----- Original Message ----- From: "Jim Torson" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, July 04, 2007 10:44 AM Subject: [Global Change: 1852] Re: breaking the population bomb taboo
> A year ago I posted references to a couple articles on this issue > by Amory Lovins: > > Nuclear power: economics and climate-protection potential > http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E05-14_NukePwrEcon.pdf > > Nuclear Power: Economic Fundamentals and Potential Role > in Climate Change Mitigation > The PowerPoint slides from Amory Lovins's 16 August 2005 > invited testimony to the California Energy Commission (in .PDF > format) outline why nuclear power's inherently high cost and > slow deployment make it a counterproductive answer to > climate change. The world market is instead buying end-use > efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled > cogeneration faster and on a larger scale, and those superior > investments will save more carbon sooner per dollar. > http://www.rmi.org/images/other/Energy/E05-09_NukePwrMitig.pdf > > The nuclear proponents on this list have not explained any reasons > why Lovins' analysis is in error. As far as I can tell, they simply > ignore it because they don't like the conclusions. Thanks for the repost, Jim. Mr. Lovins is correct that the world market has recently been "buying end-use efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled cogeneration", at least, I can confirm that has been the case in Wisconsin for the past decade, which has built wind farms, photo-electric plants, and gas-fired co-gen plants like crazy (even as they have decommissioned run of river hydro plants), as well as adding significant new nuclear production by uprating existing plants. In fact a new gas-fired co-gen plant was built in my back yard two years ago (or actually about 1 km from my back yard). And I would assume that trend to continue, but for the fact that a very large new coal plant started construction last year near Milwaukee. As stated in the environmental impact statement for that plant, the economic model used to determine the least costly new power supply options would choose to continue adding more gas and wind to the grid for the foreseeable future (out to 2014), unless carbon emissions are monetized by a carbon tax, in which case the model would choose to add a new nuclear plant in 2013. Does anybody in the GlobalChange group think monetizing carbon emissions with a carbon tax is a good idea? Doing so will change the economics of electric power production in a way that Mr. Lovins' presentation has not anticipated. To learn more about what a carbon-monetized future might hold, we might turn instead to MIT professor John Deutch and his group's report http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower/ or prof Paul Joskow's power-point summary at http://econ-www.mit.edu/faculty/download_pdf.php?id=1358 . Amory and Hunter are not the only ones with educated opinions about electric power economics, although they probably do have the most interesting house among that crowd. If we fail to monetize carbon emissions, we can expect many more big new coal plants to be built, despite the market's appetite for "end-use efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled cogeneration" and Lovins-inspired protestations to the contrary. Carbon monetization and nuclear power plant construction will fill the gap left over by the failure of "end-use efficiency, decentralized renewables, and low-carbon fossil-fueled cogeneration" to satisfy base-load electricity demand in a GHG stabilization scenario. -dl --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
