Nuclear's CO2 cost 'will climb' |
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MartinW 
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 Topic: Nuclear's CO2 cost 'will climb'Posted: 01 May 2008 at 8:25pm |
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Any comment John?
The case for nuclear power as a low carbon energy source to replace fossil fuels has been challenged in a new report by Australian academics. It suggests greenhouse emissions from the mining of uranium - on which nuclear power relies - are on the rise. Availability of high-grade uranium ore is set to decline with time, it says, making the fuel less environmentally friendly and more costly to extract. The findings appear in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. |
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allardjd
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Posted: 02 May 2008 at 3:13pm |
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From the same article...
"Thierry Dujardin, deputy director for science and development at the Nuclear Energy Agency (NEA), said the analysis made an important contribution to clarifying the impact of nuclear energy on CO2 emissions.
"It is the beginning of the answer to a question I have raised in many fora, including within the agency," he told BBC News. But Mr Dujardin said he did not fully agree with the authors' conclusions. "Even in the worst case scenario for CO2 emissions, the impact of nuclear on greenhouse emissions is still very small compared with fossil fuels," he explained." -----------------------------------------------------------
I think the article is a deliberately slanted anti-nuclear hatchet job. Spin at its best...
Four points...
1) The mining, processing and transport surely does require the use of diesel fuel for at least parts of it, producing some CO2. Consider how much fossil fuel might be burned in the production and transportation of one reactor core, weighing perhaps 100 tons. Now compare that to the CO2 emissions of burning 100 large rail cars of coal per day for 15 months, which is what it would take, in round numbers, to produce the same electrical output that the single core would. Does anyone think that the CO2 emissions in those two cases are within several orders of magnitude of one another?
2) Many of the stationary processes that are cited in the report as being CO2 sources are assumed to be powered by fossil-fueled electric generating plants. Those processes could just as easily be powered by nuclear-fueled power plants, reducing the postulated CO2 impact of uranium fuel production further.
3) Coal and oil also have to be extracted, transported and processed before being burned in a power boiler. Those operations are also CO2 producers to the extent they rely on fossil-fueled internal combustion engines or power plants. The CO2 impact of nuclear is not the amount of CO2 produced in nuclear fuel production, but the difference between what is required to produce the same electrical energy output from both sources, nuclear or fossil.
4) If the amount of fossil fuel needed to produce a core worth of nuclear fuel is so immense as the article seems to suggest, how could nuclear fuel be so cheap? Forget environmental claims for a moment and just consider the economics. If the fossil fuel needed to produce a nuclear core is so immense as claimed, who's bearing the cost of all that fossil fuel? Surely the producers would have to pass those costs on to the utilities that are buying the nuclear fuel? But that's not happening. Nuclear fuel continues to be incredibly cheap compared to fossil fuel for power generation, suggesting that the embedded energy cost of producing it must be quite low compared to the energy it produces.
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MartinW
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Posted: 02 May 2008 at 4:09pm |
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Media again John, they'll latch onto anything.
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allardjd
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Posted: 02 May 2008 at 5:27pm |
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"...they'll latch onto anything."
Close, but not exactly. They'll latch onto anything green, fear-inducing, cotroversial, negative, anti-military, liberal or self-serving.
They'll consistently and predictably ignore good news of any kind or anything that calls into question those things I mentioned above.
Of course that's painting all of them with the same brush, which isn't entirely fair. What I say is not absolutley true of all media outlets at all times, but it is certainly the overwhelming trend.
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MartinW
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Posted: 02 May 2008 at 5:50pm |
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No John... they will latch onto anything, anything that sells newspapers, increase ratings, anything that's controversial. It doesn't have to be to do with warming or power production.
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allardjd
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Posted: 02 May 2008 at 6:54pm |
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Well, we are in general agreement on the media...
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MartinW
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Posted: 02 May 2008 at 7:05pm |
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They have destroyed peoples lives in the past John, they are deplorable.
But I suppose we do have to have freedom of the press, it wouldn't be much of a democracy without it.
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allardjd
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Posted: 02 May 2008 at 7:18pm |
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I heard a prominent TV journalist once (can't recall which one) say, "I see my job as comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable." For a supposed intellectual, that's pretty poorly thought out, or else he assumed the rest of us too stupid to see the flaw.
Being comfortable is not necessarily undeserving or evil, and being afflicted does not always equate with deserving.
Frankly, I think he just liked the turn of phrase and couldn't resist using it even if it was not as profound as we were intended to believe.
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VulcanB2
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Posted: 03 May 2008 at 1:44am |
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They're so obsessed with CO2 that they'll argue anything!
Here's a very valid question: how much CO2 is released by carbonated drinks per year????? No-one has mentioned this yet. Surely it is the most inappropriate use of CO2 imaginable? If CO2 is really a problem, then they need to tackle this. The figure is huge. Best regards, Vulcan. |
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allardjd
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Posted: 03 May 2008 at 1:58am |
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Great thought, Vulcan! OK, here's where it gets personal....
For soft drinks that are artificially carbonated, the CO2 comes from cryogenic fractional distillation of air, so no harm done. They're taking it out of the atmosphere and we burp it back. Net impact is roughly zero.
Beer, however, is naturally carbonated, i.e. the fermentation process creates the CO2 from the complex carbohydrates in the grain, so the manufature of beer does add to greenhouse gases.
How green do you feel, boys? Are you ready to ban beer for the sake of mother earth?
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MartinW
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Posted: 03 May 2008 at 11:13am |
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Don't drink!
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wisemanp
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Posted: 03 May 2008 at 12:02pm |
But are those carbonhydrates not formed from the carbon the plant takes in during photosynthesis?
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Regards, Phil
You'll Never Walk Alone |
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MartinW
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Posted: 03 May 2008 at 1:34pm |
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Don't forget the Co2 emitted by the vehicles the farmers use when they grow the crops. And transportation of course. |
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allardjd
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Posted: 04 May 2008 at 1:27am |
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"Don't drink!"
Aha! That explains a lot!
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MartinW
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Posted: 04 May 2008 at 9:24am |
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Certainly does... brain not stewed by alcohol. Brain's outer, modern, more advanced layers not switched off by alcohol.
The brain is like a city, the outer layers are the new bits, the intelligent bits, alcohol deemphasises them in favour of the primitive central core.
There you go... you should listen to me.
Here's the answer... Synthahol!
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VulcanB2
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Posted: 04 May 2008 at 11:59am |
This is one part of the CO2 argument that gets missed. This is especially true for bio-fuels. Their net impact on the earth is zero (as "they'd" say), because when they're growing, they absorb CO2, then when we burn it, we're releasing that back into the atmosphere. ...but all this of course is assuming CO2 actually has anything to do with it. Best regards, Vulcan. |
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MartinW
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Posted: 04 May 2008 at 3:10pm |
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I don't believe I just heard that.
Sorry I forgot... it's Vulcan.
The effects of putting massive amounts of carbon dioxide in the air were predicted as long ago as the early 20th century by Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius... HE WAS RIGHT! Noted oceanographer Roger Revelle’s 1957 predictions that carbon dioxide would build up in the atmosphere and cause noticeable changes by the year 2000 have been borne out by numerous studies, as has Princeton climatologist Suki Manabe’s 1980 prediction that the would be first to see the effects of global warming... THEY WERE RIGHT! Also in the 1980s, NASA climatologist James Hansen predicted with high accuracy what the global average temperature would be in 30 years time (now the present day)... HE WAS RIGHT! Conversely not a single prediction of those that doubt global warming has come true. Time to stop expecting climate science to live up to some fantasy standard that no science can live up to. No other science has ever been expected to do that! It's just bonkers. |
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Scotty
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Joined: 01 Apr 2008 Location: Oxford, UK. Points: 314 |
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Posted: 05 May 2008 at 8:46pm |
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Personally more worried that in the event of a nuclear war tea supplies will be in short supply - very worrying (well they were worried about in in the 1950's apparently according to a just released report..) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7382750.stm
Scotty
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Scotty
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VulcanB2
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Posted: 05 May 2008 at 11:12pm |
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Hi,
...that would be assuming anyone survived for it to be a problem. Best regards, Vulcan. |
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allardjd wrote: