Farmers of Spin
- 18 May 06, 03:50 PM
Hello everyone - just had James Lovelock pass through the office and we're hoping to get him to do a far reaching interview for PEuT. For those of you who don't know him - he's the author of a number of books about "Gaia". Lovelock presents the earth has a whole system able to respond to change and counter the forces that move the earth away from stability. Lovelock last year famously came out in support of nuclear power in the UK to provide cleaner energy to meet our immediate needs. He argued that the re-newable solutions to solve our energy crisis are sufficiently far off in the distance to be too late to counter the causes of global warming (implicating coal and gas fired power stations). He told me briefly this afternoon that if climate change shifts the gulf stream away from the UK "we'd have fewer west winds" making the west country (where he lives) less suitable for wind turbines. I think he was implying that it might not make a great deal of difference, so why bother using the land in that way. Many would argue that every little helps.
What do you think about nuclear energy as a responsible way to reduce our carbon emmisions and maintain our life style?
And do you think we should change our life style to reduce our energy needs? If so, what are you prepared to do to reduce your need of electricity?
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Under no circumstances do I want nuclear I'd rather live in the dark. Nuclear is the most ridiculous form of energy generation ever invented. As if it is possible to rationalise it when it produces such toxic waste?
Surely the only real solution is for us ALL to use less energy.
I read an interesting web site today that discusses what sort of warning should be placed over the toxic dumps deep down in America. Check out the Link.https://www.damninteresting.com/?p=160
To James Lovelock I really think you have lost the plot. You have completely sold out an industy that is likely to be humans nemisis.
Surely if sea levels rise and climate changes that dramatically the last thing we want is more coastal Nuclear power stations ready to be ravaged by this new climate.?
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Julian,
I have long been a fan of James Lovelock, but have a different view on energy. I hope you are able to question him on the following dimension of energy usage.
To 'maintain our life style' by any means, is to continue the destruction of natural resources empowered by extrametabolic energy, whether nuclear, hydro/wind, fairy dust or whatever.
We need to urgently consider whether such extravagant use of energy is of any true utility, and I commend the writings of Ivan Illich:
and, before him, Henry Thoreau:
So, my answers to your two questions are, "No thanks to Nuclear!" and, "Yes, we should reduce our 'needs' and consider living in situ rather than in transit."
Vaya con Gaia
ed
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So according to Lovelock, the Gulf Stream causes westerly winds?
Is there a scientist you can call on rather than the deranged Lovelock?
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John A,
"Is there a scientist you can call on rather than the deranged Lovelock?"
Loads of them. Start here
or at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute:
Best wishes
ed
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Mr Lovelock reminds me of Mr Andrews on the Titanic who calculated the ship was indeed sinking as the dancing went on.
Too many of the rest of us have "Titanic Syndrome" so that with the water lapping round our feet we deny global change saying "It hasn't happened before so it isn't happening now."
The ice caps melt; the core temperature of the ice-caps drops (as does that in a chicken being defrosted); the E Pacific Islands are being evacuated;the fish stocks drop because of overfishing; millions more each year suffer from asthma and allergies;plant life in France two years ago failed to synthesise in the super-heat......but none of it is happening. Titanic will arrive in the New World...........
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There should be alternative forms of energy such as wind, and solar power. There are even cities in Texas and Sweden that operate on the basis of cow manure [as a substitute for energy and electricity].
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Those who oppose nuclear power are, I feel, often less than knowledgeable about the reality of the process and of current developments.
The waste issue is simply not as great with modern plant designs, most notably the pebble-bed type of reactor. We no longer need to use simple PWR reactors, which really do result in large amounts of waste. Opponents should catch up with current technology before condemning based on a 1950s view of the process.
Also, those who insist on a purely renewable energy system really do have to acknowledge that such a system cannot provide enough power consistently enough, unless of course we revert to a pre-industrial society. Some environmentalists, of course, do actually want just that, and quite often advocate big reductions in human population, without feeling the need to explain just how this large scale culling programme would work.
Much environmentalism seems to be a religious type of world-view, replacing God with fluffy bunnies and other such naive - and hopelessly wrong - views of nature.
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As with so many environmental issues "maintaining our lifestyle" can be very emotive. It needs defining, though I won't attempt to do so here.
I also live in the West Country, actually in Devon not far from Dartmoor and close to sites where windfarms have been proposed. Even if such things were constructed what good could they do me? I already avoid using too much electricity, it's expensive. My car isn't electric - it uses diesel. My cooker isn't electric - it uses bottled gas (no mains gas in the countryside). My heating isn't electric - I burn wood. Yes my lighting, TV, computer (laptop) use electricity, but less now than in the past. So neither nuclear or wind generated elctricity would do me much good unless it was so cheap as to make it worth switching.
As for maintaining lifestyles - I believe that Devon has the largest proportion of housing without double glazing and without central heating. Is that really a choice that people have made, or is it because in the past we've actually chosen to preserve landscapes and historic buildings rather than improve or maintain lifestyles?
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An interesting collection of comments... but I'm afraid my views differ from most of those posted.
Unlike (I suspect) the majority of commenters I actually KNOW a bit about Nuclear Power - having worked in the industry for eighteen years. So try these FACTS on for size:
(1) Nuclear Power is VERY LOW CARBON - typically about 5g Carbon/kWHour of electricity produced, INCLUDING the emissions from mining and waste disposal. That is at about the same level as Wind power (turbines don't grow on trees!) and is tiny compared with Gas (~400g Carbon/kW/hour) and Coal (~900g C/kW/hour).
(2) Nuclear is SAFE. Chernobyl was a reactor design with inherent (known) flaws that would never have been licenced in the west. Three Mile Island demonstrated the robustness of even 1970's Western reactors - the plant was written-off but there was virtually no release of radioactivity. Modern plants such as Sizewell 'B' are probably 100 x safer than TMI.
(3) We DO know what to do with the waste - have a look at the CoRWM website if you want to see some of the ideas. This isn't a technical problem (as many other countries have shown), merely a politcal one.
(4) Nuclear is reliable - for example, Sizewell 'B' has been running at full power, 24 hours a day for the last year, supplying 3% of the UKs electricity. There are more than 400 other reactors in the world doing the same thing!
(5) Nuclear is economic, if the market is set-up to recognise the value of long-term investment. Look at France, Sweden, Finland, China, Japan etc.... etc...
(6) Nuclear is NOT an obvious terrorist target. A bit of research will show anyone (including a terrorist) just how strong a PWR Containment building is. We've seen that a busy city is a far more likely (and easier) target.
(7) Nuclear can be built quickly - look at Finland, China etc... 5 years start-to-finish.
(8) Nuclear is BIG - compare Sizewell B at 1200 MegaWatts with a 3.5MW wind-turbine, running (optimistically) at 30% average output. That means you'd need 1140 wind turbines to match Sizewell's output, each more than 120 metres high (SZB is ony 72m!).
I (as I think Lovelock) am not against renewables nor against energy conservation. The problem is simply one of time and scale. Only large scale generation can come close to preserving our current life-style and assist us in moving to lower emission energy usgae e.g. electric cars. Only Nuclear can deliver this, in any reasonable time or on the scale required.
So my advice is to take a leaf out of Lovelock's book. Keep an open mind and look again at Nuclear.
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"(1) Nuclear Power is VERY LOW CARBON - typically about 5g Carbon/kWHour of electricity produced, INCLUDING the emissions from mining and waste disposal."
Does that include the half tonne of CO2 for every tonne of cement used?
Again, my suggestion is that we should consider whether we need the energy (from whatever source) which empowers our destruction of the Earth's support systems.
Vaya con Gaia
ed
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"Does that include the half-tonne of CO2 for every tonne of cement used?"
Yes it does.
It includes the energy that's going to be expended in decommissioning the plant at the end of 40-60 years. Together (typically) these amount to less than 1g Carbon/kW/hour.
Have a look at
(just as an example).
Next Question?
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Ed Iglehart might wish to ponder how many tonnes of concrete, and thus CO2 emissions, will be required to build the numerous inefficient renewable stations. 1200MW of wind power might need more concrete than 1200MW of nuclear power, but you'd also need rather more than 1200MW installed capacity due to the inefficient and spasmodic generation renewables provide.
When you take in the WHOLE cycle, renewables are really not so clean, they aren't cheap and they would require vast amounts of resources. In contrast nuclear power, taking the whole cycle into account for all methods of generation, is cheaper than fossil fuels and actually markedly less hazardous to the environment and human health.
I think we need to get over the anti-nuclear hysteria of ill-informed activists who have no clue how the processes really work.
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My main argument, often stated is that we should consider whether we wish to continue our practice of destroying the environment enabled by massive energy use. The source is secondary.
We need to learn to live with LESS energy use, not more.
Vaya con Gaia
ed
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To Colin - don't dis all the people who disagree with you about the need for nuclear. I also know quite a lot about the nuclear industry and I don't won't to see a resurgence. It isn't just the fear of catastrophe, it's also the day to day running and the production of dangerous radioactive waste for which we aren't even close to having a solution. (And reprocessing at Sellafield just makes it all the more complicated) Not to mention the fact that nuclear can't deliver on the timescale needed - Finland has only just started building their new nuclear power station and already they're 9 months behind schedule - never mind though at least they won the Eurovision
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It would also appear to be a religous type of world view that promotes nuclear energy and carbon trading ( tends to be the same people ). Social change would be more appropriate - the capitalist mode of production and it's reliance on exploiting the planets resources and our lives is the problem which in the end comes down to land ownership.
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Unfortunately for mark s, all the alternatives to the capitalist system thus far tried have failed and are in fact worse in practice than capitalism.
Like it or not, you're stuck with it. Perhaps it would be better to try and learn about it and use to advantage rather than condemn something I strongly suspect you don't really understand.
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Point of fact. Lovelock didn't come out in favour of nuclear power recently -- he's been in favour, and saying he's in favour, for decades. I think he made a bit of a splash with an article in the Indy in 2004 (not last year).
On waste: Nuclear waste is very toxic, small in volume, contained and not doing much; fossil fuel waste is not very toxic, very large in volume, uncontained and changing the climate.
On terrorism: containment vessels may well be safe; waste pools on site, not so much.
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I'm no expert on any of the technicalities here. But I'm a human being, destined to sink or swim in the future with the consequences of our collective human nature.
If it were proved that certain large reductions in energy use were required of the whole planet NOW, would it actually happen? Even if we knew what would befall us if we didn't? Could we in fact change our energy lifestyles quickly enough to prevent catastrophe? I doubt it. Modern society has evolved by increments and would need to restructure radically (and coherently) in a relatively short space of time.
I believe that unfortunately we couldn't even come close to achieving it. As a race, we simply don't have the humility and spirit of self-sacrifice.
From my reading of above posts, it appears to me that if we as a global society wish to continue to behave as if 'energy on demand' is our right, we will have no option but to embrace nuclear power. It's our choice. But as a society, we don't have the political will to take necessary difficult decisions quickly enough.
Neil Browning
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Hi Julian and all those interested in this debate. Are the 大象传媒 putting some of these issues in as part of the Climate Chaos series? If not then why not and if so good on you and can it be linked to an unbiased, independant study into the likely energy needs of a heated/flooded (less the gulf stream of course)UK population of 2050-2100.
If James Lovelock has it right we need this research now to show us how we will need to adapt to the near future changes. Once we have an idea of what high, medium and (realistic) low energy needs are to sustain a similar type of civilization, we can then look into what energy supply mix we will need and what is achievable in this timescale. As a long apposer of nuclear power I am suggesting as one other commenter that ...We need to look again at nuclear.. we need to be open to change and everyone needs to appreciate the actual facts, not scaremongering or political posturing, of the situation.
Go with Gaia and with a realistic sense of the future for the humans that want to be carried along for the ride.
E
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Those who advocate nuclear power are seriously underestimating the long term problem of nuclear waste. According to the CoRWM website there is 470,000 tonnes of it in the Uk, created 'without any clear idea of what to do with it'. It is acknowledged that development of the preferred solution of deep geological storage 'could take several decades or possibly one or two generations'. So our descendants will curse us doubly: first for global warming and secondly for a legacy of nuclear waste. This will happen even if we don't build any more nuclear power stations. But could we build them fast enough to make a difference anyway?2000 large reactors over the next forty years could replace half the coal fired power stations in the world. That's one large reactor a week for forty years (https://www.ieer.org/pubs/atomicmyths.html).
Doctors supposedly subscribe to the hippocratic oath, which simply states 'do no harm'. We could all heed this approach. Reducing total energy use is the only ethical way forward. Phasing renweable energy in now, to its maximum viable capacity, and leaving it at that. Of course 'do no harm' doesn't sound like it will make money, so probably won't be attempted. Hard luck great grand kids...
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Most nuclear waste is extremely low level, but is classed as nuclear waste simply because it comes from a nuclear power plant. Thank you very much, anti-nuclear hysteria.
Most nuclear power plant designs produce very little high level radioactive waste, the stuff that really is dangerous and does need careful disposal. Modern designs produce very little indeed.
Significant reductions in energy usage are hardly ethical, since they will result in reduced living standards, increased disease and squalor, etc. This is presumably ok since it is only nasty humans that are affected, rather than the fluffy bunnies of the seriously distorted environmentalist worldview - and we all know that all life other than man is sweet & cuddly & altruistic and perfect, don't we?
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It should also be noted that coal combustion releases orders of magnitude more radioactive contamination, including uranium 235, than nuclear power does. In fact, using the uranium released in coal combustion in a nuclear reactor would actually generate more power than the coal burning does.
And we've burning coal in vast quantities for a very long time. This is a far more serious form of radioactive pollution than nuclear power.
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I believe we are seeing the start of a natural population correction, or even a species extinction -in this case-our own. It is clear that human efforts to reverse global warming are far too little, and far too late. And therefore, futile.
Animal populations regularly fluctuate and population extinctions occur dues to changes in the environment and food availability. I think Nature is simply working towards a hugely reduced human population, as war and famine compound the progressive attrition of vital resources and destruction of all our infrastructure. It is too late to do anything about it, and we might as well accept that the price of unbridled consumption and explosive population increase is going to be a very heavy one. Have a nice day.
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