paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

[lektrode]

thought this one needs more exposure/comment, out from behind the paywall

could this be a paradigm-change moment?

could be maybe somebody in this camp has read EJ and concurs that a rebirth of nuke power is going to be REQUIRED?

what kind of time frame will there be tween the next PCO-induced 'recession' and a major kranking-up of a game-changer industry, not unlike what happened with Internet v1???

looking forward to comments/observations here, as methinks this is a pretty significant development???

Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear in 'Pandora's Promise' Trailer – Premiere

Film examines idea that nuclear power can help fight climate change...
....

After sifting through the anti-nuclear choruses and the considerably smaller pro-nuclear groups in an attempt to find the truth about the advantages and disadvantages of nuclear energy, Stone found his answer with Michael Shellberger, the president and co-founder of the Breakthrough Institute: "We can have a world living modern lives without killing the climate."

Pandora's Promise examines the issue from the perspective of key environmentalists on both sides of the issue, starting with the writer Stewart Brand, who asks, "Can you be an environmentalist and be pro-nuclear? In light of climate change, can you be an environmentalist and not be pro-nuclear?" Stone admits that accepting that nuclear energy could be a viable power source was a struggle for him as well. "It's no easy thing for me to have come to the conclusion that the rapid deployment of nuclear power is now the greatest hope we have for saving us from an environmental catastrophe," he told Rolling Stone.

hmmmm... could be, eh?: http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/1...ndoras_promise

2013, 90 minutes, U.S.A., Doc Premieres
The atomic bomb, the specter of a global nuclear holocaust, and disasters like Fukushima have made nuclear energy synonymous with the darkest nightmares of the modern world. But what if everyone has nuclear power wrong? What if people knew that there are reactors that are self-sustaining and fully controllable and ones that require no waste disposal? What if nuclear power is the only energy source that has the ability to stop climate change? Prolific documentarian Robert Stone and environmentalists, scientists, and energy experts share the reasons why they have changed their minds from being fiercely anti– to strongly pro–nuclear energy. The film directly attacks popularly held reasons to oppose nuclear energy, including fear of another disaster like Chernobyl, the problem of waste, and the weakness of clean alternatives like wind and solar energy. Whatever your stance, Stone’s compelling film opens Pandora’s box and promises to change the conversation for years to come. With the world’s unquenchable thirst for energy and its resulting threat to our environment, the stakes may be nothing less than the survival of the planet. - S. S.

maybe its time to look (again) into companies like CCJ:
and what about THORIUM tech - any promising investment opportunities here?



esp when we have redford himself ranting against more open pit gold/copper mining


http://pandoraspromise.com/





Pro Nuclear Documentary 'Pandora's Promise' Bows at Sundance

Remarkably, a pro-nuclear power documentary called "Pandora's Promise" has actually been allowed to premier at the Sundance Film Festival, the very center of left-wing film making. According to Powerline, it is being well received.

The premise of "Pandora's Promise" is that a growing number of environmentalists and former anti nuclear activists are starting to embrace nuclear power as an answer to what they view as carbon emissions from fossil fuels that cause global warming. Thus the worse technology in the world back in the 1970s and 1989s when Three Mile Island and Cherbobyl were still fresh in memory has become environmentally benign. Who could have predicted it?

In a way the changing views over nuclear power parallels the debate over hydraulic fracking. Environmentalists used to be in favor of natural gas. It is, relative to oil and coal, a clean burning source of energy. The hysteria brought on by such movies as "Gasland" and "The Promised Land," thoroughly debunked by the documentary "Fracknation," has caused a debate over whether an abundant source of energy, which promises to change the world, should even be accessed.

The one thing that a film like "Pandora's Promise" will do is that it will provoke and challenge long held beliefs and perhaps change a few minds. The idea that nuclear power could be the (or at least an) answer to providing energy for a technological world without polluting it will be a hard thing for some to grasp. The accident in Japan, that is causing some countries in Europe to try to move away from nuclear power, is seen as an argument against it in the modern time as Three Mile Island and Chernobyl were 30 years ago.
So-called "green energy" has taken a little bit of a hit, ironically thanks to the Obama administration's ham handed efforts to encourage it. "Solyndra" in its own way has been as damaging to solar energy as Three Mile Island was for the nuclear industry, albeit in a less destructive and dangerous way.
Will a film like "Pandora's Promise" lead to a revival of nuclear power in the United States? Perhaps not under this administration, which seems disposed to be ideologically rigid. But if enough minds are change, future government may take a second look.

and... like... wow.... even paul allen is aboard?

lots more of kinda surprising press here

[EJ]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

thought this one needs more exposure/comment, out from behind the paywall

could this be a paradigm-change moment?

could be maybe somebody in this camp has read EJ and concurs that a rebirth of nuke power is going to be REQUIRED?

what kind of time frame will there be tween the next PCO-induced 'recession' and a major kranking-up of a game-changer industry, not unlike what happened with Internet v1???

looking forward to comments/observations here, as methinks this is a pretty significant development???



hmmmm... could be, eh?: http://filmguide.sundance.org/film/1...ndoras_promise



maybe its time to look (again) into companies like CCJ:
and what about THORIUM tech - any promising investment opportunities here?



esp when we have redford himself ranting against more open pit gold/copper mining


http://pandoraspromise.com/





Pro Nuclear Documentary 'Pandora's Promise' Bows at Sundance




and... like... wow.... even paul allen is aboard?

lots more of kinda surprising press here

The wheels of change turn slowly, but logic eventually wins out over ideology and magical thinking.

My argument with my environmentalist friends since 1981 when I graduated with a BS in Resource Economics:

1) If you burn fossil fuels you produce greenhouse gasses. That's a simple fact of chemistry. If you burn a lot of fossil fuels you will produce a lot of greenhouse gasses.
2) Most of these emissions will wind up in the atmosphere. There is nothing that can be done to meaningfully and economically reduce greenhouse gas emissions except to burn less fossil fuels.
3) Dumping more and more billions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere every year is a bad idea. Nothing good can possibly result. This was decades before Global Warming and Climate Change science and debate.
4) The only scalable and practical way to reduce fossil fuel consumption for fixed use applications (lighting and heating) is to increase the use of nuclear power.
5) Unlike disposal of fossil fuels emissions, managing nuclear waste is a manageable technological challenge.

My vision and hope has been for a large number of small nuclear power plants that can operate safely underground and sealed for 20 years of more. These will be located nearby bodies of water so that they can produce hydrogen gas for compression into liquid hydrogen for transportation applications, and on near-ocean sites to additionally operate desalination plants. By placing hydrogen production near to where it is consumed, the poor economics of LHG storage and transport are overcome.

Thirty years and hundreds of billions of tons of coal and natural gas burning emissions later, the new generation of environmentalists is getting the picture. This is a new generation, the children of my college environmentalist friends, grew up during a period when no nuclear accidents occurred in the US, but bombarded daily with dire news about Global Warming. They came to the conclusion that their parents could not, that nuclear waste is better than fossil fuels waste.

Personally I don't care what route they take as long as we get more nuclear power plants. The good news is that this generational shift in perception is now being turned into action and will create a major investment opportunity.

The even better news is that nuclear power plants have vastly improved in reliability and safety since Three Mile Island damaged public perception of nuclear power generation safety for a generation, and there are numerous competing technologies all over the world.

[Polish_Silver]

CO2 is a good thing?

. . .
3) Dumping more and more billions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere every year is a bad idea. Nothing good can possibly result. This was decades before Global Warming and Climate Change science and debate. . .

Fossil fuels cause pollution other than CO2. But just focusing on CO2, it's not clear that it's such a bad thing for people or the environment.

1) Human population bottlenecks have been caused by ice ages, not warming periods.

2) Higher CO2 levels seem to help plants grow. I visited an interesting store in my home town which had lots of hydroponic equipment and lighting for growing plants indoors. (This is state where a fibrous plants can legally be used medicinally.)
The store had brochures about machines that burn propane to raise the CO2 level, causing the plants to grow more, and produce stronger medicine.

[mikedev10]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

The wheels of change turn slowly, but logic eventually wins out over ideology and magical thinking.

My argument with my environmentalist friends since 1981 when I graduated with a BS in Resource Economics:

1) If you burn fossil fuels you produce greenhouse gasses. That's a simple fact of chemistry. If you burn a lot of fossil fuels you will produce a lot of greenhouse gasses.
2) Most of these emissions will wind up in the atmosphere. There is nothing that can be done to meaningfully and economically reduce greenhouse gas emissions except to burn less fossil fuels.
3) Dumping more and more billions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere every year is a bad idea. Nothing good can possibly result. This was decades before Global Warming and Climate Change science and debate.
4) The only scalable and practical way to reduce fossil fuel consumption for fixed use applications (lighting and heating) is to increase the use of nuclear power.
5) Unlike disposal of fossil fuels emissions, managing nuclear waste is a manageable technological challenge.

My vision and hope has been for a large number of small nuclear power plants that can operate safely underground and sealed for 20 years of more. These will be located nearby bodies of water so that they can produce hydrogen gas for compression into liquid hydrogen for transportation applications, and on near-ocean sites to additionally operate desalination plants. By placing hydrogen production near to where it is consumed, the poor economics of LHG storage and transport are overcome.

Thirty years and hundreds of billions of tons of coal and natural gas burning emissions later, the new generation of environmentalists is getting the picture. This is a new generation, the children of my college environmentalist friends, grew up during a period when no nuclear accidents occurred in the US, but bombarded daily with dire news about Global Warming. They came to the conclusion that their parents could not, that nuclear waste is better than fossil fuels waste.

Personally I don't care what route they take as long as we get more nuclear power plants. The good news is that this generational shift in perception is now being turned into action and will create a major investment opportunity.

The even better news is that nuclear power plants have vastly improved in reliability and safety since Three Mile Island damaged public perception of nuclear power generation safety for a generation, and there are numerous competing technologies all over the world.

how do i respond to friends who think all can be done with solar/wind? (hey, germany is doing it!)

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/200...ordhaus-again/

[vinoveri]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

Thirty years and hundreds of billions of tons of coal and natural gas burning emissions later, the new generation of environmentalists is getting the picture. This is a new generation, the children of my college environmentalist friends, grew up during a period when no nuclear accidents occurred in the US, but bombarded daily with dire news about Global Warming. They came to the conclusion that their parents could not, that nuclear waste is better than fossil fuels waste.

.

Don't you mean "would not"?

[Thailandnotes]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/200...ordhaus-again/

It was an interesting debate in two thousand and eight
Joe Romm vs. the Breakthrough Institute.
In two thousand and thirteen it ain’t anything but sad.
In America you can’t follow the money anymore, funny or not.


Penny Pritzker’s family funds the Breakthrough crowd. I see Shellenberger's in the “cast” of Pandora's Promise.
It’s way too loopy for me.

[santafe2]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

The wheels of change turn slowly, but logic eventually wins out over ideology and magical thinking.

Personally I don't care what route they take as long as we get more nuclear power plants. The good news is that this generational shift in perception is now being turned into action and will create a major investment opportunity.

The even better news is that nuclear power plants have vastly improved in reliability and safety since Three Mile Island damaged public perception of nuclear power generation safety for a generation, and there are numerous competing technologies all over the world.

Agree with that. There may be a day when other technologies can do the heavy lifting but for now, I'd like to see us move forward without starting another trillion dollar + war with an oil producer or build a tar sands pipeline from Canada to China. Nuclear has something in common with solar, it creates local jobs with minimal additional CO2. Not a bad place to start.

[santafe2]

Re: CO2 is a good thing?

Higher CO2 levels seem to help plants grow. I visited an interesting store in my home town which had lots of hydroponic equipment and lighting for growing plants indoors. (This is state where a fibrous plants can legally be used medicinally.)
The store had brochures about machines that burn propane to raise the CO2 level, causing the plants to grow more, and produce stronger medicine.

It's probably important to distinguish between an environment that plants love and one that's great for humans. The last time we were at roughly 400PPM CO2 was in years orders of magnitude before humans mattered as a species. Since we've been a dominating force, it's been fairly stable. We should, at a minimum, question if this change is an issue for humans. Some plants will love it but others have adapted over the last few million years to low levels of CO2.

[santafe2]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

how do i respond to friends who think all can be done with solar/wind? (hey, germany is doing it!)

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/200...ordhaus-again/

They have to feel more pain before they come around. It's like AGM deniers, until some serious pain happens, they'll be happy with their assumptions. If you have friends who think renewables should be our only energy focus ask them if they have enough solar to power all of their home's energy usage. Do they drive an all electric car powered by the solar on their home? Do they live within a few miles of their work? Have they stopped flying? Have they stopped buying anything not made within a few miles of their house. Do they walk to their farmers market? I've got more but that should be a good start. Call them out on their own turf. I live that life as much as I can afford and I find most of these people annoying.

[Southernguy]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

How big are uranium (are there other nuclear energy sources available) deposits?
How long shall they last if nuclear becomes mainstream as energy source?
Are there safe ways to get rid of nuclear waste?
Can Fukushima, 3 MI, Chernobyl accidents be phased out completely?

The wheels of change turn slowly, but logic eventually wins out over ideology and magical thinking.

My argument with my environmentalist friends since 1981 when I graduated with a BS in Resource Economics:

1) If you burn fossil fuels you produce greenhouse gasses. That's a simple fact of chemistry. If you burn a lot of fossil fuels you will produce a lot of greenhouse gasses.
2) Most of these emissions will wind up in the atmosphere. There is nothing that can be done to meaningfully and economically reduce greenhouse gas emissions except to burn less fossil fuels.
3) Dumping more and more billions of tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere every year is a bad idea. Nothing good can possibly result. This was decades before Global Warming and Climate Change science and debate.
4) The only scalable and practical way to reduce fossil fuel consumption for fixed use applications (lighting and heating) is to increase the use of nuclear power.
5) Unlike disposal of fossil fuels emissions, managing nuclear waste is a manageable technological challenge.

My vision and hope has been for a large number of small nuclear power plants that can operate safely underground and sealed for 20 years of more. These will be located nearby bodies of water so that they can produce hydrogen gas for compression into liquid hydrogen for transportation applications, and on near-ocean sites to additionally operate desalination plants. By placing hydrogen production near to where it is consumed, the poor economics of LHG storage and transport are overcome.

Thirty years and hundreds of billions of tons of coal and natural gas burning emissions later, the new generation of environmentalists is getting the picture. This is a new generation, the children of my college environmentalist friends, grew up during a period when no nuclear accidents occurred in the US, but bombarded daily with dire news about Global Warming. They came to the conclusion that their parents could not, that nuclear waste is better than fossil fuels waste.

Personally I don't care what route they take as long as we get more nuclear power plants. The good news is that this generational shift in perception is now being turned into action and will create a major investment opportunity.

The even better news is that nuclear power plants have vastly improved in reliability and safety since Three Mile Island damaged public perception of nuclear power generation safety for a generation, and there are numerous competing technologies all over the world.

[Polish_Silver]

What is "it" ?

how do i respond to friends who think all can be done with solar/wind? (hey, germany is doing it!)

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/200...ordhaus-again/

If by "it" you mean reducing Co2 emissions, then you might explain how much Germany has spent to get solar power up to 3% of total power. If these power sources were economic, wouldn't Japan already be using them?

German politicians have determined goals for energy production . The German electric power system has not achieved them.


"it" could also mean adapting to much more expensive oil. By accepting the use of coal.

[leegs]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

How big are uranium (are there other nuclear energy sources available) deposits?
How long shall they last if nuclear becomes mainstream as energy source?
Are there safe ways to get rid of nuclear waste?
Can Fukushima, 3 MI, Chernobyl accidents be phased out completely?

This is a great blog, not very active now but with a lot of useful articles exploring the energy situation. I think this is the post
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/...energy-matrix/

that might answer your question about how much uranium is available. The short answer is 'plenty', that indeed there is enough of it to supply our energy needs for a very very long time.

This of course does not answer your other questions, and I for one am not positive about nuclear power. I can not argue that over a time span of say 50 years it is better than coal, and indeed it may be a 'necessary' component of an energy solution that lets us maintain something like our current lifestyles. However I question whether this is reason enough to leave to our offspring a legacy of dangerous waste requiring significant technological and organizational savvy to maintain.

[BadJuju]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

However I question whether this is reason enough to leave to our offspring a legacy of dangerous waste requiring significant technological and organizational savvy to maintain.

It is either that or burning fossil fuels that contribute far, far more toxic waste to the environment that cannot be controlled.

[leegs]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

It is either that or burning fossil fuels that contribute far, far more toxic waste to the environment that cannot be controlled.

Or we abandon the imperative of maintaining our present lifestyles. I have no hope that will happen.

What I think will happen is that we will keep burning fossil fuels until they are all gone (gone as is in non-economic to extract) and maybe we will ALSO have more nuclear plants. If the later happens, the lifestyle of our kids and perhaps grandkids will perhaps be better than it would be, but I have concerns about the longer term.

I see that nuclear might be a partial substitute for declining fossil fuel use, but we're gonna burn them dinosaurs with or without nuclear power.

[lektrode]

Re: paradigm-change? Frak'g Causes Environmentalists Go Pro-Nuclear?

how about the 'legacy' of TRILLIONS OF DOLLARS OF DEBT for wars over oil?

how about the 'legacy' of climate change or high Co2 levels or global warming or acid rain or whatevah else we are now suffering from due to the 'legacy' of fossil fuel burning?

look - its kinda simple - i consider myself an environmentally concerned citizen, who was formerly anti-nuclear power - but NOT because of environmental concerns - i was anti-nuke power out of concern for CONCENTRATION OF WEALTH AND POWER (political) by the electric utility monopoly.

and so, i'll apolgize for my youthful ignorance.

but what i want an answer to is the question of: WHERE MIGHT WE BE TODAY IF THE ANTI-NUKE LUDDITE BRIGADE hadnt shutdown construction of the seabrook station (and the nuke power industry) in 1976 ?? - and offered nothing - zip, zilch NADA baybee - as a REAL alternative.

other than what - exactly? (capable of supplying even 10% of our energy demand)
nearly 40years later, solar and wind are what - 2or3% of energy demand? - in spite of gazzlion$ in federal/state subsidies that basically allows the affluent - who could otherwise readily afford it - to have their solar setups paid for by those who cant afford em and just watch helplessly as our electric bills skyrocket - oh sure! - we can just borrow more money so some FIre-enabled outfit can sop up whatevah savings there might've been - right?

uh huh - sure.

and hey, i'm an alternative energy proponent, solar power kind of guy - but nothing eye have seen in the going-on 40years since the famed protests shutown seabrook (which bankrupted NH's biggest power monopoly, kranked-up new england ratepayer bills due to delays and increased const costs- then went online _anyway_ and ultimately caused one of my biz endeavors to fail, due to much higher electric rates) - all of this to date has convinced me all that directly caused The Biggest Energy Policy Blunder in world history - and - subsequently - directly CAUSED global-climate-warming change, as the utilities(china) burn coal with abandon

so... when eye see the anti-nuke crowd GIVE UP THEIR CARS (mostly foreign-made), disconnect from the grid ENTIRELY, stop using mechanical heat and airconditioning, stop eating fresh produce in the winter months and eliminate 'air travel' or any other form of travel, for that matter - unless its by foot or bicycle and FUHGETABOUT 'public' transportation while they're at it, as that's only possible because of the taxes paid by consumption of the 'non-alternative' energy mix (since solar/wind power consumption does NOT generate tax revenue, it consumes it via the subsidies, that go ultimately to the affluent)

had the anti-nuke briggade NOT shutdown seabrook (oh so temporarily) 37years ago, we might've had the 'freeways' all choked up with ELECTRIC cars by now - along with much cleaner air, water - never mind oceans that arent dying by the day due to acidification etc.

so - i ask those who _still_ think nuke power is 'dangerous' - whats more frightening: endless wars over oil, with endless budget deficits to pay for it, steadily increasing UNEMPLOYMENT due to increasingly expensive energy (and forget about the subsidies and rapidly-evaporating value of The US Dollar) along with making people like al gore, kleiner, perkins et al, rich from 'carbon trading' scams - while The Rest of US get poorer paying for it all and then suffer further the insult of clowns getting famous for making movies like 'inconvenient truth'.

never mind while we sit back and let our global competitors eat our lunch for us as they capitalize upon merely ANOTHER INDUSTRY that we not only invented, but own outright nearly all of the components for its development - and FOR WHAT?

because _some_ are afraid of it?
and because its not politically-correkt for the enviro-nazis, (some of) the political class wont even discuss it?

now if thats not an INCONVIENT TRUTH, i couldnt imagine what would be.