, climate, and security."

George continues:

"...even when costs to the consumer associated with waste and Price/Anderson insurance coverage are not included in the equation."

Those costs are already reflected in your very reasonable and competitively priced nuclear energy utility bill as an almost imperceptible surcharge.

"This challenges the concept of baseload power; when the wind is not blowing in one part of the country, it will be blowing in another."

If that were true they would have replaced their idled nuclear with wind instead of fossil fuels.

"...the questions that remain [about energy storage} are matters of fine-tuning... These things combine with the other challenges to the concept of baseload power to show it is actually mythology, a bogeyman created by those who can profit by it."

That is absurd. Baseload power isn't the result of backroom conspiracy theories. It's the inevitable result of a market seeking lowest cost solutions. Most renewable energy today is baseload. Read Dirty, Baseload, Centralized, Renewable Energy and A Baseload Free Power System.

Storage is rarely used quite simply because it is prohibitively expensive. For example, building a reservoir and pumping water into it can easily cost more than the stored energy is worth. Ditto for any number of other power storage schemes, like making hydrogen, or methane. And in cases where it can be economical, it can be used to improve the fficiency of any number of power sources, like nuclear for example, which could then provide peak power as well as baseload.

"The costs of nuclear that have not been faced yet, such as waste management, are without question apallingly high."

I find that claim to be very questionable. The nuclear industry has for many decades been required  to pay into a fund to deal with waste storage, which like their insurance, is already reflected in your very reasonable and competitively priced nuclear energy utility bill as an almost imperceptible surcharge. Never mind the fact that nuclear energy generates so little waste that to date is is all be stored on site in their own parking lots after half a century of power generation. From Wikipedia:

"With $32 billion received from power companies to fund the project, and $12 billion spent to study and build it, the federal government had $27 billion left, including interest."

George continues:

"Unlike nuclear power, renewable power has the upside of diminishing costs as greater investment is made..."

Nuclear has the same potential--as the aforementioned DOE report promoting the small modular reactor attests. Nuclear power plants often operate for more than half of a century. Obviously (conspiracy theories aside) they are cost effective or you would see higher electric bills when power is nuclear generated. Wind turbines as well as solar have much shorter lifespans. Read Nuclear Energy is Not a Mature Industry.

"Per unit of power produced, renewable power employs five or six times as many workers, while reducing costs to the consumer."

Stan, another renewable energy advocate nuclear energy denier, says to George Harvey:

"I’m really sorry buddy, but that is baloney, and then straight onto a bold faced lie."

True or not, the number of jobs created is irrelevant. What matters is economic efficiency. For example, a hypothetical power source that reduced energy costs by half, yet provided no jobs, is vastly superior to a hypothetical energy source that produced lots of jobs that had to be funded by increased energy costs.
George continues:

"Production may be locally owned, and profits stay local."

This is a moot argument. "Local" is relative. Universe, galaxy, solar system, planet, country, state, city, neighborhood, home. Most utilities are at the state level. They send power across state lines in the name of economic efficiency. Many are at the city level or even lower. The University of Washington has a natural gas power plant adjacent to our local bike trail right here in Seattle. You don't get much local than that, assuming that local ownership is always a good thing, which it isn't.

 "Renewable power can be a personal goal, the object of a cooperative or community."

 A well for your water can be seen as a personal goal, but it is usually better to use your "community" water system. Ditto for a septic system verses your "community" waste treatment system. For economic reasons, most people prefer to have a simple water line and sewer line, as well as a power line coming to their home, rather than deal with the time and costs of maintenance issues that come with owning a well, septic system, or a power plant on their roof.

"On the other hand, it can also be a good investment for big business, and can make more money than nuclear; notice the increased investments in renewables, and the lack of investments in nuclear by big business."

Certainly there are instances where renewables are cost effective, like Hoover dam. Investments in renewables like wind and solar are in large part thanks to the huge subsidy per unit energy they have been receiving. I'm eligible for $30,000 in subsidies if I put solar on my house. Read
Do Government Subsidies Ever Pay Off?

"Notice that the CEOs of two major businesses in the nuclear power business have said they see no future for it"

Notice that many more CEOs of  major businesses in the nuclear power business have said they see a big future for it.

"As renewable power has achieved grid parity, nuclear power has become obsolete."

If solar and wind were really at grid parity there would be no debate about letting their subsidies lapse. Nuclear is anything but obsolete, and is undergoing major technological growth.

"There is only one reason anyone can claim to be able to afford it, which is that is really handy for making bombs."

One might think, that because nuclear weapons came first, that it would not take a quantum intellectual leap to at least suspect that you don't need a nuclear power plant to make bombs. And sure enough, some nuclear powers didn't go to the trouble. They built small reactors instead, which produce no electricity, to make weapons grade material. Read Helen Caldicott--Nuclear Power Plants are Bomb Factories?

Will Fukushima Save the Bluefin Tuna?

Cross-posted from Consumer Energy Report

From a story well worth reading in Forbes titled Fukushima Radiation May Actually Save Bluefin Tuna:

If the governments can’t help, maybe bad publicity will [save the bluefin tuna]. Nicholas Fisher, the study’s co-author and a marine biologist at Stony Brook University in New York, says when he first saw the levels of radiation in the fish, caught off of San Diego, “my first thought was ‘this will do more for the conservation of this endangered animal than nearly anything else could.’”

Which is also the first thing I thought when this story first broke. And yes, I know that isn't a picture of a bluefin tuna. On the other hand, the Pacific blue fin is not the subspecies in trouble. It is the Atlantic version. Beware the laws of unintended consequences. When one species collapses we tend to increase pressure on what remains. If the public won't eat Pacific tuna, the pressure on Atlantic tuna may just get worse. From Wikipedia:

Global appetites for fish, especially Japanese appetite for sushi, is the predominant threat to Atlantic bluefin.

On the other hand, the public doesn't know one tuna variety from another, and few are going to bother memorizing which is which. If they get the mistaken impression that tuna has unsafe levels of radiation in it, to play it safe, they may chose to not eat tuna, regardless of type.One can only hope.

There are natural levels of radioactivity in the tuna, and Fukushima has only added the slightest amount more. (The report can be found here.) “But people are often anxious about radioactivity,” says Fisher. And this may be what ultimately benefits the Bluefin. The fish, Madigan points out, is not harmed by the radiation that they collected while swimming through the spill waters off the coast of Japan after the tsunami.

I listened to a story called "Radioactive tuna!" on NPR a few days ago. They had interviewed the head of a research team that identified Fukushima as the source of ceisum-134 and cesium-137 in Tuna caught off the coast of California. To be fair, they also mentioned that you would have to eat thousands of pounds of this tuna in one year to exceed a safe dose. They also mentioned that pregnant women have been warned for decades not to eat tuna because it contains elevated levels of mercury. Not mentioned was the source of much of that mercury--coal-fired power plants.

The researcher said that he'd been getting a phone call (including one from Al Jazeera) about every thirty seconds or so from media outlets looking for a story.

The NPR story elicited a very short retort titled Nuclear Tuna and Media Trivialization by a relatively high profile anti-nuclear activist. It's only a few hundred words long, conflates nuclear energy with nuclear weapons, contains numerous out of context quotes, and is devoid of a single source (not worth a read if you're considering it).

Radiation stories attract readership. I suspect that we're attracted to stories about danger and mayhem because at some level of consciousness, we are looking for information that may help protect ourselves and our loved ones from potential harm. This proclivity has no doubt served our species well for millennia, but in today's hopelessly complex technological world we are barraged with this kind of information and are often unable to sift the wheat from the chaff.

On the other hand, just last week a man went on a shooting spree and killed several innocent people a few blocks from my home, one of which was the mother of one of my daughters' classmates. Two years ago a man was murdered with an ax on the street one block from where my daughter was sitting in a classroom. Several years ago a bus driver was shot dead causing the bus to careen off a bridge, landing on the street I live on, just three blocks away. I could see why someone might develop a fear of going outside, sometimes called agoraphobia, but to get a case of radiophobia, you would need a lot of help from the media.

A lot of Americans have an excessive fear of flying, bugs, snakes, radiation, you name it, anyone one of which can kill you but the odds of any of them killing you are vanishingly low. How is it that we come to fear some things more than others? Fear is easily teachable. Parents can pass on a fear to their children, or not. My children have no fear of snakes, although they certainly know better than to handle a venomous one. I know people who are terrified of insects. My daughters love insects.

I suspect that the excessive fear of radiation started with nuclear weapons and was parlayed into a fear of nuclear energy by association thanks to anti-nuclear activists, some of which are likely motivated by personal phobias (an excessive, irrational fear).

Before the nuclear test ban treaty the United States alone detonated over 330 nuclear weapons (submerged in the ocean, buried underground, shot from canons, launched into space, you name it). The realization that all of the nuclear powers were repeatedly releasing all of that radiation into the environment is sobering but at the same time it puts into perspective just how out of perspective the public’s concerns are over radiation from nuclear power plants.

We've all read about the effects of massive doses of radiation on the victims of nuclear weapons on Japanese citizens. I recall reading the book Hiroshima by John Hersey when I was in grade school. After being told that the gods would favor anyone who made a thousand origami cranes, a little girl (just my age at the time of the reading) who was dying of leukemia made 600 of them before succumbing.

People have been taught to fear it by decades of post-apocalyptic science fiction (books and movies). My favorite (among many) post-apocalyptic sci-fi stories is A Canticle for Lebowitz. Anyone remember the movie On the Beach (1959 or 2000 versions)?

Note at this point that we're talking about radiation effects from nuclear weapons and other than Hiroshima and Nagasaki, it's all fiction. Anti-nuclear activists learned early on the effectiveness of conflating nuclear weapons with nuclear energy. That's why just about every anti-nuclear article you read will mention nuclear weapons.

But then Chernobyl happened. The amount of concentrated radiation released by that accident dwarfed that released by a nuclear bomb, yet in the end it created Europe's largest nature preserve. Wildlife in the exclusion zone is thriving quite simply because the radiation is keeping people away.

I thought what biologists learned from Chernobyl was going to be the death knell for stories about mutants. However, the latest mutant horror flick, Chernobyl Diaries, has just been released.

It has been proposed by some (but not by me) that we could use this fear to keep humanity out of critical ecosystems by sewing them with low levels of radiation and posting warning signs around their periphery. Not a good idea. Profit motive will trump fear in this case and poor workers will be the ones used to exploit these areas, radiation or no radiation.

There are many carcinogens in our environment that can increase the incidence of cancers, including many viruses. Click here and scroll down to see the very extensive list.

When the quake hit Japan there was a virtual eruption of carcinogens into their environment from fires, exploding chemical plants, failed dams, polluted ocean sediments heaved up on the land, radiation from the stricken power plant, and on and on. Fukushima was just one of the thousands of sources. There may very well be a modest uptick in cancer rates from this quake from the many sources of carcinogens, but the latest research suggests that the contribution from Fukushima alone will be too small to detect.