Thanks, Charlie. I don't know how David Wright --and some members of
this group as well-- can say nuclear "has to remain on the table".
Wright is perfectly clear about the reasons for getting out of nuclear
as fast as feasible: the risk (not only from fire & earthquake, but
from all sorts of malfunctions) is intolerable, and every kwh of power
got from the reactors is that much more spent fuel which will stay
around for tens of thousands of years rendering part of our finite
planet uninhabitable, unfarmable, and even damn near unminable. This
has been known since the 1950s, but the economics has been falsified,
especially by the Price-Anderson Act and successors. What part of the
fraud is conscious and what part is just stupid wishful thinking on
the part of the nuclear advocates, is debatable; let's debate it; but
let's not share in the delusion.
Chandler
On Sun, 23 Feb 2014, Charles Schwartz wrote:
> I sent a copy of the latest Hansen paper to David Wright at the UCS, asking
> his opinion. Here is his reply, which I think is quite
> interesting.------------
> Thanks for sending this, which I hadn't seen. I have sent it to our energy
> experts to see what they make of it, since I am not an expert in this area.
>
> My guess is that we would agree with much of what Hansen says about the
> urgency of combatting emissions and on the need to cooperate with China, and
> others, on this. Where we tend to disagree is our assessment of the risks of
> scaling up nuclear power. UCS is neither pro- nor anti-nuclear power. Our
> goal is to increase its safety and security since it will be with us for the
> foreseeable future no matter what else happens. We see a number of problems
> and potential problems that we don't believe the industry or NRC are
> adequately addressing. Until that changes, we are weary of increasing
> nuclear power, but think it needs to continue to be considered to reduce
> global emissions.
>
> There have been two recent letters by scientists arguing for more nuclear
> power, which you may have seen. Hansen was part of the first letter. My
> response to the second letter is here:
> http://blog.ucsusa.org/climate-change-and-nuclear-power-397 It really
> gives our take on both letters.
>
> By the way, if you haven't seen it, we just released a book on what happened
> at Fukushima by our two technical experts:
> http://blog.ucsusa.org/fukushima-book-the-story-of-a-nuclear-disaster-412
> It's getting great reviews.
> -----
>
> Charlie
>
> On Feb 22, 2014, at 9:17 AM, Steve Nadel wrote:
>
> I share the opposition to nuclear. However, I am looking to
> build the strongest case against that position, as I think it
> will more and more become the key debate within climate change
> circles. So I welcome all comments & references.
> David - one scary part of Hansen?s analysis refers to your timeline
> issues. If you look at the article, Hansen approvingly quotes the much
> shorter timelines to build a nuclear plant in China. Of course, he
> doesn?t explain where this magic shortened schedule comes from (as to
> limits on popular ability to insure safety protocols are actually
> observed during such mass projects)
> On Feb 22, 2014, at 8:55 AM, David Schwartzman
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>
> Short answer: no, nuclear (whatever the generation) is not the
> only viable solution to preventing even more dangerous climate
> change than now witnessed.
> See our case at: solarUtopia.org
> Here is one critical reason, aside from many others:
> The time necessary to create nuclear power replacing existing
> energy is on the order of decades, significantly longer than
> wind/solar with equivalent capacity to supply energy. The longer
> a given level of atmospheric CO2 remains, the greater the
> long-term greenhouse impact.
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Feb 22, 2014 at 11:42 AM, Steve Nadel
> <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> HI Everyone
> A comrade of mine in the local climate change group
> distributed the following link. More and more
> establishment scientists are pushing this position, that a
> transition to nuclear reactors (specifically, ?fast? or ?breeder?
> reactors) is the only viable solution to climate change.
>
> I would be most interested to people?s responses to this
> position, especially if anyone has seen more detailed
> analytical responses.
> (Note, the reference to Jacobson, is to Mark Jacobson, a
> professor of engineering at Stanford. He has produced
> several analyses, most public in a recent Scientific
> American article, outlining plans for a transition to
> water/wind/solar via utility scale projects, as an
> alternative to a nuclear transition. He will be speaking
> at a planned conference on opposition to Fracking & other
> new unconventional fossil fuel sources, we are planning
> for the SF Bay Area in May of this year)
>
> Best to all
> Steve Nadel
>
>
>
>
> I am not enough of a scientist to take a position in
> this controversy. In fact I find it challenging even
> to read Hanson's articles. I would however love to
> hear Hanson and Jacobson debate this issue.
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: James Hansen <[log in to unmask]>
> Date: Friday, February 21, 2014
> Subject: Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power, and
> Galileo
>
>
> Email not displaying correctly? View it in your
> browser.
> Renewable Energy, Nuclear Power, and Galileo
> A draft opinion piece, Renewable Energy, Nuclear
> Power, and Galileo, is available here or on my web
> site. Criticisms are welcome.
>
> ~Jim
> 21 February 2014
>
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