False Fronts: Why to look beyond the label [Nuclear PR]

[megatherium]

A Columbia Journalism Review editorial (which Eric Alterman links to in his blog Altercations on msnbc.com):


This year, with the little matter of global warming finally getting its moment in the sun, the nuclear energy industry saw an opening. No U.S. nuclear power plant has been built for three decades now, and the industry would like to pick up a shovel. Nuke plants may be costly to construct, melt down on rare occasions, and present us with a spent-fuel problem, but they don’t pollute the air. So how to green up the image?

To that end the Nuclear Energy Institute, with the help of Hill & Knowlton, formed something called the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition. To co-chair it the institute hired a pair of environmental consultants, a duet to sing pro-nuclear songs. Christine Todd Whitman, of Whitman Strategy Group (which “can help businesses to successfully interact with government to further their goals,” according to its Web site), and Patrick Moore, of Greenspirit Strategies, were hired for their résumés: Whitman, a former New Jersey governor, is known as the outdoorsy and moderate Republican who ran the Environmental Protection Agency for two years under George W. Bush; Moore was a cofounder of Greenpeace in the 1970s. Part of the thinking, surely, was that the press would peg them as dedicated environmentalists who have turned into pro-nuke cheerleaders, rather than as paid spokespeople.

<edit>

Life is complicated. So are front people for industry causes — or any cause, in a world of increasingly sophisticated p.r. We have no position on nuclear power. We just find it maddening that Hill & Knowlton, which has an $8 million account with the nuclear industry, should have such an easy time working the press.

http://www.cjr.org/issues/2006/4/editorial.asp

[NNadir]

1. The nuclear case is obvious to anyone who thinks.

All the media positive and negative has reached to point of madness.

Journalists - all of them - are useless. There is no such thing as a "journalist" any more and there hasn't been a "journalist" in decades.

We must act or we must die. The time for "debate" has run out.

[megatherium]

2. What I thought was interesting about this CJR editorial was its

harsh description of Patrick Moore as an "eco-Judas": Moore’s firm, Greenspirit Strategies, has labored for such causes as pesticides, flame retardants, and mining companies accused of fouling villages with cyanide.

I share your urgency concerning global warming, and I share your engineer's sense that nuclear is not as bad as its critics believe. But unless we replaced most of our electrical generation capacity with nuclear, nuclear will not make a real impact on the problem--and no one is talking about building more than a few dozen nuclear plants in the next 15-20 years. Indeed, I am reaching the conclusion (based on the large amount of coal plant construction and the likelihood that coal and nonconventional petroleum will be used to make liquid fuels) that we are pretty much screwed.

[NNadir]

3. The reason that more nuclear plants are not being ordered is clear.

Nobody is going to build a reactor in a country, like Germany for instance, where a public "phase out" policy exists. This policy is a function of massive ignorance - ignorance being the thing to which most journalists now appeal.

Germany is thus building coal.

The 10 to 15 year meme is more than a little absurd though. Japan has building reactors in a three year time frame, regularly.

We must begin to replace coal as quickly as is possible. The start up will be slow, since the infrastructure for building nuclear plants has decayed with disuse. However there is historical experience with scaling up plant construction. The world capacity for nearly 30 exajoules of nuclear energy was built in about 20 years time - with no experience. There is no reason that we cannot do with experience what our grandfathers did. We have better tools and more knowledge than they did and we can refer to the outcome of their practices.

I think the world must stop the fighting and all of us must work together to build as much renewable and nuclear capacity as we can as quickly as is possible.

I think that people like the Germans are getting a graphic demonstration of what inaction and indifference means exactly.

As for lightening rods like Whitman and Moore, they don't count. The issue is way beyond whatever feeble remarks they make one way or the other.

[Kellanved]

4. We've been there countless times

Yes, Germany is building new coal plants. As is the US. As is China. As is the whole world.
Whatever there are 4 new Nukes in 300 new power plants (as - IIRC - stated in the Cheney plan) or none in 12 as in Germany makes little difference, especially considering that combined heating/power plants are not worse than nuclear plants in the CO2 statistics - unlike other countries, Germany needs heating over six months per year and almost exclusively uses fossil fuel to do it

The German "Opt-Out" is a plan which actually prolonged the lifetime of all German reactors, with the exception of a few plants of questionable legality. It was a direct reaction to a statement by the German energy providers which stated that financing new nuclear power plants is impossible. As I've said before: I get the problem, but not your lobby driven fixation.

[jpak]

5. The Cheney Plan is 6 GW of new US nuclear capacity

There are ~62 GW of new US coal-fired capacity in various stages of planning/construction - not all will be built and net gain with the retirement of older coal-fired plants will be ~37 GW.

US electricity consumption is growing at ~1.7% per year - you would think there would be a way to reduce or arrest the growth in US power demand (and CO2 emissions).

But that would require "personal virtue" - something the GOP abhors....

[NNadir]

6. Which lobby? The coal lobby?

I oppose coal everywhere.

I simply note that the German claim to be able to phase out nuclear, which still has the lowest external cost, is a pro-coal decision.

The renewable effort is a lie and a failure.

[Kellanved]

7. Every effort is

Especially so the "only nuclear". It's about as plausible as the "solar", but has a better funded lobby.

The external costs of nuclear are debatable; most respected sources put them at the top of the spectrum, a few put them at the lower end.

There are idiotic decisions happening in Germany, top of them all the idea to give away CO2 certificates for free. But the often cited "Opt Out" is a myth; the simple truth is: without the so-called "opt-Out", there would be only a handful nukes left in Germany, as only the Konvoi plants are still within their specified lifetime. For anyone with a brain, the "opt-out" got its name as an alibi to calm green voters, as the actual act does the complete opposite.
The industry just stated that it won't build new nukes as long as it is not able to (it'll never be without massive subsidies) and in return it got the right to extend the lifetime of most reactors.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kellanved]

10. You see, that's where you lose me

A the point where you imply that building a nuke makes thing better. Newsflash: it doesn't.
If at the same time countless new fossil plants are constructed, then the nuke won't do a thing. The USA is probably right now building about as many coal plants as germany has in total, and that at weaker environmental standards. A handful of nukes won't make that problem simply vanish.

Widespread use of energy-saving bulbs would probably due more for your lungs.

Nukes are for most countries what they ever were: nice, big publicity stunts and technology demonstrations.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kellanved]

13. Ah

For which year? 1980? 1/26th is about 4%?
Let it be 7%. Even doubling that won't solve any problem.


I am no apologist, but I can't take that approach serious. The belief that nuclear power will allow the western world to continue the uncontrolled waste of energy without a bad conscience is not realistic.

Especially strange is your pointed finger. The share of C02 free power production is bigger in Germany (over 35%) than in the US (IIRC 27%). The gap is posed to grow and not posed to shrink. Not to mention that also less energy is used per capita and that the combined heating/power plants are under-represented in the statistic. I would like to back this up with DOE numbers, but apparently the US is so ashamed of them that they block access to foreign readers.

Another thing shrinking is the share of nuclear power in the US and the world.
Yes, it is shrinking in Germany (edit: actually it rose after the optout and is still at record-levels), but due to imports from France and the Czech republic, there will still be a lot of power produced in nuclear plants around. More than in the US, I would guess.

As to "what I'm getting". Newsflash: We're sitting in the same boat. But thanks for your one-track idea and finger-pointing, which practically guarantee worse conditions.

[Name removed]

14. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Kellanved]

15. Listen

I already told you: the DOE is blocked for foreigners. With number's as shabby as the US's it's no surprise.

There is no such thing as a "nuclear phase-out" in Germany. It's buzzword empty of meaning, used for a law doing the opposite.

As to "Deserve"? For what? For reducing greenhouse emissions more drastically than any other of the western countries? For using less energy per capita? For having over third of the energy produced by non-CO2 emitting fuels? For extending the lifetime of nuclear plants?

What are we actually having that we deserve? You're probably in an airconditioned room, waisting energy produced to 73% by CO2 emitting means.

Or is your problem really just that buzzword "phase out"?


As to "Indifferent"? I'd say realistic. Energy is a traded commodity. Offer causes demand. The more you offer, the more is consumed. That doesn't account to a single gramm CO2 actually not emitted.

Also, you know the numbers, I know them. The share of nuclear energy is expected to drop. And it's not a thing caused by a relatively small country trying to sell the fact that no nuclear plants were built in two decades as a political breakthrough.

As to the US plans: four new plants are (or 6 GW) are mentioned. Maybe a few old sites will see new blocks. That's not 17 new plants. Nor would the US power grid be able to use that many new 1GW+ plants.

[Viking12]

16. There's a reason he's the only DUer on my ignore list....

I think you're beginning to understand why that is.

[NNadir]

17. You make lots of assertions but offer no data.

For the record, the state I live in is New Jersey. In my state more than 50% of the energy is nuclear. I write everybody I can write to ask for more nuclear power. I'll bet that my global climate change profile is lower than yours.

But like I say, if you don't know what you're talking about, make stuff up.

As for your argument that if no energy is produced, it can't be purchased I assume that you are working for energy caps in Germany then, no? Is anyone in Germany calling for an energy cap? Why then were the new coal facilities announced?

If one is interested in data (although apparently you are not interested in data) here are the numbers: In 2004 Germany produced 862 million metric tons of CO₂. In 2001 it produced 847 million metric tons.

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1co2.xls

I always thought that 862 was bigger than 847, but I could be wrong.

I also don't think that Germany can applaud itself for having a carbon intensity that is almost 50% greater than it's neighboring nation, France:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/pub/international/iealf/tableh1gco2.xls

As for Germany's spectacular reduction in per capita CO₂ since 1990, congratulations on shutting down the old inefficient GDR facilities. Since 1998, Germany's per capita carbon dioxide emissions have remained more or less level, having risen slightly since 1999. Maybe you think Germany deserves an award for staying pretty much constant while temperatures approach 40C around the world. I don't agree. I note that the German official plan is to get worse, not better.

http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page?_pageid=1996,39140985&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL&screen=detailref&language=en&product=SDI_MAIN&root=SDI_MAIN/sdi/sdi_gp/sdi_gp_res/sdi_gp1410

As these european statistics show, German per capita emissions of CO₂ are 60% higher than that of France.

France, by the way, and not the United States or Germany is the world standard for environmental responsibility with respect to electrical generation. France is the model of what I would like to see every country on earth do with its electrical generation.

Of course, if countries also embrace renewable strategies, so much the better, as long as they do so seriously by using whatever renewable strategies are available to phase out fossil fuels. Any country that has phases out fossil fuels by any means whatsoever gets my unrestrained praise. Note that I am not calling for Iceland to go nuclear. They have a sensible and realistic plan to generate all of their energy by totally renewable means. I think every civilized person on earth can applaud, unreservedly, the Icelandic plans.

Here are the EU countries with lower per capita carbon dioxide than France: Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Portugal, Sweden, Hungary, Switzerland, Malta, Iceland, Bulgaria.

Of the countries that have high living standards, Switzerland and Sweden have large hydroelectric and large nuclear power fractions, and Iceland has thoroughly exploited both geothermal and hydroelectric resources. We shall see how Switzerland and Sweden fare on this score when the glaciers have disappeared.

You seem unhappy with the fact that the German nuclear power plants were not shut immediately. Of course we all know immediately what would have happened if instead of being made unhappy you were made happy, and the nuclear plants were shut.

As for your rather weak understanding of nuclear prospects in the United States, a list of the new proposed reactors can be found here:

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf41.htm

These are utility announced COL's (Combined Operating Licenses) for 11 sites, many now proposing two units each. I'm sorry I said "13 reactors" because I can't keep up with the speed of new announcements. The actual number of reactors is now 19.

Now let's be clear: Germany performs better than the US in carbon emissions. Everyone in the United States should be deeply ashamed of our performance. I know I am. But in expanding nuclear energy, the United States is at least moving in the right direction for some of its capacity. We have not gone far enough, but I'm working in my country to make the issue clearer. I think you're working in your country to make matters more obscure.

[Massacure]

11. With all due respect, every pound of coal not burned makes a difference.

[bananas]

9. There's another breaking scandal about Christie Whitman and her lies

Discussed in these threads:

'Secret' 9/11 lies? 2002 exec order let EPA bury info on air hazards
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2419502

More Bush Cover-Up on Hazards at Ground Zero Clean Up
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=115x62036