>From: Jim Torson >Newsgroups: gmane.science.general.global-change >To: [email protected] >Sent: Friday, May 09, 2008 12:17 PM >Subject: [Global Change: 2665] Nuclear Pork - Enough is Enough > >From Joe Romm's Climate Progress blog... >http://climateprogress.org/2008/05/09/nuclear-subsidies-enough-is-enough/ >McCain and others still feel that climate legislation must not merely >create a price for carbon dioxide that would >advantage all carbon free >sources of energy, but that we must also throw billions of dollars of more >pork at the industry. >
Jim, we could probably agree that creating a price for CO2 should be a top policy priority, in the form of either a tax or a constrained supply of tradable emission permits, right? Research has shown that to minimize the cost of emission reduction, it is important not only to raise such a tax, but also to re-invest the proceeds in low-emission technology. We should invest in all such technologies of course, especially the most cost-effective technologies. Of all available low-emission electric power production technologies, IPCC finds nuclear has the highest mitigation potential at least cost by 2030 (Table 4.19, p300, WGIII, Fourth Assessment Report: http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-wg3.htm). Conservation and efficiency should come first because they can give faster and cheaper results than building new plants of any kind. But at some point, you have to build new plants. From IPCC (ibid p263) "By 2030, around 2400 GW of new power plant capacity will be needed in developing countries (100 GW/yr), which, together with the necessary infrastructure, will require around 5 trillion US$ investment (IEA, 2006b)." That's a lot of coal effluent to deal with. -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 -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
