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Weiye Loh

Fukushima: The End of the Nuclear Renaissance? - Ecocentric - TIME.com - 0 views

ecocentric.blogs.time.com/...end-of-the-nuclear-renaissance

Greenhoues Gases Green Energy Nuclear Risk

shared by Weiye Loh on 16 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Weiye Loh on 16 Mar 11
     
    The environmental movement has a strange historical relationship with nuclear power. In many countries, opposition to nuclear reactors in the wake of Chernobyl gave rise to major Green political parties. Many environmentalists still oppose nuclear power--Greenpeace, for example, still calls for the phase out of all reactors. But as climate change has taken over the Green agenda, other environmentalists have come to favor nuclear  as part of a low-carbon energy mix.  It was this confluence of factors-fading memories of Chernobyl and increased concern about greenhouse gases--that gave the nuclear industry such confidence just a few years ago. That confidence will have been deeply shaken by events in Japan.
Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: Climate Science Turf Wars and Carbon Dioxide Myopia - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...ence-turf-wars-and-carbon.html

Greenhoues Gases

shared by Weiye Loh on 28 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • Presumably by "climate effect" Caldeira means the long-term consequences of human actions on the global climate system -- that is, climate change. Going unmentioned by Caldeira is the fact that there are also short-term climate effects, and among those, the direct health effects of non-carbon dioxide emissions on human health and agriculture.
  • There are a host of reasons to worry about the climatic effects of  non-CO2 forcings beyond long-term climate change.  Shindell explains this point: There is also a value judgement inherent in any suggestion that CO2 is the only real forcer that matters or that steps to reduce soot and ozone are ‘almost meaningless’. Based on CO2’s long residence time in the atmosphere, it dominates long-term committed forcing. However, climate changes are already happening and those alive today are feeling the effects now and will continue to feel them during the next few decades, but they will not be around in the 22nd century. These climate changes have significant impacts. When rainfall patterns shift, livelihoods in developing countries can be especially hard hit. I suspect that virtually all farmers in Africa and Asia are more concerned with climate change over the next 40 years than with those after 2050. Of course they worry about the future of their children and their children’s children, but providing for their families now is a higher priority. . . However, saying CO2 is the only thing that matters implies that the near-term climate impacts I’ve just outlined have no value at all, which I don’t agree with. What’s really meant in a comment like “if one’s goal is to limit climate change, one would always be better off spending the money on immediate reduction of CO2 emissions’ is ‘if one’s goal is limiting LONG-TERM climate change”. That’s a worthwhile goal, but not the only goal.
  • The UNEP report notes that action on carbon dioxide is not going to have a discernible influence on the climate system until perhaps mid-century (see the figure at the top of this post).  Consequently, action on non-carbon dioxide forcings is very much independent of action on carbon dioxide -- they address climatic causes and consequences on very different timescales, and thus probably should not even be conflated to begin with. UNEP writes: In essence, the near-term CH4 and BC measures examined in this Assessment are effectively decoupled from the CO2 measures both in that they target different source sectors and in that their impacts on climate change take place over different timescales.Advocates for action on carbon dioxide are quick to frame discussions narrowly in terms of long-term climate change and the primary role of carbon dioxide. Indeed, accumulating carbon dioxide is a very important issue (consider that my focus in The Climate Fix is carbon dioxide, but I also emphasize that the carbon dioxide issue is not the same thing as climate change), but it is not the only issue.
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  • perhaps the difference in opinions on this subject expressed by Shindell and Caldeira is nothing more than an academic turf battle over what it means for policy makers to focus on "climate" -- with one wanting the term (and justifications for action invoking that term) to be reserved for long-term climate issues centered on carbon dioxide and the other focused on a broader definition of climate and its impacts.  If so, then it is important to realize that such turf battles have practical consequences. Shindell's breath of fresh air gets the last word with his explanation why it is that we must consider long- and short- term climate impacts at the same time, and how we balance them will reflect a host of non-scientific considerations: So rather than set one against the other, I’d view this as analogous to research on childhood leukemia versus Alzheimer’s. If you’re an advocate for child’s health, you may care more about the former, and if you’re a retiree you might care more about the latter. One could argue about which is most worthy based on number of cases, years of life lost, etc., but in the end it’s clear that both diseases are worth combating and any ranking of one over the other is a value judgement. Similarly, there is no scientific basis on which to decide which impacts of climate change are most important, and we can only conclude that both controls are worthwhile. The UNEP/WMO Assessment provides clear information on the benefits of short-lived forcer reductions so that decision-makers, and society at large, can decide how best to use limited resources.
  • If we eliminated emissions of methane and black carbon, but did nothing about carbon dioxide we would have delayedThis presupposes that CO2 emissions can be capped at current levels without economic devastation or that immediate economic devastation is warranted.
  • Weiye Loh on 28 Feb 11
     
    Over at Dot Earth Andy Revkin has posted up two illuminating comments from climate scientists -- one from NASA's Drew Shindell and a response to it from Stanford's Ken Caldeira. Shindell's comment focuses on the impacts of action to mitigate the effects of black carbon, tropospheric ozone and other non-carbon dioxide human climate forcings, and comes from his perspective as lead author of an excellent UNEP report on the subject that is just out (here in PDF and the Economist has an excellent article here).  (Shindell's comment was apparently in response to an earlier Dot Earth comment by Raymond Pierrehumbert.) In contrast, Caldeira invokes long-term climate change to defend the importance of focusing on carbon dioxide:
Weiye Loh

Roger Pielke Jr.'s Blog: The Flip Side of Extreme Event Attribution - 0 views

rogerpielkejr.blogspot.com/...extreme-event-attribution.html

Disaster Greenhoues Gases Carbon Tax AGW

shared by Weiye Loh on 28 Feb 11 - No Cached
  • It is just logical that one cannot make the claim that action on climate change will influence future extreme events without first being able to claim that greenhouse gas emissions have a discernible influence on those extremes. This probably helps to explain why there is such a push to classify the attribution issue as settled. But this is just piling on one bad argument on top of another.
  • Even if you believe that attribution has been achieved, these are bad arguments for the simple fact that detecting the effects on the global climate system of emissions reductions would take many, many (many!) decades.  For instance, for an aggressive climate policy that would stabilize carbon dioxide at 450 ppm, detecting a change in average global temperatures would necessarily occur in the second half of this century.  Detection of changes in extreme events would take even longer.
  • To suggest that action on greenhouse gas emissions is a mechanism for modulating the impacts of extreme events remains a highly misleading argument.  There are better justifications for action on carbon dioxide that do not depend on contorting the state of the science.
  • Weiye Loh on 28 Feb 11
     
    It is just logical that one cannot make the claim that action on climate change will influence future extreme events without first being able to claim that greenhouse gas emissions have a discernible influence on those extremes. This probably helps to explain why there is such a push to classify the attribution issue as settled. But this is just piling on one bad argument on top of another.
Weiye Loh

Breakthrough Europe: Emerging Economies Reassert Commitment to Nuclear Power - 0 views

breakthrougheurope.org/...hina_india_japan_nuclear.shtml

Greenhoues Gases Green Energy Nuclear Risk

shared by Weiye Loh on 16 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • Nearly half a billion of India's 1.2 billion citizens continue to live in energy poverty. According to the Chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, Srikumar Banerjee, "ours is a very power-hungry country. It is essential for us to have further electricity generation." The Chinese have cited similar concerns in sticking to their major expansion plans of its nuclear energy sector. At its current GDP growth, China's electricity demands rise an average of 12 percent per year.
  • the Japanese nuclear crisis demonstrates the vast chasm in political priorities between the developing world and the post-material West.
  • Other regions that have reiterated their plans to stick to nuclear energy are Eastern Europe and the Middle East. The Prime Minister of Poland, the fastest growing country in the EU, has said that "fears of a nuclear disaster in Japan following last Friday's earthquake and tsunami would not disturb Poland's own plans to develop two nuclear plants." Russia and the Czech Republic have also restated their commitment to further nuclear development, while the Times reports that "across the Middle East, countries have been racing to build up nuclear power, as a growth and population boom has created unprecedented demand for energy." The United Arab Emirates is building four plants that will generate roughly a quarter of its power by 2020.
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  • Some European leaders, including Angela Merkel, may be backtracking fast on their commitment to nuclear power, but despite yesterday's escalation of the ongoing crisis in Fukushima, Japan, there appear to be no signs that India, China and other emerging economies will succumb to a similar backlash. For the emerging economies, overcoming poverty and insecurity of supply remain the overriding priorities of energy policy.
  • Weiye Loh on 16 Mar 11
     
    As the New York Times reports: The Japanese disaster has led some energy officials in the United States and in industrialized European nations to think twice about nuclear expansion. And if a huge release of radiation worsens the crisis, even big developing nations might reconsider their ambitious plans. But for now, while acknowledging the need for safety, they say their unmet energy needs give them little choice but to continue investing in nuclear power.
Weiye Loh

The Breakthrough Institute: ANALYSIS: Nuclear Moratorium in Germany Could Cause Spike i... - 0 views

thebreakthrough.org/...is_nuclear_moratorium_in.shtml

Greenhoues Gases Green Energy Nuclear Risk

shared by Weiye Loh on 16 Mar 11 - No Cached
  • The German government announced today that it will shut down seven of the country's seventeen nuclear power plants for an indefinite period, a decision taken in response to widespread protests and a German public increasingly fearful of nuclear power after a nuclear emergency in Japan. The decision places a moratorium on a law that would extend the lifespan of these plants, and is uncharacteristic of Angela Merkel, whose government previously overturned its predecessor's decision to phase nuclear out of Germany's energy supply.
  • The seven plants, each built before 1980, represent 30% of Germany's nuclear electricity generation and 24% of its gross installed nuclear capacity. Shutting down these plants, or even just placing an indefinite hold on their operation, would be a major loss of zero-emissions generation capacity for Germany. The country currently relies on nuclear power from its seventeen nuclear power plants for about a quarter of its electricity supply.
  • The long-term closure of these plants would therefore seriously challenge Germany's carbon emissions efforts, as they try to meet the goal of 40% reduction below 1990 carbon emissions rates by 2020.
  • ...4 more annotations...
  • The moratorium could cause a spike in CO2 emissions as Germany turns to its other, more carbon-intensive sources to supply its energy demand. Already, the country has been engaged in a "dash for coal", building dozens of new coal plants in response to the perverse incentives and intense lobbying from the coal industries made possible by the European Emissions Trading Scheme. (As previously reported by Breakthrough Europe).
  • if lost generation were made up for entirely by coal-fired plants, carbon emissions would increase annually by as much as 33 million tons. This would represent an overall 4% annual increase in carbon emissions for the country and an 8% increase in carbon emissions for the power sector alone.
  • Alternatively, should the country try to replace lost generation entirely with power from renewables, it would need to more than double generation of renewable energy, from where it currently stands at 97 billion kWh to about 237 billion kWh. As part of the country's low-carbon strategy, Germany has planned to deploy at least 20% renewable energy sources by 2020. If the nation now chooses to meet this goal by displacing nuclear plants, 2020 emissions levels would be higher than had the country otherwise phased out its carbon-intensive coal or natural gas plants.
  • *Carbon emissions factors used are those estimated by the World Bank in 2009 for new coal-fired power plants (0.795 t C02/MWh) and new gas-fired power plants (0.398 t C02/MWh) **Data from Carbon Monitoring For Action, European Nuclear Society Data, and US Energy Information Administration
  • Weiye Loh on 16 Mar 11
     
    Carbon dioxide emissions in Germany may increase by 4 percent annually in response to a moratorium on seven of the country's oldest nuclear power plants, as power generation is shifted from nuclear power, a zero carbon source, to the other carbon-intensive energy sources that currently make up the country's energy supply.
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