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Page added on April 21, 2014
IPCC Recommends Nearly Quadrupling Nuclear Energy
A few of my pronuclear friends have been disappointed by the treatment of nuclear energy in the recently released final draft of the IPCC working group III Summary for policy makers. For example, Steve Aplin at Canadian Energy Issues thinks that the IPCC is prejudiced against nuclear energy.
While there may be some members of the body who don’t like nuclear energy very much, the rational, numerate members of IPCC working group III managed to slide some very important words past the dissenters in a way that makes me, as a lover of careful wording, want to praise their composition skills.
Policy makers should note that the word ‘nuclear’ appears 11 times in the summary. In four of those important passages, it is a key component of a short list of zero- and low-carbon energy sources.
- At the global level scenarios reaching 450 ppm are also characterized by more rapid improvements in energy efficiency, a tripling to nearly a quadrupling of the share of zero- and low-carbon supply from renewables, nuclear energy AND fossil energy with carbon capture and storage (CCS) OR bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) by the year 2050. (p. 15)
- Zero- and low-carbon energy supply includes renewables, nuclear energy, AND fossil energy with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), OR bioenergy with CCS (BECCS). (p. 16)
- In the majority of low-stabilization scenarios, the share of low-carbon electricity supply (comprising renewable energy (RE) nuclear AND CCS) increases from the current share of approximately 30% to more than 80% by 2050, AND fossil fuel power generation without CCS is phased out almost entirely by 2100. (p. 23)
- annual investment in low-carbon electricity supply (i.e., renewables nuclear AND electricity generation with CCS) is projected to rise by about USD 147 (31-360) billion (median: +100% compared to 2010) (p. 29)
(Emphasis and capitalization of operators added.)
Not only have I spent time smithing words for human consumption in intensely political environments, but I also have a fair understanding of Boolean logic. I admire what the IPCC authors have accomplished. In both human communications and computer programming, the operators ‘AND’ and ‘OR’ have important meanings. So do modifiers like ‘with’. (Fossil with CCS is a completely different animal than fossil without CCS.)
In my analysis, the recommendation for policy makers is quite clear. The only way to stabilize atmospheric CO2 concentration at acceptably low levels is to nearly quadruple the output of renewables, nuclear, AND electricity generation from fossil or bioenergy with CCS. The ‘and’ means that all of the items on the list are needed, the program cannot pick and choose the one or two that it likes the best.
However, since current electricity generation with CCS is virtually zero, nearly quadrupling it will mean it is still nearly zero in 2050. Renewables will gain a substantial market share, but the biggest current source of zero- or low-carbon energy in the developed world — nuclear energy — will have to grow the most in absolute terms to keep doing its share of the heavy lifting.
IPCC working group III also provides some explanation for the current state of nuclear energy and its perceived utility.
Nuclear energy is a mature low-GHG emission source of baseload power, but its share of global electricity generation has been declining (since 1993). Nuclear energy could make an increasing contribution to low-carbon energy supply, but a variety of barriers and and risks exist (robust evidence, high agreement)
Those include: operational risks, and the associated concerns, uranium mining risks, financial and regulatory risks, unresolved waste management issues, nuclear weapon proliferation concerns, and adverse public opinion (robust evidence, high agreement. New fuel cycles and reactor technologies addressing some of these issues are being investigated and progress in research and development has been made concerning safety and waste disposal.
That explanation, in my opinion, is carefully worded to answer the logical questions that curious policy makers would be sure to ask – “If nuclear energy is a proven, mature, low- or zero-emission power source, why isn’t its use growing?” The IPCC working group has informed policy makers that the engineers and scientists are doing their part of addressing the reasons why nuclear energy has not been growing for the past 20 years, but the rest of the issues must be tackled by the policy makers themselves.
Most of the listed barriers to increasing clean energy output using atomic fission are political, not technical. That does not make them any more difficult to solve. In fact, the solutions are at hand, now all we need is a little more honesty and accurate risk assessment. The public’s opinion can be swayed by the people who have assumed the burden of leadership and spend most of their days working to influence the public to do the right thing.
25 Comments on "IPCC Recommends Nearly Quadrupling Nuclear Energy"
Davy, Hermann, MO on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 11:24 am
Article said – unresolved waste management issues
The biggest issues for me with a coming decent is the above. In a collapse will there be an organized management body to maintain the 400 plus spent fuel pools around the world. The decent will be difficult enough without adding irradiation to the list. It would be nice to know what is a realistic fossil fuel supply level for AltE and Nuk market penetration if these so called non carbon sources are to be ramped up? We know here AltE and Nuk cannot stand on their own without FF in manufacture and maintenance. I personally think the best course of action is less with less lifestyle changes, increased efficiency policies, and more small scale distributed AltE. In a world of diminishing return in complexity, financial system instability, and food/water/energy stress the big large scale projects are going to die on the vine. IOW there is no way in hell there will be a 4 fold increase in anything large scale. What we have is what we have. The top down policies may help with promoting efficiency gains. Bottom up may succeed in lifestyle changes and maybe entice people into small scale, low power, low cost AltE for homes and communities while the supply lasts last. The decent has already begun at some point its pace will rapidly pick up and the associated problems multiply with lack of funds to address the many problematic issues. Nuk build out is over. Any resources left should address waste management issues IMHO.
Makati1 on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 11:44 am
Davy, you are on track. There are now about 250,000 TONS of spent nuclear fuel stored around the world and the total is growing by tens of thousands of tons annually. These will be huge, expensive problems for our grand kids to worry about.
Kenz300 on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 1:10 pm
Nuclear energy is too dangerous and too costly.
Fukishima has a 40 year clean up plan and admit that some of the technology to do the job has not even been invented yet………… what a joke……….
Nuclear energy was sold as too cheap to meter….. in reality it is too costly and too dangerous to exist.
There are safer, cleaner and cheaper alternative energy sources available.
We Could Power All 50 States With Wind, Solar and Hydro Washington’s Blog
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2014/03/solar-wind-mix-baseload.html
TemplarMyst on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 2:07 pm
Well, at least we’re consistent with these replies, eh? 😉
Viewed from a descent point of view, if it were only the descent I think one could argue a return to horse and buggy might be viable – with about 6.5 billion fewer human beings about.
If climate disruption is factored in, I still think you need a large scale energy source to try to draw down the GHGs. Mebbe the renewables can do that in a few decades, but it seems to me you’ll need to start much sooner than that.
Nuclear could potentially be a bootstrap technology. It has the thermodynamic properties to draw down GHGs and convert them to raw hydrocarbon feedstock – for fuel, manufacturing, medicine, fertilizer, what have you.
The spent fuel rods are potentially fuel sources. We don’t process them now because we fear proliferation. But they could be reprocessed if desired.
I still think you will want one form of grid scale energy to keep from mass destruction. But if not, well, that is the choice made.
For those favoring wind and solar, let’s focus on getting one small town completely functional on it. At least some minimal manufacturing, a modern hospital, decent farming, and water and sewage management. Say a town of 25,000. No gas, no coal, no nukes. Just wind and solar.
That would be a good start.
danny on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 2:14 pm
A plan like this is futile….unless the whole world adopts it…i could see a country burning coal till the end days just to get an advantage…
Kenz300 on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 2:39 pm
Inside Chernobyl (2012) – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YfulqRdDbsg
TemplarMyst on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 2:46 pm
Well, again, at least we’re being consistent.
Radioactive Wolves (2011, PBS)
http://video.pbs.org/video/2157025070/
For a deeper dive into nuclear I would suggest Pandora’s Promise, but it is still commercial – available on Netflix and iTunes.
I’ve not been able to source some of the assertions in the YouTube video Kenz. The World Health Organization has not found the correlation between the fallout and the health consequences sited, at least not on the scale claimed.
So that’s dozens and dozens of credentialed, medical professionals against the assertions of a videographer. One would like to think the videographer is a lone, brave, whistle-blower, but I’m having my doubts…
Please note that’s not to say there were/are ZERO consequences!!! It’s a question of assessing risk/benefit.
I’m currently researching assertions of cancer clusters around Brookhaven National Labs and the Braidwood Nuclear Power Plant.
TemplarMyst on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 2:58 pm
And here is the basic process for how a solar panel is made, courtesy of SolarWorld:
http://www.solarworld-usa.com/solar-101/making-solar-panels#Step_1:_Crystal_growing
Even in a friendly presentation one can see it is an intense manufacturing process. Not stated are the consequences of mining for boron, molybdenum, and other rare earths needed.
TemplarMyst on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 3:42 pm
Danny,
Sadly, too true. I fear the most likely outcome is near term extinction. But somehow I think most folks still feel the need to try to do something, so the discussions continue.
We may all, in fact, just be rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, to use my favorite cliche analogy.
Makati1 on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 3:43 pm
The real answer to anyone’s denial of the nuclear dangers is to ask them to move their family and live next to one for the rest of their lives. Put up or shut up.
TemplarMyst on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 3:53 pm
I live about 30 miles from the Zion Nuclear Power Plant, currently well along in the process of being decommissioned. In other words, with fuel rods stored on site.
I live about 95 miles from Braidwood, currently the most powerful nuke plant in IL.
When I was growing up I lived about 65 miles from San Onofre NPP, currently in the early stages of decommissioning. I visited the site back in the 70s when there was a public relations office there, and I can’t count the number of times I drove by it on I-5.
TemplarMyst on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 4:08 pm
There are 11 active reactors in 6 generating stations in Illinois. These produce over 50% of the electricity generated in the state.
Nony on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 4:19 pm
I spent several years of operating a reactor. I slept less than 100 feet from the core. Is that good enough or do I need to do even more to pass the Maki manhood test?
I’ve also been to the Nevada Test Site (when it was still running). Been behind the double fence at Los Alomos, and a few other interesting things that I prefer not to say, but are pretty standard for people in that line of work, from that time period.
Nuclear “stuff” is no walk in the park. Absolutely true. But you can get killed by an offshore oil well fire or a boiler explosion almost anywhere or a cruise ship sinking or a drunk teenager or a religious Saudi or those coffin nails you puff on. It’s about numbers and risks and percentages and all that jazz. Not about if something seems evil or good based on media tropes.
drwater on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 4:45 pm
I was a radiological control engineer in the nuclear business for a brief stint a few decades ago. We had operating reactors, spent fuel handling and all that stuff within several hundred yards of my office. Does it take a lot of planning and caution? – absolutely. Can we make the overall risk of nuclear lower than other current sources of energy? – absolutely. The future is solar AND nuclear. Nuclear is by far preferred for base load and for climate areas like the eastern US. The longer we wait for “risk free” energy, the more likely we will fry the planet and/or collapse civilization.
baptised on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 5:47 pm
I hope Pandora’s Promise, can wipe some prejudges away. Our first attempt in fission, wanted nuclear weapons material also! We have learnt, let’s go forward.
ghung on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 7:03 pm
There are generally two sides on the nuclear debate: Those who think its a really bad idea (and morally wrong) for a generation to leave behind wastes that will remain lethal far longer than any civilization has lasted, and those that don’t give a shit about future generations. It doesn’t matter what ‘we’ can do. What matters is that we haven’t, we aren’t, we don’t even have a plan.
When you pro-nuke guys have a plan that is viable, economically and materially, that doesn’t saddle our grandchildren with the responsibilities and full costs of decommissioning plants and dealing with the inherent wastes, get back too me. Until then, I’ll file you in the too-sociopathic-to-consider folder.
TemplarMyst on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 7:23 pm
ghung,
Hell, I’m trying to come up with any way at all for the grandchildren of the world to even BE ALIVE. Yeah, if they’re dead, they won’t have to worry about much of anything, now will they?
400 ppm CO2. CH4 rising from the Arctic and the tundra. Man-made chemicals that are even more potent GHGs. 90% reduction in fish since 1950. 230 Gigatons of C02 released to date, with a 40 year lag time between emission and effect.
If we close down nukes we just pile on to that. You can look at the numbers yourself. Japan. 50% reduction in electric use by conservation (kudos!!) and 50% INCREASE in coal, oil, and gas, nearly all of it imported (not so kudos).
How on earth is taking nukes off the table going to even vaguely help the grandkids?!? Massively reducing one of the few existing technologies that don’t emit carbon???
And *I* am the sociopath?!?!
ghung on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 8:13 pm
Templar – I got past making Faustian bargains years ago. The global warming already baked in is the result of decades of ignoring inconvenient warnings and now humanity is left with making less bad choices? For whom?
I saw a recent video of Tokyo at night and virtually every one of those giant billboards and neon signs were still glaring away. The streets were packed with ICE cars. Everything, including empty buildings, was lighted up. Globally, humans still consume discretionally at unprecedented rates. We humans can begin to make logical, responsible choices rather than bargaining to keep our current levels of consumption intact. Instead, we celebrate “Earth Day” so folks can feel good about turning lights off for a fucking hour. Sure.
Get back to me when you can justify that sort of behaviour. The problem isn’t our energy sources; it’s us. It’s the ridiculous choices we make, and the obscene predicaments we get ourselves into.
My daughter is getting ‘married’ in September (they actually got legally married recently before he had to go back to Afghanistan – $$$). Problem is that the wedding is in Washington State and I’m in NC. I’m struggling mightily with travelling about 5000 miles, round trip, for a weekend to see my daughter get married when she’s already married.
Screw it. I think I’ll drive the truck; visit friends along the way. Maybe I’ll feel human again and hang my head in pride. I may even stop in CO for a little ‘recreation’; get my mind right.
TemplarMyst on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 8:33 pm
ghung,
We’ve been over all this before on TOD. I don’t intend offense or take it hard myself, as you know. This hide is old and tough.
So far as I can tell the Faustian bargain is more fundamental than what we’re addressing at the moment. The demon is in the genes. We’re biological entities at root. We have babies. That’s what we do. Well, most of us, anyway.
From that stems all else. Once it’s acknowledged damn few humans can suppress the desire to reproduce, it’s a question of dealing with the numbers and the approach.
Yeah, you’re right. Different choices could have, and should have, been made. But we’re at where we’re at, and they’ll be in the same boat.
And they’ll have the same arguments as we are. And they’ll be mad their grandparents didn’t make wiser choices too, just like we could be mad at our forebears as well.
So it comes down to paying the man and making the choices. I still think the downsides of nuclear are pretty much less than just about anything else, unless/until the atmosphere is stable and a low energy paradigm is actually viable. Assuming the atmosphere can be stabilized at all, of course.
We live in interesting times.
Nony on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 4:25 pm
Enjoy your drive and take your time, ghung. Get the doomers out of your mind (even the anti-doomers). Go see some national parks, walk down the Kaibob, take some back roads, eat at some diners, read a Dick Francis, drink coffee, etc.
TemplarMyst on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 5:01 pm
Everything Nony said and then some, ghung. If you wind up wondering along a northern path and find yourself in Chicago, say Hi. We’ve extra rooms at our place 😉
ghung on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 5:17 pm
Thanks guys.
Nony, as for the Kaibab, I first took that walk in 1974 with a couple of Navaho who led me through a ritualistic use of a mix of Datura and Peyote. It was my 16th birthday. It’s a wonder I survived the ‘trip’. Datura is reputed to cause memory loss (and sometimes death), but I remember everything clearly, even the hallucinations. I guess their Shaman taught them well.
Looking back, it was a pretty remarkable way to experience the Canyon for the first time. Really changed things for me. I think I’ll pass on the ‘enhancements’ next time,, if I ever get back, though it’s the kind of place one never leaves.
Nony on Mon, 21st Apr 2014 7:58 pm
Cool anecdote, G-man.
I did it with a girl in summer of 1993. We went down the Kaibab and up the Bright Angel in same day (despite all the signs saying not to, lots of people do the same). It was 110F at the bottom, 90 at the top. No water along the way except for halfway up the Bright Angel. When we got back we ordered water and margaritas with salt on the rim to replenish our electrolytes. Should have married the girl, but that’s another story.
Kenz300 on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 8:01 am
The clean energy transition is unstoppable, so why fight it? – SmartPlanet
http://www.smartplanet.com/blog/the-take/clean-energy-transition-unstoppable-so-why-fight-it/?tag=nl.e662&s_cid=e662&ttag=e662&ftag=TRE383a915
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Years of Living Dangerously Premiere Full Episode – YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brvhCnYvxQQ
TemplarMyst on Tue, 22nd Apr 2014 9:19 am
Kenz, there is no such thing as clean energy. That’s one of the points I’ve been trying to make.
Those wind turbines and solar panels use rare earth metals whose extraction processes (mostly done in China at this point) create streams of radioactive waste water, generate massive graphite clouds, consume huge quantities of coal in their manufacturing processes, etc, etc, etc.
It’s only clean insofar as folks see it at the end of the process in a nice, neatly packaged commercial of a wind turbine in a field of green with a gently blowing breeze.
The commercial doesn’t mention the turbine is drawing water from a depleting aquifer directly below it, or competing with water a farmer needs a few miles away.
We don’t have utopian solutions. Only hard realities and even harder choices.