Re/Action on Climate Protection

Powering the world with wind

After reading the article, "Stabilization Wedges: Solving the Climate Problem for the Next 50 Years with Current Technologies" by Pacala and Socolow, I was curious about exactly what it would take to "power the world with wind." Is it possible, and what would it take.

Nuclear or Wind better for Climate Protection?

Today in the media, one often sees the claim being made that "nuclear is the best power generation technology to deal with climate change, since it emits no GHGs". This is a hugely deceptive claim, since it ignores two key points: the hazardous and toxic nature of the nuclear fuel cycle, the tremendous amount of energy available from wind.

What's up with this nuclear power stuff?

The exploration of the nuclear fuel cycle is a bit far afield from what we normally discuss in this blog. Usually we look at local approaches to moving away from fossil fuels and increasing carbon uptake. However, with nuclear power, what is at issue is the grassroots political support for different large-scale, non-GHG emitting electrical power generation technologies. Why should people support large scale renewables such as wind as opposed to construction of more nuclear and "clean coal" plants?

Nuclear fuel production - costs

Nuclear fuel cycle:
1) Mine uranium
2) Produce "yellow cake" uranium
3) Create nuclear reactor fuel
4) Use the fuel to produce heat
5) Reprocess spent fuel
6) dispose of high level nuclear waste

Let's look at the impacts of uranium mining and reactor fuel production.

Nuclear Power and GHGs

Many have publicly endorsed nuclear power as being "the answer" to the problem of of how to expand energy supplies in a carbon-neutral fashion. Is it?

Here is a good site about uranium mining to start the quest for answers.

Break from the blog

For about the past week or so, I have taken a break from the blog. It is extremely energizing and challenging to keep up with the level of discourse, and my family time has been suffering somewhat. I hope to get on a more regular posting schedule once the holidays are over. I want to thank everyone who is posting and participating for making this blog work. I think it is becoming a valuable resource, and am looking forward to 2006.

Happy Holidays to all, and here's to reduced GHGs in '06 and beyond!

Oil Free Sweden

The government of Sweden has announced an unprecedented and history-making effort to become fossil fuel free by 2020. This is incredible news and is a validation of the "carbon-free economy" by a national body. Here is a link to the Swedish government site describing the program. Here are the main points of the program:

The GHG emissions implications of mobile vs stationary energy use

In greenhouse gas measurement terminology, the sources of emissions can be classified either as stationary or mobile. Stationary sources would be power plants, cement plants, refineries. Mobile sources would be trains, airplanes, ships, automobiles and trucks. All of these use fossil fuels, but the nature of the energy source and the modalities of resultant emissions are profoundly different. These profound differences require different emissions reduction strategies for mobile or stationary sources.

For example, consider carbon dioxide emissions from a fossil fuel-fired electrical generating plant. The fossil fuel is burned, and the resulting gas, called "flue gas" is emitted into the atmosphere via a smokestack. Due to air quality regulations, the operators of these plants are required to "scrub" or remove, various pollutants from the flue gas. Carbon dioxide is not required to be scrubbed from the flue gas, because it has not been considered as a "pollutant" by the US government. However, technologies called "carbon capture and sequestration" (CC/S) have been proposed to remove carbon dioxide from stationary sources.

What about mobile sources of carbon dioxide?

Clean Coal - Is it necessary?

In the discussion of reduction of GHG emissions from the production of electricity, coal and nuclear are raised as an answer to the assertion that it is impractical or even technically impossible to supply current and future energy needs with renewables.

Here is a quote from Mark Jaccard, an advocate of Clean Coal:

Renewable energy is seemingly inexhaustible and environmentally benign, yet many of its manifestations are characterized by low energy density, variability of output and inconvenient location

.

...

Starting from the negligible market share of renewables today, and in a growing global energy system, it will be an enormous and likely very expensive endeavor to force the wholesale replacement of fossil fuels with a renewables dominated system in the course of just one century.

This assertion is offered without any numbers to back it up. This is usually the case when this assertion is made by advocates of coal and nuclear power. Does it stand up to scrutiny?

More on Peak Oil and Climate Protection

Note from Dave Erickson:
To add another perspective to the dialogue on the issue, I offer his book review below.

Climate Change Expert’s New Book on Oil Depletion

By Shepherd Bliss

British geologist Jeremy Leggett’s first book “The Carbon War” was described by the influential Sunday Times as “the best book yet on the politics of global warming.” Time magazine calls Leggett “one of the key players in putting the climate issue on the world agenda.” His recent book—called “Empty Tank” by its US publisher and “Half Gone” in the UK--builds on his former work as the Chief Scientist at Greenpeace UK and a decade as an international climate campaigner in order to now assert the importance of what he describes as “the oil topping point.”

Leggett links oil depletion and climate change throughout his book, sub-titled “Oil, Gas, Hot Air, and the Coming Global Financial Catastrophe.” Over half the book is a 150-page section on “Oil Depletion Meets Global Warming.” Before moving to Greenpeace in the 1990’s, Leggett spent most of the 1980s as “a creature of Big Oil,” doing research, teaching, and consulting paid for by Shell, BP, and other oil companies. He is now CEO of the UK’s largest independent solar electric company. Leggett’s new book is perhaps the most thorough exploration yet of the relationship of oil descent and global warming, which he calls “hot air.”