The nuclear renaissance is stone cold dead

[madokie]

2013 has been the nuclear power industry's annus horribilis and the nuclear renaissance can now be pronounced stone cold dead. Dr Jim Green reveals the global unravelling of the nuclear dream ...

Nuclear power suffered its biggest ever one-year fall in 2012 - nuclear generation fell 7% from the 2011 figure. Nuclear generation fell in no less than 17 countries, including all of the top five nuclear-generating countries. Nuclear power accounted for 17% of global electricity generation in 1993 and it has steadily declined to 10% now.

snip

Perhaps the most shocking developments have been in the United States, where the industry is finding it increasingly difficult to profitably operate existing reactors - especially ageing reactors requiring refurbishments - let alone build new ones.

Almost half of the world's reactors have operated for 30 years or more, so the problem of aging reactors will increasingly come into focus in coming years.

Link: http://www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2211231/the_nuclear_renaissance_is_stone_cold_dead.html

[bvar22]

1. ...but it is "too cheap to meter" !

The Lesson of Fukushima
If we keep using Nuke Plants,
then Fukushima and worse will happen again,
and again,
and AGAIN.

[NNadir]

2. As dead as the six million people who died this year, and each of the previous 20 years...

...from air pollution; deaths that were preventable were it not for the fear and ignorance of the anti-nukes?

This amounts to 60 million deaths every decade. This of course is not shocking to anti-nuke airheads. They couldn't care less who dies from air pollution. They're on a quest to find someone who died from Fukushima, and have burned oodles and oodles of coal and gas to power servers to hand out scazre stories.

But if 60 million dead every ten years isn't important to anti-nukes what's important to our coal, gas and oil burning anti-nukes? Oh, yes, that very important issue of there being a fish in the entire Pacific ocean with a few microcuries of radioactivity into it.

All of the nuclear energy that has been shut by paens to fear and ignorance have been replaced by dangerous fossil fuels. There are no exceptions. And why have they been shut? Because indifferent and poorly educated folks rail against the form of energy invented by some of the finest minds of the twentieth century, the form of energy that has the fewest deaths per gigawatt-hour of any viable form of energy, the word "viable" obviously excluding the expensive, failed, toxic forms of energy used to redistribute wealth from the poor to the uber-rich, solar and wind.

The destruction of nuclear infrastructure kills people.

Pushker A. Kharecha * and James E. Hansen, Environ. Sci. Technol., 2013, 47 (9), pp 4889–4895 Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power.

It would appear that one of the world's premier climate scientists is spectacularly uninterested in the continuous boring blather from blockheads in the gas, coal and oil funded anti-nuke industry.

History, should humanity survive the fear and ignorance of anti-nukes, will note who cheered for this outcome.

Congratulations to all of the anti-nukes. I note with disgust and contempt that a seven percent decrease in nuclear energy still makes it what it has been for more than 5 decades, the world's largest form of climate change gas free energy.

We can consider it a victory for ignorance and fear that anti-nuke rhetoric is responsible for 15 of the 20 worst years for increases in deadly fossil fuel waste in the atmosphere have occurred in the last twenty years.

[madokie]

3. It seems that WHO has a different take on the number of deaths due to air pollution

With the majority being from indoor air pollution due to open fires or inadequate cooking and heating apparatuses

Air pollution is a major environmental risk to health. By reducing air pollution levels, we can help countries reduce the global burden of disease from respiratory infections, heart disease, and lung cancer.
The lower the levels of air pollution in a city, the better respiratory (both long- and short-term), and cardiovascular health of the population will be.
Indoor air pollution is estimated to cause approximately 2 million premature deaths mostly in developing countries. Almost half of these deaths are due to pneumonia in children under 5 years of age.
Urban outdoor air pollution is estimated to cause 1.3 million deaths worldwide per year. Those living in middle-income countries disproportionately experience this burden.
Exposure to air pollutants is largely beyond the control of individuals and requires action by public authorities at the national, regional and even international levels
The WHO Air quality guidelines represent the most widely agreed and up-to-date assessment of health effects of air pollution, recommending targets for air quality at which the health risks are significantly reduced. The Guidelines indicate that by reducing particulate matter (PM10) pollution from 70 to 20 micrograms per cubic metre, we can cut air quality related deaths by around 15%.

Let me see we have Pripyat, Russia
Another one is Fukushima Japan

Just because the nuclear power industry doesn't admit any deaths due to nuclear energy does not a fact make. As is the case in most times it depends on what one reads as to the true numbers. Deaths due to nuclear energy is hard to prove because the nature of that in most cases takes years to manifest

[LouisvilleDem]

5. Do you really view WHO studies as authoritative?

I ask because I'm betting given a choice between the WHO investigation of Chernobyl and the Greenpeace investigation, you prefer the Greenpeace one? People might take you more seriously if you weren't so blatant in your biased selection of sources.

[eridani]

6. If they are too expensive to operate, who is going to pay for them? n/t

[hunter]

4. Too bad the fossil fuel industry isn't "stone cold dead."

It's still growing, it's getting dirtier and deadlier, and is the disease that will kill this civilization.

Solar and wind are not "replacements" for nuclear power or fossil fuels. A civilization powered by wind and solar would look very different than the one we have now.

As it's being installed in most places, solar and wind are just more "stuff" in a consumer society powered by fossil fuels.

The only way we'll quit fossil fuels is to stop using them. They will not be "replaced" by solar or wind power.

An affluent person with solar panels on their roof really isn't making the world a better place. They are still a "consumer" turning more of the world's resources into garbage, spewing more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, at a much faster rate than most of the world's people.

[madokie]

7. Talk about a one trick pony

Sounds to me like you'd take us back to the stone ages rather than use the knowledge we've gained throughout the years to slay this dragon called pollution. The only reason we haven't already is the greed of the rich gets in the way. You say I say the greed of the rich gets in the way, well, yes I do. They are who controls what is and what isn't by the simple fact they control who gets elected in office under our present system of democracy where money carries a bigger stick than people do. Fix that and most of our problems will be solved, some seemingly over night. Sticking our heads in the sand isn't going to get us anywhere but further down this path we're on now. Greed is an animal all of its own and it has nothing to do with numbers of people, rather, only on numbers of dollars.

I don't think there is many who won't agree that we are over populating our planet and there are ways other than wars to curtail that and those ways came about through knowledge. Every pebble of what we learn today will turn into a landslide of huge rocks tomorrow. Take advantage of that fact. Don't climb back under the stone of denial as that allows things to get even worse.

I respect that you can feel satisfied in keeping an old car alive but in the reality of things you are doing us a disservice keeping it on the road spewing its gobs of pollution into our atmosphere. Every little bit helps.

I can rattle off all kinds of steps I've taken in the last 20 plus years to lessen my carbon footprint if you'd like. I'd be interested in hearing what you've done on that front if you'd care to share. Due to that I feel I can say what I've typed.

[hunter]

9. My wife and I haven't been commuters since the mid-eighties.

So we are not burning much gasoline. Both our cars do have catalytic converters and must pass California's bi-annual smog test.

Filling the tank is a once-a-month kind of thing, whether the cars need it or not.

I'd love to live in a society where I didn't "need" a car, but it hasn't happened yet.

The U.S.A. hasn't really done a lot to "slay this dragon called pollution." What we did was export the dirtiest industries to other nations and kept the lower hanging fruit for ourselves.

[kristopher]

8. There he goes again...

The anti technology crusader crusading for nuclear power and against those damned renewables - because we should "simplify, doncha know.

Re: your long standing schtick:

That's rather remarkable logic you've chosen to use

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to Germany shutting down nuclear plants. And coincidently, the false narrative you weave is the same one promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the relative risk of radiation from coal power and nuclear power. Coincidently, this false narrative is also the same one promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the options available to the Japanese in their energy choices. Coincidently, the false narrative regarding the inability of renewable energy sources to meet modern Japan's needs is, you guessed it, also the same one promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the options available to the everyone in their energy choices. Coincidently, the false narrative regarding the inability of renewable energy sources to meet modern society's needs is, you guessed it, also the same one promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the relative economic and environmental cost of "alternative energy" sources. Coincidently, this false narrative is yet again exactly the same one that avid promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you make a false presentation of facts relating to the relative economic and environmental cost of "alternative energy" sources. Coincidently, this false assertion is yet again exactly the same one that avid promoters of nuclear use.

You say you don't advocate for nuclear, yet you refer to "alternative energy" sources and the plans for their use as "schemes", a word connoting unethical behavior. Coincidently, this type of verbiage regarding efforts to move to renewables is an absolute favorite among avid promoters of nuclear.

All of that taken together has the appearance of not being coincidental at all.

Context here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1014665714