Want to hear something ironic about nuclear power and Climate Chaos?

[GliderGuider]

I'm half-way theough Pearce's "With Speed and Violence", and he just talked about the effect of aerosols on climate. There's a growing concern among climatologists that the role of aerosols in mitigating temperature rise has been underestimated - possibly by a factor of two or three. What that means is that if fine particulate matter (like soot) was removed from the air, the true warming potential of the existing CO2 would be revealed. Remember that aerosols are short-lived in the atmosphere because they wash out over days or weeks, while CO2 is persistent. Removing the aerosols would enable over twice the temperature rise from the same amount of CO2.

This means that one of the unintended consequences of a complete replacement of coal with nuclear power, as its advocates insist upon, would be to eliminate the particulates that are currently shielding us from the consequences of our foolishness, and expose us to the full warming fury of the CO2 that is already in the atmosphere and will be there for another century. We'd get a global temperature rise of a couple of degrees as a consequence.

How's that for being caught on the horns of a dilemma?

Oh, by the way, the same principle applies to wind turbines and solar panels, but nuclear power is more dangerous in this regard because it might actually succeed in displacing some coal consumption.

God this tickles my contrarian funnybone.:evilgrin:

[Demeter]

1. That's Already Happening

Here in the de-industrialized Midwest, pollution is negligible compared to the 60's, when I was a kid. And that sun is burning like it never did before.

[phantom power]

2. We here in America observe an irony-free day on 9/11

:evilgrin:

[skids]

3. It's called "global dimming"...

...and I'd worry about it more if those same particulates weren't behind a lot of the health and biosphere catastrophe. They had/have to go or we'll all end up impotent and dying of cancer. If we need to, I'm sure we can figure out how to put something less dangerous up there than coal plant spew.

[Kolesar]

6. PBS Nova produced a show on "Global Dimming" and here is the website

Apparently, dimming had been keeping our temperatures down up until the time when the Clean Air laws removed smog and particulates from the atmosphere. Now we get more radiation reaching the surface and the rate of temperature increase due to greenhouse gasses is quite dramatic.
http://www.pbs.org/search/redir/http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/

[hunter]

4. Oh crap, replacing old belcher coal plants with clean modern plants is bad?

Everything we do greases the skids to hell, doesn't it?

Maybe we can put something in airline fuel... or maybe we already did that and it didn't work.

:tinfoilhat:

[NNadir]

5. The particulates issue is serious.

It's like a man with a wrestling grip on a bear who is tiring and wonders if he should let the bear up.

Mario Molina actually discussed seeding the clouds with sulfuric acid to avoid this problem.

I can't say I buy it, but that's what he suggested in any case.

It is possible, however, to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere if one has an input of energy. Before anyone doubts this, one should consider what happens in the system where chlorophyll converts one form of energy - solar energy - into chemical energy. The capture of carbon dioxide is driven by equilibrium shifting.

There are many, many, many papers on this idea, all of them quite serious.

I covered this subject in detail on another website.

[AlecBGreen]

7. question

the ability of soot to absorb or reflect light should depend on its color, right? If its a lighter color it should reflect, if its darker it should absorb more light and so heat up the surrounding air. Doesnt soot tend to be dark?

[Dead_Parrot]

8. True, but not all particulates are soot

[losthills]

9. What a Crocker of shit.

There is no "dilemma" here.

There is no price to pay for cleaning up our skies.

And nuclear power cannot clean up our skies.

The author of this tripe posits two arguments that are both blatantly stupid.

But straw dog arguments like this are to be expected when the same energy companies and the same politicians profit from both Coal and Nuclear exploitation. They profit either way, and they are laughing their asses off every time they get us arguing about the supposed differences between the two.

The Coal/Nuclear coin has both heads and tails on both sides, and you should throw it out before it burns a hole in your pocket....

[AlecBGreen]

10. "nuclear power cannot clean up our skies."

I guess youre techinically correct - nuclear power plants DONT clean up our skies since they dont have huge vaccuums which take in massive amounts of air, filter it, and release it cleaner than it came in. So, in that regard, you're correct. :eyes: By replacing power plants which CAUSE air pollution (coal, oil, Nat. gas facilities) nuclear plants CAN help clean the air.

While I dont think nuclear is the ultimate solution, they DO reduce many types of air pollution such as GHG's, soot and other fine particulate matter. This is a positive which shouldnt be overlooked when weighing the pros & cons.

[GliderGuider]

11. I'm not sure if you're objecting to the science Pearce is reporting on

or the admittedly mischievous conclusions I drew from it?

The science is what it is. Climatologists now have good evidence that aerosol particulates are suppressing warming that otherwise would have taken place. They are also saying that as we clean up the air we will see increased rates of global warming as a result. That's hardly controversial, or industry-driven.

Nobody is saying leave the dirt in the skies, because the smog, haze and assorted crap is killing millions of people world-wide every year. What they are saying is that we should not expect a cleanup of the air to be without consequences, and we shouldn't be surprised if one of those consequences is a spike in global warming.

What exactly is "blatantly stupid" about that?

What's actually ironic about this situation has nothing to do with nuclear power, and everything to do with coal. The same substance puts out the CO2 but stealthily hides its true danger from us through the soot it spews at the same time.

Oh, it turns out that Indian cooking fires are responsible for a lot of the brown haze over East, Central and South Asia - up to 40% of India's aerosols come from wood and dung cooking fires, according to the latest estimates. So the next time you ask, "What's all that brown shit in the air?" remember that some of it actually is brown shit.

[losthills]

12. Well, I don't see the "irony."

Because if we stop burning coal, as we should, we will eliminate both of the effects of burning coal at the same time. Problem solved. No dilemma....

The real problem with this propaganda piece is the same dull chorus that this group is subjected to on a daily basis-- "Only nuclear power can save us from the ravages of coal, Only nuclear power can save us from the ravages of coal..." ad nauseum.

The truth is that nuclear power is worse than coal over the long term, and that renewables can easily replace both of them. Again: No "irony," no "dilemma," problem solved.

[semillama]

13. Maybe you missed it, but the irony in the OP

was to note that the removal of particulates from burning coal by replacing it with a power source that does not have the same emissions, would be a probable increase in global temperature rise. What's ironic is that the same source that has contributed to pollution and climate change has in a way also mitigated temperature rise, so that a result of halting coal burning emissions would remove the particulates but do nothing immediately about the built-up levels of greenhouse gases.

So in fact we do not eliminate both of the effects of burning coal by ceasing to burn it. We only eliminate the immediate sources of the effects.