It’s (past) time, once again for the Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. As usual, civilised discussion and no coarse language.
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John Quiggin 
@Ernestine Gross
LOL – but Im too tired. I started a new job today and earned my keep well. Saved the company 4791.56 by finding a duplicated payment – one of them to the wrong customer. What a windfall on your first day. The owner thinks Im wonderful (I am…. but I told him “dont get too excited – Im spending it your accountants charges – your books are in a mess!).
@Freelander
LOL Freelander – you are killing me with laughter…!!
This time you labled the content of your posts correctly.
Good one, Freelander.
Can I remind everyone to keep it civil
@Ernestine Gross
Yes JQ- sorry for any shenanigans – but Freelander is actually being very funny (and so is Ernestine)! Its hard not to laugh at the costings of the pro nuclear arguments. There is always the unintended uncosted consequence (unfortunately no miracle).
I dont really think there was any ill will intended.
moving on to good news for those of us who support sortition style models of organisation, here is something from PhysicaA
The Peter Principle Revisited: A Computational Study
http://arxiv.org/abs/0907.0455
@iain
The link you point to is a series of propositions rather than a detailed account of the GHG implications of various packages of measures.
Doubtless, much of what Diesendorf proposes here makes good sense and are measures I’d strong endorse, but that doesn’t entail believing that these will reduce net Australian GHGs by anything like the 60% by 2020 he proposes as necesssary and still less that this could be applied on a world scale with similar effect.
The other problem is that such measures are “one-off”. While they would cut growth in per capita emissions by some percentage (let’s call that x% since we don’t really know what it is) that’s all you get. Growth in the demand for power (and for food, which is also very GHG intensive) continues. While it reduces GHG-intensity it doesn’t enable the world to retire and not replace energy capacity. It’s very clear over the next few years, particularly if the area of arable land shrinks due to coastal inundation, desertification and population grows etc that more energy will be required to pump/desalinate water, produce fertiliser, pesticide, transport food, keep it refrigerated etc.
No amount of using solar water heating or resort to solar panels or wind farms will change that.
Useful information for future discussions
http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6126
Unless you’re engaged in derision in which case just carry on as you were.
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
It’s possible to use derision in a civil tone.
And just to underscore the difference between what Iain and Earnestine were proposing via Diesendorf, here’s Mackay offering up a discussion of the energy options and trade offs for the UK. Mackay is currently advising the UK government directly.
Those who wish to make the ncase for renewables in Australia really need to address the critique by Ted Trainer, 2008 RENEWABLE ENERGY – CANNOT SUSTAIN AN ENERGY-INTENSIVE SOCIETY.
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
Don’t you agreed that stupidity is a most uncivil form of (unintended) derision?
Freelander – you can stop at any time. Or then again maybe not.
No not really. Derision is disrespectful pretty much by definition. It is possible to disagree with somebody and to regard them as wrong or misguided in a civil manner but that isn’t derision.
As an aside derision occurs at the ALS blog but it is actively discourages by the administrators. I’ve also intervened in the past to halt derision directed at John Quiggin via the ALS blog even though I disagree with Johns worldview. I’m now less sure about whether I would bother in future.
@jquiggin
John,
I had a look at the first references Fran Barlow provided @12, p4 of this thread. I am not sure whether to be amused or to be alarmed. Consider the line
“Even in the best regions PV provides no energy for up to 15 hours on a hot and clear summer day.” Source: Ted Trainer, 2008 RENEWABLE ENERGY – CANNOT SUSTAIN AN ENERGY-INTENSIVE SOCIETY, UNSW, referenced by Fran Barlow.
There is a Dr Trainer, School of Social Work at UNSW. https://www.dir.unsw.edu.au/cgi-bin/search.pl?person=Trainer&soundex=on
Trainer, F. E. (T.), (2006), The Simpler Way website, http://ssis.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/
https://www.dir.unsw.edu.au/cgi-bin/search.pl?person=Trainer&soundex=on. This web-site works. Others referenced in Fran’s article under T. Trainer don’t.
I don’t know whether Dr Trainer knows about Fran’s reference. Be it as it may, I object to Fran Barlow integrating any part of version of my name into her stories.
PS: If some people want to write for the pleasure of writing then Freelander’s question seems a good one.
If advocates of renewables need to answer Ted Trainer’s criticisms, then presumably advocates of nuclear do as well, since, according the the document Fran has linked to, Trainer concludes that nuclear is not a solution either. If the summary is accurate, Trainer’s view appears to be that economic growth must cease.
@Ernestine Gross
I think the things that people like Plimer and Lord High Admiral Monckton say, constitute derision; although they do augment their stupidity with ordinary garden variety derision as well.
On today the birthday of Martin Luther King – pls consider viewing the video at the URL below – on the real man
http://leftfocus.blogspot.com/2010/01/on-his-birthday-jan-15th-trying-not-to.html
This video celebrates the life of Martin Luther King Jr – but digs deeper to unearth a radical leader – a leader whose radicalism has often beem obscured by the praise heaped upon him by the mainstream.
@Ernestine Gross
Ernestine..Fran is slightly smarter than your average troll but the sheer persistence with which she pushes the pro nuclear barrow and drops meaningless references (incorrect at that) spell only one thing for me Ernestine…Ive had my suspicians for quite some time. People like this use communication strategies to make others think they have some knowledge
Alas…they have an agenda..not knowledge…but Ill use the word pro nuclear concern troll. I think you know what I mean….but in case you dont EG …you guessed it yourself already. Half of what she posts is utter rubbish.
@Ernestine Gross
Is my post above derision or the truth?
Yes, I have also noticed Fran Barlow’s own goal.
My point is that I doubt the authenticity of the paper referenced by Fran Barlow. This article contains many statements which I wouldn’t swallow without verification. I picked the simplest one-liner I could find easily to illustrate my point, namely “Even in the best regions PV provides no energy for up to 15 hours on a hot and clear summer day.”
Do you know any locations on earth which belongs to the ‘best regions’ for Photovoltaic electricity generation which has only 9 hours of daylight (24-15) on ‘hot’ and ‘clear’ summer days? I don’t, even if I allow for differing local notions of ‘hot’ (eg 25 degrees in Helsinki, 45 at Cobar, 35 in Singapore, 35 in Melbourne, …). Dust storms, volcanic ash, or bush fire haze do not match ‘clear’.
Would you go to a School of Social Work at any university for your primary source of information on any question regarding energy sources and environmental sustainability? I wouldn’t even though I value the work of social workers, particularly when they have to deal with the consequences of ‘concerned social advocates’ (with or without alleged employment as high school teachers), who mess with young people’s heads in the blog sphere.
@Alice
I haven’t found one bit in Fran Barlow’s ‘stuff’ which is credible. The funny bit is, I gave her credit for having made a joke at my expense with her translation of my misspelling of Dr Diesendorf’s name. But upon checking, she got even that wrong. The English word for the German “berg” is mountain and not “peak” as she had written.
I had hoped after John Quiggin’s interception this thread would die off – no chance. Fortunately I am not busy at the moment. (Hope your job continues to go well and you have a good time.)
@Freelander
I watched Plimer on ABC. Sad case; a disgrace really for the title Professor.
@Tim Macknay
Blckquote>If advocates of renewables need to answer Ted Trainer’s criticisms, then presumably advocates of nuclear do as well, since, according the the document Fran has linked to, Trainer concludes that nuclear is not a solution either …
That’s what is refreshing about Trainer. He’s actually far more logical and consistent than most advocates of renewables who really want fossil fuels to stop. He asserts that this side of dismantling the usages of consumer society, you can’t get rid of fossil fuels. Now plainly, I disagree with him about the potential of nuclear power, (his calculus about EROEI on nuclear relies on the flawed van Leeuwen and Smith and he is plainly not considering Fast spectrum either) but if we are not to have resort to nuclear power then it’s either Trainer’s approach (renewables + small scale non-energy-intensive society) or at best a modified business as usual with fossil fuels.
Ultimately Trainer is quite right though — with renewables you would need massive redundant capacity and a parallel system of nuclear/coal to run societies operating roughly like ours. If Trainer is right and nuclear and coal can’t do the job then renewables can’t either — hence his conclusion.
Trainer’s most serious problem though is that he doesn’t outline how you can seel a sufficiently large share of Australia’s or the world’s populace on the idea of abandoning mucgh of the lifestyle they’ve come to expect and likewise persuading the nearly 3 billion who don’t have food and water security and dream of living as we do now that this is a pipe dream — especially when it is first world societies who have largely authored the problem.
So here’s where advocacy for renewables as replacement for fossil fuels leads — to (at best) an acceptance of a slightly tarted up b-a-u scenario in which GHG intensity falls slightly at very considerable expense but by near century’s end the world’s ecosystem services are now on an irretrievable path to collapse. The coal is largely gone and so is the oil. We are tracking 3-6 degrees of warming, and the world’s 9 billion people or more are squabbling over the last arable land and mineral resources. But in the meantime we can go all cognitively dissonant now because at least we managed to keep nuclear power to a minimum and by 2080 those of us responsible for that will all have long before drawn our dying breaths.
That doesn’t sound like an appealing scenario even if I won’t be about to see it.
PS: And for the record Ernestine, while berg also does mean mountain in spoken German it also is used metaphorically to mean “peak” as in the zenith of a line graph. To “break the back of some problem” is rendered in German as über den Berg sein (to be literally over the hump, back, peak, hill etc). I actually studied German and lived there. Of course Die Spitze is also possible.
@Fran Barlow
Fran, the reason why I pointed to the link was because you did not explain why you thought Diesendorf’s “Greenhouse solutions with sustainable energy” was incorrect. You complained of having to re-read 400 pages to summarise his position.
I pointed to a summary of his arguments to highlight why your “summary” of Diesendorf was considerably offtrack. Obviously, the substantial version of his power point is contained in the work he references at the end of this file.
Again, I challenge anyone on this thread to point out any significant error in Diesnedorf’s work “Greenhouse solutions with sustainable energy” (without resorting to one or two inconseqential quotes from Brook’s site, or resorting to the view that Diesendorf does not offer a substantive input).
If there is one nuclear proponent in this thread that can do this, I would seriously consider revising my opinion.
I am not aware of any significant flaw in Diesendorf’s analysis (besides, obviously, the valid points that Salient Green and nanks have made, which most people on this thread generally agree with).
Alice & EG – what are your thoughts regarding proposes Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors. Do they address any of your concerns about nuclear energy?
Proposed not proposes.
Fran @4/12
No one has to address Ted Trainer’s idle thoughts, they are total crap coming from someone who knows jack**** This set off the filter and forced me to edit it. Please avoid coarse language in future, or I will just hit delete and save myself time – JQ about engineering (Faculty of Arts at a quick glance). This also frames 7/8’s of Australia’s environmental problem, engineers do not go into politics.
For what little it is worth a technology partner and I are currently assessing current proven technology that will enable us to put 10Kw of solar power (actually up to 20Kw depending on climate and dwelling energy requirements) into every new house for as little as $A15,000. And the material content in this system is neglible in real terms. We came upon this opportunity quite by chance as a result of a conversation which led to some words from which a google search delivered this connection. In principle this system applied to every dwelling solves 2/3’s of Australia’s new energy infrastructure needs (not that that would happen). On the liquid fuels front we have promising technology to produce Algal Oil, which is currently snagged by the small amount of CO2 in the air (.38%), we are looking for CO2 concentrator technology. During the holiday break I aided another technologist who is working on a biomass project for which he has a patent and which looks extremely promising (no great science involved just a different way of perceiving existing resources).
There are solutions. Simple solutions. It simply requires determination and insight to grasp these solutions to solve the problems that we face. In the engineering world this is going on in every corner. By contrast, in politics we have sneaky people eeking out self serving, greedy hidden agendas.
I watched the Air Crash Investigation of the JAL123 accident last night. I remember when this accident occurred and I remember what was published at the time. But I was horrified to learn from the more detailed account of the accident that many people survived the crash, and a US helicopter arrived over the crash site immediately after the accident and was preparing to lower a rescuer to the surface. But because of infighting between Japanese rescue services the US (military) helicopter was order back to its base and Japanese resuers did not arrive until the next day and by foot. Consequently there were only 4 survivors instead of many more. To my thinking there are many close parallels between the handling of the JAL accident and the way climate change is being addressed. The Ted Trainers of the world fit into the negative influences in this scenario.
Fluoride not flouride.
Small keyboard on the iPhone. Many typos. Sorry.
Nice try, Terje, but no luck.
I could write down a list of questions which would be of interest from an economic perspective. I would do that in a research group environment with people who have expertise in the relevant natural sciences. If I were to write these down here, I might run the risk of getting replies from Fran Barlow and co.
PS: For the record, I don’t agree with Fran Barlow’s approach to avoiding having to admit to have made a mistake regarding ‘mountain’ vs ‘peak’. If she were to ask me kindly, I would explain.
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
Liquid Flouride Thorium Reactors? But where do you get those useful by-products – plutonium and depleted uranium (which have so many handy uses)?
No, liquid flouride thorium. Simply not good enough!
Besides, could be a bit dangerous. What if the liquid leaked?
TerjeP
I think people may be getting fed up with comments about how some new concept for nuclear reactors solves this or that issue or concern.
Trainer may be right – the problem is economic growth. However I think the problem is worse than this.
The real problem is twofold – one, the undeveloped world seeking, rightfully, the same standard of living in the OECD economies – two, population growth (outside China).
Of course there is no solution to this unless we get rid of growth-based economics.
There’s your problem.
@Chris Warren
This is the most significant of your claims yet it is a thought you don’t develop. If you are right, then what you are advocating (assuming you want a “solution”) is a sharp reduction in the standard of living of the citizens of the world as a whole, especially since worl population will probably be 23-25% higher in 2050. It’s also most unlikely that that reduction will be evenly borne, meaning that an even larger proiportion of the owlrd’s populace will be seriously deprived of the necessities of life.
In such circumstances can one expect that people who are on the margins will simply accept their fate? That would seem very doubtful. Can we expect that they would challenge those that had resources or arable land, water, food etc for a share of them, violently if necessary? Almost certainly? Can we expect that those that had them would simply hand them over? Unlikely.
“Powering down” is not an option without massive human costs, particularly when one must at least grow world production of goods and services by about the same as world population growth simply to avoid reducing living standards. Yes there’s some scope for greater efficiency, reduction in waste etc but if the world’s population grows by 1.5% you are going to need all of that in goods and services growth less what people are willing to go without. So reversal of world growth without sharp coterminous declines in world population would be disastrous and that has little to do with western desires for flat screen TVs.
It’s worth noting that a number of the most significant nuclear weapons states — China, Russia, Pakistan, India are going to be seriously impacted by climate change. What happens to the operation of that 1960 water treaty India and Pakistan signed if rivers fed by glacial melt delivering water to Pakistan stop delivering it and make dry land irrigation there much less feasible? And in what part of Indioa are the headwaters of the rivers they’d be looking at? Go check out a map.
This is the real problem — not that people can make nuclear weapons (and other WMD) but that circumstances might conspire to make them think deploying them would be sensible or that they had little to lose. Talk of asking the third world to accept less so we first worlders can keep having more won’t fly. And few here in the first world will accept much less.
This side of all of us accepting a quantity of ecosystem service comparable to that in the middle ages, with all that entails, I see no prospect at all of renewables playing a significant role in the future. The only circumstance in which that might occur would be post the kind of roiling late century disasters that would impose changes on humanity that would not have been politically saleable. Even then though, beggar-my-neighbour style policies behind culturally circled wagons would seem more likely. Can there be any doubt then that nuclear power would be de rigueur?
And that would surely be the tragic irony of today’s anti-nuclear fulmination. In order to foreclose a frivolous prospect of some local contamination we lay the foundations for a catastrophic setback to humanity’s fortunes in which nuclear weapons and other WMD are actually deployed.
@Chris Warren
I totally agree with your comments to Terje
“I think people may be getting fed up with comments about how some new concept for nuclear reactors solves this or that issue or concern.”
Naturally your comment sets off the sort of pro nuclear prolific rant that Fran excels in as above.
Utter meaningless jargon like this comment of Fran’s
“This side of all of us accepting a quantity of ecosystem service comparable to that in the middle ages, with all that entails, I see no prospect at all of renewables playing a significant role in the future. The only circumstance in which that might occur would be post the kind of roiling late century disasters that would impose changes on humanity that would not have been politically saleable. Even then though, beggar-my-neighbour style policies behind culturally circled wagons would seem more likely. Can there be any doubt then that nuclear power would be de rigueur? ”
and Fran claims to be a modestly educated teacher?. “quantity of ecosystem service?” “beggar-my-neighbour style policies behind culturally circled wagons””anti-nuclear fulmination” “a frivolous prospect of some local contamination “??
Nuclear contamination is a frivolous concern?????? – I dont think so.
The only circled wagons are yours Fran.
@Alice
You continually hold yourself up to ridicule Alice. You can’t dismiss any of the above so you ignore it, with the exception of the one thing which you misunderstand.
Concern wasn’t frivolous, but the prospect of contamination was.
quantity of ecosystem service
How much service the ecosystem provides humans — i.e. power, water, nutrient, shelter, other amenity
beggar-my-neighbour style policies
culturally circled wagons the idea that the needs of ‘foreigners’ are trivial compared to those of one’s own cultural community
anti-nuclear fulmination“To issue a thunderous verbal attack or denunciation” + against nuclear (power)
Anything else I can help you with?
Fran
Your reinterpretation of what I said was uncontrolled and excessive.
People who try to impute their own ill-considered spectres of:
“sharp reduction in the standard of living of the citizens of the world as a whole”, or of
“larger proiportion of the owlrd’s populace will be seriously deprived of the necessities of life”, or of
“asking the third world to accept less so we first worlders can keep having more”, or of
some “catastrophic setback to humanity’s fortunes in which nuclear weapons and other WMD are actually deployed”,
are pissing in the wind.
Be very clear – none of the above misinterpretations are consistent with my views, and in any case, all are immature and unworthy exaggerations.
If you want to do a threat analysis, then please consider the threats that arise if:
1) the rate of temperature increase continues due to greenhouse gas concentrations plateauing
2) the rate of temperature increase itself accelerates due to greenhouse gas concentrations rising.
Controlling populations may produce various second effects, but whatever harm may arise will be many magnitudes less than would occur under 2) [above].
@Chris Warren
Chris — I very much doubt that you or Alice or any of the other advocates of a renewables-only/mainly strategy are contemplating the scenarios I raised. That’s the problem. You are under the impression that some combination of less consumption in the west on luxuries plus renewables is consistent with living much as we do now and allow the developing world to live similarly. It isn’t.
It’s not just CO2 with which the world’s economies have been profligate. It’s water too, and yet as you and I know large swathes of humanity do not live remotely as we would accept living.
The basic thing is this. To will the end is to will the means. It’s not enough to have a vision of how the world might be. One must have a plausible vehicle for getting there or abandon the vision as unrealistic. Your vision is simply not realistic, but to the extent people pitch it, they de facto support the consequences of making renewables the only acceptable alternative to coal/fossil fuels. Most people will always imagine that fossil fuels are the lesser evil, until it’s so obvious they aren’t that it’s too late.
Nothing short of stabilising @450 ppmv ASAP (ideally no later than 2030) will work to avoid disaster (and even that is not necessarily enough). That can’t in practice be done using renewables. Some countries might track pretty close to the right number with lots of renewables and lots of expense but enough won’t to make it impossible. If we don’t keep the permafrost then that CH4 and CO2 alone will push us over. 2 Degrees C is probably too much but more would be a disaster.
To do that we need rapid decarbonisation and without nuclear on a very large scale, it is not going to happen. Australia can free-ride for a while but most countries will have to go this way.
@Fran Barlow
Fran….there is nothing you can help me with. You speak nonsense. Consumption is the cause..you dont paste over an essential problem of excessive consumption of crap that is causing massive emmissions by developing and applying an equally dangerous technology as the one currently in existence.
You are part of the “how can I keep consuming cheap crap” with less damage to the environment school…ah ha Nukes – great bigh ugly nuclear reactors that 20 years from now threaten to degrade their infrastructure? How much has Telstra invested in maintaining its lines? So lets get the private sector to build them and then degrade them unless the guvmint helps bail them out. I can see it all…..its a CON. Nuclear is a massive con.
But you dont want to recycle. You wont consider solar. You wont consider wind power. You have no aptitude for any sustainable energy source consideration.
There is nothing you can help me with Fran Barlow.
There is something massive you can help yourself with though….broadening your narrow one track pro nuke mind.
@Chris Warren
pissing in the wind is right Chris.
Furthermore Fran – its really interesting that of all the countries that now have nuclear power – it just so happens that those who use the most nuclear power appear also have the most nuclear weapons storage facilities. Im sure thats no accident.
http://archive.greenpeace.org/wmd/
Creepy Fran – you pro nukers. Just creepy.
@Alice
It’s also the case that the three states most likely to use nuclear weapons (DPRK, Pakistan, Israel) have no nuclear power industry.
@Alice
Nonsense. I just don’t pretend they are part of the industrial-scale answer.
You don’t want to be helped. That’s a different thing.
For the record, I’d favour waste being stored here as it is somewhat safer here than in most places, and with 4th Gen, we could use it as fuel.
Alice – I think you’re completely wrong to accuse Fran of not considering solar. She has considered it, as have I and lots of others have also. I wish it were a scalable solution that would solve our energy and emission concerns. I studied photovoltaics in final year electrical engineering because I held great hope for the technology. I still do but not as a replacement for fossil fuel. It is neat technology as is solar thermal but they don’t cut it as a core energy solution due to poor capacity factor and transmission costs. You can claim otherwise but the detailed analysis (which you refuse to grapple with) does not back you up.
In the great scheme of things it doesn’t much matter what Australia does. We can stick with fossil fuels, go nuclear or flush our economy down the tube. There isn’t many votes in nuclear power but there is even less in tanking the economy so I suspect our future will be based on burning fossil fuels.
@fran barlow
“at least grow world production of goods and services by about the same as world population growth simply to avoid reducing living standards.”
I can’t see how this is true at all Fran – it would have to be the case that all goods and services now produced are necessary to ‘living standards’. i would agree with the comment if ‘living standards’ was replaced by ‘levels of production and consumption’. However as you know there is a diminishing return between increasing consumption and increasing quality of life once basic needs+ a bit are met. We can easily reduce consumption without impacting quality of life at all – in fact we would increase quality of life if consumption of, say, cigarettes, heroin, Rush Limbaugh, leaf-blowers, etc decreased without any replacement
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
Right Terje…you and Fran dont even make room for sustainable energy anywhere in your arguments. You are both pro nukers which I consider narrow minded…anything to keep your own conumption going at levels unprecedented in history. Thats tge real “beggar thy neighbour attitude”. I dont object to buclear because in the short term its cleaner than coal and I (we – Fran and Terje) or anyone else doesnt have to address the consumption problem and wind is used as supplement and neither is solar in one of the sunniest countries on the planet.
As if I fall for the …
“Oh Alice – I know Fran has considered solar… and we are so very very sorry but it wont help but really we are well meaning people and you should just swallow nuclear even thogh its a bitter ugly pill – we know – but its all we have got – boo hoo” routine…
I dont want to be rude Terje but its you and Fran that have your collective heads in a bucket of sand and are having problems seeing a way out….
Lots of spelling mistakes but Terje and Fran have annoyed me now.
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
And this Terje …this statement of yours
“In the great scheme of things it doesn’t much matter what Australia does. ”
Is pure “beggar thy neighbour” when it comes down to it. The very thing Fran was complaining about, you both excel at. Fran is a troll and you have jumped on her bandwagon
Terje – you have done it time and time again in here… pushed the denialist no intervention vision – only hyere in this thread – its replace filthy dirty with dirty and dangerous. JQ has noted it, many others have noted it…you may be one of the smarter libertarians but you know its wrong Terje. You are just being damn difficult and doing the wrong thing for mankind.
If you have conscience it should be biting you on the bum right now.
@Fran Barlow
and she (Fran – the prolific pro nuke post deluger) would prefer (nuclear) waste being stored here in Australia.
I dont know about nuclear waste but there is a lot of waste being stored right here in this thread courtesy of Fran.
Complete waste of time in fact.
Alice – you havn’t added anything other than a statement of anger and discust. I’m pleased you have human emotions but I don’t see a lot of point discussing them here. Try phoning a friend.
@TerjeP (say Tay-a)
Terje – disgust is right.