It’s time again for the Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. As usual, civilised discussion and no coarse language. Lengthy side discussions to the sandpit, please.
-
Follow
Following
Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
John Quiggin 
Donald, now is not the time to be discussing nuclear radiation problems:
http://climateprogress.org/2011/03/28/colbert-video-nuclear-reactors-safe-bank-robbing-windmills/#more-45550
@jakerman
Oops, my bad! Anyhow, the caravan has moved on, to discussing Obama’s lack of exit plan from a war he hasn’t begun yet (in Libya). A lack of exit plan, like, you know, that Cheney, Bush, et al had for Iraq…
Anyway, Colbert nailed it (again).
To finish the night, I read of Bolt’s boils in court, what’s he got to be angry about, he gets paid substantially for all of his guided-missile opinion pieces. A day or so in court is hardly an imposition for one so skilled in barbed comment. I wish the plaintiffs well.
Jakerman – nice to see you engage politely for a change.
It is in the links. It is based on an average reduction in emissions of 2.5% over the period 2011 to 2020 and the IPCC temperature sensitivity to CO2.
Sure. But if your policy is to cut emissions by 50% the public has a right to know the best estimate of what this will cost and what the benefit will be. Not tricked into signing up for 5% cuts at a low cost and then finding they are paying for a 50% cut. That’s like signing up for a $5 per month service and then getting a monthly bill for $500 because the suplier decided off their own bat to delivered a higher quality service.
Oops – formatting failure.
Nice reversal there TerjeP: https://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2011/03/23/one-nation-resurgent/#comment-276674
TerjeP you’ve not showed how you calculate your 0.004 degrees figure.
It is in the links. It is based on an average reduction in emissions of 2.5% over the period 2011 to 2020 and the IPCC temperature sensitivity to CO2.
Lets be clear before we critique this, are you citing Monckton as your source?
http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2011/03/29/a-carbon-tax-makes-no-sense/
Nice reversal there TerjeP: https://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2011/03/23/one-nation-resurgent/#comment-276674
TerjeP you’ve not showed how you calculate your 0.004 degrees figure.
Lets be clear before we critique this, are you citing Monckton as your source?
http://blog.libertarian.org.au/2011/03/29/a-carbon-tax-makes-no-sense/
Assuming carbon tax is full coverage with few escape clauses I think the gains will come in the first year then peter out. The initial price shock should lead to some energy belt tightening. However the really big carbon cuts must come from technology shifts, not taking shorter showers. Countries like Spain and Germany have failed to show that wind and solar can make a dent in coal, nuclear or gas, a least an affordable price. Even if a country does achieve 20% renewables penetration what about the other 80%? Coal, oil and gas will be largely depleted by mid century so 5% CO2 cuts by 2020 are almost trivial given the need to keep powering the economy.
The mid term effect of a $25 carbon tax is that ageing coal stations will be replaced with combined cycle gas. Then we will be perched on a ledge because further large CO2 cuts will be hard to find. Gas will go up in price due to export competition and other new demands. If the tax is replaced by a declining cap system eventually the gas economy won’t be low carbon enough. They’ll have to think of something else.
They been provided with that estimate:
http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/climatechange/governance/foreign/stern.htm
And the fine work of Garnaut
And Australia’s recalcitrance needs to be overcome to permit a global agreement.
You don’t believe the market will adapt to the price signal? Investors seeing price on carbon, and the telegraphing of continuing rises to reach an eventual emissions target will be forced to look for long term change.
The subsidies to fossil fuels are orders of magnitude larger than for renewables. And with tech like PV the costs drop with increasing production. The early steps are the hardest.
Yep, and planners and investors will be doing those sums right now and thinking of “something else”.
BTW, I see the need for more than a carbon tax. Clean energy generation requires assistance to compete with cheep offsets and efficiency gains. These are the gains that peter out. Clean energy must be supported to pickup the slack in the future after efficiency gains are harder to make.
@Hermit
“Countries like Spain and Germany have failed to show that wind and solar can make a dent in coal, nuclear or gas, a least an affordable price. Even if a country does achieve 20% renewables penetration what about the other 80%? ”
Sentence 1: Evidence, Hermit, rather than assertions by means of emotive words.
Sentence 2: May I remind again and again and again that the goal is to reduce ghg emissions to a rate that is considered satisfactory by scientists . The goal is not to replace coal, gas, at a specified time per se.
Sentence 2: Germany has recently (in the past week) taken off a further 2 nuclear plants from the grid.
.
The latest transcript from Fran Kelly on ABC Radio National is not very comforting, concerning radiation doses of the emergency/nuclear workers at Fukushima, etc. Risk management culture is being sheeted with the blame for the unfolding slow motion trainwreck.
Yes Donald Oats, the BBC reckons reactor2 has definitely gone past melt down, if my memory is right.
I hate to say I told you so but …I wonder how bravenewblunders and Barry the bozo is going now….still talking about kws/per hours $cost?????
The worst of Japans problems is hideous when we look into the future and we start to tally up how many nuclear reactors there are in the world and we start to count down up the years of their age and their ageing equipment and we start to factor in the number of pathetic governments still trying to keep their budgets in surplus year after year (oh just let that reactor go another decade boys), and we factor in the companies who run them (mostly electricity companies) who dont like safety precautions and unnecessary regulation..and the whole lot look like future Fukupshimas.
Well its one way to reduce the population. Im sure the Koch brothers would approve.
I wasnt sure why they werent pouring the concrete yet. It will come – shouldnt it come faster? The I realised they have two swimming pools worth of highly radioactive water in the bottom from the incessant dowsing, that they cant get near.
Oh great. Nuclear. The Aborigines were right to leave it in the ground and know enough to stay away from it. Whitefella has a lot to learn
I predicted in a post in an earlier thread that radioactive pollution of the seas around Fukishima would become an issue. Does anyone wonder how I make my brilliant and prescient predictions? 😉
Well, my reasoning went like this;
– They are pouring lots of water onto the reactors and containment pools.
– Water runs downhill.
– The reactors are right next to the sea.
– Ergo, the water will run into the sea and pollute it.
There, you see what a complicated chain of reasoning is needed to make these kind of prescient iconoclastic predictions. No wonder I did it before any of the “expert” media commentators.
@Donald Oats
Corporate Managerialist Risk Management = World’s Cheapest Practice.
<a href="#comment- a stream of good news from the media (or better than expected news, which gets unwound the day after) we dont believe, the smoke is still pouring out despite the dowsings which yes has to run downhill. Blind Freddy can see this is a concrete job ie a Chernobyl, and will be a concrete job – and they are just not getting the concrete job done fast enough are they?
Poor Barry the bozo has taken to fragmenting his threads in an effort to contain the fallout ie technical discussion, philosophical discussion and an open thread…post in the wrong one and you are eliminated.
Despite that – Ive now made four very reasonable and polite posts (one today asking when they think the concrete pouring will commence at Fukushima – note I said this on this date)….that never see the light of day and I always enter moderation straight up. I guarantee I could post "good morning Barry – did you enjoy your weetbix?" and still be moderated. I must be on a blacklist of people who have upset Barry.
Wow – such censorship from a supposed academic????
Confirmed at 9.51pm. I posted in Bravenewclimate “Good morning Barry – did you enjoy your weetbix?”
I was moderated and my post will never see the light of day. Im clearly radioactive waste to Barry and his bravenewclimate pro nuclear site.
Calls himself an objective scientific academic? Only allows posts from people who agree with nuclear development? Pathetic. Whats he doing earning a salary paid for by taxpayers?
What a joke.
I wouldn’t worry about it Alice. Barry Brook continues to make himself look completely foolish with every post he writes supporting nuclear power. (He reminds me of a National Rifle Association spokesman in the USA supporting private gun ownership on the day after another High School massacre.) Meanwhile, the real world nuclear crisis in Japan just goes from bad to worse. Nuclear power is destined to expire. Unfortunately, it will die a long lingering death like all the people poisoned by it.
Barry says;
“I welcome comments, posts, suggestions and informed debate, from a wide range of perspectives. However, personal attacks, insulting/vulgar posts, or repetitious/false tirades will not be tolerated and can result in moderation or banning. Trolls will be warned, and then banned.”
He could save some space by saying, “I welcome posts that agree with me.”
Alice, you have sorely tempted me to go over and troll Barry but I better resist temptation.
@Donald Oats
You mean lack of risk management? This has to be another black mark against deregulation and privatisation. For whatever reason TEPCO has failed to maintain standards and the consequences of its failure are enormous.
The Gen IV fast spectrum reactors that Brook is spruiking have numerous obstacles and dangers. I name a few from Wikipedia;
1. They are currently (2010) uneconomic.
2. The reactor’s criticality responds literally within the flight time of the neutrons across the core. Design of a fast reactor is therefore more demanding, because there is no moderator whose thermal or mechanical behavior can adjust the reactor. Fast reactors cannot be reliably stabilized with control rods, which are too slow. Most designs are stabilized either by doppler broadening or by thermal expansion of the fuel, a neutron poison or a neutron reflector.
3. Sodium is often used as a coolant in fast reactors, because it does not moderate neutron speeds much and has a high heat capacity. However, it burns in air, and is very corrosive. It has caused difficulties in reactors (e.g. USS Seawolf (SSN-575), Monju). Although some sodium-cooled fast reactors have operated safely (notably the Superphénix), sodium problems can be prevented by using lead or molten chloride salts as a coolant.
4. Although the Superphénix operated safely in broad terms, it was uneconomic and never ran at a more than a fraction of rated capacity because it would have become unsafe if pushed anywhere near its envisaged design rating.
The technical problems of Gen IV fast spectrum reactors are unsolved because they are intrinsically unsolvable. The naive view of scientific and technical progress is that anything can be made to work with enough science and technical progress. The empirical reality of scientific and technical progress is that it is littered with many deadly experiments, impractical disasters and dead-ends. Empirical reality itself places real limits on what we can do.
Boosters like Barry Brooks actually seem to think science is magic. Science is not magic. The real world imposes real limits.
Correction. Above post relates to Gen III fast breeder reactors.
“Generation IV reactors (Gen IV) are a set of theoretical nuclear reactor designs currently being researched. Most of these designs are generally not expected to be available for commercial construction before 2030, with the exception of a version of the Very High Temperature Reactor (VHTR) called the Next Generation Nuclear Plant (NGNP). The NGNP is to be completed by 2021.”
So Barry Brook’s “silver bullet” solution is a pipe dream still on the drawing board or perhaps already on the way to the wastepaper basket.
“The planned construction of the first VHTR, the South African PBMR (pebble bed modular reactor), lost government funding in February, 2010.[1] A pronounced increase of costs and concerns about possible unexpected technical problems had discouraged potential investors and customers.”
All other designs are just unproven concept designs. B.B. is living in fantasy land.
The Superphenix is dead – decommissioning commenced last century.
There were technical problems. One of them was ‘critical’.
My best guess is that not even a ’00s Wall Street banker would issue securities to raise money to put into something like that.
I don’t think anyone can predict precisely what a 5% reduction will cost or how it will be achieved but I don’t see that’s a reason to make no attempt. 5% is a starting point not a final result and we can’t know in advance how we’ll get from 5% to 50% and onwards to reductions capable of halting and reversing the rise in atmospheric CO2. Australian politics may not be looking beyond that 2020 / 5% plan, showing itself remarkably incapable of coming to grips with the problem and see to still be seeing it in terms of preserving a strong, growing fossil fuel export industry whilst giving the appearance of basing policy on science based reality. Or in tandem with encouraging denial of science based reality.
Expecting the necessary emissions reductions can be achieved without rising energy costs is unrealistic but not as unrealistic as refusing to commit to reductions unless they don’t. The science is more than strong enough to count failure to slow, halt and reduce the rise in CO2 as choosing near certain catastrophic consequences that are effectively irreversible. And hideously and unpredictably expensive.
I suspect that until there is widespread understanding of that last, we won’t even see success at reaching 5% reductions.
Ike,
Is BB’s nuclear symbol still grinning like a Cheshire cat?
I like that Barry Brook is now speculating that the plutonium that has been detected is probably a remnant of nuclear bomb tests. I’m not a nuclear scientist, but I thought things like plutonium were fuel for a nuclear explosion rather than an important by-product? Is evidence of a successful nuclear test left in the form of plutonium concentrations? Other than two impromptu and unauthorized tests conducted toward the end of WWII, I wasn’t aware that Japan had been a significant testing ground for nuclear weapons? If it had been depleted uranium found, then the explanation would be that some tanks had been doing target practice.
That said, I am sure everything at the nuclear plant in Japan is still totally under control, and that there is absolutely no cause for concern, following yet another hysterical media beat up.
@Freelander
We txpayers are paying Barry’s salary? Why? You can see why some people cant stand academics and think they are a waste of time and money. Barry gives the whole academic profession a bad reputation because he is obviously politically and ideologically biased and that infects his research but he is getting away with it.
@Alice
Are they busy trying to out crazy each other at the University of Adelaide, is it something in the water, or does dementia come early over there?
Freelander, we don’t “do” fluoride over here, at least as an issue, like in certain other parts.
And there are one or two nice social libs in the arts/ humanites faculty.
“Sub Cruce Lumen”.
So you don’t subscribe to the theory that the push to ‘fluoridation’ was really driven by the needs of the nuclear industry to get rid of an otherwise troublesome by-product?
“Cro Magnon Lumen”
If they had waited until they came up with the great idea of depleted uranium tipped shells, they could have put the put the fluoride in as well, and had shells that pierce tank armour and protect your teeth from cavities at the same time?
What a breakthrough that would have been!
Brook’s claim (as reported by Freelander) would appear to be contradicted by statements such as this:
Does Brooks propose the plutonium levels have not increased due to the accident?
Given that both bombs were dropped in the South West of Japan, and the reactor accident is in the North East it require quite a coincidence for the Plutonium levels to be raised near the reactor and not elsewhere widely across the country.
Freelander, does Brooks make a serious effort at pushing this proposal?
So why have they taken so long to detect it? They have had safety surveys before now right?
@jakerman
Hypothesis: Barry Brook is an idiot.
This hypothesis seems to provide satisfactory answers to all of your questions.
@Freelander
But other facts contradict this hypothesis. Brooks started out much more balanced in his assessment to nuclear, now he’s saying stuff that seemingly will hurt his credibility.
Brooks doesn’t fall easily into a simple narrative for me. He’s smart, convincing, and now wrecking his cred.
Why do otherwise intelligent people get suckered into absurd beliefs? I think a fair bit of it has to do with early intellectual training. If early intellectual training includes indoctrination in any of the received religious belief systems then the person is psychologically set up to accept, as truth, assertions without empirical evidence, especially from cultural authority figures.
Concomittantly, logical thinking and rigorous assessment of empirical evidence are de-emphasised. In layman’s terms, people trained to accept received relgions are trained with an inbuilt bias to believe bulldust. They also tend to lack an effective bulldust detector which is built around logic, scientific literacy, quantitative analysis skills, respect for empirical evidence and a broad philosophical understanding with backing in comparative religous and cultural studies.
The problem is the acute hold that religion and superstition (are they any different?) still have on much of the human race.
Given the onsided censorship raging through BraveNewClimate I thought I’d cross-post here – from BNC’s open threads:
Nuclear Corrosion of Standards
Nuclear Toxicity
Typically, commercial competition opposes regulation and has an inherent tendency to ‘cut costs’.
As more and more nuclear concentrate, fuel, and waste are introduced into the environment, policy makers will be forced to derogate their own standards. We see this in recent commercial pressures to export uranium to a non-Nuclear Proliferation Treaty nation (India). Unfortunately, allowing India to breakout of NPT structures has led to North Korea seeking the same treatment.
In the United States, the Department of Energy awards contracts to manufacture plutonium-based (P-MOX) fuel for nuclear reactors, even though;
See: Edwin S. Lyman (2000), “Public Health Risks of Substituting Mixed-Oxide For Uranium Fuel in Pressurized-Water Reactors”, Science & Global Security, 2000, Volume 9, pp.1–47
The key issue, for Lyman, is that spent P-MOX fuel contains large inventories of long-lived alpha-emitters with relatively high radiotoxicity.
Lyman’s paper also provides a good illustration how bureaucrats corrode their own standards. Risk increase from nukes can be permitted in America given that:
[see: Lyman p21]
If the increase in (internal) risk in Large Release Frequency (LERF) is less than 10^-7 per reactor/year, an application is waved-on through.
For higher increments of increased risk, only those that result in a gross risk of 10^-5 R/Y, are blocked.
If continued, this is a recipe for disaster particularly if the number of reactor years increases as fossils are phased out.
The world has between 400 – 500 reactors and is on a path to achieve 1000 in due course.
If American-accepted risk of LERF is 10^5 R/Y this is 10^2 per year assuming 1,000 reactors. This is internal risk only.
Of course this will multiply enormously if fossil fuels are not phased-out in favour of renewables.
Of course earthquakes, military attacks (eg Israel), and sabotage are not included – these are external risks.
@jakerman
Intellect has never been a barrier to being a complete idiot; in fact, if anything a decent intellect can give one the capacity to believe absurdities that lesser mortal would reject out of hand.
Brook is an idiot, albeit a clever one, but still an idiot. An idiot but definitely not a savant.
Of course if we assume that the world needs around 10,000 GW [@2060] a huge radiation risk emerges for humanity.
From Table 6.4 at: http://www.eia.doe.gov/iea/elec.html it is clear that world electric capacity has soared from 2,000GW (million Kw) in 1982 to 4,000GW in 2006 – a doubling period of 24 years.
Our pro-nuclear proponents expect that by 2060 there will be 10,000 GW nuclear capacity.
See: http://bravenewclimate.com/2010/10/25/2060-nuclear-scenarios-p4/
However the 2000 Probabilistic Risk Analysis for a large release of high radio toxicity is bench-marked at an event risk of 10^-5 per reactor year [http://www.nci.org/PDF/lyman-mox-sgs.pdf].
As the number of reactor years increases the likelihood of such a large release increases.
In fact it appears that a large release can be expected every 10 years after 2060.
*********
Obviously building near 200 reactors a year to achieve 10,000 GW [2010] will result in any probability for one (1GW) reactor/year blowing out.
Probability is tricky. The probability of anyone else having your birthdate is 1/365.
But the probability of any person having the same birthdate as someone else (given 20 people) is around 10 times greater.
So a probabilistic risk analysis for a single specific plant is not relevant for “any-of-many” scenario.
LERF of 10^-5 per Reactor Year [a 24 hrs measurement] is inadequate over 10,000 reactors over 100 years.
This signals a possible large radiation release around every 10 years. Future population growth will worsen this picture.
This will ratchet the global background radiation in a continuous trend that will continue to increase forever.
Naturally, Third World countries will have lower standards, and it is not clear what the LERF for Japan should be placed at now.
Anyway it seems clear that the nuclear case is FUBAR in the interests of humanity from this risk alone.
Any continuous trend for increasing background radiation eventually destroys all life on the planet.
******************
Posted on Barry Brooks site but it was censored by 50%
Latest New Perspective on Fukushima
I think you will find the Washington Post report by y David Nakamura and Michael Alison Chandler, [Saturday, April 2, 5:07 AM] has an interesting ‘new perspective’
TEPCO officials revealed Thursday:
So these nuclear engineers could not get a proper distribution of dosimeters to all workers until when? If emergency workers do not have dosimeters then how can anyone monitor their radiation exposure?
But this is not all ….
The same report indicates there are several areas continuing to radiate at over 1 sievert. Obviously TEPCO knows which areas, but somehow the information is not in the Washington Post.
Is there any official reports on these areas with ongoing over 1 sievert radiation?
If it is 1 sievert now; is this a recent increase or the results of a decrease?
See: Washington Post
@Freelander
Brook is dangerously obsessed fanatic. The censorship that is going on at his site is pathetic now. Under the guise of “moderation” he is insisting on tranches of brand new posting rules.
Insert Barry’s respone to Chris Warrens full post at 39 above immediately after where CHris says “is inadequate over 10,000 reactors over 100 years. Thats as far as Chris got. The rest of the above post was deleted with the comment by Brooks
“DELETED unsubstantiated extrapolations – Chris, if you want to make your remaining points, please justify them appropriately]”
Good on you Chris and a few others that bat away in BNC including a Japanese person who lives 75K from the plant and is watching every day for information on radiation levels who suggested that BNC site was understating the danger levels and playing lightly with the truth.
Anyway – I didnt have to wait for his response to my question that was censored re “when they thought the concrete trucks were coming” (and it did occur to me that perhaps Barry didnt want to consider the obvious that the concrete trucks will ultimately be pumping concrete instead of water – selective intelligence reigns supreme at BNC).
The concrete trucks are coming.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/02/japan.nuclear.megafloat/
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/04/02/japan.nuclear.cement.pumper/