street roots
13
D ec. 6, 2013
Energy, nukes and geoengineering in the age of global warming
n Nov. 3, James Hansen signed an
open letter addressed to environmental
organizations urging them to
demonstrate “real concern about risks from
climate damage by calling for the development
and deployment of advanced nuclear energy.”
Like Hansen and some notable long-time
environmentalists who have recently come out
in support of nukes, I am desperate. I am
desperate because, like them, I know we have
very little time left to pull off the greatest
technological “re-boot” in human history,
Robin Hahnel turning global Fossil-fuel-istan into global
Renew-conserve-istan before it is too late.
Robin Hahnel is a
That is why I recently sent my own open letter
political activist and
to those in the climate justice movement who
retired visiting
professor o f economics argue that green capitalism is an oxymoron
and climate change can only be solved by
at Portland State
economic system change. In my view, those
University. He is a
co-creator o f the post
who argue that greener capitalism is a false
capitalist economic
hope and not worth pursuing have no sense of
model known as
time. They have no sense of how fast
participatory
irreversible climate change is coming
economics, along with
compared to how fast we can marshal support
Z Magazine editor
for economic system change. However, I find
Michael Albert. He is
it sad that people like Hansen are caving on
also Professor
nukes when we do not need dangerous or new
Emeritus at
technologies to solve the problem.
American University
The problem with geoengineering schemes,
in Washington, D .C .
such as pumping sulphur dioxide aerosols into
the atmosphere or fertilizing the ocean with
iron filings, is that they are unproven and
highly risky. And if history is any guide
regarding small scale human ecological
experimentation, we should anticipate that an
attempt to prevent climate change through
geoengineering on a global scale may well
have unforeseen consequences that would be
disastrous. In all likelihood, focusing on
geoengineering schemes will prove fruitless
and only distract us from getting on with
mundane solutions we know will work.
However, unlike geoengineering proposals
where long-run consequences are highly
unpredictable, the long-run consequences of
making the global energy system fully nuclear
is predictable. Where geoengineering schemes
pose unknown dangers, we know very well
what dangers lurk if we fully embrace a
nuclear future. Nukes are the epitome of the
present generation going easy on itself by
refusing to solve a problem it could solve by
safe means today, and instead kicking disaster
down the road onto our children or
grandchildren. Of course it is also a way for
major international corporations to turn a
crisis - largely of their making - into a new
source of bloated profits at public expense. If
this were not the case, it is hard to imagine
that a “nuclear solution” would even be
discussed.
In a situation where speed is essential why
should we be talking about nuclear plants that
take longer to bring online than it does to
expand renewable energy production, not to
speak of how quickly we can increase energy
O
efficiency? As Naomi Oreskes said in her
response to Hansen’s letter: “Like many
distinguished scientists and engineers before
them, they are overstating the promises of
nuclear power, and understating the risks. It
hasn’t been the miracle technology that its
advocates envisioned back in the 1950s, and it
remains one of our most expensive sources of
electricity.” (New York Times 11/15/2013)
Nuclear energy has a perfect track record in
one area only: achieving massive cost over
runs. And only by capping damages from a
nuclear disaster, as the U S government does
through the Price Anderson Act, or by simply
ignoring who will pay for damages — as other
governments who have embraced nuclear
power do — is nuclear energy able to compete
with other forms of energy in the marketplace.
But the important point is that eventually a
fully-nuclearized, global energy system will
create a nuclear disaster, if one is not already
brewing out of control in Japan. And the
tragedy is that this is not necessary. Instead,
we need to muster the political will to do two
things to respond to a crisis that threatens
civilization as we know it.
One, put a high price on carbon to
discourage fossil fu el consumption. Zhao
Zhong hit the nail on the head in his response
to the Hansen letter: “The single most
important thing we must do is place a high
price on carbon emissions to make fossil fuel
energy less attractive when compared to other
energy sources. If we price coal and other
fossil fuels to capture their true costs, it will
immediately make all the alternatives to fossil
fuels more competitive and drive innovations
in the clean energy sector.” (New York Times
11/15/2013)
Two, kaunch a World War Il-scale
government push to change production
priorities to expand renewables and
dramatically increase energy conservation.
When German Nazis, Italian Fascists, and
Japanese militarists threatened civilization as
we knew it, the Western democracies and the
Soviet Union proved able to shift resources
from producing butter to guns remarkably
quickly. Climate change is a threat to
civilization every bit as great, and merits a
response every bit as massive. In short, the
obstacles to preventing climate change are
political, not technical, and the solution is
.political, not technical, as well.
While I remain unimpressed by arguments
that we should hang our hopes on some
“technical fix,” there are some “technical”
arguments that do impress me. I find evidence
presented by those who argue that existing
technologies can easily improve energy
efficiency by as much as 80 percent
quite convincing. Admittedly, I am
skeptical of claims that most of
these energy efficiency measures
are already cost-effective, because
one thing I do generally trust
capitalists to do is implement
changes that lower their costs and
increase their profits. But I am very
optimistic that if we put a price on
carbon emissions anywhere close to
reasonable estimates of the damage it
causes, this would immediately make
enough energy conservation projects
cost-effective to rapidly increase
energy efficiency by 50 if not 80
percent. Most energy conservation.
measures are not high tech and we already
know they are incredibly “efficient” because
the social benefits far outweigh the social
costs of implementing them.
What about the argument that we must
expand nukes because renewables pose an
“intermittency problem.” For example, that
the timing of energy production from
renewables may not match the timing of
energy consumption needs? Paradoxically, the
Germans have discovered that exactly the
opposite is true. The problem with nuclear is
not only that it is expensive, but also that you
have to run it at high capacity all the time to
defray its fixed costs, which means that lots of
power output will be redundant during periods
of strong sun or wind production. The
Germans, who have expanded wind energy
faster than arvone else, have discovered that
their accelerated phase-out of nuclear is not
only compatible with a big push for
renewables, but required by it.
However, any intermittency problems from
renewables cannot be a reason to delay cuts in
fossil-fuel energy production. Because we can
increase energy efficiency much faster than
we can bring renewable energy online, there
is no reason we cannot start phasing out fossil
fuels immediately. We do need time to develop
new technology in the field of energy storage.
We also need time to redesign electrical grids
to better handle the intermittency problems
renewables bring. But increasing energy
efficiency using well-known technologies can
easily buy us all the time we need. The rest
reduces to mustering sufficient political will to
forge ahead.
Continuing to burn fossil fuels is certain
disaster. But rapid expansion of nukes is also
certain disaster at some point down the road.
Three Mile Island? Chernobyl? Fukushima?
How many times did God give Noah the
rainbow sign? It’s not “game over” yet. But it
so o n w ill b e if w e fail to p u sh th e fo ssil fu e l
industry and its political protectors out of our
way, roll up our sleeves, and rise to the
historic challenge of preventing human-
induced climate change using known
technologies that are safe.
For any who want to know if all this can be
done while simultaneously traveling down a
longer road to eventually replace our
environmentally destructive economic system
driven by competition and greed with a
sustainable system of equitable cooperation,
the answer is that of course it can. And the
empowering experience of responding
effectively and fairly
to climate change
in the here and
now will make
it more
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