The real solution to climate change

I think Greenpeace are definitely on the right track, but mistaken about their objection to nuclear power. However, before you throw stones at me from your eco-glasshouse, consider the following facts:

1. Nuclear power is expensive, building nuclear power stations is not carbon-neutral and nuclear waste is a big problem, BUT:

2. The emissions from nuclear power stations are far more environmentally safe that coal or gas.

3. Nuclear power has been used by the majority of major economies for more than 40 years, with France generating 80% of its electricity from nuclear. During this time there have only been 2 major incidents (Chernobyl and Three Mile Island) and both of these involved old technology.

4. Nuclear accidents have killed, at most, hundreds of people. Pollution from coal fired power stations and coal mining has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

5. All of Europe (with the exception of France) will be fighting over dwindling supplies of Russian gas over the coming years (and the UK is the last customer at the end of the pipeline).

So, taking all of this into acccount, what is the solution?

Long term, it is undoubtedly renewable energy together with Combined Heat and Power (CHP) power stations run on sustainable fuel. However, it is crucial not to overlook the point that we do not (currently) have the ability to store wind or wave power for use when the wind does not blow or the waves do not swell. This means that there would have to be suffficient local CHP capacity to fill the gaps. To provide this capacity there would have to be a CHP station in every town with sufficent fuel to keep them running for days at a time - this is both unaffordable, inpractical and hugely inefficient.

What we need as a country is a transition strategy that will allow us to move rapidly to establish a massive renewable energy building programme, but one that is underpinned by a reliable carbon-lite safety net; and that, currently, can only be provided by nuclear power.

Greenpeace and others who dismiss nuclear power need to step back and look at precarious situation that our lack of energy security has left us in. North Sea gas is all but depleted, Norwegian supplies will not last much longer and that will make us totally dependent on Russian gas or dirty coal to provide the majority of our energy. If, as many suggest, we are looking forward to electricity blackouts and price hikes, the great British public are not going to give a hoot where out power comes from and will force the government into supplying a quick fix. At the moment, their only option would be to rapidly develop coal-powered stations and this would be a disaster for the climate.

I think that the current Greenpeace policy will cut off your nose to spite your face. A major investment in renewables can only work if it is backed up with a network of energy supplies that are available 24/7. The only question is how that power is to be supplied and, if you are serious about reducing golbal warming, then the answer can only be nuclear.

I am not suggesting that this is the permanent answer to our problems, but perhaps it is the only climate friendly solution until we reach a point when we can provide all of our needs from renewable supplies. Greenpeace, I would argue, need to accept the fact that the national grid will not disappear overnight and that they therefore need to be arguing for a transition from coal/gas/nuclear/renewable to nuclear/renewable/CHP and then, when the technology exists, to 100% renewable.

The downside to this plan is that we will continue to generate nuclear waste, although current technologies such as pebble-bed reactors will vastly reduce this. But I am happy to join with James Lovelock and have some buried at the end of my garden rather than face the prospect of power blackouts, civil unrest and a fatal return to coal powered generation which awaits us if we cannot guarantee a safe and clean transition to a better future.

Where to begin? Perhaps by saying I don't really understand why you're comparing nuclear power and coal in terms of pollution and fatalities - we're not arguing for new coal-powered stations, but against them. And 'old technology' doesn't matter a fig if you build your plant on top of a geological fault...

You're right that we need a rapid transition to different energy sources but it won't be to nuclear. Assuming the government manages to force through its plan for new nuclear power stations, and assuming they're built on time with no delays (a rarity in the nuclear industry), the first one won't be generating until 2017, and the full fleet won't be ready until 2025-2030. Those are industry estimates, so for at least 10 years nuclear power will be contributing nothing to our emission cutbacks. If we have to wait for nuclear to be our 'safety net' before we can deploy renewables and CHP, we're screwed.

And nuclear power is not something that magically appears when you turn a reactor on - it needs fuel, and the last time I checked the UK didn't have rich seams of uranium deposits lying around. So we'd still rely on supplies from other countries in exactly the same way we do for gas. Mining for uranium itself is also hazardous work.

The whole point of CHP is that they are small and local, so every town should have one - more than one, in fact. Combining heat and power production means you use much less fuel, generating less emissions. We'll need to use natural gas initially but later it can come from biogas from plant waste or compost, removing our reliance on dwindling reserves.

The technology for renewables and CHP exists now, what's missing is the will to implement it. But then if we were much more efficient with our energy, we wouldn't need so much of it in the first place...

web editor
gpuk

I apologise if I did not make my point clearly. I fully inderstand that you are against coal as well as nuclear, but the bare fact is that in times of shortage the government of the day will keep the lights on by whatever method they can. If Greenpeace et al successfully prevent the government from renewing their nuclear capacity, then any future shortage of gas will, until we are totally self sufficient in renewables, have to be covered by coal which, I argue, is more harmful to the planet and its occupants than nuclear.
You mention that 2030 will be the likely completion date for the government's new nuclear generation of power plants. This, coincidentally, is the year in which the Association of Peak Oil (ASPO) predicts that gas production will peak. This is when the the race hots up as we will be in direct competition with China, Japan, South Korea and the rest of Europe fighting (hopefully not literally) over Russia's dwindling resources. I do not know where you may think we will come in this competition, but my money is on close to the bottom.
Despite the obvious benefits of renewable energy, Europe is hooked on gas. As the IEA reported in their latest review: "Growth in natural gas use for power generation is projected to account for the majority of total incremental gas use to 2030. Natural-gas-fired generation is less carbon-intensive than oil- or coal-fired generation and is expected to remain more cost-competitive than renewable energy, making
natural gas the fuel of choice for new generating capacity
in OECD Europe." This will only result in bringing forward the date of scarcity of this over-used resource.
Of course, I fully support your argument. We must get the government to build sufficient renewable generating facilities and CHP plants. But whether, by 2030, we can supply enough biomass to fuel the CHPs and crack the storage problems associated with wind, wave and solar power, I would be very doubtful. This is why it is wise to have a safety net of reliable energy that is not 95% owned by one Russian company (Gazprom). (You are right to say that we do not have seams of uranium running through the UK, but at least we can stockpile supplies which can last for years, not weeks as is the case with gas.)
Finally, you completely missed my point when you say that "if we have to wait for nuclear to be our 'safety net' before we can deploy renewables and CHP, we're screwed." The point of a safety net is that it is there in the background whilst you forge ahead with renewables and CHP as fast as is humanly possible. But if you simply oppose nuclear and try to cut it out of the mix then you are setting yourself up to having to fall back on burning fossil fuels if your plan does not work.
If Greenpeace's main aim is to reduce global warming by limiting the amount of carbon being pumped into the atmosphere then I would suggest that you should be persuading the government to fund your renewable energy proposal whist maintaining, for now, supplementary nuclear generating capacity. Failure to do so will almost certainly open the door to the future use of coal - which is possibly the worst of all possible outcomes.

I think a lot of the projections you're basing your arguments on are themselves based on the assumption that we will use fossil fuels until they run out. What we're saying is that we need to begin switching now, becoming less and less reliant on imports of gas and other fuels as time goes on. Maybe we'll never be totally self-sufficient, but we can certainly minimise that dependence.

Governments will want to keep the lights on, but devolving power generation so it happens locally, even at an individual level with rooftop solar panels and the like, will allow our government to be much more flexible in how it achieves that. and we already produce vast quantities of biomass - all that food waste we produce (much of which goes to landfill, despite increased composting) is perfect.

The energy is there, we need to be more creative and efficient about how we access it.

web editor
gpuk

Why not nuclear CHP? With CHP there is still the production of CO2. Secondly you failed to mention the cost of infrastructure to new onshore and offshore wind farms. Thirdly most conventional coal fired stations have 4 x 500MW generators. Since mosts standard turbines are 2-3MW with the biggest ever being 5MW, and then this doesn't account for the fact they only produce about 30% of the time. You would need well over a 1000 wind turbines for every coal fired station in the UK.

Also your video could be summed up as biased. There is no convenient answer. No easy path. Instead we should stop kidding ourselves this is going to be inexspensive and realise its going to take a huge amount of investment whichever route we take.

im just curious, but i have heard that the planet is warming up, does that actually mean the planet itself or just the atmosphere, if it is the planet as well then i would put the problem down to the fact after watching a documentary about a gas rig where they had to warm the gas up to be able to safely remove it from the ground, (-279c i think although it may have been colder) and if my guess is that the amount they have taken out from all over the world, i would consider that my feet may just be getting warm although i may be wrong, i do know that they say the emissions of co2 are causing the planet problems as well, there have also been quite a few volanoes erupting over the past few years which is quite a large source of co2, xx