One way to thwart nuclear spin is to challenge the fundamental premise itself - energy from FISSION

[kristopher]

The nuclear industry loves nothing more than trying to frame the problem as one where there is a de facto acceptance of nuclear fission as an energy source. Every time there is an accident the same strategy is employed - what are the lessons learned that help make further use of nuclear fission safe.

The fact is that nuclear fission itself is the problem. It is a horrible technology for use as a global energy resource that is propped up a handful of governments hoping to profit from it. That industry has no more existential validity that the for-profit health insurance industry and it MUST be made to justify continued expenditure of public funds to support it.

At this point in time it is vital that nuclear fission proponents be made to defend the fundamental idea of fission as an energy source that is in direct competition with renewable energy technologies.

Renewable energy works now. Spread the cure: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=280296&mesg_id=280296

[cprise]

1. Physics and engineering are concerned with developing

...energy sources or mediums that have the most concentrated energy potential compared to the ambient environment.

Maybe we should start asking what degree of concentration can be handled responsibly by society, instead of giving rise to high-stakes disasters or distorting the very societies which employ energy on such scales.

My feeling is that the traditional, core proponents of nuclear energy (in this country) are power-mad and try to promote power and wealth disparities among people in many different ways.

[sorcrow]

2. Excellent point

In addition to the problems with concentrated energy, there is also the problem of concentrated power, i.e. in the hands of too few big corporations. Decentralized power production is a big threat to them.
Crow

[kristopher]

8. Amory Lovins wrote about that in the 70s

It is the third link. You might enjoy the others also, they are recent.

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E08-01_NuclearIllusion

http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E09-01_NuclearPowerClimateFixOrFolly


http://www.rmi.org/rmi/Library/E77-01_EnergyStrategyRoadNotTaken

[kristopher]

3. I agree it is a good point. but I wouldn't paint all engineers and physicists with that brush

There are a lot of them that work in the area of renewable energy resources and distributed generation. Our Sec. of Energy, for example specializes in storage of solar via biomass.

[cbarcus]

4. This approach is likely to be ineffective

The energy density of materials like uranium and thorium are extremely attractive to solving energy problems. How much energy do you think the world needs by 2050? Do you think that it is wise to limit options as we try to transition to a carbon-neutral era? How do you feel about carbon sequestration?

How do feel about the conflicts over water use that are going to arise as condensed solar starts being built in parched areas (where they are most effective? Of course the much less efficient photovoltaics could be used in their place. Don't forget that many of these installations will have fees tied to them because of rent. How about energy loses as these collection areas are somewhat remote from populated areas? I suppose superconducting cables could be brought to use, but of course the transmission system goes significantly up in cost.

How about all of the water, ammonia (food production), and synthetic fuels (transportation) that we now have to generate? Seems to me that all of that can happen far more efficiently with high-temperature (4th generation) nuclear plants. With something like LFTR, we'll even have the option of co-generation of heat.

It may be possible to make due without nuclear, it just seems so irrational, inefficient, and in the end risky.

I've seen the anti-nuclear crowd's arguments, I've looked extensively at nuclear accidents from Chernobyl to Windscale, and I just don't see how the non-nuclear path can be recommended from a risk perspective.

[kristopher]

5. No, I don't think so.

From a discussion on another thread I offer this (its a response to another of your most excellent posts) for your consideration as a reply to the one in this thread. As it was very similar to the one above I felt it a prudent investment in energy efficiency to bring it here digitally; and, as it contained slightly more detail I've included your previous offering at the end of this post. The original is here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=115&topic_id=283724&mesg_id=284316

My Dearest Cbarcus,
First I'd like to thank you. I was looking for a thought about the broader social ramifications of our energy choices and you provided just the nudge I needed. So, thanks for the thought.

As to the content of your post, my opinion is that your argument has perhaps too many assumptions and a small inconsistency in reasoning?

I'll let you decide:
First, it is important to make a few points clear. The world community didn't learn about global warming yesterday. By 1965 the problem had been identified and was briefed at the presidential level, where it was taken seriously enough to initiate research not only into the severity of the problem but also into the solutions.
By 1993 this trickle of concern had become a flood and the world actually DID come together to ask ourselves how to respond. Check the records of the 1992 Rio Earth Summit and you'll find the first comprehensive analysis of global renewable energy resources and their ability to serve the needs of the modern world.

The findings are unequivocal.

Renewable energy sources are fully capable of powering modern society. That report is when the point you stated as fact, "renewables can not accomplish ... this" was proven to be in error.

Now I want you to be completely assured about that fact, for it IS fact.

Yes, the scope, scale and nature of the demands that will be placed on our energy system have been fully and comprehensively examined. Further, it is my greatest hope that you will be assured this specialized examination been thoroughly vetted through what now amounts to generations of peer reviewed confirmation. All aspects of this investigation have confirmed that the economic and technical realities are currently underway to PERMIT the most efficient, sustainable, safest and cost effective solution to the eradication of centralized generation as a global norm. It is already happening; renewables are here and now; indeed they and rolling out in force even as we exchange our pleasantries.

So please appreciate that the last thing I hoped to convey (in any way) was even the most minor hint of harshness when I was most unfortunately forced to mention above that this is all established historical fact; and that it necessitates we examine your subsequent argument in that light.

Against that landscape of reality you are suggesting that all of the research focused on the big picture of transitioning our energy supply has completely ignored the truly profound content you contributed; which seems to be a somewhat fuzzy point of data related to terrawatts of electricity, followed by an accurate speculation on the need to consider future energy trends; even though perhaps you will want to revisit some implicit assumptions in your line of thought on those points also.

Again, in all humility but with full candor, I ask if you really truly hold the belief that all of the hundreds of specialized researchers - working so hard and diligently across decades to master and comprehensively analyze the complex world of demand/supply aspects of energy systems and all the permutations of the relevant technologies - do you think we really overlooked what the quantity of global energy consumed might be?

Do you really accept as true that the concept of future energy trends never occurred to any one of us when we examined these issues over the years? I hope it cannot be true that you would think such a thought; and I cannot tell you how disappointed I am if you do, for it would mean you hold us poor honest researchers studying energy systems to be on an intellectual level somewhere south of the bottom of a whale; can you see how disappointing to us that would be?

I'll let you decide if you want to continue to believe that, but personally I have to say I'm a bit hurt. I hope that doesn't influence your opinion, but I thought I should mention it.


I've tried to be helpful and to that end have reframed the presentation you made and given it back to you as my poor mental processes parsed the words you used into images with meaning within my personal realm of experience.

(After your small lapse of historical knowledge) you offer your 21 point energy solution, (and I paraphrase):

- We use a lot of energy.
- We will use a lot more energy in the future.
- We need to make more energy and do it while reducing carbon.
- It must be cheap.
- Nuclear comes in the large gigawatt economy size.
- Fusion isn't here.
- Fission is though and it comes in the large economy size, unlike our puny competition.
- Don't get me wrong I like the competition, nice and all, but "puny".
- Also did you notice that it's hairy and has zits all over?
- Nope what you need is the latest, the greatest such as... (Now get ready for this!) The INNNNNTEGRAL FAST RECTOR; brought to you by GE-Hitachi Prism - always working for YOU!!! :)
- Don't lose out!!!!
- ACT NOW!
- Have your very own piece of glowing, muscular, military wet drrrrrrream!
- Before you know it you too can have your very own fission reactor in your garage.
- Not just safe but inherently safe even if there is no one around to fix anything.
- So call now!!!
- We can't pilfer the public purse without your phone call NOW!
- Act NOW before you lose out to that hairy, zit covered, lice infected renewable energy monstrosity.
- That's right those foul-breathed windmills use YOUR money to set the people free of power elites and that means YOU LOSE.
- Hurry ACT RIGHT NOW - PICK UP THE PHONE and Call our easy toll free number before they cover the land like a plague of biblical proportions.
- Yes folks, you will feel so much happier and safer knowing that a techno-priesthood is working diligently to be the only source you need for energy and you know that like all priesthoods, we will take our vows to act with nothing but your best interest at heart as seriously for the coming 100 years as we have for the past 50.
- Would I lie to YOU?

I could just see the sparkling smile at the end...


You see, what turns your very polite and perfectly reasonable expression of a preference into a what I personally perceive as a bit of a huckster-ish sales pitch is the lack of genuine *relevant* factual content and it's reliance on proven counter-factual content to even open a door for consideration of the product you've offered.

Renewable energy can fulfill our needs in a far more timely and sustainable manner than any form of fission past or future. You haven't made a factual case because there is no factual case to be made without falsely excluding the competition as you attempted to do.

Now if you can produce any peer reviewed evidence where it is shown that renewable energy does in fact lack the technical ability long known to exist then you should show us where that is a conclusion, for I've never seen it published anywhere in the body of transition literature since 1992. Can you see the implications of that?

That also means that if you can actually prove it with data and analysis that will pass peer review, then you shouldn't waste your time here for one second longer. You should rush it to print because it would be a scientific bombshell that would turn the known body of knowledge on its head and, if true, the world of science is very keen to know about it.

I mean we're talking the journal "Science" here, do you know that? That is how big the news would be if you could show that renewables cannot power. And it would certainly make it to the journal "Nature" if you could even just prove renewables were not our world's most cost and time effective carbon reduction, sustainable energy path going forward.

Seriously.

That's true.


For reference here is the text of your post

I think people in general completely underestimate the importance of energy. The world currently consumes some 16 TW of energy, perhaps 1/3rd of that is electricity, and that fraction is only going to grow as we transition our transportation system from fossil fuels. Furthermore, if we're going to address world poverty and overpopulation in any meaningful way, we'll need a lot more energy than we currently have (2 to 3 times in the near term). And if we're going to reduce atmospheric CO2 to pre-industrial levels, we will need a lot more energy. And all of it has to be really cheap. In nuclear terms, that's thousands of 1 GW plants.

Until we are able to commercialize fusion (many decades away), fission remains the most viable energy source for scaling to the needs of the world. That isn't to say that renewables can not accomplish some of this, or that if we try really, really hard, that we can't build turbines all over the place and cover thousands of square miles with solar collectors...eventually. It's a high-risk path to exclude nuclear, especially considering such technologies as the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR/GE-Hitachi Prism) and Liquid Fluorine Thorium Reactor (LFTR/molten salt) which offer tremendous efficiencies and safety over conventional systems. LFTR is so promising, that we can imagine integrating it within housing developments. These are systems that are inherently safe even if the cooling system pumps are shut off or if power is lost indefinitely and there is no one around to do fix anything. We need to support an energy policy that gives very high priority to the prototyping of these technologies to that we may make use of them in a timely fashion.

Anyway, here's a fusion scientist's perspective on the world's energy problem (among the best talks I've seen on the subject):

Because of the high risk of the non-nuclear path, I think it is complete hubris for the Green Party (of which I am a member) to have in its platform, language which excludes the use of nuclear energy. It is also in contradiction (ironically) to its founding principles as a steward to the environment and to social justice.

Properly embraced, nuclear power can offer humanity a new era of energy abundance, peace, and prosperity.

[CJvR]

6. The only...

...renewable that works well enough to be viable without subsidies is hydro. If it wasn't for the other difficulties associated with it everything would be dammed up. All other renewables need political life support to hang on. Fission, compared to that, is a very good energy resource. I will start beliving in renewables when they are able to stand on their own.

[kristopher]

7. That is a very poor presentation of known evidence related to your claim

"The only renewable that works well enough to be viable without subsidies is hydro", you wrote.

Doesn't that presuppose some things about subsidies that while true for nuclear power, are in fact false when applied to renewables.

You see, nuclear power has had HUGE subsidies for more than 50 years now. In fact the subsidies have been so great that they have actually often exceeded the value of the electricity produced and sold over virtually that entire span. And it isn't getting ANY BETTER.
If you believe that hiding the true costs of electricity from a generating source is the real function of subsidies, I can certainly see how you would have angst about the government picking up yet another set of permanent corporate welfare cases like petroleum, coal and nuclear have been - nothing but a never ending money pit to toss your tax dollars into.

But fortunately your presumptions are factually inaccurate when applied to the situation with renewables. No, renewables are commoditized energy producing technologies, not energy technologies that have as a their public commodity the electricity they produce.

When we develop solar power, we want to encourage spending on factories to build more solar panels. We want to go from the industrial capacity to produce 45GW worth of panels per year today, to the industrial capacity to produce 1000GW of panels or more per year.
As the industrial capacity increases from private investment drawn into the market by demand based on subsidies, the economy of mass production truly delivers what nuclear has been promising for 50 years cheap power.

So whereas the subsidies for coal, nuclear and petroleum are permanent, and whereas the elements of a renewable energy infrastructure all lend themselves to harnessing those same economies of scale as solar, the subsidies for renewables are known to be a short term push required to redirect viable economic technologies to the forefront of development.

Take a look: http://www.1366tech.com/cost-curve/

In fact, no matter the political support in the US and EU, China alone will almost certainly be the engine that drives this manufacturing revolution. Lack of political support now just means that we lose the good manufacturing jobs. You see, one of the largest parts of costs for renewables are the overall labor costs. Watt for watt renewable technology spends far more of its costs on labor than do the centralized technologies.
For example, nuclear, in contrast, spends most of its money on money - the interest required by borrowing huge lump sums of money for 40 - 60 years. While I realize it is popular with many in certain circles to feel that the banks need more money while the middle class needs less, I personally find that argument rings as hollow as our middle class has become.