Is Gore a Loon?

[ursangnome]

In general, for this piece my numbers come from "the internet". I have not scrutinized them and fact-checked them to within an inch of their lives, but they pass the test of a reader who has a solid knowledge of basic science, and who knows how to read web-pages with a critical eye. This is an LJ post, not a government document or grant proposal.

On Thursday, July 17, Al Gore proposed that the United States move to eliminate all carbon emissions from our electrical energy production in the next ten years. A great many folks are calling him crazy and stupid. The problem with that suggestion is that, for all his flaws, one thing Al Gore has never been is outright stupid. Idealistic, perhaps, and one can always argue over details of numbers and research, but the man's not dumb.

He's got an estimate that the 30-year cost of this plan is $1.5 trillion to $3 trillion. My basic naive math takes that to be, on average, $100 billion per year. By way of comparison, the major news services report that the Iraq War is costing something like $200 million per day (about $73 billion a year), and is looking to cost us a total of about $1 trillion to $2 trillion if we leave the country in the next three years.

So, assuming for a moment that the his estimate is of the right order of magnitude, it isn't outright crazy - the United States regularly spends money on this order on individual projects. When you say it in one lump, the scale sounds massive, but we forget that we do massive things routinely these days. So, if any politico tells you it is impossible, he or she is telling an outright lie - the thing is possible, merely extremely difficult.

The issue at hand is political will, and it seems to me that Gore was playing the Kennedy card. Back in 1961, JFK said, "First, I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him back safely to the earth." Now, the Apollo Program came in at the equivalent of something like $135 billion, so it was only a tenth the size of what Gore's proposing. But the first step of planting the flag for a decade-long goal seems pretty obvious to me.

So, let's take at least a cursory look at his idea - "Gore told the AP that his plan counts on nuclear power plants still providing about a fifth of the nation's electricity while the U.S. dramatically increases it's use of solar, wind, geothermal energy and clean coal technology. He said one of the largest obstacles will be updating the nation's electricity grid to harness power from solar panels, windmills and dams and transport it to cities."

I see a couple issues here - one is the reliance on clean coal. For the most part, clean coal amounts to burninig coal like we do now, capturing the CO2, and burying it back in the ground. A fair enough concept, but it has a major weakness in that it still depends on burning a fossil fuel - a non-renewable resource. Coal supplies are finite - current estimates I can find say that at current rates of use, if we include all types of coal (some of which make lousy fuel), we have maybe 300 years worth worldwide. If we increase our use, the time horizon comes closer. And, we are again talking about worldwide reserves - being the largest energy consumers around, we are apt to burn through our own reserves most quickly, leaving us again in the position of having to buy the stuff from someone else.

I strongly suspect there's a better plan that Mr. Gore could not mention - because it raises the specter of the Nuclear Boogeyman. World reserves of Uranium, recoverable at $130 per kilogram, would be enough to last "a century" at current rates of use. If you double the amount you are willing to spend to recover the metal, the available reserve increases by a factor of ten.

This doesn't sound so good, until you take the technology into account - the cost of fuel is a major part of a hydrocarbon-burning plant. Doubling the price of natural gas adds about 70% to the price of the electricity it produces. Most of the cost of nuclear energy is in the reactor itself - double the price of uranium, and the price of the electricity goes up by about 7%. In addition, the greatest known reserves of Uranium are in Canada and Australia, which are far more acceptable economic partners than the Middle East.

Yes, nuclear energy has its own waste problems. And there are safety concerns. With the political will to set irrational fears aside, these are reasonably manageable. There are several countries that have demonstrated how to do nuclear power safely. If we allow recycling, we deal with much of the fuel-waste issue at the same time that we reduce our need to mine more fuel.

So, a solution that'll last for longer than the nation's been around is available with current technology, and has already been implemented by other nations. It can be done, if you want it bad enough. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Comments

[tpau]

america will not o for nuke power for awhile, we ar etoo freaken terrified. if we weren't we would be on mars now.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

It will be a while if we merely sit and wait for the public fear to be beaten down by economic desperation. However, that's not a reliable strategy - by the time the general public is feeling the pinch enough to overcome their fear, that same pinch may make the transition difficult to impossible.

Proactive education and vision by popular leaders is another way to overcome fear.

I don't think fear is keeping us off Mars. Lack of any foreseeable return on the investment is keeping us off Mars.

[citabria]

I don't think fear is keeping us off Mars. Lack of any foreseeable return on the investment is keeping us off Mars.

Agreed.

[the-smith-e.livejournal.com]

Well, we agree on this one. Obama has made statements opposing expanding nuclear power. Now, you could argue that he would change his tune in office and is playing to a base. Hard to tell.

[citabria]

Last week I had a conversation with Teem about nuclear energy.

You're right that everyone will play the safety card, but I don't think there's a valid concern these days. All of the past problems were due to failure to follow proper procedures/protocols/safety standards -- and I think everyone learned their lesson. I suspect that the changes in technology that have happened over the past decade or two would also increase safety exponentially.

I think the one issue that hasn't been fully resolved yet is the waste issue, as you also mention. I haven't heard much about recycling waste, but at first blush, at least, it sounds like a viable option.

[umbran.livejournal.com]

As noted in another response - you haven't heard about it because it is not legal to do so, for reasons of national security.

Seems to me that our current energy policy is a greater threat to our security, but that's just me.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

In general, it's a good idea to try a diversified strategy in terms of R&D investments, so saying that we have to move to a mix of approaches is important politically to justify the diverse research we should continue. (Personally, I suspect tidal energy is an untapped resource, but I've visited the Bay of Fundy, and that sort of thing takes your breath away. I'm not willing to put my or my children's eggs in that particular basket any more than others, though.)

There are both the short-term safety issues with nuclear power and the long-term ones. I think it's politically feasible to argue that the fairly definite harms of coal plants (both in harvesting coal and burning it) outweighs the risks of nuclear accidents, both in terms of any utilitarian calculus and also the effects on entire populations.

The longer-term safety issue is what to do with the spent fuel, and while I've heard stories about recent R&D into reactors that can use the spent fuel, I'm not nearly well-versed enough in the details to know, but it strikes me that the spent fuel is the harder issue to address, at least right now.

Then there's the economics of this: nuclear plants are pretty darned expensive. Is there a nuclear industry anywhere in the world that doesn't receive substantial subsidies, either directly or indirectly (as in relief from liability)?

[umbran.livejournal.com]

You are correct about having a diversified research strategy. I was thinking that a shift to nuclear power is something that can be done now, with minimal research required, giving us the time we need to then shift to truly renewable resources.

Part of our getting our heads straight about nuclear energy - we don't *need* to do research on recycling, as we already know how, and have known for decades. Recycling was banned by an Executive Order by Jimmy Carter, for security reasons. The logic being that the more hands fuel goes through, the more chance there'd be it'd fall into those of a terrorist.

As for safety - the major issue with nuclear plants, to be honest, is our own regulation. The way the system works, each and every nuclear plant is a unique one-off design, with its own quirks and issues.

Contrast this with the French, who get over 75% of their electricity from nuclear plants. They have three well, tested designs. When they train a technician, he's useful all over the country. When they build a spare part, is is useful all over the country. I know it would gall us to learn from teh French, but in this case, we *really* can. They know nuclear power.

[the-smith-e.livejournal.com]

Thanks, you have taught me two things I did not know.

[sdorn.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the update on the fuel-rod recycling.

I'm still curious about the costs: even if the French have a Southwest-style management for nuclear plants, do they subsidize the industry?

[umbran.livejournal.com]

http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf40.html

"France's nuclear power program has cost some FF 400 billion in 1993 currency, excluding interest during construction. Half of this was self-financed by Electricité de France, 8% (FF 32 billion) was invested by the state but discounted in 1981, and 42% (FF 168 billion) was financed by commercial loans. In 1988 medium and long-term debt amounted to FF 233 billion, or 1.8 times EdF's sales revenue. However, by the end of 1998 EdF had reduced this to FF 122 billion, about two thirds of sales revenue (FF 185 billion) and less than three times annual cash flow. Net interest charges had dropped to FF 7.7 billion (4.16% of sales) by 1998.

In 2006 EdF sales revenue was EUR 58.9 billion and debt had fallen to EUR 14.9 billion - 25% of this.

The cost of nuclear-generated electricity fell by 7% from 1998 to 2001 and is now about EUR 3 cents/kWh, which is very competitive in Europe. The back-end costs (reprocessing, wastes disposal, etc) are fairly small when compared to the total kWh cost, typically about 5%.

From being a net electricity importer through most of the 1970s, France now has steadily growing net exports of electricity, and is the world's largest net electricity exporter, with electricity being France's fourth largest export. (Next door is Italy, without any operating nuclear power plants. It is Europe's largest importer of electricity, most coming ultimately from France.) The UK has also become a major customer for French electricity."

[mindways]

Nice post - thanks for making it!

For the most part, clean coal amounts to burninig coal like we do now, capturing the CO2, and burying it back in the ground. A fair enough concept, but it has a major weakness in that it still depends on burning a fossil fuel - a non-renewable resource.

Yeah - clean coal works fine for getting carbon emissions down, but that's really a different beast than sustainable energy.

Now, the Apollo Program came in at the equivalent of something like $135 billion, so it was only a tenth the size of what Gore's proposing.

Is that $135 after adjustment for inflation? Because if not, they might be a lot closer than that, even...

[umbran.livejournal.com]

The $135 billion is adjusted into 2005 dollars.

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the analysis.