{"id":827,"date":"2009-08-29T09:48:59","date_gmt":"2009-08-29T14:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/?p=827"},"modified":"2009-08-29T09:48:59","modified_gmt":"2009-08-29T14:48:59","slug":"alternative-energy-myths-and-the-nuclear-orphan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/2009\/08\/29\/inertial-confinement-fusion\/alternative-energy-myths-and-the-nuclear-orphan\/","title":{"rendered":"Alternative Energy Myths and the Nuclear Orphan"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another interesting article<\/a> turned up in Foreign Policy recently entitled \u201cSeven Myths about Alternative Energy,\u201d by legacy media environmental journalist Michael Grunwald. His collection of \u201cmyths\u201d provides a revealing look at the psychology of the \u201cgreen\u201d would be saviors of the planet. Let\u2019s run down his list.<\/p>\n

Myth number one is, \u201cWe need to do everything possible to promote alternative energy.\u201d Grunwald prefers a different emphasis: \u201c\u2026though the world should do everything sensible to promote alternative energy, there’s no point trying to do everything possible.\u201d The information content of this bit of wordsmithing as it stands is epsilon (a very small number). From the left to the right of the ideological spectrum, I have never encountered anyone who proposes that we should do everything possible to promote alternative energy, including things that don\u2019t make sense. Reading on, one notes that, in a blurb that is supposed to be about alternative energy, Grunwald studiously avoids any mention of such credible candidates as wind, solar, and geothermal. Rather, he directs his ire at alternatives that aren\u2019t quite ready for prime time: \u201cHydrogen cars, cold fusion, and other speculative technologies might sound cool, but they could divert valuable resources from ideas that are already achievable and cost-effective.\u201d This statement is logically absurd. <\/p>\n

Consider fusion for example. The amount of resources being \u201cdiverted\u201d worldwide to the energy applications of fusion, including both its hot<\/a> and cold<\/a> flavors, is utterly insignificant in comparison to the amount we spend on energy production, the total amount we spend on research, or any other number one could reasonably compare it to. I am no fusion true believer. It is a high risk technology, and one that will almost certainly not figure in the world\u2019s energy equation before Grunwald\u2019s target date of 2050. If, on the other hand, we can overcome the daunting technological hurdles Mother Nature has put in our path and find a way to use it, fusion has the potential to meet the world\u2019s energy needs indefinitely while releasing no greenhouse gases and with an insignificant radiological hazard compared to nuclear and coal. There are many interesting<\/a> research<\/a> efforts<\/a> afoot to finesse the technological problems that beset such \u201ctraditional\u201d approaches as magnetic<\/a> and inertial<\/a> confinement fusion. The amount of research dollars being devoted to these efforts is miniscule. They can all be characterized as high risk, but it is hardly implausible to suggest that, eventually, one of them will succeed. If so, the payoff will be enormous. The problem of greenhouse gas emissions might be solved once and for all, without the severe environmental impact of covering massive areas with wind farms and solar collectors. In a word, if we are truly worried about global warming, it would be utterly reckless and senseless to eliminate the tiny resources we currently devote to energy applications of fusion. As we shall see, Grunwald\u2019s reasons for rejecting such alternatives, not to mention the seeming lack of interest in such immediately available sources such as wind, solar and geothermal have more to do with psychology than logic.<\/p>\n

Moving on to myths 2 and 3, Grunwald turns his ire on biofuels, such as ethanol derived from corn. No surprise there, as he has often hammered the \u201cclean energy\u201d hype emanating from that sector in the past. He notes that such \u201crenewable fuels\u201d have been heavily promoted by governments around the world, including ours, but points out, \u201c\u2026so far in the real world, the cures — mostly ethanol derived from corn in the United States or biodiesel derived from palm oil, soybeans, and rapeseed in Europe — have been significantly worse than the disease.\u201d So far, so good. I have yet to see a convincing argument in favor of biofuels that seriously addresses such problems as the facts that their production results in a net loss in energy, horrific environmental damage, and a reduction in the world\u2019s food supply. The problem with myths 2 and 3 is that they are strawmen. I know of no credible authority outside of industry advocates who is seriously suggesting that biofuels are a plausible solution to global warming.<\/p>\n

Grunwald\u2019s myth 4 is, \u201cNuclear power is the cure for our addiction to coal.\u201d This seems counterintuitive, since, according to the most reliable studies, the carbon footprint of nuclear plants<\/a> is a small fraction of that of its fossil fuel alternatives. Among the reasons Grunwald cites for dismissing the nuclear alternative is the fact that it will be too slow coming on line to make a dent in carbon emissions in the near term. That\u2019s quite true, but while one may certainly point to it as an unfortunate fact of life, it is certainly no reason to abandon nuclear altogether. If global warming is really the problem Grunwald claims it is, than surely late is better than never. <\/p>\n

Be that as it may, Grunwald cites cost as the real show stopper for nuclear power. As he puts it, <\/p>\n

Nuke plants are supposed to be expensive to build but cheap to operate. Unfortunately, they’re turning out to be really, really expensive to build; their cost estimates have quadrupled in less than a decade. Energy guru Amory Lovins has calculated that new nukes will cost nearly three times as much as wind — and that was before their construction costs exploded for a variety of reasons, including the global credit crunch, the atrophying of the nuclear labor force, and a supplier squeeze symbolized by a Japanese company’s worldwide monopoly on steel-forging for reactors.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At this point, the familiar anti-nuclear \u201cgreen\u201d narrative emerges from the mist, and Grunwald leaves logical argument in the dust. Amory Lovins <\/a>is certainly someone worth listening to. He is also one of the legacy media\u2019s beloved \u201cmavericks,\u201d and hardly someone whose cost estimates represent the final word on the subject. In fact, if one looks at the credible cost estimates of nuclear versus its alternatives, not just from sources connected with the industry, but, for example, from a study <\/a>done in 2003 by an interdisciplinary group of MIT professors and updated in 2009, the suggestion that nuclear is \u201creally, really expensive\u201d compared to the alternatives may be dismissed as bunk. Grunwald might have had some credibility if he had taken the trouble to dispute these estimates with arguments more substantial than anecdotes about Japanese steel monopolies. As it is, it is clear that his rejection of nuclear has nothing to do with its intrinsic merits or lack thereof. Rather, it simply doesn\u2019t fit in the \u201cconservation and efficiency\u201d narrative he shares with Lovins. Grunwald uses myths 5 through 7 to outline the narrative.<\/p>\n

It turns out that myth 5, \u201cThere is no silver bullet to the energy crisis,\u201d is only a pseudo-myth. As Grunwald himself admits, \u201cProbably not.\u201d Be that as it may, he clearly has a silver bullet in mind; efficiency. In his words,<\/p>\n

But some bullets are a lot better than others; we ought to give them our best shot before we commit to evidently inferior bullets. And one renewable energy resource is the cleanest, cheapest, and most abundant of them all. It doesn’t induce deforestation or require elaborate security. It doesn’t depend on the weather. And it won’t take years to build or bring to market; it’s already universally available. It is called \u201cefficiency.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Conservation and energy efficiency are certainly laudable goals, and ones that should be pursued aggressively. However, Grunwald\u2019s problem is that he sees them in typical journalistic black and white. They are the one true path to salvation, as opposed to the \u201cinferior bullets.\u201d This setting up of artificial barriers separating the plausible alternatives to solving our energy problems into a \u201cgood\u201d approach standing in opposition to other \u201cbad\u201d approaches is more a reflection of human psychology than logic. For example, the hard fact is that rejection of nuclear power has and will continue to result in the building of more fossil-fired generation capacity. That is precisely what is going on in Germany, whose \u201cGreens\u201d have forced the foolhardy decision to shut down nuclear plants rather than refurbish them and keep them on line, resulting in the building of new coal plants even as we speak, and in defiance of these same \u201cGreens\u201d warm, fuzzy rhetoric about the virtues of alternative energy. Similarly, Grunwald\u2019s blas\u00e9 attitude towards alternatives such as wind, solar, and geothermal is more likely to encourage complacency than, for example, an aggressive approach to building the power transmission infrastructure we need to accommodate these new technologies. According to Grunwald,<\/p>\n

Al Gore has a reasonably plausible plan for zero-emissions power by 2020; he envisions an ambitious 28 percent decrease in demand through efficiency, plus some ambitious increases in supply from wind, solar, and geothermal energy. But we don’t even have to reduce our fossil fuel use to zero to reach our 2020 targets. We just have to use less.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Al Gore may be right, but he may also be wrong. Regardless, it would be foolish of us to put all of our eggs in one basket. In particular, it would be very foolish to cut off the already miniscule support we are currently giving to high risk, high payoff technologies such as fusion. It is highly unlikely that global energy demand will go down as the world\u2019s population continues to increase, or that the citizens of emerging economic powers such as India and China will continue to be satisfied with a third world lifestyle. Ignoring technologies that could plausibly solve the problem of global warming because Grunwald thinks they are dumb would be both illogical and, potentially, suicidal. His attitude is typical of the representatives of what H. L. Mencken used to call the \u201cuplift\u201d on the left. Though I suspect most of them don\u2019t realize it themselves, they are far more interested in posing as saviors of mankind than in actually saving mankind. Hence, for example, the hand waving dismissal of nuclear technology. The Grunwalds of the world will continue to dismiss it, not because it is not a plausible piece of an overall solution to the problem of global warming, but because it is unfashionable. If one would strike a truly heroic pose, one cannot afford to be unfashionable. <\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tTweet<\/a>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another interesting article turned up in Foreign Policy recently entitled \u201cSeven Myths about Alternative Energy,\u201d by legacy media environmental journalist Michael Grunwald. His collection of \u201cmyths\u201d provides a revealing look at the psychology of the \u201cgreen\u201d would be saviors of the planet. Let\u2019s run down his list. Myth number one is, \u201cWe need to do … Continue reading “Alternative Energy Myths and the Nuclear Orphan”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[37,43,52,22,23,41,33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-827","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-energy","category-environment","category-global-warming","category-inertial-confinement-fusion","category-nuclear-energy","category-science","category-technology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwEq0-dl","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=827"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":828,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/827\/revisions\/828"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=827"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=827"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helian.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=827"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}