Obama Sells Out Human Health and the Environment By Making Nuclear a Centerpiece of Climate Policy

[Karmadillo]

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2015/08/obama-sells-out-human-health-and-the-environment-by-making-nuclear-a-center-piece-of-climate-policy.html

Obama has made nuclear energy a centerpiece of his climate push.

In reality, nuclear is NOT a low-carbon source of energy … and funding nuclear crowds out the development of better sources of alternative energy.

Mark Jacobson – the head of Stanford University’s Atmosphere and Energy Program, who has written numerous books and hundreds of scientific papers on climate and energy, and testified before Congress numerous times on those issues – notes that nuclear puts out much more pollution (including much more CO2) than windpower, and 1.5% of all the nuclear plants built have melted down. Jacobson also points out that it takes at least 11 years to permit and build a nuclear plant, whereas it takes less than half that time to fire up a wind or solar farm. Between the application for a nuclear plant and flipping the switch, power is provided by conventional energy sources … currently 55-65% coal.

No wonder a former Commissioner for the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission says that building nuclear plants to fight global warming is like trying to fight global hunger by serving everyone caviar. More information here, here and here.

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http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-03/new-nuclear-power-seen-as-big-winner-in-obama-s-power-plan

New Nuclear Power Seen as Big Winner in Obama’s Clean Power Plan

The Obama administration gave the struggling U.S. nuclear industry a glimmer of hope this week by allowing new reactors to count more toward meeting federal emissions limits.

States can take more credit for carbon-free electricity to be generated by nuclear power plants that are still under construction as they work to comply with emissions-reduction targets set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The boost for new nuclear was outlined in the Obama administration’s final Clean Power Plan released Monday.

Under last year’s draft of the plan, the yet-to-be completed reactors were counted as existing units that wouldn’t be fully credited for carbon reductions generated in the future after they had started operating. The nuclear power industry complained that amounted to a penalty on the plants and made state targets harder to achieve.

“We tend to view new rules as potentially the first bit of good news for the struggling nuclear industry,” Julien Dumoulin-Smith, an analyst for UBS, wrote on Monday in a research note.

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[DetlefK]

1. You leave out two critical arguments FOR nuclear power.

1. Nuclear power creates less CO2 than burning fossil fuels.

2. The electric grid is already geared towards a centralized production of electricity. If you want to switch to a decentralized production of electricity (or even worse: to home-owners feeding surplus-electricity back into the grid), then you have to massively modernize and upgrade your grid... which would take money and political will.

[KittyWampus]

3. nuclear is extractive. It requires mining etc. It is too centralized. REAL energy production

needs to be localized as much as possible.

Nuclear is filthy.

[DetlefK]

5. But localized energy-production needs a sophisticated electric grid...

... to balance surplusses and shortages of voltage. Individual solar- and wind-power-plants cannot deliver a constant voltage because their output varies with weather. You have to add them up, hoping they somehow balance each other out, carefully powering them up and down to spread the electricity equally.

A nuclear plant delivers a constant output without problems.



As much as you dislike nuclear for ideological reasons, you cannot make real-life issues of electrical engineering simply go away.

[Mnemosyne]

7. Without problems? Seriously? Until they leak, crack or meltdown. nt

[randome]

8. But it's the only feasible way forward.

Seven billion people will not become peaceful Green Party types. It will not happen. That's reality. Nuclear is the only way forward because while we sit and try to convince those seven billion people to massively transform our economies and resources, the planet will die.

It's that simple. And I wish it was otherwise.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[DetlefK]

9. You are moving the goalposts.

A switch to distributed electricity generation would not only need new power plants but also a new power grid. Period.

If you switch from fossil fuels to nuclear, you can keep the power grid and you only have to replace the power plants. That's why it's economically and politically more feasible.

Your outrage is wasted. This is not about what should be done, this is about what can be done.

[Mnemosyne]

18. I understand where we are and what can be done. Do you understand how many nuke plants are past the

use by date with little to barely any repairs, upkeep, etc? And then there is the problem of storing this crap for 10,000 years or more. WIPP has worked out so well...

Replace the plants? Where do all the used fuel rods go?

We are one Carrington Event from total meltdown of all 437+ of these fucking plants.

Animals don't shit where they eat, so we've done it for them.

Maybe my outrage is "wasted", but at least I give a damn and know how incredibly stupid nuclear is to just boil water and supply the MIC with radioactive poisons.

I would guess you believe that depleted uranium is really safer... Check out the mutations of children in Iraq, specifically Fallujah, since we crapped all over them.

[DetlefK]

20. Again, this is not about what should be done but what can be done.

What if Obama had stepped forward with "Hey everybody, I need $100 billion to completely overhaul and modernize the power grid of the US and lay the groundwork for a localized, sustainable energy production."

No fucking way he would get these $100 billion.

So, nuclear or fossil fuels? What do you prefer?
Because a large-scale switch to environmentally friendly energy sources IS NOT FEASIBLE WITHOUT ADDITIONAL MASSIVE INVESTMENTS IN THE POWER GRID.

[randome]

2. Everything humans do will be bad for the environment. Everything.

Time to start shipping our nuclear waste to the Moon.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[DetlefK]

10. I do hope you are kidding.

1. It is very, very expensive to shoot things into space, let alone transport them safely from celestial object A to celestial object B.

2. Let's say 1 in 100 rockets transporting nuclear waste has a malfunction and explodes or crashes back to Earth...

[randome]

14. Cost comes down with frequency of use.

The chance of a malfunction also goes down. The right kind of rocket, no need for human resources, it's better than burying the waste in a big hole, IMO.
[hr][font color="blue"][center]TECT in the name of the Representative approves of this post.[/center][/font][hr]

[DetlefK]

19. That makes no sense.

We still need a rocket of such a high quality that accidents are negligible.
We still need rocket-fuel.
We still need people who operate this.
All of this costs money and we will have to put thousands of tons of radioactive waste into space. Mankind has put maybe a thousand tons of cargo into space during the whole history of space-flight.

Your proposal is full of holes that maybe someone someday will eventually solve. Or not.
That means your proposal is not workable.

[geek tragedy]

4. lol, petulant purists invent a new pony to demand.

all forms of energy consumption are bad for the environment.

[Recursion]

6. Nuclear has to be a part of going forward

It's pony-wishing to pretend otherwise.

[ladjf]

11. Stupid as stupid can get. How does Obama come up with such bad decisions? nt

[NuclearDem]

12. So when Vermont Yankee shut down, did solar, wind, or geothermal replace it?

Oh wait, no, that was shale and fracking.

Once fusion arrives, people are going to have absolutely zero basis to complain about nuclear power.

[bahrbearian]

13. Doesn't it take like 10 year's to get a nuke plant built.

[randome]

15. How long would it take to create a planet-wide, distributed grid?

Probably a lot longer.
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[bahrbearian]

17. Plus the waste, and who would insure them , the Government ?

[phantom power]

16. Good a place as any to mention this article:

Because there's nothing humans love more than informed debate.

http://bravenewclimate.com/2015/07/27/sustaining-the-wind-p1/#more-6689

[madokie]

21. David Jones

If you'll believe the spittle he puts forth I've got a bridge to sell you, cheap. In fact if you'll come remove it they'll simply give it to you. It goes about 2/3 the way across a local river then dumps you in the drink. It'd be cheap though and you could make a buck or two selling the scrap iron. Probably not enough to scrap it though or someone would have already done it. In fact thats why it stops where it does the last person ran out of money.

The guy you're referring to is the person who claimed to have built a molten salt reactor in his back yard, yeah thats the ticket. Thats who I want to place all my marbles with, you betcha', yessiree LOL

Informed debate. sorry bro'
You just can't get there from here, no way