Is such a thing possible? Is it possible to do everything that the critics of nuclear power demand? My answer is, yes it is. Nuclear scientists have known since the 1950s how to do it. The design and construction of safe, low-waste or no-waste, low-cost reactors has not occurred because doing so lacked support, or encountered strong opposition. Opponents of advanced solutions for nuclear power have included the builders of existing reactor designs, fossil-fuel producers, and environmentalists. Far from being enemies, there has always been a tacit alliance between fossil-fuel interests and and anti-nuclear environmentalists. As early as 1975, Environmentalist Amory Lovins and John Price, proposed that a "coal based, fusion free bridge," to solar power be used in preference to nuclear power. Thus for Lovins and Price, CO2-emitting coal burning power plants constituted an ethical intermediate phase between the present energy scheme and an ultimate renewable energy plan. (See "Non-Nuclear Futures: The case for an ethical energy strategy, by Amory B. Lovins and John H. Price, (1975)). And yes, Lovins and Price were warned about the dangers of Anthropogenic Global Warming by Alvin Weinberg, and no they did not pay the slightest attention.
Weinberg asked of Lovins,
Granted that nuclear energy is imperfect, ought we not try, to improve both technology and social institutions, to remove the imperfections?Amory Lovins tends to ignore difficult questions that point to weaknesses in his positions. And surely Alvin Weinberg pointed to a major weakness in Lovins's views. Indeed the weakness which Weinberg pointed too is one shared by all anti-nuclear environmentalists. Given that the safety record of the conventional nuclear industry has grown steadily more impressive, and that options for making nuclear power even safer are now better understood, and that some of these options involve the use of technologies that solve the problem of nuclear waste, while lowering nuclear costs, why don't anti-nuclear environmentalists support improving nuclear technology and the human institutions that safeguard nuclear power? Are we dealing with rational and valid opposition to nuclear power, or simply nuclear-phobia?
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Nuclear is being judged by a harsh double standard by people who either have no knowledge of the hazards of the technologies they promote in its stead, OR, have an overriding emotional motive to promote what is costly, inefficient, and often either dangerous or that bears high environmental costs, at the expense of what is economical and efficient and relatively safe; and I believe I know the motive, which is hatred for other human beings coupled with a sense that they, a chosen elite, will be spared the misery, disorder, and mass, random death that could be the fate of our population if we fail to manage the depletion of fossil fuels intelligently.
Many members of the public and/or members of local citizens groups sin in ignorance, and when they learn better, they change their positions on the issue. I mean, I was anti-nuke for about 15 minutes after Three Mile Island, but I sought out knowledge. I read everything on the subject of nuclear power I could lay my hands on, even mail-ordered the government report on the TM incident and read it thoroughly (I still have it)
But Andre Lovins, Saint Al Gore, and their cohorts who occupy similar positions of influence can't plead ignorance. The information on the environmental consequences, safety hazards, and efficacy (or lack of) of various forms of energy are out there for the digging. I can understand a person making a mistake after a first cursory glance, but not for not correcting his error as he uncovers more information, and the Rocky Mountain Institute and other lavishly-funded environmental advocacy organizations have a lot more money, resources, time, and manpower to devote to the study of energy than any one citizen or loosely organized and largely unfunded citizens' group, no matter how astute, intelligent, thorough, or well-trained in the relevant sciences. I'll cut the latter a lot of slack because their members are mostly too occupied making a living in unrelated fields, and are mostly untrained in the relevant disciplines- they are simply people who care, while the latter are truly criminal in that they have no excuse for ignorance and are using their resources and clout to steer us on a course that they know, or have no excuse for not knowing, will lead to our collapse and to reversion to primitive lifestyles with the quality of life, personal health, and length of lifespan that were the norm in those times. And we all know what THAT was.
People need to learn that any form of power generation that will produce it in the amounts we need to run our systems has serious hazards and impacts that need to be managed conscientiously and that there are immense material costs associated with every one of them as well. There is no free lunch. Even I was beguiled by nuclear power, and thought the worst thing about it is that it would be a wonderful thing were it not so unreliable and ineffective. Well, it's really much worse. It is probably as costly environmentally as any method of power generation out there, in the astonishing amount of land it consumes, but worse, in the water it uses. Locales that are embracing it, such as Southern California, are setting up for tragedy because their water situation is already critical, and widespread application of solar will help generate drought disasters that could be that area's total undoing.
It's really difficult for innocent, earnest, caring people to grasp just how evil Lovins and his fellow travelers really are and that they KNOW that their policies, if followed, will lead to a collapse of our systems and ensuing destruction of about 85% of the human species. They shouldn't be so sure that they will be among the survivors, for collapsing societies tend to be pretty brutal to elites.
Correction to the 4th paragraph.
I meant to say I was beguiled by SOLAR power.
I did NOT mean to say nuclear power.
I think North Coast let his comment slip away a little too soon (an error I am guilty of all too often). North Coast wrote:
...the Rocky Mountain Institute and other lavishly-funded environmental advocacy organizations have a lot more money, resources, time, and manpower to devote to the study of energy than any one citizen or loosely organized and largely unfunded citizens' group, no matter how astute, intelligent, thorough, or well-trained in the relevant sciences. I'll cut the latter a lot of slack because their members are mostly too occupied making a living in unrelated fields, and are mostly untrained in the relevant disciplines- they are simply people who care, while the latter are truly criminal in that they have no excuse for ignorance...
I think the first "latter" refers to concerned but uninformed citizens, while the second "latter" (which I set in bold) should read "former", refering to RMI and their ilk.
Sorry, I was writing very fast and I have this tendency to transpose both words and numbers.
Next time,I'll edit myself more carefully before I hit the "send" button.
That's the thing about blogging- you are your own editor, and everybody knows all writers need editors. I'll proof one of the posts on my own blog, and then click on publish, thinking I have caught typos and errors and transpositions and dropped phrases. But DANG it never fails- I look at my published post and 5 obvious bloopies jump out at me, so I end up going back to Edit 5X, hoping that it's late enough at night that no one saw it before I got it thoroughly cleaned up.
When you are dealing with even one person, their motives may be complex; a position taken may serve multiple purposes, some rational, some emotional.
Increase the number you are dealing with into the hundreds or thousands and you have to realize that you are not dealing with a monolithic block, though if you're lucky it might seem that way. If all their positions will comfortably fit one consistent abstraction on the given subject.
This is why politics will always be messy.
Those who are simply uninformed, can be educated, their positions may then change.
Some are emotionally committed to a position for non-arguable reasons, narcissists for instance, will simply hew to the opinion of the authority they have selected, their minds will not be changed.
And some are anti-nuclear precisely because of what we consider its virtues, they are opposed to technological civilization itself, like some of the Club of Rome.
In the US, at least, I believe a lot of people can be persuaded by the facts, support for nuclear power has been growing as it is. But there will be some who believe "I oppose nuclear power, therefore I am a good person" and you will never change their minds. Not without a lot of therapy.
So the answer to your final question is, both, and worse than that. But some nuclear-phobia can be cured, so never lose hope.
LarryD wrote:
Those who are simply uninformed, can be educated, their positions may then change.
Indeed. With all the talk of "smart grid", seems to me there is a real opportunity. For those who believe in renewables, in-the-home smart grid equipment could be programmed to limit power delivery to no more than a fixed proportion of the renewable generation available in the area. Those who believe that "the wind is always blowing somewhere" could have a more complex program that uses the generation from a number of widely scattered wind generation sites, but then increases the cost of delivered power to reflect the transmission costs. And, oh yeah, make sure to include transmission line congestion, so that power delivery shuts down dispite those available distant generation resources, simply because the transmission lines can't deliver more power.
I think the education of these folks would happen quickly.
Well Charles, you've done it again and wrote a post that I like so much I wish I had written it myself.
By illustrating a logical thought experiment, you've pinned the problem down to its essence.
I think we need to put up a quiz in Facebook - How Nuclear Phobic are you?
There is a fascinating book about the subject: "Nuclear Fear: A History of Images" By Spencer R. Weart
http://books.google.com/books?id=NuFubjYl1poC
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