James Hansen's trip to Europe

[Dead_Parrot]

I don't normally echo Hansen's mailing list stuff to DU, but this one's worth sitting down with a nice of tea for. Boron-powered cars, IFRs, solar forcing, the nature of science and and gibbering hate-mail from freepers. Enjoy.

http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080804_TripReport.pdf

[XemaSab]

1. "Ocean and ice sheet inertia?"

:crazy:

[GliderGuider]

2. I wondered about that too.

The problem with thermal inertia is that the absorbed heat doesn't just go away when we stop adding CO2 to the atmosphere. It simply reappears later, through a system dynamic called hysteresis.

[Dead_Parrot]

3. No, but it does buy a little time

for ecosystems to migrate/adapt, for natural negative feedbacks to kick in, and/or for us to generate our own.

Yeah, I know. "Straws" and "Clutching" spring to mind.

[XemaSab]

6. My thinking was that

whatever "inertia" the polar ice has isn't going to mean a thing if this gets dire.

[unhappycamper]

4. Thanks for posting.

Good read. :thumbsup:

[GliderGuider]

5. I can hear the gasps of outrage already

IFRs????? Agnostic on nuclear power???? How dare he keep an open mind!

The bit about using boron in an ICE is kinda cool, though.

[bananas]

7. IFR's would be even more expensive than LWR's

IIRC, this is mentioned in MIT's 2003 report "The Future of Nuclear Energy" http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/
which is one of the reasons they emphasize LWR's.
I don't have time to look it up there,
but it's mentioned in the wikipedia entry for IFR:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_Fast_Reactor
Key disadvantages
- Because the current cost of reactor-grade enriched uranium is relatively low compared to the expected cost of large-scale pyroprocessing and electrorefining equipment and the cost of building a secondary coolant loop, the higher fuel costs of a thermal reactor over the expected operating lifetime of the plant are offset by the increased capital cost of an IFR. (Currently in the United States, utilities pay a flat rate of 1/10 of a cent per kilowatt hour for disposal of high level radioactive waste. If this charge were based on the longevity of the waste, then the IFR might become more financially competitive.)
- Reprocessing nuclear fuel using pyroprocessing and electrorefining has not yet been demonstrated on a commercial scale. As such, investing in a large IFR plant is considered a higher financial risk than a conventional light water reactor.
- The flammability of sodium. Sodium burns easily in air, and will ignite spontaneously on contact with water. The use of an intermediate coolant loop between the reactor and the turbines minimizes the risk of a sodium fire in the reactor core.
- Under neutron bombardment, sodium-24 is produced. This is highly radioactive, emitting an energetic gamma ray of 2.7 MeV followed by a beta decay to form magnesium-24. Half life is only 15 hours, so this isotope is not a long-term hazard - indeed it has medical applications. Nevertheless, the presence of sodium-24 further necessitates the use of the intermediate coolant loop between the reactor and the turbines.

[GliderGuider]

8. Well, I don't know enough about nuclear power to hold a valid opinion

So I'll have to take Wikipedia's word for it.

I was just pleased that Hansen seemed to be adopting such a non-confrontational tone about it, and contemplating the possibility of its peaceful co-existence with a range of other energy alternatives. I struck me as refreshing coming from a man who so self-evidently cares about the future of the planet.

[ramapo]

9. Sure doesn't fill me with optimism

A very interesting read although it is always distressing to have my worst fears validated.