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John Quiggin 
Abbott probably likes the place so much because it is a citadel of climate change denial and many of the people in the place are as silly as a cut choock, exactly like Abbott.
@gregh
https://johnquiggin.com/
JQ used to write about them, and debate them in their earlier incarnation, the Industry Commission. And I must say, the place has really gone down the drain since it was the IC. Might be because the PC has only been run by one chairman since it was created, a stolid and uninspired career bureaucrat, who has spent most of his life in and around the institution and its predecessors, who is not much of a thinker or manager, and who hasn’t really done anything anywhere that would distinguish him. The place has really deteriorated particularly over the last eight years or so. It is also a dumping ground for senior people who are not any good and have nowhere to go. If they have someone who is not much chop, and they need to move them in the public service or from elsewhere to a place where they think they won’t do any harm, they will often make them a Commissioner or a Head of Office or something. They used to have some good Commissioners but now I doubt they have more than one.
@Freelander
thanks freelander
This might give you an idea of the calibre of some of the people they have had as Commissioners.
http://www.erisk.net/erisk7/article/462249/acil_tasman_cyber_scandal_implicates_chair_matt_doyle_acting_ceo_paul/
Until about 1998 Jeff Rae was a Commissioner at the IC/PC.
Of course, that sort of behaviour is not a career breaker if you are in the nice little rightwing crazy club. For those with the club gold pass, its before the court, rap over the knuckles and on your way.
This is where Mr Rae is since…
http://www.itsglobal.net/ourpeople.asp
And the sort of company he keeps:
http://www.ipa.org.au/people/jeffrey-rae
Spouting the typical nonsense. Great work if you can get it.
If you ever what a cheap laugh you should read one of the chairman’s ‘speeches’. Pick almost any of them and they are cliché riven tripe. You would think someone would be able to choose a better speechwriter. In a typical speech, there is something like a traditonal exhortation ‘not to throw the baby out with the bathwater’, that is, in the face of an obvious major problem, don’t do anything, you may make it worse. But typically the baby has left the building. So there is no risk of the baby going out with any bathwater. The baby is long gone. Bathed, powered, put to sleep, grown to maturity, or even old age. For a recent example of avoiding losing baby, see what was decided about obscenely overpaid executives.
Don’t really know of any, but they used to be frequently critisized in the press years ago. For some reason not so much nowadays. Most people know about them by word of mouth and by people who have worked there telling stories about what complete nutters are inside the place.
@Chris Warren
Some housekeeping …
1. The browser on the machine I used was malfunctioning and not displaying links. Of that more below
2. I didn’t bother calculating your figure because
a) I knew it would still be in favour of nuclear
b) Waste is an imprecise descriptor — different waste involves different amounts of mass for different time periods and some of the worst waste will be reprocessed and so more power will result from existing waste mass. Some waste (spent fuel rods) are stored in water for a time. Giving you the water mass meant you could not object on detail.
Your cite was interesting. Here it is in full context.
10,000 Kg or 39.5 grams? Makes my point really.
@BilB
If, pace Trieb, we are decomissioning solar facilities every 25 years — that’s what he budgets for — how much concrete, glass and steel will need to be dumped or reused? How long will rooftop PV last operating at 100% or near efficiency?
Noted again you confuse nuclear weapons and nuclear power, knowing full well that this is the same as comparing conventional weapons and fireworks or the steel in planes and ships and solar facilities with the steel in bombs and grenades and tanks.
Much dogwhistling and FUD? You offer it in spades.
@Fran Barlow
Unfortunately you do have to calculate the impact over time because that is where the issue lies.
I don’t know why you just repeat the old CO2 canard – this time with emphasis.
Anyway, I can only just repeat what I have already told you:
So pointing, again and again to the point of boredom, the problem of CO2 emissions, does not relate to the nuclear issue.
You cannot convert a climate problem into a nuclear problem.
Anyway, we are probably too late now. I was very impressed at the ABC’s catalyst program, and if the rate of ice melt is as rapid as it appears, then the game is over.
We have not yet felt the real impact of global warming, from past CO2 concentrations as much of the incoming energy was thankfully absorbed in the latent heat required to melt ice (80 calories per gram).
Once the ice is gone, there is no more absorption of this latent heat (our current safety valve) and the climate immediately, for the first time, feels the full impact of incoming solar radiation – the globe cooks.
We are living in a fools paradise.
@Chris Warren
Because you want to “duck” the issue. (Sorry couldn’t resist) …
Unless you have an alternive and comparably ecologically and operationally efficient and effective way of supplying the power currently sourced in the chemical energy latent in fossil fuels, and so far you don’t, then non-resort to nuclear entails continuing resort to fossil fguels, with all that entails.
It’s no use pointing to notional output from experimental and pilot systems and extrapolating. Show me a place where one of these systems has abated any substantial quantity of fossil fuel capacity and will continue to do so with inccreasing effect into the future. In France, about 75% of their stationary energy is sourced from nuclear. If 60% of their vehicles went onto the grid to recharge 5 years from now, the system would have the capacity to handle it and rthey would become in effect near zero emissions vehicles.
Germany by contrast has just declared it can’t meet its Kyoto targets, despite having a renewables program substantially larger than ours. If they had not abandoned nuclear power, and had spent a fraction of the resources they have poured into renewables in ensuring nuclear power was rolled out, they’d be comfortably on track to do that.
That’s why nuclear is relevant here. Renewables can at best make a marginal contribution to GHG intensity abatement, and that at a a cost which is prohibitive and will therefore not be taken up on anything like the scale needed. In South Australia, they have installed about 900MW of wind since 2003. The capacity credit for that wind is just 8%. Effectively SA has paid 12.5 times the price per MW installed that wind costs because that is the most thing the wind system can guarantee. If, for arguments sake, the cost of these farms was $1.44billion then the per GW cost of the 72MW they promise to deliver is pro-rata about $20billion. You could have had at least 5 GW of bog standard capacity which would have delivered at about 90% i.e. most of SA’s energy demand.
Worse still, in order to get anywhere near even a 30% capacity credit with wind they would have to run some combination of OCGT and CCGT which would sharply increase the CO2 intensity of the wind resource. So expensive and polluting.
You say that it is too late to do anything effective to head off disaster. Tragically, I can’t be sure you’re wrong. I do know this though. If we do too little now there will be a disaster and I will be amongst those responsible. I won’t be as responsible as those who, like you, opposed effective mitigation and threw up their hands and said the game was over however.
Its OK Fran, I have a winning argument for you.
If the ice cap continues to melt then we can have as much nuclear waste as we like because once the ice caps are gone, it won’t matter any more.
Why worry about nuclear waste in 100 years time, if there are no ice caps?
The figures on ice melt given by Catalyst were astounding.
The earth cannot cope with incoming solar radiation at the existing rate of “Solar Constant”, (1.3kw/m) unless we can divert some of these kilowatts into icemelt at 10.75 litres of icemelt per Kw.
Actually – I hope someone can prove me wrong.
Fran, I have a winning argument for you.
If the ice cap continues to melt then we can have as much nuclear waste as we like because once the ice caps are gone, it won’t matter any more.
Why worry about nuclear waste in 100 years time, if there are no ice caps?
The figures on ice melt given by Catalyst were astounding.
The earth cannot cope with incoming solar radiation at the existing rate of “Solar Constant”, (1.3kw/m less 30% reflected) unless we can divert some of these kilowatts into icemelt at 10.75 litres of icemelt per Kw.
Actually – I hope someone can prove me wrong.
Sorry for the duplicate – but I got
server error 503, on first attempt.
@Chris Warren
You won’t find me downplaying the impact of increasing near surface insolation. You might also note that if the Arctic permafrost decomposes there’s a whole new shot of methane right there. It is very worrying.
And yes, if AGW is not abated, then worrying about the challenges of future generations handling nuclear hazmat will be moot. That’s why we have to act now to rapidly replace coal and oil and gas. Nuclear is the best thing we have.
Sidebar: Take a look at what is happening in the Gulf of Mexico right now … 21 barrells of oil per hour spewing out and headfing for the Louisiana coast … putting Exxon Valdez in the shade …
Sidebar 2: Interesting fact: the worlds 15 biggest freighters emit as much pollution as the world’s 760 million cars — if each of these 15 ships had an engine like the nuclear plant on the USS Nimitz, it would be like taking 760 million cars off the road.
“Germany by contrast has just declared it can’t meet its Kyoto targets, despite having a renewables program substantially larger than ours. If they had not abandoned nuclear power, and had spent a fraction of the resources they have poured into renewables in ensuring nuclear power was rolled out, they’d be comfortably on track to do that (Koyoto target).” Term in brackets added.
The above statement is totally uninteresting because:
1) Tthere is little point in having one country ‘track’ a target when others don’t.
2) What is the measured difference between the target and the actual? Source please.
3) I don’t appreciate the misinformation: “if they had not abandoned nuclear power”. Germany still has nuclear power stations. Their current policy is that they want to get rid of them. Slight difference, I’d say.
4) To the best of my knowledge, the German government as well as the population have, like most other societies, more than one objective.
I have one question. What is the proper name for your style of argumentation. Without wishing to be offensive, the only suitable descriptive name I can think of is verbal ping-pong without a time limit. Please advise.
@Fran Barlow
Yet another wild fact with no reference or basis.
You could be right as ships have to continuously displace their own weight of water throughout a voyage.
But you could be wrong too. Who knows?
No nuke pundit is proposing that we only go nuclear to the extent that coal and fossil alternatives are excluded. Pro-nukers have no program for decommissioning oil wells and coal mines. Their arguments are opportunistic exploitation of over population and global warming, to introduce, just as much global harm in the long run.
The nuclear industry is no doubt praying for more global warming and population increase, so they can come and supposedly save us with their profiteering, polluting, monopolistic, anti-democratic, secretive, corporations.
Fran,
Your like a cracked record
” Renewables can at best make a marginal contribution to GHG intensity abatement”
you keep saying this stuff over and over again.
South Australia has made major inroads on CO2 abatement, and are only just getting going, as was discussed at length in an earlier post.
Nuclear in Australia has achieved absolutely nothing other than add to all of the hot air. Nor will Nuclear do anything in Australia.
Ethanol has made huge reductions in CO2 emissions in Australia. Biomass for energy is a rapidly growing as an emissions reducing medium. There is plenty of it, you just do not want to believe that Renewables work.
It seems that the political will has resigned to getting on with the real work now that CPRS plaything has been put aside.
So, it seems I am not the only one who is bored with Fran’s verbal ping-pong-cracked record nuclear promotion stuff. This activity should be taxed, just like cigarettes. Was it not said (supported with evidence) that it was the tobacco industry which started the spin industry?
@Chris Warren
Health risks of shipping pollution have been ‘underestimated’One giant container ship can emit almost the same amount of cancer and asthma-causing chemicals as 50m cars, study finds
Confidential data from maritime industry insiders based on engine size and the quality of fuel typically used by ships and cars shows that just 15 of the world’s biggest ships may now emit as much pollution as all the world’s 760m cars. Low-grade ship bunker fuel (or fuel oil) has up to 2,000 times the sulphur content of diesel fuel used in US and European automobiles.
I could live with that deal, especially if it were amended to and compete with other technology for new capacity on the basis of environmental sustainablity.
I would. Of course, I favour an escalating carbon price so that would take care of itself as we took vehicles onto grids, and oil and gas plants were retired. We could use the money from the carbon price to enter the market for these stranded assets, buy them at trade sale prices and do decommissioning and remediation.
You said it was inevitable. Why in your opinion would they need to pray? You are all over the place.
This is simplistic, evidence-free populist sloganeering. Nuclear corporations are no more secretive anti-democratic or monopolistic than big wind and as we have seen, a lot less dependent on public subsidy. They pay taxes. Wind gets subsidies. They don’t emit significant pollution. They cast a small footprint. Wind and solar have a large footprint and don’t deliver reliable supply.
Noted: You offer no alternative to fossil fuels, and think we’re done for, so one may infer that business as usual would be fine with you.
@Ernestine Gross
Disingenuous. Without wishing to be offensive??? Throughout, you have been the amongst those attempting to attack me personally. Now that’s OK with me, but it is ludicrous for you to claim you mean no offence while uttering a purely gratuitous insult. If I believed that I’d assume you had some serious cognitive disability. As it stands, you are revealed as a hypocrite.
If you are “bored” with my posts, then ignore them.
The fact remains that had Germany not abandoned new nuclear capacity they’d be on track now to meet those targets. Renewables were an expensive diversion.
@Fran Barlow
Yes I thought asking for the reference would expose this implied argument.
Removing the worlds 15 biggest freighters would not reduce climate change gasses as much as the world’s 760 million cars.
The 15 freighters to 760 million cars comparison is based on other aspects of pollution – lung cancer etc.
However I am sure that freighters burning diesel, do contribute to global warming significantly more than a multiple number of cars.
But I have no idea what this relationship is.
It is not 15 freighters = 760 million cars.
@Fran Barlow
Careful, Fran. You published two fictions about me. Further, you are responsible for your perceptions and it would be useful if you would clearly mark them instead of writing as if they were facts.
So, what is the propper name for your way of writing as shown @20? Until then I call it verbal ping-pong without a time limit.
@Ernestine Gross
1. What two fictions?
1(a) tu quoque … You and Alice imply/assert I’m working as a paid employee of the nuclear industry …
2. It’s called “debate”. An exchange of contrary opinions with references to insights the parties believe are relevant.
@Fran Barlow
“The fact remains that had Germany not abandoned new nuclear capacity they’d be on track now to meet those targets. Renewables were an expensive diversion.”
What are the targets?
What is the difference between the targets and the measured outcoes? Source please.
As for facts:
The fact is that Germany, like several EU countries, were physically affected by the neuclear fall out from the Chernobyl desaster and the reports of leaks at various nuclear power plants keep on coming and the storage problem is not solved.
Another fact is that German banks bought junk bond papers issued by Wall Street banks, and certified as investment grade by the so-called rating agencies. This means a destruction of savings.
Another fact is that it is not the German government which reached the conclusion that “renewables were an expensive diversion”. Did anybody ask you to reach a conclusion on their behalf? If so, who?
Aha, your inferences become other people’s assertions. Now go and look up the two fictions you wrote.
Alright. You call it a debate. I suppose I can keep my more descriptive name silent.
I have another question. What is the aim of what you call debate?
@Chris Warren
That objection is fair. I very much doubt that the GHG emissions of 15 very large freighers would approach the GHG emissions of 760 million cars. Elsewhere, on LP where I made the abaove claim, I included this caveat, so that was an oversight.
There is kind of an overlap though, according to this paper where a more complex model is used.
CO2 emissions from ships contribute directly to global warming, regardless of where they occur. Emissions from ocean-going vessels are estimated to account for 1.5–3 percent of overall CO2- related radiative forcing (Corbett and Koehler 2003, Endresen et al. 2003, Eyring et al. 2005a, IMO 2000).
In combination with hydrocarbons, which are widely available in the marine environment, NOx emissions contribute to the formation of ozone. Although the global warming effect of ground-level ozone is low, both NOx and ozone can be transported higher in the atmosphere where ozone has a significantly greater radiative forcing impact. NOx emissions also play a role in the reduction of methane, which has a smaller cooling effect. Overall, however, ship NOx emissions are believed to have a net warming effect—one that is potentially equivalent to the warming effect from ship CO2 emissions (IMO 2000).
Black carbon emissions are anticipated to have a warming impact. Black carbon from all sources, may be responsible for as much as 25 percent of observed global warming, and may have a climate-forcing efficacy twice that of CO2 (Hansen and Nazarenko 2004).
The net impacts of primary and secondary particulate matter from ships on climate change risks are currently uncertain, as it is difficult to model all effects (including impacts on the albedo—or reflectiveness—of snow and ice surfaces, as well as impacts on cloud formation).
{the report here takes account of the impact of escaping refrigerants which would continue to escape on nuclear powered ships FB}
Taken together, CO2 emissions from international shipping exceed total greenhouse gas
emissions from most nations listed in the Kyoto protocol as Annex I countries (Kyoto Protocol 1997). The magnitude of the ship contribution (in terms of the total atmospheric forcing associated with all ship emissions combined) remains uncertain (IMO 2000).
{end excerpt}
So this suggests that total GHG forcing from shipping, even including escaping refrigerants, though high per vessel are a fraction of that of total motor vehicles.
Thanks for prompting me to correct this.
@Ernestine Gross
When you made the claim about me misrepresenting you, I reviewed the linked post and could find nothing fitting that description. I assumed you were trolling.
If I missed something, you will need to be explicit.
To establish clarity about the matters at hand, if not for the direct participants, then for observers with some intellectual, cultural or other interest in the matter.
@Ernestine Gross
I’m going to apologise unconditionally for making the above claim that Germany has declared it won’t meet its Kyoto targets. This is quite wrong. In fact, it already met them in 2008. I believed I heard this on NewsRadio the other day, but it is clear that the report was either wrong, or I misunderstood what I heard. I should have corroborated before repeating this. Mea Culpa
It is true that Germany will find progress from this point forward towards their 2020 target more difficult as they retire nuclear capacity and escalating energy costs encourage more coal usage. Moreover, they won’t have the advantages they got from combining with low-emitting East Germany this time around.
Thanks for prompting me to check this Ernestine.
@Fran Barlow
1. You wrote and published stories (fabrications) about me because you assumed I am trolling. Do I understand this correctly?
2. You told me that the proper name for what I call ‘verbal ping-pong’ (VPP) is debate. You tell me the aim of VPP is: “To establish clarity about the matters at hand, if not for the direct participants, then for observers with some intellectual, cultural or other interest in the matter.”
Given the evidence, your method of ‘establishing clarity about ‘the matters at hand’ is not efficient because your method requires the work of potentially all members of a society to remove the errors you introduce. More specifically, it is the rate of errors that is the problem and the absence of a time limit on a VPP.
Lets take your next sentence: “It is true that Germany will find progress from this point forward towards their 2020 target more difficult as they retire nuclear capacity and escalating energy costs encourage more coal usage.”
While it is true that a person may form an expectation about difficulties Germany may experience in achieving its ghg emission reduction target by 2020, it is not true what you write for the simple reason that we are at 2010 and not at 2020.
Furthermore, even if it would turn out that Germany does not meet its year 2020 target, it does not costitute proof that it is because their policy is to get rid off nuclear power plants. I have given you a hint in the previous post as to other relevant factors, namely the financial losses due to the failure of rating agencies to rate Wall Street issued junk bonds as junk bonds. There are many other conceivable possibilities and there may be a surprise.
Next sentence: “and escalating energy costs encourage more coal usage”. This is straight out non-sense. Coal usage occurs in energy production. No? If not why not? The term ‘escalating’ is one of these emotive words. There is data available. Why don’t you use it? The word ‘data’ refers to both, past measurements and anticipated or projected data. You muddle up everythig to create images. It may well be your personal belief. But this is no excuse. Imagine, 6,000,000,000 people would post their beliefs as if they would be facts. People could be driven crazy if they would take these confusions seriously.
Next sentence: “Moreover, they won’t have the advantages they got from combining with low-emitting East Germany this time around.”
Are you saying the East-German cars were less polluting then the West-German cars? What is your data? How do you reach your conclusions (in finite time!)
.
@Ernestine Gross
I thank you too Ernestine for prompting Fran to post facts.
JQ – Frans posts on pro nuclear nonsense are exploitataive, intrusive, misleading and downright untruthful. At what point do facts matter more than form? It is advertising.
Nuclear is not worth debating, although I still think we need a breeder reactor so we can strike terror into our regional neighbours with our new found weaponry. As for power, only for our nuclear subs.
Alice, I also find some of Fran’s inaccuracies annoying, but I do think she is sincere in her enthusiasm for nuclear energy as a solution to climate change. It’s not advertising, just a different opinion.
@Tim Macknay
Interesting. There is nothing wrong with being enthusiatic for something but the enthusiasm should be taxed fairly. There are enthusiastic smokers. Why is their enthusiasm curtailed by advertising prohibitions and even prohibitions on the colour of the packages and they have to pay a multiple of GST while VPP forms of debate, which may cause serious stress in people and waste a lot of time, are tax free and there is no quantity constraint (ie time limit)?
I have no objection to someone sincerely or otherwise stating, even several times a day, something like: “I like nukes” or “I like nuclear power as a solution to ‘climate change’ (speak human activity enduced ghg emissions)”. And someone else then writes back: I like orange juice as a solution to climate change. And the next person writes: and I like praying for 1 hour a day. That is all fine with me – just another aeroplane jelly ad, I don’t have to read it. But this is not what happens.
Writing opinions as if they were facts is false and misleading even if the opinions are written by a person knowledgeable in an area. What is a layperson doing who is writing in this fashion? What does the word ‘opinion’ in this case mean? Does it mean an arbitrarily chosen sentence from a book? No, not in Fran’s case because Fran goes on and on and on about her alleged opinion. If not, then whose opinion is it?
Yes there is a nuclear solution to climate change. No doubt about that. Nuke a few countries. Or even some unoccupied desert. And the dust sent into the upper atmosphere will cool things down. Food production will go down. And the resulting famine will reduce industrial output and the output of greenhouse gases. By the time the dust settles, humanity will be downsized and so will the CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and the blockage of sunlight will have reduced the retained heat. We might even have an ice age.
@Ernestine Gross
Thats what I would like to know Ernestine (the sources)…there are just too many absolutely false statements, sweeping generalisations, jargonistic misuse of economic phraseaology (which for an HS teacher are interesting – is the subject economics?) show little understanding of the depth of any economic mathematic model, which Ernestine has obviously mastered to a much higher level, and pseudo statistics that result in a feeling of unease as to the credbility of the source (of which very few are ever actually provided by Fran herself – voluntarily).
In academic circles…Frans posts could be called for plagiarism..hence, disregarded entirely as not any acceptable form of research. Fran “declares” – no matter how long it took to say it…isnt enough and obviously doesnt withstand scrutiny. It doesnt take much effort to cite…but I dont think anything anyone else says about the lack of credibility in the posts, will deter Fran unless JQ finally does. Is there a super swamping constraint?
@Alice
How do you know Fran is a HS teacher? I don’t. I only know that Fran claimed to be a HS teacher with the NSW Department of Education. Some commenters object to references to the occupation of others and I agree with them because false images can be generated about occupations or professions. Furthermore, a ‘good’ HS science teacher may well know more about nuclear power generation than a ‘good’ economist. So, on this point I can’t agree with you.
@Ernestine Gross
You do. There seemed to be no basis for it at all. Now you are casting doubt below that my assertion that I am a HS teacher is truthful. You and Alice want to assert that I am a liar, and that I am here under false pretenses. This is trolling and so when I read a claim from you that is apparently baseless it seems calculated to get me to respond with irritation. i.e. it’s a troll.
Not at all. Firstly very little of what I have posted here is incorrect and in any case, this is a blog where people make claims and opthers challenge them. It’s voluntary and you need not participate. Clarity could still emerge, your absence notwithstanding.
It would if energy emissions stayed stubbornly high because more coal capacity replaced nuclear.
No it is not.
Good grief no. Hint: What condition was the GDR in when it united with Germany?
@Fran Barlow
I see the point here that a sloganist making frequent use of slogans accuses others of “sloganeering”…so, to coin a phrase…lets “unpack” the preceding posts in a superficial sense. A troll often goes to extreme lengths to push the same idea set to others. A troll attempts to pass as a legitimate discussion participant and to promote the “preferred view” and used simple yet superficial analogies instead of facts and sources. A troll is often found repeating the same terms, or using the same phrases in numerous different posts. Often a number of other participants may start to hint that the “troll” is under suspician for resemblance to trolling.
I see absolutely no evidence that Ernestine is a troll and lots of signs that you fit the definition better.
Fran – please dont ask me “are you calling me a nuke spruiking troll?”. I am defending Ernestine against your obvious projection bias.
That is a very good point, Freelander #32. For Australia to go nuclear simply because everyone else has one would be to keep that nuclear ball rolling. Indonesia would feel comforted, even pressured by nationalistic pride, to move that way.
No we couldn’t allow that. Nukes are far to good for them. If they headed that way we would rightly have to declare them a rogue state and threaten to use them. It is only OK for Deputy Sheriffs and other good guys to have Nukes. They are far to good to allow everyone to have them.
@Alice
Coming from someone who has on more than one occasion been asked by the moderator to “take a break” for being in breach of the comments policy, your evaluation of what it means to troll has no standing. You see no evidence that Ernestine and you are trolling because you have shut your eyes to it.
It is plain that for you, trolling amounts to no more than the posting of opinions with which you disagree, rather than breaches of the usages of a particular cyberspace. You share Ernestine’s perspective and so by definition, Ernestine can’t be a troll and I must be.
It seems to me that those whose principal commentary is hectoring and designed to provoke vituperation in response easily fits one specification of trolling. You and Ernestine think I have a malign agenda — in this case a focus on the contribution of nuclear power to clean energy systems. One could infer that you two hope that instead of talking about nuclear power in ways you fear will persuade others, I will become engaged in a series of flaming exchanges with the two of you which will get me off-message and moderated. Then again, perhaps it’s not so calculating. Maybe this is just you two playing out your distress. Either way this is trolling.
For the record, I’m not much bothered by your attempts at bullying. Schoolteachers who survive for any length of time in front of classes develop a robust sense of self. Moreover, as someone who has spent much the better part of her life on the left of politics I don’t offend easily. I also knew full well that taking the stance I have would offend most of those who, as I do, identify with the interests of the disadvantaged. Opposition to nuclear power as some malign and reckless profit-driven corporate plot which would trash the biosphere, trample the little people of the planet and start nuclear war is something repeated by people with whom I’ve shared street space for most of 30 years.
For a large part of this time, I was amongst those who in some form accepted these claims as salient, while trying to cover this with appeals to utility, since these were more measurable. The more I examined the measures though, the less persuasive these arguments became and the more I was forced to re-examine why I feared nuclear power. Ultimately, I concluded that there was no sound basis for seeing nuclear power as intrinsically unacceptable. As a socialist, it seemed to me entirely credible to claim that a government that was not driven by the interests of the exploiting classes, but rather, that of the producing classes ought to be able to manage the risks adequately. And of course, if it was technically possible to manage these risks adequately under a producer-centred state, then the same suite of measures, if robustly maintained, ought to make it possible to manage these risks under even an exploiter-centred state. Once it became clear that the exploiter-centred states were unwilling and unable to manage the risks associated with resort to fossil fuels in ways that precluded catastrophic results for humanity then a compelling conclusion followed: regardless of our preference for new and rational producer-centred states, we must, as a matter of urgency, force the exploiter-centred states to act adequately by using those technologies and system which most efficiently and effectively foreclose this catastrophe, precisely in order to keep alive the material and political possibility of producer-centred states. If it is possible to compel them to use renewables on the scale needed to accomplish this task, then it must also be possible to force them to use nuclear power on the scale need to accomplish this task. And then the argument, for those of us who are rational can be reduced to this: Which suites of technologies will most speedily author the result we seek — the foreclosure of the collapse of ecosystem services to humans?
It is already clear that the answer to this starts from nuclear power. It is true that while the cost of the “fuel” for renewables is zero, and thus lower than the cost of enriched uranium or thorium, the cost of harvesting renewables exceed by at least one order of magnitude the cost of harvesting the energy of uranium and thorium. Worse yet, the attempt to harvest renewables is far more resource-intensive than that that required for nuclear power at industrial and commercial scale. In short, the fuel is the only renewable and sustainable thing about renewables. Everything else casts a huge footprint, whereas nuclear power casts a relative pin-prick. In the long run, it is renewables that are unsustainable, because in the absence of nuclear power, they demand fossil fuel usage or the acceptance of unscheduled and general power outages — which in practice no state and no decisive section of the population will tolerate.
If we await resource depletion to do our work for us, it is very likely that this imperative will arrive much too late to avert ecosystem service collapse. Moreover, in that setting the idea that industrial societies would then start building industrial scale renewables is pure fantasy. They would be completely focused on defending their territories against movements of displaced humans and in protecting their resource base in circumstances where they lacked the economic capacity to build and sustain expensive geographically diversified energy systems. They would almost certainly build nuclear power capacity at breakneck speed and probably with very little regard for ecological or safety considerations we would expect now. They would also pour very considerable resources into maintaining their territorial integrity and probably would seek to acquire nuclear weapons capacity to back that up, as it is a lot cheaper than conventional weapons. North Korea reminds us of this reality. This is the future that the advocates of renewables are unwittingly winking at, and why I am as concerned as I am to refute this agenda. We simply can’t allow the exploiter-states the freedom to operate business-as-usual while throwing renewable energy sops to those well-intended people on the left who can console themselves that their rooftop solar panel or some windfarm system in South Australia makes a difference.
@Fran Barlow
Im awaiting your turn at censorship Fran…really your posts are exraordinarily long…a blog commentary that takes up the entire length of someone’s eye view and I must ask you? – do you design it that way so that you hope viewers eyes wont wander back to posts like bilb and Freelander’s above yours that disagree with you ….Im astonished you have managed to avoid “flooding thread” sanctions even though you admitted you have been accused of the same on other blogs. Pot kettle.
comments like this
“Moreover, in that setting the idea that industrial societies would then start building industrial scale renewables is pure fantasy. ”
and this
“We simply can’t allow the exploiter-states the freedom to operate business-as-usual while throwing renewable energy sops to those well-intended people on the left who can console themselves that their rooftop solar panel or some windfarm system in South Australia makes a difference.”
So now we need to keep up with the exploiter states like North Korea…and build our own weapons just in case…so now your argument suggests nuclear use as a nuclear deterrent Fran? They have one, we will get and some other nation builds one, then two then three. Illogical and dangerous and disarmament is as important now as it ever was, or havent you noticed?. Nuclear weapons cant be built with nuclear power Fran but the sad part about life is that people will adamantly push dangerous ideas if there is any commercial opportunity in it.
@Fran Barlow
Fran says
“For a large part of this time, I was amongst those who in some form accepted these claims as salient, while trying to cover this with appeals to utility, since these were more measurable. The more I examined the measures though, the less persuasive these arguments became and the more I was forced to re-examine why I feared nuclear power
”
This is classic concern troll. DNFTT.
@Alice
Not at all. There were no slabs of text from other places — it’s all substantive and original.
Also, I don’t recall saying I was accused of flooding on other blogs. IIRC I wanted to avoid being seen as flooding threads. My posts don’t stop anyone looking at what others have written. In BilBs case, I’ve responded explicitly, which I’d hardly do if I was wanting to blot him(?) from the landscape. Freelander’s responses have not made substantive points and amount to little more than sarcastic strawman observations, so it’s hard to imagine that anyone would be influenced by them. Freelander is singing to the choir, as are you.
Your last paragraph so badly misapprehends the post I made that a response isn’t warranted. Assuming, for the sake of argument, that you have simply been careless and are not dissembling Freelander-style, then you might re-read the pertinent sections and post something more coherent.
“This is classic concern troll”
It’s actually classic openness of mind, willingness to consider opposing arguments, and humility sufficient to change one’s opinion in the face of facts. I should know, it mirrors my own experience.
Fran,
This is absolutely false
“the cost of harvesting renewables exceed by at least one order of magnitude the cost of harvesting the energy of uranium and thorium”
and for you to say that is to ignore every piece of information that has been put forward here from a multiplicity of sources. Here is the latest indication of the price of nuclear in the US
http://www.csmonitor.com/Money/new-economy/2010/0216/Obama-aid-for-nuclear-power-plant-a-start-but-no-renaissance
massively in contrast to everything that you have said on the subject of cost of nuclear. You have the latest of the shelf price for continuous capacity CSP at 4.3 billion euro per gigawat. That is a fair comparison.
There is no order of magnitude there at worst the cost is the same. Renewables are certain to become far more cost effective, I can say this because absolutely every agency study says this.
So what is it Fran? Where is the order of magnitude?
@Fran Barlow
Use of “strawman” a giveaway. You are pushing ideological propaganda, not facts or substantive points. People have repeatedly asked you for sources and you blithely brush that aside – yet you accuse Freelander, or I or Ernestine or Bilb of sloganeering, trolling, bullying, dissembling and now incoerence and singing to the choir (must admit I have not heard that one before) because we dont share your your miraculous new found sense of the importance of being ernest about nuclear. If I was sampling it would appear the average is against nuclear in general post views, if not in response length.
“You quote about ISO 9001 is perfectly consistent with what I said, and was something I knew anyway. ”
It shows you had a completely wrong idea about the purpose of the standard – you thought it was supposed to be a guarantor of quality, and that it failed, whereas it isn’t designed to do that, so can’t fail at what it wasn’t meant to do!
Sorry to bring this up now, I have only sporadic access to the internet at the moment. But I couldn’t let it pass.
And some days I’m more sensitive than others, and in truth your jibes aren’t effective (from a trolling point of view), but it’s useful to establish evidence for a pattern of behaviour even if it is unlikely to be used.
And here
“who can console themselves that their rooftop solar panel or some windfarm system in South Australia makes a difference”
You clearly just do not get it.
I’m having to start wondering if you have a learning disability! Maybe you have some new weird kind of “nuclear” sauvantism.
Informed debate aims to progess societies interests. Legal debate, what you seem to be into, attempts to win at all costs with no regard for truth or facts, just whatever “evidence” can be made to look like. What we are seeing here is a perpetual legal closing argument. Groundhog day, over and over and over.