Schwarzenegger: Nukes Are Great

[jpak]

http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital/2008/03/14/schwarzengger-nukes-are-great/?mod=googlenews_wsj

Most of the candidates running for office may not care much for nukes, but the Governator sure does.

“I think nuclear power has a great future, and we should look at it again,” California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said, closing The Wall Street Journal’s “ECO:nomics” conference. While he understands some people might still be afraid of the nuclear option, most Three Mile Island analogies are “environmentalist scare tactics. The technology has advanced so much,” he said.

It sure has—just not in the U.S. That was the message from the nuclear industry at the same conference, grappling with a question beguiling policy makers—and plenty of Environmental Capital readers: If coal is out of the question, and renewables are too small, how will America get its power if it keeps ignoring the nuclear elephant?

“The U.S. is far behind the rest of the world,” said Tom Christopher, a top executive at France’s Areva, which builds nuclear reactors. He chalks that up to bad nuclear economics a generation ago, a dwindling of home-grown tech, and a “dysfunctional licensing process” in the U.S.

<more>

[Fovea]

1. Now we know where to store nuclear waste

He's got a basement, right?

[NNadir]

2. I have advocated bringing it all to New Jersey, where I live.

It would mean a great energy future. I note that unlike any other form of energy waste, including the waste from the trivial solar industry, the storage of used nuclear fuel has killed zero people.

Now, where the fuck are you storing the dangerous fossil fuel waste you release each year?

Oh yeah, I know, in lungs.

[jpak]

3. but...but..but...Gov. Hydrogen Hummer!!!!111

:rofl:

[NNadir]

4. Maybe the abject failure of his brazillion solar roofs bill introduced a sense of reality.

Most fundamentalist anti-nukes are not bright enough to grasp reality.

I, for one, would not go around advertising the fact that I'm dumber than Governor Hydrogen Hummer or Amory Lovins, but then again, I've never been quite as energetically illiterate as the anti-nuke community, but as usual the fundamentalist anti-nuke cult lacks any sense of intellectual embarrassment.


http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html

Nuclear energy in California produces more climate change gas free energy than geothermal, wind, and solar <em>combined</em>. I note that California has been using geothermal, wind and solar <em>for decades</em> and has <em>failed</em> to stem the use of dangerous fossil fuels.

[jpak]

5. The California Solar Initiative a failure???? That's just plain stupid...

The CSI is "robust" success according to the CPUC...

http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/NR/rdonlyres/5C9DDC79-3E96-4241-BEEC-46D3F34254F4/0/080117_Jan_ED_CSI_Staff_Progress_Report.pdf

(((**reality**)))

[NNadir]

7. Well, if you define generating wind as "success," the kind of wind generated by talk, maybe.

If on the other hand you have respect for production of something called "joules," the solar promise is a failure.

It doesn't even generate enough energy to run the servers used to promote it on websites.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html

In fact, just one server farm in Los Angeles - one - consumes 26 gigawatt-hours of electricity, or about 4% of all the solar electricity produced in the State of California.

http://www.serverbeach.com/infrastructure/data_centers.php

If you believe that there is only one server farm like that in California, I have an "environmentalist" repuke governor with a shit for brains "solar will save us" scheme I'd like to sell you.

Actually the situation is somewhat more dramatic:

In San Jose, 180 MW. <5> An Austin Energy utility spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal that 200 MW (8.5% of its customer load) went to server farms. <6> A “farm” near Seattle asked for 445 MW. A California utility was asked for 340 MW now, to be expanded by a thousand megawatts in the near future. <7> At least three utilities have reportedly received requests for over 1000 MW of capacity, as reported by Susan Mandel back in 2001. <8>

Isn't it great to have all these servers to promote solar energy?



Anyone who has a sense of scale immediately recognizes that solar electricity has been, is, and almost certainly always will be a failure.

Six hundred and fourteen gigawatt-hours after 50 years of subsidies, big talk, hype, hoopla and outright delusion is trivial. It corresponds to 70 MW-year of continuous energy, less than the equivalent of a tiny gas plant in California, and the situation is even worse when one recognizes that this capacity needs to have spinning reserve to back it up.

On the other hand, if you are hallucinating, you google your way to more dumb ass talk of the same quality that the anti-nuke cult has been chanting for 50 years of failure.

[kristopher]

8. Arguing load while dishonestly evaluating renewables ability to meet load is

dishonest. I mean, OH MY GOD THERE IS DEMAND FOR ELECTRICITY!!!!


FIRE UP THE NUKES!


That is the ONLY type of argument you seem able to make. Do you really think you fool anyone by pointing myopically to the ramp up of these technologies rather than their proved ability to perform in the future?

[NNadir]

10. Um, "proved ability to perform in the future?"

It seems that the only consistent thing that fundamentalist anti-nukes is their 50 year old expectation that soothsaying is the equivalent of reality.

Maybe you think that there weren't illiterate assholes like the Walmart thug Amory Lovins offering big talk about the "proved future" in 1976. In fact, I'm going to guess that you weren't even alive in 1976, which is only a passingly reasonable justification for total ignorance of history.

Look kiddie. I couldn't care less about your cute toys. You want to spend your money on them, I'm hardly here to stop you. I'm sure that your solar PV system - which I invite you to tell us all about - is just magificaciously, stundalicious, but frankly I couldn't care less.

I am interested in something called numbers.

What I am trying to do is to prevent ignorance from destroying the world's largest, by far, form of climate change gas free energy.

Now, clearly you do not have a scientific education of any kind, since you fail to appreciate the most basic concept in science: Experiment trumps theory.

There is a name for the idea that theory - especially theory that only has dogma to justify it - trumps experiment. That word is "ignorance."

Ignorance kills.

[kristopher]

14. Data without a theoretical framework is meaningless - as are your criticisms

You would seem to be in the tradition of Bacon's ideal assistant, but even the most ignorant has the potential to improve their understanding.

If there is anyone that is operating from dogmatic stubbornness it would have to be you. Look at the number of unwarranted (and false) assumptions you pepper your posts with. I'm not young, I'm not ignorant of history, I have no desire for toys, I am operating strictly on the basis of firm and comprehensive analysis of numbers and the only ignorance that is on display is yours.

I'll repeat my earlier criticism - you can't point to an isolated data set (past growth of installed renewables) and make predictions of future performance. ONLY one of Bacon's ideal assistants would fail to recognize the need for a full analysis of the variables acting on any given data set.

You think you hide your ignorance behind a facade of indifference and anger but you're wrong. The fact is you simply don't know jackshit about the resources and technologies you attack; and you haven't got a freaking clue about how people and societies make policy decisions.

So how much did you lose on your investments in nuclear?

[jpak]

9. More stupidity

The solar figures in that link do NOT include electricity generated from distributed PV systems.

California's solar program added 208 MW of new PV capacity last year alone - and power produced from those installations is not included in that table...

[NNadir]

12. Oh yeah, I forgot. My mom's boss's brother's aunt's sister's cousin's best friend's prom date's

stepfather's boss's dog's groomer's neighbor's cousin lives off grid.

I see that the great conservation scheme is going really, really, really, really, really, really, really well too.

http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html

In 8 years of coming here telling us how solar, wind and conservation will save us, the anti-nuke fundies have been spectacular at showing a complete inability to comprehend simple numbers

http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html

http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html

http://www.energy.ca.gov/electricity/electricity_generation.html

[jpak]

24. Where's your molten salt breeder reactor that will make you fabulously rich???

Oh, I know - it doesn't exist.

:rofl:

[Terry in Austin]

11. OK, let's talk about joules

The "great energy future" of nuclear, by the numbers:

World energy demand: 450 exajoules/yr
Energy output per nuke: 35 petajoules/yr
Number of nukes required: 12,000
Cost per nuke: $5 billion
Uranium per nuke: 200 metric tons/yr
Uranium production: 40,000 metric tons/yr
Uranium Reasonably Assured Reserves: 2 million tons

So -- first, we're going to find somebody to float the $60 trillion worth of bonds to build 12,000 plants? Right.

Okay, somehow they all get built and they're up and running and we're mining all that uranium, and... there's enough to run them for maybe a year. Oops.

Not such a great energy future.

[NNadir]

13. Um, um, um, um...

You seem to be operating under the impression that the world's largest source of climate change gas free energy should be able to provide your comfortable lifestyle to be acceptable.

You, in fact, know zero about uranium reserves and, apparently zero about nuclear technology.

You also seem to have spent zero time contemplating whether or not 60 trillion dollars is not a cheap cost compared to the cost of repeating 50 year old fantasies about how solar will save us as earth's atmosphere collapses.

You are also spectacularly out of date about world energy requirements, which are, not 450 exajoules but are now 500 exajoules.

Now, as it happens, you are wrong about the uranium requirements of nuclear reactors, less about uranium reserves, zero about the chemistry of uranium and a number of other subtle subjects like breeding ratios, thorium, etc, etc, etc.

Further your argument seems to consist of the dubious claim that if nuclear (and only nuclear) cannot do everything it is wise and intelligent to insist that it being prevented from doing as much as is possible.

I assume that you also argue that since solar energy has failed to shut one gas plant anywhere on the face of the planet that solar should be banned as well.

What?

You don't?

You think everyone should risk everything on the certainty that you know what the fuck you're talking about because you read an issue of Scientific American that says the world will be solar by 2050?

Why am I not surprised?

You are also spectacularly ignorant of what the cost of all the cutesy wind and solar crap producing 500 exajoules of energy might be.

Let me help you: The cost of solar power is 21.23 per kw-hr, not including the huge external cost of electronic waste disposal. www.solarbuzz.com That's 30 trillion dollars for infrastructure that is available, at best, 1/4 of the time. That's before the environmental, material, and health costs of energy storage systems and back up systems.

I suspect that you couldn't care less about the subject of why the groundwater under the city of San

Where is the fresh water for building this infrastructure going to come from? Wind powered tankers hauling water off the melting glaciers of Greenland.

Give. Me. A. Fucking. Break.

I am always hearing from fundie anti-nukes who have not bothered to crack a book in their pathetic lifetimes on the subject of energy about wonderful conservation choices...bullshit efficient refrigerators, and south facing windows blah, blah, blah.

Among the class of distracted yuppie brats continuously bitching about this - US energy demand is 100 exajoules - it seems not to have occurred to a single one of them that they may be forced to conserve and that there may not be $30,000 for a roof full of solar cells and $30,000 for a pile of toxic batteries.

You, and the rest of the anti-nuke whiners may be forced to conserve in much the same way as the citizens of say, Botswana are forced to conserve: Because of fucking poverty.

Got it?

No?

Why am I not surprised?

Nuclear energy doesn't have to be perfect to be better than everything else. It merely needs to be better than everything else, and it is. It is, by far, the world's largest form of climate change gas free energy, and it is also, by far, the world's cheapest form of climate change gas free energy, and it is the cleanest form of climate change gas free energy.

If we can only build two nuclear plants, we should built two.

If we can only build 300 nuclear power plants, we should build 300.

If we can only build 2000 nuclear power plants, that should be the number we build.

If we can build 12,000, that is the number we should build.

I note that France built 57 nuclear power plants in less than 15 years and now France's 4th largest export - in the sixth largest economy in the world - is electricity.

That's not some damn yuppie fantasy. That's history, technical, industrial and economic history.

I'd ask you to crack a fucking book, but it would, I think, be a useless exercise.

[kristopher]

15. :rofl:

I'm guessing that's what passes as "analysis" in your little world....

[NNadir]

17. I'm guessing that your entire knowledge base consists of guessing.

Somehow I have the distinct impression that you're not an expert multidimensional discrete ordinate methods for neutron transport.

In fact, like most anti-nukes discussing anti-nuke religious cult talk, you are talking through the prism of ignorance.

You "guess..."

This is not the time for guessing. Either you know what you're talking about or you don't.

In general, fundie anti-nukes are either lazy, poorly educated, scientifically illiterate, or simply intellectually too weak to comprehend technical issues. It doesn't matter which is the case, the effect is all the same. This is a class of people who are against the world's largest form of climate change free energy because they are irrational luddites who fear what they are incapable of understanding.

It's not like you come here to discuss phase transitions in nuclear fuel, or the effect of oxidation on plutonium migration in vadose zones. You have no fucking idea of what any of these things mean. You have zero insight to the bateman equation, because basically your energy ideas are all flaky and derivative.

Ignorance kills.

Active and assertive ignorance is worse than passive ignorance, by the way.

[kristopher]

18. And your specialty knowledge of multidimensional discrete ordinate methods for neutron transport

Qualifies you how when it comes to setting public policy related to energy? You bring up a flood of irrelevancies and comfort yourself with a false sense of superiority based exclusively on tossing around jargon.
What do you know of public perceptions of risk; or the range of policy instruments being evaluated to address climate change. You are advocating for a solution when you have no clear concept of the problem, nor the alternatives available to address the problem.
You are a charlatan and a sham trying to disguise a massive sense of inferiority behind a facade of technocratic gibberish that is relevant to one slender thread in the total fabric of the discussion.

Instead of holding a rational discussion where you bring your expertise to the table, you retreat rudeness and an inappropriate belittling of the motives and knowledge of others when they disagree with your nearly inarticulate rendering of the energy issues facing our culture.

Again, you are a charlatan and a sham trying to disguise a massive sense of inferiority behind a facade of technocratic gibberish that is relevant to one slender thread in the total fabric of the discussion. Grow up.

[jpak]

23. He copies this stuff out of books - and claims to have invented a molten salt breeder reactor

that will make him (and his wife "who never reads DU) fabulously rich...

:rofl:

[Terry in Austin]

16. Seeing the light

> ...should be able to provide your comfortable lifestyle to be acceptable.

In the midst of all the rant, you're actually showing a glimmer. The discussion of energy is usually framed as "how will we replace oil?" so as to maintain the same energy per capita. I don't buy that -- I tend to agree with your "Botswana solution." Nukes or no, it's not going to be such a great energy future, period.

You've argued for nuclear as a possible remedy for climate change, which depends a lot on scale. Clearly, two nuclear plants wouldn't be very significant. Even 300 probably wouldn't be. Several thousand might be getting there, so we're back to talking about the problems of building that many plants.

I'm not sure just what you're advocating, or who you consider would be likely to take on a project of that size and expense. And yes, paving Nevada with solar panels would be just as prohibitive. But let's not change the subject, which is nukes.

Once we're back to discussing a scale of five or ten thousand plants, it's wise to start talking about reserves. Uranium and thorium are finite, just like oil and coal. So, you tell me -- what do you consider reliable numbers for:

1) Annual fuel requirements per plant
2) Reasonably assured reserves

Let's have the scenario -- how many plants providing how much energy for how many years? So far, it looks like it falls short by a couple orders of magnitude. You imply that because "we" are ignorant, you are not. Please enlighten us.

[kristopher]

6. Marvin's back; complete with myopia

What are you pointing at? Nuclear is in decline and it stands little chance of a revival anytime in the immediate future.

The present circumstances have everything to do with fossil prices and sunk costs in fossil infrastructure than any failure on the part of renewables to be able to address our needs going forward.

In this case the program you point to started in 2006 and is intended to run for 10 years. Perhaps your incisive and magnificent mind finds a correlation between that program and the growth of solar in the 10 years preceding the initiation of the program, because I know none of the rest of us see one.

In particular I'm struck by your overt dishonesty in labeling the Solar Initiative a failure. Since it is a ten year program that just got started, I'd be really interested to see the basis of your claim of " abject failure".

About the California Solar Initiative

The California Solar Initiative has a goal to create 3,000 MW of new, solar-produced electricity by 2017 - moving the state toward a cleaner energy future and helping lower the cost of solar systems for consumers. The CSI statewide budget is $3.3 billion over 10 years, and it has three distict program components. With a 10-year commitment for solar incentives, and under legislative direction, California aims to build a self-sustaining solar industry free from ratepayer subsidies after 2016.
http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUC/energy/Solar/aboutsolar.htm


Poor poor Marvin McGoo.
Soaked up so many neutrons he didn't know what to do.
Wind had blown his mind,
For him the sun refused to shine
And he lost all sight of what was real and true.


Poor poor Marvin McGoo.
Soaked up so many neutrons he didn't know what to do.
If the topic was renewable
He didn't know what was doable.
And he cried and cried and cried the whole day through


Poor poor Marvin McGoo.
Soaked up so many neutrons he didn't know what to do.
Yes he ranted and he railed
and insisted they'd all failed
perhaps someday he'll actually get a clue.

[diane in sf]

19. Very funny poetry, and better analysis.

I really appreciate the clarity of your arguments.

I wonder sometimes about the wisdom of poking fun of Marvin, but then he doesn't care what kind of nasty shit or misleading statements he directs to anyone on this forum.

[kristopher]

21. Perhaps you're right.

Maybe ignore is the better option. The thing is, it would be nice to have someone from that side of the aisle who can conduct a civil discussion. Too bad...

[diane in sf]

25. I agree with Bananas below that not to ignore is better. I skim the gibberish.

But I really encourage you to keep offering your concise arguments/rebuttals/explanations, because some people are impressed by people flinging around large words and acting intimidating. They may not know enough to know they're reading nonsense and you give them a clear, logical path through it.

[bananas]

22. It's important to laugh at silly nonsense

otherwise somebody might take it seriously.

[diane in sf]

20. The economics of nuclear are still not good.