Hansen goes nuclear and I agree

Hansen has been extremely pro build more nukes for a long time. Is there anything new here other than it getting reported as NASA research?

The biggest problem with pro nuclear people in the US, is the costs of new nuclear power, which is much higher than the natural gas and wind that we are building.

I guess I could posit a what if. What if we had removed grandfathering of coal plants instead of building nukes. If we had spent the money on scrubbers, and closing down the high polluting plants instead of subsidizing nuclear power, how may deaths would have that saved? Its a good bar conversation, but not a good scientific paper.

Most of the coal deaths stuff is pretty old, and has been trotted out for years. The new twist I see here is counting natural gas deaths from not building nukes which is pretty shaky from any scientific point of view. If we hadn't built this people would have died, but not counting deaths from cancers etc for future nuclear problems, or even the ones we have. Greenpiece seemed to have put together a much more scientific case, included 50 health scientists, that chernoble likely caused 93K people premature deaths. To trot out 0 from fukashima, seems intelectually dishonest, if you are going to claim natural gas would have created mass graves.

I have no problem with this pro nuclear stuff, but I don't think NASA climate scientists should be pretending they are representing the US governments position on epidemiology. It would have been better if it was published after retirement without the seal of approval of the US government. Should we grant San Onofre a license to operate again without proper repairs because natural gas might kill more people? Does the dead zone around fukishima have no environmental costs because you can't prove anyone has died yet directly from it? A new peer paper says 1900 in the US will likely die because of the radiation from fukishima, if you are doing this paper, I would like that addressed.

I am for a diversified energy mix, but we already have 19% nuclear in this country. To greatly increase that amount, would require huge government subsidies.

 

If we would explore the same nuclear power that the Chinese are developing then it is a win win. They are cheaper, safer and less dependent on huge transmission costs. Watch this

 

China has stepped back from those new local designs, they are very aggressively building nuclear plants though. Here is a good sumary.
Nuclear power: Back on the front burner | The Economist

Why China is doubling down on nuclear power - Fortune Features

 

I dont see why more R&D hasnt been put into this.
If the money spent on solar and wind were spent developing this ,perhaps theyd be operating by now.

 

The US Navy has done some pretty good work with making nuclear reactors smaller and more efficient for over six decades now, and their safety record is fairly enviable as well.
When I was knocking holes in the ocean we used an S5W, which in addition to the normal demands for simplicity, redundancy, ease of operation, and safety......had to be fairly portable and resilient to environmental stress and be able to withstand battle damage if/when necessary.
Today's Naval reactors are orders of magnitude more efficient. According to open sources, not only are they more cost efficient and reliable.....but they are designed to operate for the projected life cycle of the host vessel without needing to be refueled.
We're talking about hundreds of reactors just in the submarine community.
Nautilus was hull #571, and we've ordered hull #791 (USS Delaware, a Virginia class SSN) as of this writing.

Yeah....I'm biased, and nuclear power is a little off my patch since I was/am a real ET however (comma) just imagine if we had dedicated some of that effort in civilian (or government) power generation.

 

Perspective
The Molten Salt Adventure

The french spent a lot of R&D, now the Chinese are doing it. It is questionable how expensive and risky the technology will be. Certainly this does not merrit huge US government R&D budget right now.


We do have Hansen's version of this history though from 2009 -
http://bigthink.com/videos/why-america-needs-nuclear-energy

 

Chu wanted to develop smaller less expensive and less risky nuclear reactors while he was at the DOE.

 

.....maybe someday we'll have an "All of the Above" energy policy.

 

Give me wind, solar and conservation.

 

Your free copy of the paper awaits

Pubs.GISS: Kharecha and Hansen 2013, in press: Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical...

The Chernobyl exclusion zone shows some signs of turning into a decent wildlife sanctuary. We could use a few more of those! Just tossing that in

I'd agree with mojo that financial incentives to renewable energy can distort the market. And larger tax breaks to the fossil-fuel industry, even more so.

 

Hanging Out with the Residents of Chernobyl's Exclusion Zone | VICE United States
Nuclear advocates like hansen want to under count, while over counting problems with natural gas.

Chernobyl death toll grossly underestimated | Greenpeace International

Green peace may over count.

Let's not pretend there are no risks, or that chernobyl only harmed 4000. Still for china, safer gen 3 nuclear power may be the best option.

 

...tell you what, I don't think I agree with Hanson. To me this may show a flaw in his logic.

My father before me was an engineer on the start-up of the first experimental nuke power plant in Pittsburgh under Admiral Rickover leadsership in the 1950's. My father (and I believe Rickover) was ambivalent about the safety of the huge power plants the industry went on to build.

Today in the news another major figure, former NRC Chairman, voiced his concerns:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/09/us/ex-regulator-says-nuclear-reactors-in-united-states-are-flawed.html?ref=atomicenergy&_r=0

Others concerned about nukes I believe include Al Gore and physicist Amory Lovins.

To me, 2011 was a tipping point for the nuke industry. We had the Japan Tsunami, and plants in USA damaged-Virginia by earth quake, another one almost flooded out, and other one almost burned up in forest fire. I feel like I am missing another close call in 2011. These were all things management said would never happen.

My feeling is we need to go smaller.

 

Just saying that any and all Nuclear reactors are considered a war target.

San Onofre in Southern California was shut down for leaking pipes.

Radiation did escape.

SDG&E wants to bring it back online.

I agree 100%

 

Wind and solar cannot work for powering the country unless the grid could shuffle power anywhere at anytime. A cloud could wipe out your power. For baseline power, you need something clean and reliable that does not depend on anything else. Nuclear power is that.

Just like coal deaths are over-estimated by using old numbers, nuke deaths and risks are way overstated because all the designs in existence were birthed when the VW microbus was considered a good vehicle and your standard DIP package silicon contained a few thousand gates total compared to the billions we have today in a smaller footprint.

It is just not comparable.

 

We have Solar plants in Imperial County in Southern California. They get about 365 days of sunshine. Methane gas plants are also used now.

Nuclear is dangerous. Look at all the problems Japan had. Also storing radiation is crazy. Nuclear not in my back yard.

 

365 days of sunshine, but that is still only days. The way that power grids work, all solar or all solar and wind will not work. The power fluctuates too much. You would need so much excess power generation to provide a minimal output baseline even though it is cloudy or not windy or night time.

Natural gas, coal, or nuclear are all options. Hyrdroelectric is one of the best mating technologies since you can waste energy pumping water uphill when the sun shines nicely and flow it back down at night and when it is cloudy. But the cost and environmental impact of more hydroelectric dams are iffy too.

Nuclear is not dangerous. You need to actually do some research instead of regurgitating others' outputs. Looking at Japan is actually one of the best cases on how safe it is. A gigantic earthquake, a gigantic tsunami, multiple huge aftershocks, and a couple of partial meltdowns out of the many many plants operating. If there was just an earthquake, or if the generators were a half meter higher, everything would have been perfect. But who plans for a wave that tall? Nobody. Now, we might. But when it was built, it was not considered. And all of these designs are 30 years old. A new reactor design with higher output, cleaner waste, and breeders to re-use the spent fuel, using what we know now will be safer than almost anything else. If you want the added benefit of making weaponisation impossible, then you use thorium. We know how to do it, just we haven't built one in decades.

 

San Onofre build in the 50's with it's guts redone leaked radiation. Don't tell me it is safe. Build them in your state if you think they are safe. We only have 2 California, and one's off the grid trying to get permission to come on line again.

 

If frogs could fly their butts wouldn't keep hitting the ground.

You picked a poor example. There was historical evidence of Tsunamis in that area higher than the one that wiped out the Fukishima plants and it was ignored. The bean-counters won, until the Tsunami hit.