Response to a Thread on Nuclear Power

I wrote this comment in this thread on the Energy Blog.  I thought it contained some good writing so I am posting it here.

Question posed

"So what do you mean by "following natures flows" exactly?"

My Response

Natures flows are what the ecosystems of the planet have used for the last billion or so years to sustain life on the planet.  We are all solar powered as we have self assembling nano machines called plants that make all food from solar energy and raw materials.  The only long term sustainable way forward is to fit in with this and also get enough energy, and there is still plenty to go around, from systems that are not stored energy.  Fossil fuels are concentrated solar energy that are convenient and easy to transport and use.  Uranium is store of energy that can be released - when it is gone that is the end of it.  Even thorium, if you take a long term view is limited eventually.  You have to take a really really long term view to find the end of solar energy.

We can only do this by becoming vastly more efficient in the way we use energy.  We need to find ways to get along doing the same things we are doing now with lots less input.  It can be done it just requires changes - ones we in the first world are reluctant to make because for some reason our lifestyles are non-negotiable.  We are exporting this non negotiable, highly wasteful lifestyle to other countries like China where up until now they have been quite energy efficient consuming only a tenth or a twentieth of the per capita energy of the USA or Australia.

You cannot build enough nuclear reactors to give each person in the world the lifestyle we have now.  So therefore the nuclear/clean coal route of increasing supply at all costs will always only be for the first world leaving billions much as they are today without energy and scraping as best they can with what they have while we in the First World continue to use most of the Earth's energy.  This will continue until the last one runs out then we will all be stuffed.

If we do not go down this route and make wholesale changes to the way we use energy and make big cuts ourselves, while still preserving most of the advantages of our first world lifestyles, we can adapt to working within what energy is given to us from the sun and not drawing on limited stores and/or creating millions of tons of waste that has to be guarded for longer than humans have been farming.

Another advantage of this is that in using less energy and resources we can export this lifestyle model and it just might be sustainable for more than just 20% or so of the world's population.  The Earth might, at this level, have enough to sustain 50% or 60% at a reasonable level of lifestyle rather than grinding poverty.

Now I mentioned Iran only because it highlights the fundamental problem of nuclear  power ie: its inseperable dark side of nuclear weapons.  If nuclear power is to be the climate change saviour that you think it could be then it will have to be rolled out to countries worse than Iran with all the attendant problems.

It would be far better for all concerned if nuclear power was just phased out, the waste we have generated up till now stored somehow, and then we just got along with what we have. I do close my mind to nuclear power as a solution to climate change much like I close my mind to murder as a solution to personal problems.  Sure killing the person would solve the issue I have with them however killing comes with so many other problems that it is not really a solution in the first place only a diversion.

I am not an "environmental fundamentalists" as you are insinuating.  I guess this is a desperate attempt to belittle my arguments by pidgeon holing me with fundamentalists that do not think about what they say but only hold positions because of some predjudice.  I am against nuclear power so vehemently because it only leads to a continuance of the unsustainable party that we find ourselves in at the end of the brief fossil fuel age.  We took at quick and easy turn with the Industrial Revolution that has brought us many advantages which I will be the first to acknowledge and use as I am using one right now.  We now need to find the wisdom to use that technology to make another turn to working with Nature again but this time at a much higher level using much more of the sun's output in many different ways.

The alternative is to arm ourselves to the teeth with whatever weapons we can make and fight over the last remaining energy resources until there is nothing left.  That is what is happening now and the drive for nuclear power and clean coal is only a mad attempt to continue this stupidity because we lack the imagination to think that there is any other way. 

Comments

[Mark C R (Chemist) UK]

Ender, I posted this here in addition as James' Blog.

You may wish to check out my blog and see that, actually our positions are closer than you might think.

The Green Chemistry Technical Blog

Regards,

Mark

"Dear Ender,
I did not wish to "pigeon hole" you as an "environmental-fundamentalist" as you have quite obviously described the situation so eloquently. Indeed, if anything I was trying to "tease the real discussion" out of you. Successfully it seems.

I found your piece on the contrary to real "environmental-fundamentalists" who in my experience have often known less about the subject than they should (and are merely jumping on the bandwagon for other political reasons!). Often they've made ridiculous suggestions - like we should all live in tents or revert to hunter-gathering...

I accept everything you wrote about eloquently. Indeed that was an excellent general piece about the problems we currently face and difficult choices we must make.

Do you not see Fusion-power as contributing to our long term future?
By any measure far more evironmentally friendly than Fission reactions - provided the correct technology is utilised.

Although not a short or medium term solution, this could as you say "put off" (even further) many of the problems we face.
By some reckoning Fusion could last thousands of years in terms of the energy supply it could provide.

Hypothetically, allowing humanity to "leave Earth" to live as Prof Steven Hawking claims we need to do, and many science fiction writers frequently write about.

I do agree however, that in our generation the widespread adoption of RENEWABLES is necessary for environmental AND ECONOMIC REASONS!"

[Ender]

Mark - "Hypothetically, allowing humanity to "leave Earth" to live as Prof Steven Hawking claims we need to do, and many science fiction writers frequently write about.

I do agree however, that in our generation the widespread adoption of RENEWABLES is necessary for environmental AND ECONOMIC REASONS!""

I am also a bit of a space nut so I would like nothing more than for humanity to leave Earth. I would just like us to leave with the house in order so to speak. The answer to our problems is here on Earth not in space. If we do become a space faring society then it would be good to do that with a much more viable society.