Killer Vegetables and the German Nuclear Shutdown

The recent German panic over an E. Coli outbreak would seem completely unrelated to the recent decision by the German Government to shut down Germany's nuclear power plants as the reach a certain age. Yet both the cucumber panic, and the German nuclear power panic are examples of an irrational and potentially sinister pattern of social behavior, the social panic.

An E. Coli infection outbreak in Germany, that has resulted in 2000 illnesses and 18 deaths was initially blamed on Spanish cucumbers, but the cucumbers have been exonerated. Prior to the determination of EU authorities that Spanish cucumbers were not to blame for the German E. Coli outbreak, European salad eaters were throwing out their salads. German authorities treated Spanish produce as undesirable aliens to be stopped at the border.

The source of the German cucumber scare was a banquet attended by German trade-union officials who were meeting in Lübeck. Thirty four of them got sick, and suspicion fell on the salad. People got sick all over North Germany, although quite obviously not from eating the Lübeck salad. Indeed German authorities have not come up with evidence beyond all doubt that the salad was to blame, or that the toxic E. Coli entered the salad via tainted vegetables. Perhaps the salad preparer neglected to wash his hands.

The Irish Times observes,

Despite a reputation for being calm, sober people, Germans have a record of emotional reactions to threats, real and imagined.

The fact that the German E. Coli strain is resists all antibiotics, suggests that it came from a hospital, where anti-biotic bacteria strains are likely to originate and not from a Spanish cucumber field. But German irrationality has reached an absurd level. Scott Rooney points commented to the BBC,

I live in a part of Germany which is not affected by the outbreak but we, and a lot of people I know, have stopped eating all raw vegetables and have also stopped buying cucumbers, tomatoes and all types of lettuce.

The vegetable sections at most shops are empty - people are not buying fresh produce at the moment.

One local greengrocer has already gone bust.

We have also stopped eating fruit which cannot be disinfected and skinned, for example strawberries. This may be a bit paranoid, but until a source has been found, no-one can tell what is safe to eat.

Irrational social panics are not only common, but nations that lack a means of checking them may find themselves doing all sorts of crazy things. In the current E. Coli, outbreak, irrational panic has lead to the destruction of tons of harmless Spanish cucumbers. While we may see this as a joke, past social panic episodes have lead to some very unfunny consequences. For example. Canadian writer Jonathan Kay described the source of a panic that lead to the destruction, not of cucumbers but of millions of people:

In August, 1897, Theodor Herzl and two hundred fellow activists convened at a concert hall in Basel, Switzerland, to attend the First Zionist Congress. The capstone of their deliberations was The Basel Program, a landmark manifesto aimed at "establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine." The delegates also officially adopted the Hatikvah, a song that, six decades later, would become the national anthem for the country we call Israel.

But as legend has it, it was all an elaborate act -just a respectable set-piece to divert gentile journalists and spies from the real meeting taking place at a secret location nearby. There, Herzl delivered a clandestine 24part lecture series for Jewish ears only. In these speeches, "protocols" as Herzl called them, there was little talk of carving a small country out of the Middle Eastern desert. What he proposed was nothing less than a plan for total world domination.

Europe's gentiles -or goyim, as they were described in Yiddish -generally were a happy, earnest lot, Herzl told his audience. They worked their farms and small businesses assiduously, prayed to a benevolent Christian God, and prospered under the kindly, lawful aristocrats who rose up from among their ranks.

But they were also gullible, lustful, greedy and unstable in their attitudes -human frailties that the calculating, ascetic Jew could exploit in order to rob them of their entitlements.

The Jewish strategy, Herzl explained, would target all strata of goyim. To corrupt the proles, Jewish smut merchants would provide pornography and "alcoholic liquors." To ensnare middleclass farmers and merchants, Jewish moneylenders would practice usury. Ambitious gentile politicians would be co-opted through extortion and outright bribery; or else installed as quislings in Europe's Masonic lodges, which Jews secretly controlled.

Meanwhile, gentile intellectuals, such as they were, would be beguiled by democracy, liberalism, Marxism, socialism, communism, Darwinism, anarchism, "Nietzsche-ism," and all the other fangled creeds the Jew had created.

Ironically, the Jews' most powerful weapon in the campaign to enslave gentiles would be none other than the lure of sweet liberty itself: "The abstraction of freedom has enabled us to persuade the mob in all countries that ... the steward may be replaced like a worn-out glove," Herzl explained to the assembled Elders. "It is this possibility of replacing the representatives of the people, which has placed at our disposal, and ... given us the power of appointment."

Of course, God-fearing men would never willingly succumb to Jewish tyranny. But Herzl had an answer to that: Jews would not only annihilate Europe's earthly rulers, but also "the very principle of God-head and the spirit," whose presence in men's souls shielded them from the "arithmetical calculations and material needs" upon which the Jew preyed. No longer would the peoples of the world "walk contentedly and humbly under the guiding hand of [their] spiritual pastor submitting to the dispositions of God upon Earth." Instead, "all nations will be swallowed up in the pursuit of gain, and in the race for it will not take note of their common foe [the Jew]."

As his plan played out, Herzl explained, Jews would cycle the world through an endless series of bloody wars and economic depressions, which would serve both to enrich Jewish war profiteers and speculators, and cast the rest of the globe into poverty. Traumatized to the point of total despair, the peoples of the world would have no choice but to succumb.

When Herzl was done with his 24 protocols, the conference disbanded and the Jewish Elders returned to their homes in order to prepare their plots. The world might never have learned of the protocols' existence -but for a single Russian police agent who, through means unknown, intercepted one of Herzl's acolytes at a German Masonic lodge.

In exchange for what one must assume to have been an extravagant sum, the Jew agreed to turn over his handwritten transcription of Herzl's protocols -but only till the next morning. All through the night, a team of Russian scribes feverishly copied out the Hebrew text. When sunrise broke, the fruits of their labour were sent to translators in Moscow, who would go on to warn the world of the Jewish menace.

Thus ends the fairy tale, known to history as The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion -a document that would become the most influential conspiracist tract since the era of the French Revolution. Millions of readers were taken in by this poisonous fraud following its widespread publication in 1919. Adolf Hitler and other war criminals would be inspired to act on it, setting in motion a wave of anti-Semitic hatred so intense that, by the end of the Second World War, Central and Eastern Europe were left virtually Judenrein. . . .

The Protocols was a lie. But like all successful conspiracy theories, it was a lie that people wanted to hear.

The Protocols was exposed as a fraud concocted by The Russian Czarist Secret Police. The
exposure of the Protocols as a fraud did not prevent the German people from experiencing an ongoing Judaophobic panic. That ultimately lead the Nazi Party to power in Germany and ultimately to the death of millions of Jews.

Like the the Judaophobic social panic triggered among Germans by the The Protocols, the German social panic over nuclear energy can have serious and negative consequences for people who are not Germans. Dan Yurman has don an excellent job of documenting consequences of the German social panic over Nuclear Energy. However, Dan does not document the panic itself.

The Green anti-nuclear message has always sold well in Germany, and Chernobyl related fears were sold by food contamination panics. Spiegel International Online reported,

For weeks, there were food and health scares as a result of radioactive contamination, but few could agree on the degree of danger it represented.

In 1986 following the Chenobyl accident Der Spiegel reported

But no one is touching the salad buffets in the country's steakhouses. Some scientists, including those at Hanover's Ecological Institute and at the University of Oldenburg, are warning against drinking milk again. The term "radiation-free" has become part of advertisements for fresh vegetables, like the one used by Dutch farmers. . . .

Politicians tried desperately to jump on the bandwagon of the new anti-nuclear sentiment. Electoral candidate Ernst Albrecht discovered his love for solar energy, announcing the creation of an institute devoted to solar technology, and the general secretary of the Free Democratic Party, Helmut Haussmann, did a 180° turn by declaring that the German nuclear reactor in the western German town of Kalkar was unnecessary.

Yet as the 1986 Der Spiegel story pointed out the fallout from Chernobyl posed minimal risks to Germans, and no German deaths have ever been linked to the Chernobyl incident, although Greenpeace claims otherwise. But the German fear of food poison runs deeper than that. A Nazi children's book, "The Poisonous Mushroom," written by the infamous Julius Streicher drummed into the brains of German children the link between poisoned food and Jews:

Jewish Toadstools photo courtesy of German Propaganda Archive

A mother and her young boy are gathering mushrooms in the German forest. The boy finds some poisonous ones. The mother explains that there are good mushrooms and poisonous ones, and, as they go home, says:

"Look, Franz, human beings in this world are like the mushrooms in the forest. There are good mushrooms and there are good people. There are poisonous, bad mushrooms and there are bad people. And we have to be on our guard against bad people just as we have to be on guard against poisonous mushrooms. Do you understand that?"

"Yes, mother," Franz replies. "I understand that in dealing with bad people trouble may arise, just as when one eats a poisonous mushroom. One may even die!"

"And do you know, too, who these bad men are, these poisonous mushrooms of mankind?" the mother continued.

Franz slaps his chest in pride: "Of course I know, mother! They are the Jews! Our teacher has often told us about them."

The mother praises her boy for his intelligence, and goes on to explain the different kinds of "poisonous" Jews: the Jewish pedlar, the Jewish cattle-dealer, the Kosher butcher, the Jewish doctor, the baptised Jew, and so on.

"However they disguise themselves, or however friendly they try to be, affirming a thousand times their good intentions to us, one must not believe them. Jews they are and Jews they remain. For our Volk they are poison."

"Like the poisonous mushroom!" says Franz.

Little Franz Gets A Lesson photo courtesy of Yad Vashem

"Yes, my child! Just as a single poisonous mushrooms can kill a whole family, so a solitary Jew can destroy a whole village, a whole city, even an entire Volk."

Franz has understood.

"Tell me, mother, do all non-Jews know that the Jew is as dangerous as a poisonous mushroom?"

Mother shakes her head.

"Unfortunately not, my child. There are millions of non-Jews who do not yet know the Jews. So we have to enlighten people and warn them against the Jews. Our young people, too, must be warned. Our boys and girls must learn to know the Jew. They must learn that the Jew is the most dangerous poison-mushroom in existence. Just as poisonous mushrooms spring up everywhere, so the Jew is found in every country in the world. Just as poisonous mushrooms often lead to the most dreadful calamity, so the Jew is the cause of misery and distress, illness and death."

The story concludes,

German youth must learn to recognise the Jewish Poison-mushroom. They must learn what a danger the Jew is for the German Volk and for the whole world. They must learn that the Jewish problem involves the destiny of us all.

"The following tales tell the truth about the Jewish poison-mushroom. They show the many shapes the Jew assumes. They show the depravity and baseness of the Jewish race. They show the Jew for what he really is:

The Devil in human form."

For Germans in 2011, the Devil has taken the form of the nuclear power plant, and the Spanish cucumber.

Future Ship Propulsion

Ship propulsion poses one of the more troubling post-carbon problems. It should be noted that ships were once powered by wind energy, sometimes supplemented by oars rowed by slaves. This form of propulsion was very unsatisfactory and renewable energy was replaced by fossil fuel derived energy during the 19th century. There were a variety of motives for phasing out renewable energy.

* Sailing ships required large crews
* Winds were unreliable, making schedules impossible to keep
* Ship size was limited by the limitations of wind power
* Sailing ships were more vulnerable to loss during storms than powered ships
* Wind powered ships had more limited speed
* Wind powered ships were less useful for shipping perishable agricultural products
* Long range travel by wind powered ships was uncomfortable and could take months

Given these factors, it is unlikely that wind energy will successfully replace fossil fuel power in ocean commerce. Solar energy also seems impractical as a means of powering ships. There appears, at present, no serious effort to develop a renewables powered solution to the post carbon shipping problem. The United States Navy is examining expanding the use of nuclear power in its fleet (a tip of the hat to Rod Adams is in order). The Congressional Budget Office has examined the cost effectiveness of conventional nuclear power by the United States Navy. The Navy has fewer costs constraints imposed on it, than commercial shippers do. Thus if something is too costly for the Navy, it is totally impractical for commercial shippers.

The current Naval objection to building nuclear powered surface ships focuses on reactor costs. Conventional nuclear reactors are too expensive.

Estimates of the relative costs of using nuclear power versus conventional fuels for ships depend in large part on the projected path of oil prices, which determine how much the Navy must pay for fuel in the future. The initial costs for building and fueling a nuclear-powered ship are greater than those for building a conventionally powered ship. However, once the Navy has acquired a nuclear ship, it incurs no further costs for fuel. If oil prices rose substantially in the future, the estimated savings in fuel costs from using nuclear power over a ship's lifetime could offset the higher initial costs to procure the ship. In recent years, oil prices have shown considerable volatility; for example, the average price of all crude oil delivered to U.S. refiners peaked at about $130 per barrel in June and July 2008, then declined substantially, and has risen significantly again, to more than $100 per barrel in March of this year.

CBO regularly projects oil prices for 10-year periods as part of the macroeconomic forecast that underlies the baseline budget projections that the agency publishes each year. In its January 2011 macroeconomic projections, CBO estimated that oil prices would average $86 per barrel in 2011 and over the next decade would grow at an average rate of about 1 percentage point per year above the rate of general inflation, reaching $95 per barrel (in 2011 dollars) by 2021. After 2021, CBO assumes, the price will continue to grow at a rate of 1 percentage point above inflation, reaching $114 per barrel (in 2011 dollars) by 2040. If oil prices followed that trajectory, total life-cycle costs for a nuclear fleet would be 19 percent higher than those for a conventional fleet, in CBO's estimation. Specifically, total life-cycle costs would be 19 percent higher for a fleet of nuclear destroyers, 4 percent higher for a fleet of nuclear LH(X) amphibious assault ships, and 33 percent higher for a fleet of nuclear LSD(X) amphibious dock landing ships.

The CBO's cost estimate may be flawed by an overly optimist estimate of the cost of oil, but this is enough to establish that it will be expensive to build a future nuclear powered Navy. We can conclude from this that the cost of conventional nuclear power will impact sea based commerce, and may make the cost of conventional nuclear power impractical.

There are several possible alternative nuclear options which hold the possibility of lowering nuclear costs. These include liquid metal cooled fast reactors, Molten Salt Reactors, Molten Salt cooled solid fuel reactors, and pebble bed reactors. There is some history of liquid metal reactor use for naval purposes. It is not at all clear that liquid metal nuclear technology offers a cost advantage when compared to conventional reactors. In addition the history of liquid metal fast reactor use at sea, suggests reliability problems. In addition there are safety questions about fast reactors. Finally, fast reactors require large inventories of fissionable materials. Large inventories of fissionable materials may limit the number of ships that might be equipped with fast reactors. Thus fast metal cooled reactors may not be the best choice for commercial shipping motive power.

A second alternative nuclear option would involve the use of pebble bed nuclear technology. Gas cooled Pebble Bed Reactors are considered highly safe. However, gas cooled Pebble Bed Reactors have a large core. Large cores increase reactor manufacturing costs. In addition large cores occupy space that could be occupied by cargo or passengers. Liquid salt cooled Pebble Bed Reactors can have far mor compact cores, and manufacturing them would seem to potentially cost less than gas cooled PBRs. Liquid salt cooled PBRs can be refueled with few problems, and require small inventories of fissionable materials compared to fast reactors.

Like Pebble Bed Reactors, Molten Salt Reactors are very safe. They are simple and compact, lowering manufacturing costs. The principal difference between the MSR and the molten salt cooled PBR is that the fuel is disolved in the coolant salt of MSRs, while in molten salt cooled PBRs he fuel in embedded in graphite pebbles. It is easier and probably less expensive to process fission products out of a carrier salt than out of graphite pebbles. Graphite in the MSR core lowers fissionable inventory requirements as it does in PBRs. Thus it would appear that molten salt cooled reactors offer a potentially economical solution to the post-carbon ship propulsion problem.

Monbiot: "We have no idea what to do next."

This post went up yesterday, but due to problems with Blogger, Google took it down, along with all of the other blogger posts. Fortunately I was able to recover the text. Here it is.

So how do we break this system? How do we pursue happiness and well-being rather than growth? I came back from the climate talks in Copenhagen depressed for several reasons, but above all because, listening to the discussions at the citizens’ summit, it struck me that we no longer have movements; we have thousands of people each clamouring to have their own visions adopted. We might come together for occasional rallies and marches, but as soon as we start discussing alternatives, solidarity is shattered by possessive individualism. Consumerism has changed all of us. Our challenge is now to fight a system we have internalized. - George Monbiot

For one thing, environmentalism is a luxury. Just like being a vegetarian is a luxury. When you have to worry about eating - you're not going to be worried about where the food's coming from, or who made your shoes. Poverty, whether planned or not planned, is a way of making environmentalism moot. Even this discussion is a luxury. - Sherman Alexie

I have no doubt that George Monbiot is a brilliant iconoclast. The Icons that he is destroying at the moment are primarily those of the Green Movement. Environmentalists, as a group, do not think things out. Monbiot is a capable and passionate thinker. Yet given what he has seen, Monbiot acknowledges,

We have no idea what to do next.

Some 35 years ago, I briefly became active in the an environmental organization, only to discover, to my amusement, what I called REI consumerism. There are deep paradoxes in the environmentalist movement, and perhaps the deepest paradox is the claim by mainstream environmentalists to be progressive. A progressive wishes to improve the material lot of everyone, but most especially the poor. Mainstream environmentalists see wealth to be evil, and believe that the road to environmental salvation is nearly impoverishment. This is of course nonsense. Monbiot has seen the nonsense, and doesn't like it one bit.

Green environmentalism is about a quest for righteousness, both personal and social. When i was younger, on the roads of the American South, i saw signs that read, Get right with God. The goal of the Green movement is similar, to get right with nature. Social justice demands that the poor get a greater share of wealth, not that the wealthy be reduced to poverty. Thus if getting right with nature means decreasing human wealth, the goals of environmentalism are incompatible with social justice.

George Monbiot understands the paradox. Monbiot tells us,

You think you’re discussing technologies, you quickly discover that you’re discussing belief systems. The battle among environmentalists over how or whether our future energy is supplied is a cipher for something much bigger: who we are, who we want to be, how we want society to evolve. Beside these concerns, technical matters – parts per million, costs per megawatt hour, cancers per sievert – carry little weight. We choose our technology – or absence of technology – according to a set of deep beliefs; beliefs which in some cases remain unexamined.

Monbiot adds,

What the nuclear question does is to concentrate the mind about the electricity question. Decarbonising the economy involves an increase in infrastructure. Infrastructure is ugly, destructive and controlled by remote governments and corporations. These questions are so divisive because the same worldview tells us that we must reduce emissions, defend our landscapes and resist both the state and big business. The four objectives are at odds.

But even if we can accept an expansion of infrastructure, the technocentric, carbon-counting vision I’ve favoured runs into trouble. The problem is that it seeks to accommodate a system that cannot be accommodated: a system which demands perpetual economic growth. We could, as Zero Carbon Britain envisages, become carbon-free by 2030. Growth then ensures that we have to address the problem all over again by 2050, 2070 and thereon after.

Monbiot notes that the effects of an anti-growth approach would be disasterous both for society, and in the long run for the environment itself.

The Lost World
May 2, 2011

Where is the environmental vision that can resist the planet-wrecking project?

By George Monbiot. Published in the Guardian 3rd May 2011

You think you’re discussing technologies, you quickly discover that you’re discussing belief systems. The battle among environmentalists over how or whether our future energy is supplied is a cipher for something much bigger: who we are, who we want to be, how we want society to evolve. Beside these concerns, technical matters – parts per million, costs per megawatt hour, cancers per sievert – carry little weight. We choose our technology – or absence of technology – according to a set of deep beliefs; beliefs which in some cases remain unexamined.

The case against abandoning nuclear power, for example, is a simple one: it will be replaced either by fossil fuels or by renewables which would otherwise have replaced fossil fuels. In either circumstance, greenhouse gases, other forms of destruction and human deaths and injuries all rise.

The case against reducing electricity supplies is just as clear. For example, the Zero Carbon Britain report published by the Centre for Alternative Technology urges a 55% cut in overall energy demand by 2030: a goal I strongly support. It also envisages a near-doubling of electricity production(1). The reason is that the most viable means of decarbonising both transport and heating is to replace the fuels they use with low-carbon electricity. Cut the electricity supply and we’re stuck with oil and gas. If we close down nuclear plants, we must accept an even greater expansion of renewables than currently proposed. Given the tremendous public resistance to even a modest increase in wind farms and new power lines, that’s going to be tough.

What the nuclear question does is to concentrate the mind about the electricity question. Decarbonising the economy involves an increase in infrastructure. Infrastructure is ugly, destructive and controlled by remote governments and corporations. These questions are so divisive because the same worldview tells us that we must reduce emissions, defend our landscapes and resist both the state and big business. The four objectives are at odds.

But even if we ca

n accept an expansion of infrastructure, the technocentric, carbon-counting vision I’ve favoured runs into trouble. The problem is that it seeks to accommodate a system that cannot be accommodated: a system which demands perpetual economic growth. We could, as Zero Carbon Britain envisages, become carbon-free by 2030. Growth then ensures that we have to address the problem all over again by 2050, 2070 and thereon after.

Accommodation makes sense only if the economy is reaching a steady state. But the clearer the vision becomes, the further away it seems. A steady state economy will be politically possible only if we can be persuaded to stop grabbing. This in turn will be feasible only if we feel more secure. But the global race to the bottom and its destruction of pensions, welfare, public services and stable employment make people less secure, encouraging us to grasp as much for ourselves as we can.

If this vision looks implausible, consider the alternatives. In the latest edition of his excellent magazine The Land, Simon Fairlie responds furiously to my suggestion that we should take industry into account when choosing our energy sources(2). His article exposes a remarkable but seldom-noticed problem: that most of those who advocate an off-grid, land-based economy have made no provision for manufactures. I’m not talking about the pointless rubbish in the FT’s How to Spend It supplement. I’m talking about the energy required to make bricks, glass, metal tools and utensils, textiles (except the hand-loomed tweed Fairlie suggests we wear), ceramics and soap: commodities which almost everyone sees as the barest possible requirements.

social collapse in the face of fossil fuel resource depletion does not solve environmental problems,

In east Africa, for example, I’ve seen how, when supplies of paraffin or kerosene are disrupted, people don’t give up cooking; they cut down more trees.

Monbiot thus points to the dilemmas that Greens face.

Let me begin by spelling out, at greater length, the dilemmas we face.

1. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions means increasing electricity production. It is hard to see a way around this. Because low-carbon electricity is the best means of replacing the fossil fuels used for heating and transport, electricity generation will rise, even if we manage to engineer a massive reduction in overall energy consumption. The Zero Carbon Britain report published by the Centre for Alternative Technology envisages a 55% cut in overall energy demand by 2030 – and a near-doubling of electricity production.

2. Low carbon electricity means, to most greens, renewables. They were never well-loved, but now, in the places in which major deployment is taking place, they are provoking something approaching a full-scale revolt. Here in mid-Wales, for example, and in the Highlands of Scotland, public anger towards wind farms and the power lines and hubs required to serve them is coming to dominate local politics. While there are plenty of stupid myths circulating about the inability of wind turbines to produce electricity and about the greenhouse gases released in constructing them, in other respects the opposition to them is not irrational. People love their landscapes, and so they should.

Those of us who support renewables find ourselves in a difficult position: demanding the industrialisation of the countryside, supporting new power stations, new power lines and (for the electricity storage required) new reservoirs. Even offshore power, whose landscape impacts are much smaller, means more grid connections and more storage.

3. The only viable low-carbon alternative we have at the moment is nuclear power. This has the advantage of being confined to compact industrial sites, rather than sprawling over the countryside, and of requiring fewer new grid connections (especially if new plants are built next to the old ones). It has the following disadvantages:

a. The current generation of power stations require uranium mining, which destroys habitats and pollutes land and water. Though its global impacts are much smaller than the global impacts of coal, the damage it causes cannot be overlooked.

b. The waste it produces must be stored for long enough to be rendered safe. It is not technically difficult to do this, with vitrification, encasement and deep burial, but governments keep delaying their decisions as a result of public opposition.

Both these issues (as well as concerns about proliferation and security) could be addressed through the replacement of conventional nuclear power with thorium or integral fast reactors but, partly as a result of public resistance to atomic energy, neither technology has yet been developed. (I’ll explore the potential of both approaches in a later column).

c. Nuclear power divides our movements. Some of the most effective environmental organisations – Greenpeace for example – could not drop their opposition without falling apart.

4. Whichever low-carbon technology we embrace, we help to provide the means by which the industrial economy can keep expanding, even if it does so without a major release of greenhouse gases. This threatens to exacerbate all the other issues that concern us. To prevent this from happening, the replacement of fossil fuels should be accompanied by a transition to a steady-state economy. Herman Daly and Tim Jackson have shown us how this can be done technically. How it can be done politically is, at present, quite another matter.

5. Those who, on the other hand, advocate a return to a land-based economy and the abandonment of industrial society find themselves in conflict with the desires of most of humanity, in both rich and poor nations. They have produced no convincing account of how people could be persuaded to turn their backs on manufactured products, advanced infrastructure and public services.

6. Our reliance on the mineral crunch, which was supposed to have brought the economic engine of destruction to a grinding halt, appears to have been misplaced. The collapse of accessible mineral reserves has not occurred, and shows little sign of occurring within our lifetimes. Capitalism has proved adept at finding new reserves or (in the case of fossil fuels) substitutes for those that are depleting. This takes place at a massive cost to the environment, as exploitation intrudes into an ever wider range of habitats and involves ever more destructive processes. New mineral reserves allow us to continue waging war against biodiversity, habitats, soil, fresh water supplies and the climate.

7. We have no idea what to do next.

8. Partly as a result, we have started tearing each other apart. This is an understandable but unnecessary reaction. Those seeking to protect the landscape are not our enemies; nor are those advocating that renewables should replace fossil fuel; nor are those promoting nuclear power as the answer; nor are those opposing nuclear power. We are all struggling with the same problem, all bumping up against atmospheric chemistry and physical constraints.

We must face up, Monbiot tells us, to the failure of Green narratives,

Green narratives have collapsed precisely because they were unable to withstand the steely quantification demanded by an attempt to get to grips with problems like climate change. Or they have been struck down by circumstance: such as the inconvenient non-appearance of the commodities crunch they predicted. If a new poetic narrative is no better able to answer questions such as how a steady-state economy can be achieved, how low-carbon electricity will be produced, how the Common Fisheries Policy can be reformed or how, in a land-based economy, bricks and glass will be made, it too will collapse. In fact, it will never get off the ground as these questions, once formulated, won’t go away.

The trouble then is the bankruptcy of Green solutions.

Part of the Green dilemma is the failure to think through the issues and opportunities posed by nuclear power. There is an alternative, which might be called the Oak Ridge Paradigm or the Oak Ridge Way. Oak Ridge development of nuclear power was during the 1950's, 60's and 70's far in advance of anywhere else in the world. The Oak Ridge Scientific community took the opportunity to reflect on the human and environmental consequences of those advanced developments. The Oak Ridge paradigm grew out of those reflections. It was my good fortune to encounter the emerging Oak Ridge Paradigm during my year with ORNL-NSF Environmental Studies Program during 1970-1971.

Nuclear Green is no small measure focuses on exploring the Oak Ridge Way. I would invite George Monbiot to join in that exploration.

Kurt Cobb on Resources, Energy, Thorium and Molten Salt Reactor Technology

Kurt Cobb, is an energy writer whose vision is in many respects clear headed, and who has acknowledged both the problems and potential while appearing to be intrigued by Molten Salt Reactor/thorium fuel cycle ideas. Cobb has understood that nuclear power offered a solution to the future problems of global energy. In 2009 Cobb identified the problem,

The end of the fossil fuel era is coming sooner than most people believe as exponentially increasing fossil fuel consumption brings us ever closer to the day when production will peak for oil, natural gas and coal and then begin irrevocable declines. The only options left for powering a modern technical society will then be solar, wind, tidal, hydroelectric, geothermal and nuclear. And of these, only nuclear can conceivably be located wherever it is needed at the scale required.

The earth, Cobb argued, had plenty of resources needed to sustain industrial civilization,

granite contains many common metals such aluminum, iron, magnesium, titanium and manganese. Many more minerals including uranium are available in quantities of parts per million. Seawater contains most of the elements on the periodic table, the source of which is the erosion produced by streams and rivers feeding the oceans. The air contains rare "noble" gases that are important to industrial civilization including argon, neon, helium, krypton and xenon.

The visions of the resource optimists may not work out

here's why the future may not work out as Simon and other cornucopians envision. The main energy resources we use today are mineral resources. Oil, natural gas, and coal provide 86 percent of the world's energy. All of these resources are thought to be growing more abundant through the magic of the resource pyramid. But, if you examine the pyramid closely, you will see that not only do low-grade fossil fuel resources require better technology to extract them, they also require increasing amounts of energy to run that technology. At some point the amount of energy needed to bring low-grade deposits of oil, natural gas and coal to the surface and process and transport them will be more than the energy we get from these resources. At that point they will cease to be energy sources, and the vast, remaining ultra-low-grade deposits of these fuels will be useless to us except perhaps as feedstocks for chemicals.

Cobb adds,

Without a transition to vast new supplies of nuclear and renewable energy, the promise that we will be able to go all the way to the bottom of the resource pyramid is a mere daydream. The resource pyramid only shows what is possible. It does not guarantee that humans will achieve it. If peaks in fossil fuel production are nearing, either society will have to learn to get along without many of its critical resources, or it will have to make the transition to alternative energy swiftly as part of an engineering and planning feat that would be unparalleled in human history.

Cobb is pessimistic about the ability of society to make a rapid and timely transition to post fossil fuel energy sources,

Despite the pressing need for a rapid energy transition, it is doubtful that such a transition will be initiated by market forces before fossil fuels become scarce and therefore very expensive. The reason for this is that markets consistently wrongly assess the mineral economy, projecting what resource economist Douglas Reynolds calls "the illusion of decreasing scarcity." That means that prices stay relatively low until shortly before a resource peaks. . .

Because of the very long lead times required to transform our liquid-fuel based infrastructure, for example, into one that runs on electricity, undertaking such a conversion while oil or other fossil fuel supplies are declining could be very challenging indeed. The alternatives may not expand quickly enough to make up for the energy being lost. In that case, the whole transition project would be imperiled by the declining total energy available to society. That means that money and therefore energy would have to be taken from somewhere else in an already squeezed economy to keep the transition going. Contrary to expectations that so-called green industries will create new jobs, this scenario would result in the creation of new green jobs probably at the expense of jobs elsewhere in the economy (that is, barring improbable and extraordinary sudden leaps in the energy efficiency of the economy).

In such circumstances most people would naturally be focused on just making it through the day with little concern or appetite for spending a considerable amount of their incomes to buy electric cars or retrofit their homes for energy efficiency or passive solar heat. Nor would there likely be much appetite for raising taxes for a government-led transition program and/or set of subsidies related to making a transition away from fossil fuels.

Given the current skyrocketing prices of all fossil fuels, it appears that we are very late in the game indeed. It is not clear that a transition program started now would be completed before oil and possibly natural gas began to decline. But, it is clear that the public--at least in the United States--already has little appetite for a government-led solution when the major U. S. presidential candidates are proposing to lower gasoline taxes this summer to ease the burden on family budgets.

Cobb argued that renewable electrical generators poses difficulties for powering a civilization because of their energy density problem,

Let's take a 500-megawatt power plant which by itself can power a city of 300,000. (A megawatt is one million watts.) It will sit astride a fairly large plot of land. A coal-fired plant near me is just under that capacity (495 MW) and sits on about 300 acres. Most of that land, however, is essentially devoted to undeveloped transmission right-of-way filled with ponds, woods and streams. Only a small portion is covered by plant facilities including coal storage. I estimate less than 30 acres.

For new wind projects huge 5-megawatt wind generators are just now being deployed. If we take these as typical (and they are not), then using an estimate of the direct land footprint for wind towers of 0.38 acres per tower, we find that we'd need 100 towers covering 38 acres. But wind turbines run at only about 30 percent capacity because the wind doesn't blow all the time. This compares to about 70 percent capacity for coal-fired power plants. So we need to multiply 100 towers by about 2 1/3 to get the number of towers we'd need to match the operating capacity of one coal-fired plant. That means we'd need about 233 towers with a direct land footprint of 87 acres. That doesn't seem too bad. And, the land under the turbines is still available for farming and other purposes. The overall direct effects on the land and water are certainly less when compared to the coal plant.

But we're not done. The spacing between towers is typically at least five diameters of the rotor. That doesn't sound like much. But for the 5-megawatt towers in this example, the spacing would be 2,065 feet times 232--we don't need to separate the last tower from another tower beyond it. Then we'd add the diameter of the rotors--413 feet times 233--and we get a distance equivalent to about 110 miles. So, we'd need a line of 5-megawatt turbines stretching 110 miles. In theory, we'd want to split them up and put them in various locations in which the wind blows hardest at different times. But the total length of the line would still be at least 110 miles. If we take the largest separation recommended between towers which is 10 diameters of the rotors, we'd have to just about double that distance.

By comparison most people who live 110 miles from a coal-fired power plant are rarely even aware that it might be a source of electricity for them. And, the plant is certainly not a direct irritation. The lesson here, however, is not one of aesthetics. It is an illustration of the disparity in power densities between those energy sources on which we currently rely and the alternatives now being proposed and deployed.

The power density problem for solar energy is no less daunting.

Cobb then puts his finger on the problem,

We will be obliged to devote vast tracts of space--far more vast than the buildings they serve--to support the energy use of our current infrastructure.

This may not be impossible, but it will certainly be costly and socially disruptive.

In 2008 Cobb saw the failure of the first nuclear age as a potential tragedy for humanity. Cobb wrote,

It is a sad commentary that so many who knew the planet would one day run short of fossil fuels were unable to convince the world to embrace nuclear power in a more thoroughgoing way. With enough development, with careful and serious attention to the waste problem, and with lower-cost, decentralized designs that maximize safety, nuclear power might have succeeded in making any decline in fossil fuel availability just another historical footnote--but only if deployed on a large enough scale and far enough in advance of such a decline.

Now it may be too late. The time for the development of the nuclear economy appears to have come and gone with few people even realizing it.

Yet in the same essay, Cobb criticized the Price-Anderson Act by characterizing it as limiting the

liability for nuclear plant operators.

In fact Price-Anderson arguably protects the government from the consequences of having to pick up the first ten billion dollars of the bill, in the event of a major nuclear accident. The major accomplishment of Price Anderson is to set up an insurance pool that protects under funded nuclear operators.

Even in 2008 Cobb was prepaired to engage in real dialogue with nuclear supporters, and too acknowledge,

The solution, of course, is to build breeder reactors and I have seen designs which address the proliferation problem, in part, by using a hybrid technology that allows non-breeder and breeder operation in sequence and so the reactor doesn't have to be refueled for something on the order of 50 years.

Cobb was pessimistic about such a future,however,

I have come to the conclusion that the regulatory hurdles facing such designs are so great that it is unlikely they will be approved and built in time to address the energy deficits we will be facing after fossil fuels peak.

Cobb believed that the idea of using thorium as a basis for the nuclear fuel cycle was promising, and

besides availability, thorium has three additional distinct advantages over uranium fuel. First, thorium fuel elements can be designed in a way that make it difficult to recover the fissile uranium produced by breeding for bomb making. This reduces the likelihood of nuclear weapons spreading to nonnuclear nations that adopt thorium-based fuel technologies.

Second, the waste stream can be considerably smaller since unlike current reactors which often use only about 2 percent of the available fuel, thorium-fueled reactors with optimal designs could burn nearly all of the fuel. This is the main reason besides its sheer natural abundance that thorium could provide such long-lived supplies of fuel for nuclear power.

Third, the danger from the waste of the thorium fuel cycle is potentially far less long-lived. The claim is that the reprocessed waste will be no more radioactive than thorium ore after about 300 years. This claim is based on the idea that virtually all of the long-lived radioactive products of breeding will be consumed in the reactor before the final round of reprocessing takes place.

Cobb also notes the potential usefulness and value of Molten Salt Reactors in managing the thorium fuel cycle,

There are also practical hurdles for reprocessing solid fuel. But advocates of the so-called molten salt reactor claim that this design lessens the problem of reprocessing since the products of breeding can be continuously extracted and processed from the molten liquid stream inside a closed fuel cycle. They also claim that the design is far less prone to accidents which might release radioactive materials into the environment. None of this, of course, solves the problems of existing reactors that use solid fuel assemblies. But it does suggest a plausible course for vastly expanding nuclear power generation with little worry about fuel supplies and fewer concerns about nuclear weapons proliferation.

Cobb points to what he believes is a possible problem with MSR nuclear technology,

The main concern about these replacements is whether they can be built fast enough to head off an overall reduction in the amount of energy available to society.

I will address this concern.

Cobb's latest essay on nuclear technology is titled, "The Road to Fukushima: The Nuclear Industry's Wrong Turn." While Cobb does not mention either Nuclear Green or Charles Barton, many of the ideas in this essay parallel, indas I have frequently expressed. The lead sentence to Cobb's essay states,

Nuclear researchers knew long ago that reactor designs now in wide use had already been bested in safety by another design.

Then Cobb asks,

Why did the industry turn its back on that design?

This is indeed a very troubling question, and one to which I have devoted a number of posts on Nuclear Green. Cobb asks,

Imagine a nuclear reactor that runs on fuel that could power civilization for millennia; cannot melt down; resists weapons proliferation; can be built on a relatively small parcel of land; and produces little hazardous waste. It sounds like a good idea, and it was a well-tested reality in 1970 when it was abandoned for the current crop of reactors that subject society to the kinds of catastrophes now on display in Japan.

This rather remarkable design is called the molten salt reactor (MSR), and it lost out for two reasons: 1) It wasn't compatible with the U.S. government's desire to have a civilian nuclear program that would have dual use, that is, that could supply the military with nuclear bomb-making materials. 2) Uranium-fueled light water reactors, which are in wide use today, already had a large, expensive infrastructure supporting them back in 1970. To build MSRs would have required the entire industry to retool or at least create another expensive parallel infrastructure. And, that's how MSRs became the victim of lock-in.

Much of this simply parafrases Nuclear Green, although I have recently offered a somewhat more complex view on why the government turned its back on Molten Salt Reactor technology.

Whatever the actual reason for the exclusion of Molten Salt Reactor technology by the United States Government, Cobb is quite correct about the consequences of that decision,

Lock-in has worked in much the same way for the nuclear industry. The decision within U.S. government circles to focus on light water reactors and abandon MSRs relegated the latter to a footnote in the history of civilian nuclear power. And, because the United States was the leader in civilian nuclear technology at the time, every nation followed us.

Then Cobb points to an important question,

So, should the world look again at this "old" technology as a way forward for nuclear power after Fukushima?

Cobb answers his own question,

My sympathies are with the MSR advocates. If the world had adopted MSR technology early on, there would have been no partial meltdown at Three Mile Island, no explosion at Chernobyl, and no meltdown and subsequent dispersion of radioactive byproducts into the air and water at Fukushima. It's true that MSR technology is not foolproof. But its very design prevents known catastrophic problems from developing. The nuclear fuel is dissolved in molten salt which, counterintuitively, is the coolant. If the reactor overheats, a plug at the base melts away draining the molten salt into holding tanks that allow it to cool down. Only gravity is required, so power outages don't matter.

As for leaks, a coolant leak (that is a water leak) in a light water reactor, can quickly become dangerous. If there is a leak from an MSR, the fuel, which is dissolved in the molten salt, leaks out with it, thereby withdrawing the source of the heat. You end up with a radioactive mess inside the containment building, but that's about it.

If the world had adopted MSRs at the beginning of the development of civilian nuclear power, electricity production might now be dominated by them. And, we might be busily constructing wind generators and solar panels to replace the remaining coal- and natural gas-fired power plants. Would there have been accidents at MSRs? Certainly. Would these accidents have been large enough and scary enough to end new orders for nuclear power plants as happened after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in the United States? I doubt it.

Cobb is still pessimistic however,

Having said all this, I believe that MSR technology will never be widely adopted. The same problem that derailed it early in the history of civilian nuclear power is still with us. We still have lock-in for light water reactors. Yes, the new designs are admittedly quite a bit safer. But these designs still don't solve as many problems as MSRs do, and they continue to rely on uranium for their fuel. MSRs have shown themselves capable of running on thorium, a metal that is three times more abundant than uranium, and 400 times more abundant than the only isotope of uranium that can be used for fuel, U-235. This is the basis for the claim that MSRs fueled with thorium could power civilization for millennia. . . .

. . . in the United States it is easier to predict that we'll see little progress. In the U.S. it is the industry that tells the government what new nuclear technologies will be developed rather than the other way around. And, the American nuclear industry is committed to light water reactors.

I believe that even if the Fukushima accident had not occurred, nuclear power generation would probably have done no more than maintain its share of the total energy pie in the coming decades. Now, I am convinced that that share will shrink as people in democratic societies reject new nuclear plants.

Yet Cobb also acknowledges that one nation is interested in developing Molten Salt Reactor Technology,

The Chinese have announced that they are interested in pursuing MSRs and the use of thorium to fuel them. Perhaps in China--where the nuclear industry is synonymous with the government and therefore does what the government tells it to--MSRs might actually be deployed. I have my doubts. Even China suffers from the lock-in problem.

I disagree with Cobb's pessimism. Although I believe what he calls the "Nuclear Industry, the current small set of reactor manufactures outside Canada, India and China are wedded to Light Water Reactor technology, the path to the development and deployment to Molten Salt Reactors is open wide open. Molten Salt Reactors are simpler, will require less labor to construct, and fewer building materials than Light Water Reactors. This means that there is a high likelihood that Molten Salt Reactors will be cheaper to manufacture, and simpler to deploy. This gives MSRs superior scalability. MSRs are also more efficient than LWRs. MSRs can do things that neither renewables nor LWRs can do. They can produce industrial process heat of up to !200 C. With their lower costs, MSRs can offer back up generation and peak generation capacity to the electrical industry.

Thus the question is will MSRs spread from China, which appears to be committed to the development of MSR technology, or will MSR technology be developed by other societies as well? There are several paths to MSR development. MSRs could be developed in the United States by one or more National Laboratories, MSR technology can be developed as a ship propulsion technology by the United States Navy. MSR technology can be developed by the United States military as a means of supplying electricity to military bases, and for military operations. MSR technology can be developed by private manufacturing businesses, which are interested in turning their manufacturing skills into a new source of energy related revenue. MSR technology could be developed by large fossil fuel energy companies, which seek a means of remaining in the energy business after their fossil fuel business declines. MSR technology could also be developed by a group of nations, which are attracted by the energy advantages MSRs offer. Thus there are many potential pathos to MSR development, and once adventurers start down one of them, other paths are likely to quickly open up.

When I began to write about MSRs in 2007, virtually no one had heard of them. On the Internet I found, Bruce Hoglund's Molten Salt Interest Pages, and Kirk Sorensen's Energy from Thorium. Fast forward to 2011, and the Molten Salt Reactor, mainly in the form of Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, a name given by Kirk Sorensen, is widely known. The idea of a thorium fuel cycle Molten Salt Reactor has been adopted for development by China as a promising new nuclear technology, as Kurt Cobb has pointed out. Other parties are looking with interest, but have not announced plans yet. I expect some MSR development plans to emerge before the end of 2012.

TVA Nuclear Plans: The future is not clear.

TVA has issued its Integrated Resource Plan (IRP): TVA’s Environmental and Energy Future. Rather than offering a single plan, this document suggests a range of options between now and 2029. TVA views itself as having nuclear options that range between 1,150 MWs and 5900 MWe during that time span. it is possible that TVA may not be laying all of its nuclear cards on the table. The IRP suggests that during the time frame TVA could build as many as 5 reactors including the Watts Barn Unit 2 NPP. Other units include Bellefonte 1 and 2 which could be completed by 2020 under TVA's most ambitious projection. Two AP-1000s are projected for the 2020's. No mention is made of small reactors, even though TVA has indicated that it plans to build up to 6 B&W mPower reactors near Oak Ridge, starting about 2018. At least one of the Oak Ridge mPower reactors is expected to be financed by the Department of Energy and dedicated to producing electricity for ORNL's super computers.

It should be assumed that had the plan to build mPower reactors fallen by the wayside that would have been already announced. Thus we need to ask, how serious is the TVA IRP? The answer would seem to be, not very.

Further Jacobson objections to Consideration of Nuclear Power: Safety and Uranium

In his new paper on post carbon energy sources ("Providing all Global Energy with Wind, Water, and Solar Power, Part I: Technologies, Energy Resources, Quantities and Areas of Infrastructure, and Materials," Energy Policy in press), Mark Z. Jacobson refuses to consider nuclear power as a future energy source:

For several reasons we do not consider nuclear energy (conventional fission, breeder reactors, or fusion) as a long-term global energy source.

in previous posts, I have offered an extensive analysis of two major parts of of Jacobson's objections. By far the most serious objection is the claim that the spread of civilian nuclear power technology would lead to the development of nuclear weapons by states which currently lack them. This argument is speculative, and the evidence from actual instances of attempted our actual proliferation is that nations that lack a civilian nuclear power program are more likely to seek to acquire nuclear weapons, than nations which operate civilian power reactors.

A second Jacobson argument focused on CO2 emissions associated with civilian nuclear electrical generation. Jacobson's argument rested formally on two meta-analytic studies of nuclear associated emissions, but those studies in turn relied on a questionable source, and both appeared flawed by anti-nuclear biases. But Jacobson's argument appears to go beyond what could be asserted on the basis of his sources, and appears to rest on a previous Jacobson Paper in which he asserted a causal connection between the spread of civilian nuclear power technology and future nuclear wars every 30 years. Since the claimed connection between civilian nuclear power and nuclear weapons proliferation appears to have been falsified, the connection between the spread of civilian nuclear power and nuclear war appears to lack support. indeed it might be anticipated that nations which lack a civilian nuclear power program are more likely to engage in nuclear exchanges, than nations which possess civilian power reactors.

I mentioned one further Jacobson objection to nuclear power, the time required to construct nuclear power plants. Jacobson calmed,

The overall historic and present range of nuclear planning-to-operation times for new nuclear plants has been 11-19 years,

Yet the transformation of French electrical generation technology to 75% nuclear took place over a period of 19 years and involved the construction of no less than 54 reactors. Thus Jacobson once again offers assertions against which clear and powerful evidence support contradictory conclusions.

In addition to these objections Jacobson objected to consideration of nuclear power on the grounds of safety and the future nuclear fuel supply.

conventional nuclear fission relies on finite stores of uranium that a large-scale nuclear program with a “once through” fuel cycle would exhaust in roughly a century (e.g., Macfarlane and Miller, 2007; Adamantiades and Kessides, 2009). In addition, accidents at nuclear power plants have been either catastrophic (Chernobyl) or damaging (Three-Mile Island), and although the nuclear industry has improved the safety and performance of reactors, and has proposed new (but generally untested) “inherently” safe reactor designs (Piera, 2010; Penner et al., 2010; Adamantiades and Kessides, 2009; . . .

Since Jacobson passes over the whole safety issue with a relatively few words, I will deal with his assertions on nuclear safety briefly. First, nuclear power has proven itself to be by far the safest energy technology. Conventional Light Water Reactors have proven themselves to be extremely safe, with an unprecedented record of operation without a major accident since 1979. The only serious LWR accident failed to produce injuries or deaths, despite long standing, but unsuccessful efforts by nuclear opponents to argue that there were Three Mile Island accident casualties. This contention was rejected by a court decision. Thus, the safety of nuclear power has been established by thousands of years of Light Water Reactor operation without a single casualty producing reactor accident.

Jacobson's treatment of “inherently safe reactor" is very problematic. Jacobson asserts, although

the nuclear industry has . . . i proposed new (but generally untested) “inherently” safe reactor designs . . . there is no guarantee that the reactors will be designed, built and operated correctly.

In fact several “inherently safe reactor" have been tested. these include the Pebble Bed Reactor, the IFR prototype, the EBR II, and the Molten Salt Reactor prototype, the MSRE. These tests demonstrated that inherently safe reactors are possible, and can be built with proven technology. Thus we can point to reasonable assurance that inherently safe reactors will be in fact safe.

In the case of all three prototypes, inherent safety features were tested and performed as expected. In the case of the molten salt reactor, the stability and safety features are so inherent in the reactor concept, that an unsafe MSR design is highly unlikely. The inherent safety of the Molten Salt Reactor is a byproduct of the basic reactor concept. Further molten salt power generating reactors can be designed to produce power without any operator input. Hence operator errors would be impossible in normal operation situations. Hence Jacobson's claims about inherent nuclear safety are contradicted by reactor prototype safety experiments, and the basic nature of the inherently safe reactor concepts.

Next we turn to the Jacobson claim that

a large-scale nuclear program with a “once through” fuel cycle would exhaust [uranium supplies] in roughly a century

This contention is decisively refuted by a recent MIT report "The Future of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle," That report states,

There is no shortage of uranium resources that might constrain future commitments to build new nuclear plants for much of this century at least.

The benefits to resource extension and to waste management of limited recycling in LWRs using mixed oxide fuel as is being done in some countries are minimal.

Scientifically sound methods exist to manage spent nuclear fuel.

it is often recognized that long term, nuclear technology needs to shift from once through Light Water reactors, to more advanced uranium and thorium breeder reactors. Since the dawn of the nuclear age, reactor scientists have understood that the long range development of nuclear power would require breeder reactors. The possibility of using advance technology reactors to breed uranium and thorium has been frequently discussed. Jacobson rejects the possibility of nuclear breeding with a the simple claim that there is no proliferation proof nuclear power cycle. While this is true, as we have already noted a commitment to nuclear power generation appears to decrease rather than increase proliferation risks. Thus there is no clear evidence that nuclear breeding technology will actually lead to nuclear proliferation in practice. Jacobson relies entirely on speculative, untested and untestable arguments in making the claim that breeder reactors pose significant proliferation risks.

Jacobson also briefly reviews the use of thorium breeding as an alternative rout to sustainable nuclear power but ultimately rejects it:

A related proposal is to use thorium as a nuclear fuel, which is less likely to lead to nuclear weapons proliferation than the use of uranium, produces less long-lived radioactive waste, and greatly extends uranium resources (Macfarlane and Miller, 2007). However, thorium reactors require the same significant time lag between planning and operation as conventional uranium reactors and most likely longer because few developers and scientists have experience with constructing or running thorium reactors, As such, this technology will result in greater emissions from the background electric grid compared with WWS technologies, which have a shorter time lag. In addition, lifecycle emissions of carbon from a thorium reactor are on the same order as those from a uranium reactor. Further, thorium still produces radioactive waste containing 231Pa, which has a half-life of 32,760 years. It also produces 233U, which can be used in fission weapons, such as in one nuclear bomb core during the Operation Teapot nuclear tests in 1955. Weaponization, though, is made more difficult by the presence of 232U

once again we see that Jacobson relies on his business as usual, too much time argument, to justify the rejection of what would otherwise appear to be an attractive nuclear option. And once again Jacobson relies on a problematic argument. In the case of thorium, relatively small thorium breeding molten salt reactors (LFTRs) can be rapidly built in factories, and require significantly less on site work to for their completion. The LFTRF licensing process can be streamlined, if a goal of completing hundreds or even thousands of LFTRs in a short time is viewed as desirable. A small amount of Ps-231 is produced in thorium breeding, but it can simply left in the reactor core where it can be converted by the breeding process to U-232 or U-233. While it is true that U-233 is weaponizable, the one test of a U-233 containing device proved to be a failure. It would appear that American weapons designers rejected U-233 as a weapon material. As with proliferation risks associated with fast reactors, there is no strong evidence that possessing thorium breeding reactors actually increases the danger of nuclear proliferation beyond the risks associated with not possessing civilian nuclear power plants.

The global abundance of thorium, an untapped source of potential nuclear fuel, is such that thorium could supply all human energy needs for millions of years. Thorium fueled molten Salt Reactors are very safe, and the CO2 emissions associated with them would be far less than those associated with any renewable energy source. Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors can be operated to produce no long term transuranium waste, and to produce fission product wast that with reach background radiation levels within 300 years.

Thus once again it must be concluded that Mark Z. Jacobson excluded nuclear power as a future energy source without rational justification.

Jacobson: Beyond Cherry Picking

In a previous post I looked at Mark Z. Jacobson's decision to exclude nuclear power as an future energy source in a recent paper. In that post I reviewed Jacobson's assertions that the global spread of nuclear generated electrical power would cause nuclear proliferation and nuclear war. In the course of my investigating of actual instances of proliferation, I found that nations which lacked civilian nuclear power facilities were more likely to undertake the development of nuclear weapons than nations which possess civilian nuclear power facilities. Thus arguably the spread of nuclear power generation facilities may lead to a decline in nuclear proliferation risks.

In this post I intend to consider other arguments which Jacobson uses to justify the exclusion of nuclear power from future energy plans. A second part of Jacobson's argument for the exclusion of nuclear power claims that wind generated electricity leads to significantly lower CO2 emissions than would be the case with nuclear generated electricity. Jaacobson claims:

nuclear energy results in 9-25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy, in part due to emissions from uranium refining and transport and reactor construction (e.g., Lenzen, 2008; Sovacool, 2008), in part due to the longer time required to site, permit, and construct a nuclear plant compared with a wind farm (resulting in greater emissions from the fossil-fuel electricity sector during this period; Jacobson, 2009), and in part due to the greater loss of soil carbon due to the greater loss in vegetation resulting from covering the ground with nuclear facilities relative to wind turbine towers, which cover little ground. Although recent construction times worldwide are shorter than the 9-year median construction times in the U.S. since 1970 (Koomey and Hultman, 2007), they still averaged 6.5 years worldwide in 2007 (Ramana, 2009), and this time must be added to the site permit time (~3 years in the U.S.) and construction permit and issue time (~3 years). The overall historic and present range of nuclear planning-to-operation times for new nuclear plants has been 11-19 years, compared with an average of 2-5 years for wind and solar installations (Jacobson, 2009). Feiveson (2009) observes that “because wind turbines can be installed much faster than could nuclear, the cumulative greenhouse gas savings per capital invested appear likely to be greater for wind” (p. 67).

A careful examination of Jacobson's statement will reveal many problems. Jacobson makes claims about the relative emissions of CO2 from wind and nuclear power (9-25 times more carbon emissions). in support of this assertion Jacobson references papers by Lenzen and Sovacool. Both papers offer meta analyses of the life cycle CO2 emissions of CO2 by nuclear power. Both papers reach similar conclusions, which reflect an estimated life cycle CO2 emissions from nuclear power that is several times greater than that found by Dones. in several previous posts, most recently "Honor the Truth" (December 26, 2010), I set out the criticisms by Dones and others that studies of the lifecycle CO2 emissions associated with nuclear power reported by Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen and Philip Smith contain numerous and serious flaws. Thus the "Stormsmith" CO2 emissions estimates cannot be considered reliable. Dones wrote that "Stormsmith's"

results are definitively outliers.

Yet both Lenzen and Sovacool rely heavily on "Stormsmith" for their conclusions. At any rate neither Lenzen nor Sovacool support Jacobson's claim of nuclear lifecycle emissions 25 time greater than wind lifecycle emissions, and indeed not even "Stormsmith" supports anything close to this claim. Where does the 25 times claim then come from? In his paper Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security, Jacobson wrote:

In this section, the CO2-equivalent (CO2e) emissions (emissions of CO2 plus those of other greenhouse gases multiplied by their global warming potentials) of each energy technology are reviewed. We also examine CO2e emissions of each technology due to planning and construction delays relative to those from the technology with the least delays (opportunity-cost emissions), leakage from geological formations of CO2 sequestered by coal-CCS, and the emissions from the burning of cities resulting from nuclear weapons explosions potentially resulting from nuclear energy expansion.

The inclusion of carbon from burning cities ignited by nuclear weapons as nuclear power emissions, explains the 25 times carbon emission claim, but it is wacky, and needless to say utterly without scientific validity.

Even if "Stormsmith" could be considered a reliable source, Jacobson derives arguments from the Lenzen and Sovacool papers that cannot be supported from those papers. First a meta analysis is not a scientific study, and its conclusions are not scientific. Secondly, meta analysis can be manipulated to produce highly biased results. The Wikipedia observes:

The most severe weakness and abuse of meta-analysis often occurs when the person or persons doing the meta-analysis have an economic, social,or political agenda such as the passage or defeat of legislation. Those persons with these types of agenda have a high likelihood to abuse meta-analysis due to personal bias. For example, researchers favorable to the author's agenda are likely to have their studies "cherry picked" while those not favorable will be ignored or labeled as "not credible". In addition, the favored authors may themselves be biased or paid to produce results that support their overall political, social, or economic goals in ways such as selecting small favorable data sets and not incorporating larger unfavorable data sets.

If a meta-analysis is conducted by an individual or organization with a bias or predetermined desired outcome, it should be treated as highly suspect or having a high likelihood of being "junk science". From an integrity perspective, researchers with a bias should avoid meta-analysis and use a less abuse-prone (or independent) form of research.

There is abundant evidence that both the Sovacool and the Lanzen studies were biased. Both studies rely heavily on "Stormsmith" despite Dones's critique of "Stormsmith's" methods and conclusions. There is added evidence that Sovacool was engaged in cherry picking, he found fault with most of the peer reviewed studies of life cycle emissions from nuclear power, and excluded them from his analysis. Thus neither Sovacool nor Lanzen offer credible evidence on the life cycle emissions of nuclear power plants, and both studies are likely to reflect the biases of their authors. Thus Jacobson lacks credible sources for his assertions about the life cycle CO2 emissions of nuclear power plants, and therefor there are no credible data to make comparisons between the lifecycle CO2 emissions of wind and nuclear.

But what of Jacobson's claims about soil loss in connection with nuclear facilities? Uranium mines use a variety of mining technologies, and in a variety of settings, but in the United States all uranium mines use a technology called in situ leaching. In situ leaching does not disturb the soil, thus uranium mining in the United States cannot be regarded as creating a soil loss problem. Underground mines in other countries do not, for the most part create soil loss problems. New Canadian uranium mines tend to be underground. Many surface open pit uranium mines are located in desert country where soil loss to uranium mining would lead to only a very limited loss of ground covering vegetation, hence an insignificant impact on the global carbon cycle. Further, a review of recent mining practices indicates that played out open pit uranium mines are used for tailings disposal, thus limiting the impact of uranium mining tailings on ground covering vegetation and the carbon cycle. Of the world's 10 largest uranium mines only three, representing 20% of the global uranium mining total were open pit mines. Of those three, two, representing over 11% of the global uranium mining total, are located in desert environments. The number of in situ mines and their percentage of the global uranium mining total is rapidly increasing, and is currently running at 32% of the uranium mining total.

Uranium mills and uranium separation facilities occupy a tiny fraction of the global industrial infrastructure. Thus arguments attributing a displacement of ground cover so large as to impact the global carbon cycles are simply absurd. Finally reactor have small footprints. Most land dedicated to reactors constitute buffers designed to protect the public from any possible release of gaseous and volatile radioisotopes in the event of a reactor accident. The soil in reactor buffers is typically undisturbed, and and ground cover assumes natural forms. The developed area of reactor facilities is relatively small and thus the impact of even thousands of power producing reactors on the global carbon cycle through vegetation displacement would be insignificant.

Thus Jacobson's claim that nuclear power plants

nuclear energy results in 9-25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy,

is partially based on arguably unscientific and bias sources and partially based on an highly exaggerated account of the impact of the nuclear power cycle on ground cover vegetation and the global carbon cycle. Even the sources

What of Jacobson's claim that

The overall historic and present range of nuclear planning-to-operation times for new nuclear plants has been 11-19 years, . . .

Jacobson exaggerates the time scale required to build a large number of reactors. The French decision to convert its electrical system too nuclear power was made in 1973. The whole project was completed by 1992 19 years after the decision was made.

The French example is appropriate here because France was able to convert 3/4ths of its electrical industry to nuclear power very quickly. One group of 34 900 MW French reactors was completed between 1977 and 1988. A second group of 20 1300 MW reactors was completed between 1985 and 1992.

French nuclear power reactors

Class	Reactor	MWe net, each	Commercial operation
900 MWe	Blayais 1-4	910	12/81, 2/83, 11/83, 10/83
	Bugey 2-3	910	3/79, 3/79
	Bugey 4-5	880	7/79-1/80
	Chinon B 1-4	905	2/84, 8/84, 3/87, 4/88
	Cruas 1-4	915	4/84, 4/85, 9/84, 2/85
	Dampierre 1-4	890	9/80, 2/81, 5/81, 11/81
	Fessenheim 1-2	880	12/77, 3/78
	Gravelines B 1-4	910	11/80, 12/80, 6/81, 10/81
	Gravelines C 5-6	910	1/85, 10/85
	Saint-Laurent B 1-2	915	8/83, 8/83
	Tricastin 1-4	915	12/80, 12/80, 5/81, 11/81
1300 MWe	Belleville 1 & 2	1310	6/88, 1/89
	Cattenom 1-4	1300	4/87, 2/88, 2/91, 1/92
	Flamanville 1-2	1330	12/86, 3/87
	Golfech 1-2	1310	2/91, 3/94
	Nogent s/Seine 1-2	1310	2/88, 5/89
	Paluel 1-4	1330	12/85, 12/85, 2/86, 6/86
	Penly 1-2	1330	12/90, 11/92
	Saint-Alban 1-2	1335	5/86, 3/87
N4 - 1450 MWe	Chooz B 1-2	1500	12/96, 1999
	Civaux 1-2	1495	1999, 2000
	Total (58)	63,130

(Source World Nuclear Association)

it would appear then that France offers a model to any nation which wished to rapidly convert its electrical generating system to post carbon energy sources. It should be noted that French reactors are as safe as reactors anywhere in the world, so the rapid development of nuclear power in France was not accomplished at the cost of nuclear safety.

It should also be added that newer reactor construction technologies have emerged since the French Reactor building program was completed. These include factory construction of reactor modules, with field assembly of modules, and the introduction of time and labor saving construction/assembly equipment. In addition, refinements of reactor construction planning have emerged from asian countries such as South Korea and Japan. This improvement in reactor construction planning has significantly lowered reactor construction costs. China has adopted the best construction practices with a consequent decrease in construction costs of 40% compared to the construction practices of French reactor constructors. Any attempt to convert the American energy economy to post carbon nuclear power should take advantage of all possible cost and time saving technologies and techniques.

Thus Jacobson lacks objective, scientifically valid grounds for his a priori exclusion of nuclear power from consideration as a future post carbon energy source. He objects to nuclear power on the basis of

* Nuclear proliferation

* Nuclear CO2 emissions

* Nuclear effects f the Global Carbon Cycle

* The time scale of nuclear construction

My conclusions are that none of these objections have merit.

* The evidence from the study of actual instances of nuclear proliferation suggests the spread of nuclear power appears to inhibit rather than encourage nuclear proliferation.

* Jacobson uses biased and inaccurate sources in making his claims about nuclear CO2 emissions.

* Jacobson goes beyond his sources and concocts highly unscientific arguments that extend well beyond any scientific evidence, in order to justify his exaggerated carbon emissions estimate.

* Jacobson greatly exaggerates the impact of nuclear facilities on ground cover vegetation and the Global carbon cycle.

* France was able to convert 75% of its electrical industry to nuclear powered generation in the same time scale that Jacobson claims is required to build a single nuclear plant.

One must conclude that Jacobson's anti-nuclear arguments suffer from confirmation bias. Jacobson simply ignores sources that contradict his viewpoint. When supportive sources are available, Jacobson cherry picks, but his claim that

nuclear energy results in 9-25 times more carbon emissions than wind energy,

is not truly supported even by cherry picking. Thus Jacobson's exclusion from consideration of nuclear power as a post carbon energy source is not supported by judgements that can in any way be characterized as scientific and is the products of a personal bias.