by Russel Norman
Tim Flannery, the newly named 2007 Australian of the year, has used his new platform to criticise the Howard government for not signing up to the Kyoto Protocol. I’ve read a couple of Flannery’s books, The Future Eaters and The Weather Makers, and they were outstanding. Flannery also said that Howard’s new plan for water was treating the symptom not the cause – ie we also need to address climate change. For saying similar things the Greens have been called anti-Australian so it will be interesting to see if the new Australian of the Year is called anti-Australian!
I don’t agree with Flannery on nuclear power, which he has tentatively supported in response to the climate crisis. Though he doesn’t seem overly enthusiastic either. In this article he seems extremely ambivalent about nuclear power – pointing to the unsolved waste disposal problem, the unresolved safety questions, and the ongoing risk of nuclear weapons proliferation (see the recent Australian Conservation Foundation report on how illusory the safeguards against uranium making its way into weapons are).
He is concerned about the ability of renewables to meet base load electricity generation. In NZ we don’t have such a problem because hydro and geothermal to a lesser extent (and potentially marine) can provide such a base load. But then in this article he points to geothermal hot rocks as a potentially huge source of non-polluting base load in Oz.
But here he argues that on balance if you compare nuclear with coal generated power then nuclear is less dangerous. He wants to replace the coal fired generation with nuclear. Of course the Howard govt is contemplating adding nuclear to existing coal generation. Flannery emphasises energy efficiency – reducing our energy demand – while Howard wants to keep expanding.
I also think Flannery underestimates the straight economic cost of nuclear generated electricity. It has been heavily subsidised all over the world and I seriously doubt his claim that it can compete with wind on cost.
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Fri, January 26th, 2007
Tags: environment
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Still – There’s some hope that Nukes will help. It depends on the technology used and the fuel… there was a thread about Thorium plants here a while back… interesting tech. Chinese may work out the Pebble Bed reactors and make some cheaper alternatives. Their interest isn’t as casual as Australia which has a lot of receiver area for the power transmitted from the massive safe (sorta) fusion reactor in the sky.
I worry about the waste (depending on the tech used), and its economics, but otherwise the economics will sort themselves out because in this the invisible hand is dealing with things it can feel.
Glad someone is holding their feet to the fire.
The sin here is that EVERYone is thinking of buying Carbon Credits instead of fixing their CO2 emissions… even New Zealand. Why the hell we didn’t start doing something when we started off? Is it solely because our government is mathematically challenged or is it more general stupidity? Did we burn something to make electricity? Duh.
Sorry.. I am disgusted with something else today and it is bleeding over into this post.
O.T. but vaguely related:
Had my Tino with a CVT in a minor prang. The Insuror’s shop and the Automatics shop couldn’t diagnose a noise that remained after they’d effected the obvious repairs. I wanted them to inspect the tranny. I was pretty sure it was the tranny and not a wheel bearing, but couldn’t get them to do anything. Their answer… drive it a while, it will go away or get worse. Took it to their Automatic shop on my own…. their answer was swap the wheel bearings so we can isolate the noise. That’s $600 for no gain.
I finally got hold of someone who knows about CVT’s and he knows EXACTLY what the problem is just from my description of the symptomatic noise. Do not drive if possible and not to drive fast if ou do drive. One of the bands is snapped and it is flailing around inside the gearbox. Now it’s probably going to be another $4k instead of another $1k in repairs.
The moral here is that when things change “Business as usual” costs MORE.
The investigation WOULD have cost somewhat. The lack of knowledge on the part of the two mechanics and the insurance adjuster did not lead to investigation, it led to inaction.
When I heard the same noise and could not work out what it was I could not rest ’til I knew what it was. “See if it gets worse” is not a valid answer.
respectfully
BJ
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Another site about negative environmental effects of geothermal:http://www.teara.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky/HotSpringsAndGeothermalEnergy/GeothermalEnergy/5/en
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Tim Flannery is living in a dreamworld if he thinks the general public will accept rolling blackouts or intermittent electricity supply as he has suggested:
“We could just close down the coal-fired power plants. We could. We could mandate we are going to have electricity rationing, we are going to close things down” http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/node/987
The only way to do this would be nuclear power as noted; but the greens have spent the last 20 years vilifying it, meaning the future is most likely powered by coal.
While renewables have their place, it should be noted that there are large problems with Geothermal too: the average CO2 emission from a geothermal plant can be nearly as much as a gas-fired plant
http://www.nzgeothermal.org.nz/environmental/emissions.asp
Also there can be other problems with land subsidence and hot waste water polluted with high levels of arsenic and heavy metals (if not re-injected).
Wind power has a high cost relative to output, however it would be a good water-saving partner for hydro, if owners didn’t mind their large hydro dam not generating any power (no ROI for shareholders!).
IMHO the best option for NZ would be to keep the balance we already have, building as much new hydro as we do coal and gas. Reducing electricity demand is not just possible in a growth centred economy. All the new people, homes, offices and industries need power and lots of it. If you constrain this, people go jobless, which is a pretty bad outcome.
I agree with Howard on nuclear power- if you add a cost to CO2 emissions, it is economically viable.
Another site about negative environmental effects of geothermal: http://www.teara.govt.nz/EarthSeaAndSky/HotSpringsAndGeothe rmalEnergy/GeothermalEnergy/5/en
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While renewables have their place, it should be noted that there are large problems with Geothermal too: the average CO2 emission from a geothermal plant can be nearly as much as a gas-fired plant
http://www.nzgeothermal.org.nz/environmental/emissions.asp
Also there can be other problems with land subsidence and hot waste water polluted with high levels of arsenic and heavy metals (if not re-injected).
Wind power has a high cost relative to output, however it would be a good water-saving partner for hydro, if owners didn’t mind their large hydro dam not generating any power (no ROI for shareholders!).
IMHO the best option for NZ would be to keep the balance we already have, building as much new hydro as we do coal and gas. Reducing electricity demand is not just possible in a growth centred economy. All the new people, homes, offices and industries need power and lots of it. If you constrain this, people go jobless, which is a pretty bad outcome.
I agree with Howard on nuclear power- if you add a cost to CO2 emissions, it is economically viable.
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Oh and geothermal can generate nearly as much CO2 as a gas fired power station: http://www.nzgeothermal.org.nz/environmental/emissions.asp
IMHO the best option for NZ would be to keep the balance we already have, building as much new hydro as we do coal and gas. Reducing electricity demand is not just possible in a growth centred economy. All the new people, homes, offices and industries need power and lots of it. If you constrain this, people go jobless, which is a pretty bad outcome.
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At least nuclear power is a better option than the Bush administration’s latest scheme to avoid cutting greenhouse gas emissions, viz. reflecting sunlight with giant space mirrors; and pumping particles into the atmosphere to mimic the cooling effects of a volcanic eruption.
Peter
http://www.kotare.typepad.com/thestrategist
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Ah yes… there it is again “Business as usual”
You know it won’t really work. You know it defers problems to our children and their children. You reject something that cuts emissions in half because it doesn’t cut them to zero, even though it also reduces our dependence on imported fuels.
… and not a word about conservation, though I regard that as an accidental rather than an intentional omission… I think you have mentioned it in the past at any rate….
But no change welcome…
Greens do not want to say HOW to make this all happen. All we really want is for the market to get an honest feedback on the cost of the use/destruction of the commons. We’re quite happy to accept the results of that method of implementing change, as the invisible hand IS efficient when it can touch all the needful inputs.
Is the ocean an obstacle or a highway?? Is Capitalism a boon or a bane? The difference is the presence of a boat on the one hand or a tax that brings the 50 year from now costs into the present, on the other. Balance the tax with tax relief in other areas. No need to pay more money to government… but make Business today feel the heat of tomorrow. Watch the fuel efficiency numbers go up, ridership on the rails go up, insulation go in, etc, etc, etc.
“as usual” or “the balance we already have” is not one of the possible options. The future won’t permit it. The future CANNOT SUPPORT it.
respectfully
BJ
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Oh yes, the smoke and mirrors
However, the mirrors would actually lead to solutions of the climate side of the problem overall, as control of the climate through that means is actually a powerful tool that no species on earth has ever before had. It also would have an incidental benefit. We are unlikely to be able to build them without actually building cheap access to space. Which brings changes we can’t even imagine. Were he to do that I would forgive him every other sin.
I have no belief he will however. Cutting NASA again this year.
Not likely to return Earth Studies to the NASA mission statement either.
respectfully
BJ
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uk_kiwi said (several times):
> Oh and geothermal can generate nearly as much CO2 as a gas fired power
> station: http://www.nzgeothermal.org.nz/environmental/emissions.asp
Following the link, one geothermal plant (Ngawha) comes out worse for emissions than a gas-fired station, but still better than a coal or oil plant. The other geothermal plants fare better: the average is a quarter of the emissions compared to a gas-fired plant, with the best (Wairakei and Poihipi Road) producing under a tenth of the grams of CO2 per kWh.
Also on the linked site:
“Atmospheric emissions from geothermal plants average only about 5% of the emissions from equivalent sized fossil fuel power plants”.
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BJ – ‘smoke and mirrors’ – excellent pun. But the mirrors are still (unproven) technology of the future which will have the Lomborg effect – allowing people to carry on polluting without making hard decisions, while believing that the technological fix can be applied at some later stage to save us.
Peter
http://www.kotare.typepad.com/thestrategist
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Kingfisher
The only thing we haven’tproven is that we can get enough people up there with enough “stuff” to build something, Cheap Access To Space it is not a “Lomborg effect” issue because it is actually a solution that provides for the long term survival of the planet. It is, on current form and owing to human nature, the ONLY such solution that is possible.
Mirrors we understand pretty well. The dynamics of keeping them where we want them is pretty easily understood too.
The better than that solution I prefer is Orbital Power Satellites, which gives you renewable energy as well.
CATS gives the human species a new frontier, new tools to make the planet we live on a lot healthier and resources enough to satisfy our unrelenting population growth for a few years. It also gives some of us the chance to escape the planets gravitation entirely and permanently live in space.
The social problem of unrelenting population growth is simply not tractable in most nations. The minorities find their position frozen, they will ALWAYS be minorities if growth is frozen somehow, and telling parents that they can’t have more than 2 kids is damned hard in a “free” society.
respectfully
BJ
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I’d rather rely on proven and existing methods of cutting emissions, rather than on speculative star wars-type ideas.
Peter
http://www.kotare.typepad.com/thestrategist
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Actually the only proven and existing methods we have of controlling our excess population is to have way for them to go elsewhere or to have a war.
That’s why CATS is important.
Star-Wars-type ideas? You are making fun of the concept of course, but it isn’t fantasy. This is where the Human Species gets out of having a closed environment. That’s what we have now. That’s why we have problems now. It is how human civilization survives instead of falling back and dying in its own waste. Nothing I discussed is difficult science. It doesn’t require breakthroughs. All it needs is the engineering work to support it. No new ideas really… just an end to having only a single world to live in and on.
That it may not happen is true enough…. but it is not a fantasy like “the force” and lightsabers and all manner of other fantastic inventions of the series. It is not a means of taking war to space, it is a means of bringing peace to earth.
respectfully
BJ
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It is a shame that the world spends all the space money on military tech- we could have mars bases by now instead of terrible weapons.
“You reject something that cuts emissions in half because it doesn’t cut them to zero, even though it also reduces our dependence on imported “fuels.”
There are no magic bullets. Some argue that exact line about nuclear power generation. It will be a combination of technologies which will do it in the end.
But the real answer to climate change may be societal change. If sea levels rise a metre or so over the next century, build seawalls, relocate cities, or find technical solutions over the next ten decades. Perhaps flood the dead sea? Or the Australian outback? Those projects are just as feasible as the space mirrors.
“Greens do not want to say HOW to make this all happen. All we really want is for the market to get an honest feedback on the cost of the use/destruction of the commons.”
The cost could well be the end of our way of life. Most people are not too keen to reduce their standard of living voluntarily. That is why there is so much pressure on Governments to “do something”, far be it from people to voluntarily cut their carbon emissions…
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UK-Kiwi
Our “way of life” is going to change. Ain’t no avoiding change. Whether it is an “end to civilization as we know it” or a change we can live with may well depend on what we do over the next 2 decades, maybe less. Right now we are doing nothing at all, and that is the worst possible way to prepare.
Flooding the Australian outback doesn’t help the climate stay the same. It is an adaptation which, if anything will help it get warmer because the albedo of the flooded land will most certainly be less than the albedo of the outback, which reflects light pretty good. Of course it might resolve the rabbit problem too, but I don’t think the Australians would like their continent to become an Archipelago.
Cheap Access To Space gives us a future, real control of the thermostat and access to resources that make all the metals and fuels mined and pumped on this planet to date, look tiny.
Don’t argue with me on this one. CATS is the closest thing I have to a religion
respectfully
BJ
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