The Viability of Germany’s Energiewende: Mark Jacobson Answers 3 Questions

[kristopher]

The Viability of Germany’s Energiewende: Mark Jacobson Answers 3 Questions

Loukia Papadopoulos, Clean Energy Business Council
October 07, 2013

To those in the climate change field the name Mark Z. Jacobson needs no introduction. The director of the Atmosphere and Energy Program at Stanford University is credited with having written the book on computer modeling for atmospheric changes, as well as being a recognized expert in the impacts of energy production and a staunch supporter of renewables.

In 2009, Jacobson caught people’s attention with his co-authored article A Plan To Power 100 Percent of the Planet With Renewables, which was the cover story of November’s Scientific American. In 2012, he partnered with The Avengers’ Hulk Mark Ruffalo to co-author The Tesseract Is Here!, a Huffington Post opinion piece likening the film’s Tesseract, a source of unlimited energy, to renewables. To cleantech and comic lovers worldwide, this was the epitome of cool! Additionally, his 2010 TED Talk debate with Stewart Brand Does the world need nuclear energy? is a must-watch for any renewables fan.

His work has often ruffled feathers, but to anyone who believes in a renewables-driven future, his unwavering vision and dedicated well-documented stance that “wind, water and solar technologies can provide 100 percent of the world’s energy” is the key to moving public opinion. Last month, the New York Times published an article skeptical of Germany’s Energiewende program. Since then I’ve read many other views, each with their own unique thoughts on the subject, but Jacobson’s opinion was the one I was still most curious about. In a three question interview, Jacobson did what he does best; breathe back life to the notion that the often deemed complicated task of switching to renewables is, in fact, doable and profitable....

Q&A follows at:
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2013/10/the-viability-of-germanys-energiewende-mark-jacobson-answers-3-questions?cmpid=SolarNL-Tuesday-October8-2013

[madokie]

1. Looks to me like

any power we get from wind, solar, hydro or geothermal is less co2 released into the atmosphere. How can that not be good
Any one of the four is one hell of a lot cleaner than Nuclear is when the whole process from the ground to the grave is considered. If you look at nuclear in that light its obvious it is one dirty, dirty, way to boil water plus with it comes a lot of long term dependencies. Personally I don't care to leave to the future generations the responsibility of dealing with that. Its a false equivalence to suggest that its either fossil or nuclear when in reality it can and should be neither. I give no credence to those who suggest it is. Furthermore I will not entertain their argument nor should anyone else.

Money is the only reason our power generation is as it is today and in my personal life every single time I've let money be the deciding factor its been a bad decision

[PamW]

2. It doesn't have to be a problem for future generations...

madokie states:
I don't care to leave to the future generations the responsibility of dealing with that.

It doesn't have to be a problem for future generation; as I've explain many times before on this forum.

Read the following interview with nuclear physicist and former Associate Director of Argonne National Lab, Dr. Charles Till:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: And you repeat the process.

A: Eventually, what happens is that you wind up with only fission products, that the waste is only fission products that have, most have lives of hours, days, months, some a few tens of years. There are a few very long-lived ones that are not very radioactive.

If we do what the scientists originally wanted to do, which is to reprocess / recycle spent fuel; then the lifetimes of the waste are relatively short and don't have to be a problem for "thousands or millions of years" as the anti-nukes claim. The only reason we have this long term problem is because the anti-nukes got Congress to forbid what the scientists had in mind. They did that with false claims that it had to be done that way to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. First, who is worried about the USA proliferating; we already have nuclear weapons. However, even if non-weapon states followed our lead; quoting again from Dr. Till:

Q: So it would be very difficult to handle for weapons, would it?

A: It's impossible to handle for weapons, as it stands.

It's highly radioactive. It's highly heat producing. It has all of the characteristics that make it extremely, well, make it impossible for someone to make a weapon.

Are we going to listen to scientists; or are we going to follow the likes of the "climate deniers" and not listen to the scientists.

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[kristopher]

10. Wonder why Japan didn't follow that path?

Last edited Wed Oct 9, 2013, 06:40 PM - Edit history (1)

I mean, they've spent a huge amount of money and more than 20 years trying to solve their nuclear waste problem with recycling/reprocessing technologies.

If the claims of Dr. Till and "Dr.Greg" are accurate, why didn't Japan pursue it?

Monju (もんじゅ?) is a Japanese sodium-cooled fast reactor, located in Tsuruga, Fukui Prefecture. Construction started in 1986 and the reactor achieved criticality for the first time in April 1994. Its name is a reference to Manjusri.

Monju is a sodium cooled, MOX-fueled, loop-type reactor with three primary coolant loops, producing 280 MWe from 714 MWt. It has a breeding ratio of approximately 1.2.

An accident in December 1995, in which a sodium leak caused a major fire, forced a shutdown. A subsequent scandal involving a cover-up of the scope of the accident delayed its restart until May 6, 2010, with renewed criticality reached on May 8, 2010. In August 2010 another accident, involving dropped machinery, shut down the reactor again. As of June 2011, the reactor has only generated electricity for one hour since its first testing two decades prior. As of the end of 2010, total funds spent on the reactor amounted to ¥1.08 trillion. An estimated ¥160-170 billion would be needed to continue to operate the reactor for another 10 years.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monju_Nuclear_Power_Plant

And how about their new reprocessing and fuel manufacturing facility that is more than 300% over budget and still not online?

Rokkasho: nuclear white elephant or yen sucking black hole?
BY JEFF KINGSTON
SPECIAL TO THE JAPAN TIMES SEP 21, 2013
As one approaches Rokkasho, a small town of 11,000 on the remote, windswept coast of Aomori Prefecture at the very north of Japan’s main island, Honshu, one sees dozens of power-generating windmills spinning away. Aside from this ambitious renewable energy project, Rokkasho also is the site for a national petroleum reserve, but it is most infamous for something that is not yet operating.

Two decades and $21 billion after construction commenced, Japan’s nuclear reprocessing and waste storage facility at Rokkasho may finally start operating in 2014, but probably later. There have been numerous delays and large cost overruns, but the operator, Japan Nuclear Fuel Ltd. (JNFL), is hopeful because Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has revived prospects for restarting nuclear reactors. The Japan Atomic Energy Commission and JNFL want to get the facility running as soon as possible, but the Nuclear Regulation Authority (NRA) is busy reviewing applications to restart 12 reactors based on the new safety guidelines issued in July 2013.

The NRA has also drafted tighter regulation standards, which take effect in December 2013 for facilities like Rokkasho that deal with nuclear fuel and is expected to conduct an in-depth geological survey of the site to determine if it is located on top of active fault-lines. Thus the timing of Rokkasho’s commissioning remains uncertain.

A report issued recently by the Princeton, New Jersey-based International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM), compiled by independent nuclear experts, gives a failing grade to Japan’s nuclear fuel recycling policy and urges reconsideration because it is, “dysfunctional, dangerous and costly” and because “Japan is undermining the non-proliferation regime.” The IPFM recommends, inter alia, a government takeover of spent fuel management, air-cooled dry-cask storage of spent fuel at nuclear power plants, continuation of local subsidies to offset axing the reprocessing project and deep burial of Japan’s 44 tons of separated plutonium....

http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2013/09/21/commentary/rokkasho-nuclear-white-elephant-or-yen-sucking-black-hole/#.UlXJxygyHdk

So again, if Till's Integral Fast Reactor is, in fact, such a superior design that has been around for such a long time ...

It begs the question of why countries like Japan, India, South Africa, and Korea have made a deliberate and considered choice to invest their tens of billions of dollars in other technologies?

And then we have this - as a guest of the Nuclear Industry in Japan former Japanese Prime Minister Koizumi went to Finland to take a tour of their waste disposal program. On his return to Japan, his experiences in Japan and now Finland led him to take a position calling for a rapid shutdown of all nuclear in Japan. This was an unthinkable act as it is in direct opposition to that of the current Prime Minister and leader of Koizumi's party.

Former Japanese PM And Current Environment Minister Speak Out Against Nuclear Power
BY ARI PHILLIPS ON OCTOBER 3, 2013 AT 10:32 AM

CREDIT: ASSOCIATED PRESS
This week both Japan’s environment minister, Nobuteru Ishihara, and former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, a popular national figure, spoke out against nuclear power.

Ishihara said the country’s target to cut greenhouse gas emissions should be based on a scenario with no nuclear power generation.

Previously in January Ishihara had said that Japan will set a new emissions target, including how much nuclear power generation should account for, by November after reviewing the previous government’s goal to reduce emissions by 25 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.

Meanwhile, in a speech to a pro-nuclear audience of business executives, Koizuma went against the grain by saying that Japan should “should rid itself of its atomic plants and switch to renewable energy sources like solar power.”

Koizuma went on to say that “there is nothing more costly than nuclear power. Japan should ...

http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2013/10/03/2722531/japan-nuclear-power-leaks/


Now why would he do that if a viable alternative actually existed? Cutting that question with Occam's Razor leads directly to the conclusion that you and Dr. Till are engaged in hyping a product - presenting a rose colored scenario that omits any and all negatives that make your chosen technology more problematic than alternatives that we know are VERY problematic to implement.

[PamW]

12. Why didn't Japan build their own airliners instead of buying from Boeing / Airbus?

kris,

Why didn't Japan build their own airliners instead of buying from Boeing / Airbus.

Because Japan didn't build their own airliners; does that mean that Japanese engineers are no good? Of course not. Countries do LOTS of things for different reasons; and you can't draw conclusions from those.

Monju was NOT an IFR. It superficially may resemble one; but is not; any more than a Cessna 172 is not a Boeing 777 just because they both have wings.

I don't see how you can call what Dr. Till is saying as "hype". Argonne demonstrated the technology. As Dr. Till stated; Argonne built the prototype Integral Fast Reactor at their site in Idaho; and they placed it through the accident scenarios that Dr. Till explained. The prototype reactor passed the test. The Laws of Physics don't "hype". If an IFR reactor in Idaho passes the test; then an identical reactor in California, or Japan, or where ever will pass the same test.

Argonne also built the reprocessing facilities at Idaho also for reprocessing fuel from the IFR prototype. Again, if it works in Idaho, it will work anywhere else.

Unless Japan licensed the technology from the USA; they'd have to develop it themselves, and didn't. They continued to license the BWR design from GE. I can't draw conclusion as to what reasoning was going on in their heads.

However, I can't ( and I don't think any one else can ) make conclusions as to why the Japanese didn't embark on a research program along the lines of the IFR program and just kept buying GE BWRs; any more than I can conclude why they didn't design / manufacture their own airliners as opposed to buying from Boeing or Airbus.

Do you have any evidence that Dr. Till or I are withholding information as to the complexity of IFR? Dr. Till and I can point to the tests that the IFR passed? Do you know of a test done on the IFR prototype in Idaho that melted down and we or somebody hid that information?

As a scientist, with the list of degrees and the certification of specialize knowledge in the field; I see the IFR technology as less problematic than you do.

I also see problems with the alternatives that you propose. I realize, as does the National Academy of Science; that generators have to "load follow", they have to "track" the load. That means one needs a way to "throttle" the generators. I don't know how to tell Mother Nature to make the wind blow harder or to make the sun shine brighter. I see problems with what you propose that are WAY, WAY beyond any problems with IFR technology.

Again, what engineering degrees do you have to support the conclusion you are drawing?

The good thing about science is that it is true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[kristopher]

13. The question was why hasn't ANYONE pursued the IFR if it is so superior?

Why did the 2003 and 2009 MIT review of nuclear's future not single out the IFR as the best technology sink all of our money into?

The truth is there are a host of problems yet to be worked out; and, just like the technology that was tried with Monju, everyone knows they can expect a seriously negative learning curve.

Nuclear is dying a slow but steady death, Greg. All of your obfuscation and misleading claims aren't going to change that one iota.

[PamW]

17. The name is Pam!!

The MIT studies were done on commercially available technology - that is technology that you can currently buy.

The IFR technology was developed by Argonne, and no Administration nor Congress has provided Argonne with the permission to commercialize / license the technology.

Actually we DON'T know what the learning curve is for any technology; until you actually go develop it.

Nuclear power is still providing over 20% our electric demand, safely and cleanly; and that's more than renewables. So I don't see how one can say it is dying.

Monju was also cooled by liquid metal coolant and it had a leak. Handling liquid metals is not as uncommon as you think. Every foundry handles liquid metals - and they have leaks every so often. They just don't get the publicity and the unscientific pretense that something major is wrong. Why the Japanese didn't pursue it is their business, and likely their error. We don't have to do what other countries do.

For example, do you know what country first introduced the commercial jet airliner? It wasn't the USA. It wasn't France. It wasn't either of the two countries that make the bulk of the airliners for the free world. The first jet airliner was introduced by the British; the deHavilland Comet. However, the Comet had a design defect; it had passenger windows that were rectangular. The windows had corners, and stress concentrates at corners, and led to metal fatigue, and failure, and the loss of 3 planes. The loss of 3 planes was more than the British public could tolerate, and British commercial jet aviation industry wasn't pursued.

That let US companies like Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas ( now absorbed into Boeing ) take over the market and were unchallenged during the '50s and '60s. The US companies basically had the whole industry to themselves until Airbus started in the '70s. So all the money and all the jobs that accrue from the design / manufacture of airliners used to be the sole providence of the USA, and now the USA shares it with France. The British could have had a stake in that industry, but they didn't pursue it. Was that a good thing? I think it was a mistake. If during the development of the Boeing 707 someone had said, "Well this is just like what the British did, and they abandoned it. We should abandon it too."; we wouldn't have a major portion of our GDP today. Just because someone else makes a choice doesn't mean we have to be like lemmings and follow along.

The whole history of science and industry in the USA is about doing something different and better; and we've enjoyed the fruits of that success. Just because some other effort encountered problems doesn't mean the problems are not solvable. For example, the problem with the windows on the Comet was solved by rounding the corners of the window, which is why the windows in passenger jets look the way they do. You do that - and we haven't had that problem since.

BTW; please do me the courtesy of calling me by my real name, and not someone from your past.

PamW

[kristopher]

18. Nope

DrGreg/PamW wrote: "The MIT studies were done on commercially available technology - that is technology that you can currently buy."

That isn't accurate. They used the IFR as their generic fast reactor.
That's from "The Future of Nuclear Power, 2003, MIT, pg 33, table 4.3, note b

They do NOT recommend moving to a closed fuel cycle (the use of breeder reactors).

[PamW]

19. WRONG!

kristopher states
They do NOT recommend moving to a closed fuel cycle (the use of breeder reactors).

A closed fuel cycle and using a breeder are two DIFFERENT things. See the above MIT study in Chapter 4 at page 33.

http://web.mit.edu/nuclearpower

Quoting:

It is important to note that this balanced closed fuel cycl is entirely different from breeder fast reactor fuel cycles where net plutonium is produced in fast reactors is made into MOX fuel to be burned in thermal reactors. In the closed fuel cycle we considered, the fast reactor burns plutonium and actinides created in thermal reactors.

That's why it's good to have a degree in physics or nuclear engineering, so one can understand these concepts without getting confused and posting erroneous information.

The MIT study made clear that the choice of once through fuel cycle over a closed cycle was due to some assumptions. Please see page 4 of the MIT study for the following. One assumption was the future supply of uranium:

We believe that world-wide supply of uranium ore is sufficient to fuel the deployment of 1000 reactors over the next half century and to maintain this level of deployment over a 40 year lifetime of this fleet.

Many here have made claims in the past that are at variance with the above.

At the bottom of page 4 continuing to page 5 they say:

The result of our detailed analysis of the relative merits of these representative fuel cycles with respect to key evaluation criteria can be summarized as follows: The once through cycle has advantages in cost, proliferation and fuel cycle safety, and is disadvantageous only in respect to long-term waste disposal; the two closed cycles have clear advantages only in long-term aspects of waste disposal, and disadvantages in cost short-term waste issues, proliferation risk, and fuel cycle safety. Cost and waste criteria are likely to be the most crucial for determining nuclear power's future.

So which fuel cycle "wins" is really determined by what you value.

The MIT study chose the open cycle because of cost, and they didn't really care about the fact that the open fuel cycle leaves you with long term wastes that are imposed on future generations.

I think that if one substituted the values that are more characteristic of DU members; then we would get the opposite answer. DU members, I believe, are less likely to impose long term waste disposal issues on future generations in return for less cost and bigger profits for the utilities.

Given the choice; I would say, the average DU forum member would put a lesser value on the cost and more value on not leaving waste problems to future generations. Hence, when you apply your values in making the decision to the options outlined in the study, the average DU member has different values from the MIT professors, and would opt to have the nuclear industry spend the money to clean up after itself and not leave a long term waste issue for future generations. That would argue for the use of a closed cycle with fast reactors to burn the long-lived waste.

The MIT study stated that the open cycle had the advantage in terms of proliferation. That really isn't the case. If you bury the plutonium, then it isn't immediately available for making weapons. However, what you create for the future is a "plutonium mine". When the radioactivity of the fission products decays in a relatively short time; then there's nothing to stop one from digging up that plutonium and using it for nuclear weapons.

With the closed fuel cycle, the plutonium is burned to make energy, and there's no plutonium in the waste stream to make into weapons. Additionally, as Dr. Till states, and was confirmed by the study from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; the plutonium that is recycled in the closed IFR fuel cycle can NOT be made into nuclear weapons. Quoting Dr. Till again:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

Q: So it would be very difficult to handle for weapons, would it?

A: It's impossible to handle for weapons, as it stands.

It's highly radioactive. It's highly heat producing. It has all of the characteristics that make it extremely, well, make it impossible for someone to make a weapon.

The IFR fuel cycle provides the proliferation resistance that I believe DU members would prize as I do. Additionally, I care more about not imposing long term nuclear waste disposal issues on future generations, and I care less about utility profits. In this way, I'm different in values from the MIT professors that drew conclusions based on their values. I believe my values are more in keeping with what the average DU member values.

Or are you saying that the choice by the MIT professors of valuing utility profit over long term waste disposal issues is the correct value system?

PamW

[kristopher]

20. I value the most effective means of reducing carbon emissions.

And nuclear of any sort is not it.

As can be seen by your own post, unlike the claims in your earlier post, nothing I wrote was "WRONG!" MIT did, in fact, consider the merits of the IFR and they REJECTED the closed fuel cycle that the IFR was used as part of.

No one here has denied that different reactor designs and fuel cycles have different advantages when it comes to addressing the 4 nuclear business bug-a-boos of cost, safety, waste, and proliferation; the criticism is of your presentation of the IFR as "the" technology that makes nuclear worth pursuing in the face of the more effective alternative of energy efficiency and renewables. If you think cost is irrelevant, you are living in a deeper state of denial than I ever imagined.

Finally, your oft repeated quote from Dr. Till re proliferation is not true. Making weapons is more difficult, but the claim that is is "impossible" has been refuted by far too many qualified critics for it to stand.

[PamW]

21. WRONG, as per usual

kristopher states:
Finally, your oft repeated quote from Dr. Till re proliferation is not true. Making weapons is more difficult, but the claim that is is "impossible" has been refuted by far too many qualified critics for it to stand.

kristopher,

What you fail again to understand, is that although there are many that claim to have expertise in what can / can not be done in the area of nuclear weapons; that in the USA, there is truly only one source of "experts" in nuclear weapon design, and that is the scientists at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. NO WHERE else can such work be done or even discussed.

The question as to the Dr. Till's claim was authenticated by scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in a report referenced by Senators Simon and Kempthorne in their rebuttal to a New York Times editorial:

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/07/05/opinion/l-new-reactor-solves-plutonium-problem-586307.html

You are mistaken in suggesting that the reactor produces bomb-grade plutonium: it never separates plutonium; the fuel goes into the reactor in a metal alloy form that contains highly radioactive actinides. A recent Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory study indicates that fuel from this reactor is more proliferation-resistant than spent commercial fuel, which also contains plutonium.

PamW

[kristopher]

22. No, Greg, you are wrong - again.

You don't get to disqualify as an expert anyone who disagrees with you. Proliferation is more difficult but that design certainly doesn't make it "impossible". That is pure hyperbolic nonsense.

[PamW]

33. WRONG!!! WRONG!!! WRONG!!! 100% WRONG!!! both the name and substance

Last edited Sat Oct 12, 2013, 04:03 PM - Edit history (3)

I'm not disqualifying anyone because they disagree with me. Evidently you don't understand that the issue in question are the specs for nuclear bomb fuel; what can and can not be made into a bomb. Guess what - that information is CLASSIFIED. The ONLY people that have the qualifications to make a determination on that, by LAW; are the scientists at Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore. No other scientists can have the data needed, again, by LAW. THAT is why I disqualify people other than LANL or LLNL scientists.

Consider the following analogy concerning running an auto engine on a mixture of gasoline and water. Whether you can use the mixture depends on what the mixture is. Gasoline is the fuel, of course. Water inhibits the combustion; water is not combustible and it soaks up energy and lowers the temperature, which is why we use water for putting out fires.

Suppose I had a mixture that was 99.99% gasoline and 0.01% water. Do you think that would work in an auto engine? Sure it would. The fuel that is in the tank of your car right now probably has more than 0.01% water just due to condensation of the moisture in the air in the tank. How about a mixture that was 99.99% water and 0.01% gasoline. NO WAY would that work as a auto fuel. So at one end we have a mixture of 99.99% gasoline and 0.01% water that will work; and at the other extreme is a mixture of 99.99% water and 0.01% gasoline that won't work. Logically, there is some maximum value for the percentage of water in the mixture in order for the mixture to work in a car engine.

The same holds true for a nuclear bomb. When we are talking about nuclear reactions, it isn't sufficient to specify just the chemical species; that is to say something is "Plutonium". Saying something is "Plutonium" only specifies the chemical properties; NOT the nuclear properties. In order to specify the nuclear properties, you have to specify the particular Plutonium isotope. Plutonium-239 (Pu-239) is the isotope that is fissile, and hence Pu-239 is the bomb fuel. Other isotopes of Plutonium actually INHIBIT the bomb process, namely Pu-240. Pu-240 is NOT fissile and is not fuel; and is akin to the water. Additionally, Pu-240 has the nasty property that it can spontaneously fission. When a bomb is operating, you don't want to have a bunch of neutrons around or the bomb can pre-detonate. More on that later. Additionally, the neutrons released by Pu-240 can cause fissions and produce heat. Dr. Till mentions that in the interview:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/reaction/interviews/till.html

A: It's impossible to handle for weapons, as it stands.

It's highly radioactive. It's highly heat producing. It has all of the characteristics that make it extremely, well, make it impossible for someone to make a weapon.


So we have a situation just like the auto engine and a gasoline / water mixture. Pu-239 is analogous to gasoline and Pu-240 is analogous to water. As before, if we have 100% pure Pu-239, then that can be bomb fuel. If we have 100% Pu-240; that won't work. So somewhere there is a maximum percentage of Pu-240 that you can have and still have something work.

The scientists at Los Alamos found that out during the Manhattan Project:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_weapon_design


Gun assembly: one piece of fissile uranium is fired at a fissile uranium target at the end of the weapon, similar to firing a bullet down a gun barrel, achieving critical mass when combined.

Implosion: a fissile mass of either material (U-235, Pu-239, or a combination) is surrounded by high explosives that compress the mass, resulting in criticality.

The implosion method can use either uranium or plutonium as fuel. The gun method only uses uranium. Plutonium is considered impractical for the gun method because of early triggering due to Pu-240 contamination and due to its time constant for prompt critical fission being much shorter than that of U-235.

You can authenticate the following information by reading Richard Rhodes' Pulitzer-Prize winning book, "The Making of the Atomic Bomb" or from the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth_Neddermeyer

In April 1944 tests on the first sample of plutonium-239 that had been produced with neutrons in a nuclear reactor (rather than a cyclotron), revealed an unexpected problem: the reactor-bred plutonium contained five times more plutionium-240 (a result of reactor neutron bombardment), an unwanted isotope that spontaneously decayed and produced neutrons that promised to cause a pre-detonation, without sufficiently quick critical mass assembly. It now become apparent that only implosion would work for practical plutonium bombs, since neutrons from any amount of plutonium-240 which would be produced along with plutonium-239 in a workable reactor production scheme, would cause a pre-detonation in any gun-type bomb (see weapons grade plutonium for details). Plutonium-240, once produced in reactor-plutonium, was even more difficult to remove from plutonium-239 than isotopic separation of uranium. These facts made plutonium effectively unusable unless implosion worked.


The scientists at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project planned to use a gun-assembly method for the Uranium bomb; and that's what they ultimately did. However, they also planned on using a gun-assembly method with a faster gun to be the basis of the design for an atomic bomb using Plutonium. However, when the first samples of weapons grade Plutonium were available from Hanford, the scientists discovered that you can't make a bomb from even weapons grade Plutonium using a gun-assembly method. The neutron background due to spontaneous fission of Pu-240 is just too high; and it is impossible to make a gun-assembled bomb out of even weapons grade Plutonium, let alone "reactor grade" Plutonium with its even higher concentration of Pu-240.

From above, the percentage of Pu-240 in "weapons grade" plutonium from Hanford is too high to make a plutonium bomb using the gun assembly method. Los Alamos scientists had to use the implosion method. However, if the percentage of Pu-240 is high enough; then even implosion doesn't work. In the limiting case, if you had a Plutonium that was 100% Pu-240 and 0% Pu-239 ( that's akin to 100% water and 0% gasoline ); the bomb won't work.

THAT is what Lawrence Livermore certified is the case with the IFR. The Plutonium produced by the IFR has so much Pu-240 and so little Pu-239 ( the IFR is a very efficient Pu-239 burner ) that it is IMPOSSIBLE to make IFR Plutonium into a bomb as Dr. Till states above.

That scientific truth was certified by scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Lab, one of only two labs that are the real experts; so Dr. Till is 100% CORRECT; all the "pseuo-experts" that you may cite, notwithstanding.

The good thing about science is that it is always true, whether or not you believe in it.
--Neil deGrasse Tyson

PamW

[GliderGuider]

4. In a world with static or declining energy demand this might be true

Last edited Wed Oct 9, 2013, 02:14 PM - Edit history (2)

i.e. "any power we get from wind, solar, hydro or geothermal is less co2 released into the atmosphere"

However in a world with rising energy demand the story is more complicated.

We can meet some energy demand by building renewable electrical sources instead of fossil fuels. We can also gain energy efficiency by substituting more-efficient electrical motors for combustion engines for example, or improve the efficiency of using fossil fuels for things like space and process heat.

But these two together will only reduce the amount of CO2 flowing into the atmosphere if the global sum of sum of renewable builds plus efficiency improvements stays ahead of the growing global energy demand.

For example, assume that energy demand grows by 2.2%, pa, which is the recent 30 year trailing average primary energy growth rate. Then assume we can supply 0.4% of it from low-carbon sources like renewables - also the trailing 30 year average growth rate of low carbon sources. Assume we get 0.8% as efficiency improvements - the 20-year trailing average of improvements in the energy intensity of global GDP (this actually requires us to double our current 0.8% rate of improvement that is already doing its job to lower energy consumption). 0.4 + 0.8 - 1.2. We need 2.2%, so we're still short by 1%.

There are only two ways to close that 1% gap: by using more high-carbon energy; or through demand destruction, which requires a restriction in economic activity. So far, the global choice has been to maintain economic activity by closing the demand gap with fossil fuels, because economic activity is seen as a higher priority than addressing climate risk.

to stay even at today’s CO2 emissions of 35 billion tonnes per year, we need to improve our year-over-year efficiency improvements by 50% and triple the growth rate of low-carbon energy rollout. In order to actually start reducing emissions we need to do even better than that – or accept a decline in economic growth, or even global economic stagnation.

It's a herculean task that the world may not be ready for yet, but as you point out, anything is better than nothing.

On edit: The big issue in all this is that for it to work we must somehow constrain economic growth, rather than taking advantage of renewable energy and efficiency improvements to get higher economic growth rates. That is, assuming it always takes some energy to get economic output - which seems more obvious to the ecologically aware than to mainstream economists...

As long as the world holds to the position that growth is a sovereign right of every economy, we are well and truly screwed. Who will (or even can) bell that cat?

[madokie]

5. Lets not get too carried away here

my statement of any power we get from wind, solar, hydro or geothermal is less co2 being released into the atmosphere is still true.

[GliderGuider]

6. Agreed. I just wanted to get the idea out there, and this was as good a place as any.

Thanks for giving me a springboard

[madokie]

7. happy to be able to oblige

I put a lot of stock in what you have to say and agree with you 99.99999 % of the time

[kristopher]

8. More of your hypothetical bullpucky

We can meet some energy demand by building renewable electrical sources instead of fossil fuels. We can also gain energy efficiency by substituting more-efficient electrical motors for combustion engines for example, or improve the efficiency of using fossil fuels for things like space and process heat.
But these two together will only reduce the amount of CO2 flowing into the atmosphere if the global sum of sum of renewable builds plus efficiency improvements stays ahead of the growing global energy demand.

Can you say, "Duh"?

For example, assume that energy demand grows by 2.2%, pa, which is the recent 30 year trailing average primary energy growth rate. Then assume we can supply 0.4% of it from low-carbon sources like renewables - also the trailing 30 year average growth rate of low carbon sources. Assume we get 0.8% as efficiency improvements - the 20-year trailing average of improvements in the energy intensity of global GDP (this actually requires us to double our current 0.8% rate of improvement that is already doing its job to lower energy consumption). 0.4 + 0.8 - 1.2. We need 2.2%, so we're still short by 1%.

Q: Why would anyone use a thirty year trailing average to look at the forward effects of infrastructure change that has already demonstrated that assumption to be invalid?

A: In order to create a false narrative.

[GliderGuider]

9. I used 30 year averages to ensure that I wasn't mistaking noise for trend.

In all cases three cases the rates are surprisingly persistent, which suggests that they're not going to change on a dime.

[kristopher]

11. No, you used 30 years to fudge the numbers

Recent trends demonstrate an extremely clear change in direction. Globally "investment in renewable energy power generation was $40 billion greater than investment in fossil fuels in 2011".

...Total renewable power capacity grew by 8 percent in 2011, reaching over 1,360 gigawatts (GW) of installed capacity by year-end. Renewable energy technologies now account for 16.7 percent of total final energy consumption and over 25 percent of the world’s installed power-generating capacity...

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/revolt/ren21-renewables-2012-global-status-report-official-launch/

...Solar and wind continue to dominate investment in new renewable capacity. Global use of solar and wind energy grew significantly in 2012. Solar power consumption increased by 58 percent, to 93 terrawatt-hours (TWh), while wind power increased by 18.1 percent, to 521.3 TWh.
Global investment in solar energy in 2012 was $140.4 billion, an 11 percent decline from 2011, and wind investment was down 10.1 percent, to $80.3 billion. Due to lower costs for both technologies, however, total installed capacities still grew sharply.

Solar and wind energy investments were down slightly in 2012, though installed capacities still grew sharply (Source: BNEF).

Solar photovoltaic (PV) installed capacity grew by 41 percent in 2012, reaching 100 gigawatts (GW). Installed PV capacity has grown by 900 percent since 2007. The countries with the most installed PV capacity today are Germany (32.4 GW), Italy (16.4 GW), the United States (7.2 GW), and China (7.0 GW). Concentrating solar thermal power (CSP) capacity reached 2.55 GW, with 970 megawatts (MW) alone added in 2012...

http://blogs.worldwatch.org/revolt/growth-of-global-solar-and-wind-energy-continues-to-outpace-other-technologies/

Your posts really do belong in the woowoo forum.

[GliderGuider]

14. Actually, I didn't. Here's the graphic proof of what I'm saying

This graph is derived from the BP data set that I normally use. The original figures are all consumption in mtoe, so capacity factors are taken out of the picture for all sources. Just the consumed energy is counted.

• The black line shows the year over year (yoy) growth in primary energy.
  
• The red line is the portion of the primary energy growth that came from fossil fuels (oil, gas and coal) .
  
• The green line is the portion of the primary energy growth that came from non-fossil sources (nuclear, hydro and renewables).
  
• The red plus the green line equals the black line.

The problem I'm pointing to is that that low-carbon sources over this 22 year period provided on average just one sixth of the total yoy growth in primary energy (0.3%). The most they ever contributed was 0.7%. Fossil fuel averaged 5 times the low-carbon contribution to the growth of primary energy, with a max of 5%. As you can see from the non-averaged plots, all energy demand growth over about 0.5% has been fulfilled by fossil fuels.

I don't know what will happen in the future, but this is what the last 22 years have looked like. I know you expect this picture to change radically very soon, but I don't. I see an energy and economic environment that has a lot of inertia due to its current size. As long as the economy keeps demanding more energy growth than renewables can fulfill, they will never, ever catch up. That means that for the foreseeable future, unless there is a global economic crash, CO2 levels will keep rising.

[kristopher]

15. The picture has already changed.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/112755232#post11

And yet for some inexplicable reason you can't bear that fact so you insist on pretending the last 6 years are the same as the previous 24.

[GliderGuider]

16. Not according to the data I have

The last 6 years of energy growth look like this:



In that time:

• Low-carbon energy added 198 mtoe of consumption, or 1.8% of the world's primary energy consumption in 2007.
  
• Fossil fuel energy added 991 mtoe of consumption, or 8.8% of the world's primary energy consumption in 2007.

The whole point of ramping up renewables is to make a difference to CO2 emissions. I just don't see how that can happen at this point, short of a global economic crash. Unless there is a crash, it looks to me as though fossil fuels are going to use their head start, massive installed base and easy availability to stay in the lead. As long as they remain available, somebody is going to use them, meaning that the situation will stay additive instead of displacive - at least until some sort of crisis changes the game.

The key to understanding this perspective is that the global economy represents global energy consumption. As long as economic growth is required, more energy has to be used. Energy consumption growth happens on top of the base of what's already being used. So long as the amount of renewable energy available falls short of the amount required for economic growth, fossil fuels will be used to close the gap - as well as to fuel the economic performance they fueled in the previous year. It can be no other way.

It's a Red Queen's race.

[kristopher]

23. You're pointing your camera in the wrong direction

You support your position with either false claims ("As long as economic growth is required, more energy has to be used") or you make self evident statements that aren't related to your actual "analysis" at all ("So long as the amount of renewable energy available falls short of the amount required for economic growth, fossil fuels will be used to close the gap - as well as to fuel the economic performance they fueled in the previous year".

Do you account for any of these points? No, you don't.

Note that the decoupling of CO2 emissions from GDP in the US and EU disproves your inexorable link between economic growth and more energy.


And the movement by China













How about the mass introduction of electric drive vehicles for personal transportation, estimated to be 7% of global market by 2020? Lots of economic growth potential resulting in a strong net reduction in energy use.


And with predictions 300GW of solar by 2020, don't you suppose that "economic growth" of this nature will ALSO result in net negative carbon emissions as we displace fossil fuels?

[GliderGuider]

24. At least you've stopped trying to beat us to death with Mark Z. Jacobsen...

Although I can't say this new cut and paste is much of an improvement.

[kristopher]

25. You stopped making the specific claims that Jacobson refuted.

And I'd say it's safe to attribute that change in your messaging to Jacobson.

[GliderGuider]

26. You can attribute whatever you wish. It's your belief system.

[kristopher]

27. Memo to sceptics of a low-carbon world – 'it's happening'

Memo to sceptics of a low-carbon world – 'it's happening'
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2013/oct/10/low-carbon-world-sceptics-climate-change

[GliderGuider]

28. What do Portugal's cars run on? What heats their homes?

Portugal's primary energy consumption in 2012 was 20% low-carbon (14% renewables, 6% hydro) - and 80% fossil fuels. 60% of their fossil fuel use is oil (i.e. transportation) and 23% of it is natural gas (for peaking plants and space heating). They can trumpet 70% renewables if they want, but it's all spin because that's just in the electricity sector.

The proportion of Portugal's primary energy that comes from fossil fuels has fallen back to what it was in the mid-1980's, but they are using 70% more of the stuff. It's true that Portugal's CO2 emissions have been dropping recently, but that has more to do with the Eurozone crisis, in which they were major victims:

http://peakoil.com/consumption/electricity-consumption-in-portugal-collapsing

When Portugal committed together with the other members of the European Union to the 20-20-20 targets in 2006 it would be perhaps difficult for its political leaders to imagine that they would reached so soon. Six years later energy consumption in Portugal is declining in almost all fronts, the European Energy Policy has become largely irrelevant in this state. In recent days it became known another staggering figure, last month electricity consumption fell 6.3%, the largest contraction on record. This figure already has in account consumption seasonality and climatic variations, being thus set aside any transitory effects.

If in a first phase where the high prices of road fuels that fostered this energy consumption collapse, since 2010 it has been the recessive policy of the European Council guaranteeing the demand contraction. With the sudden hike of VAT on electricity late last years, from 12% to 23%, and the salary cuts imposed this year, the effect was immediate. It is to expect this contraction to last for the remainder of 2012, considering that the salary cuts will force many families to default on their mortgages, this way leaving more homes empty, that do not consume electricity.

Apparently this austerity policy is having a positive effect on Portugal’ s commercial deficit, the foremost element of the economic crisis the country faces. But this effect is merely numerical, naturally the impoverishment of the population reduces the amount of imported goods, but no economic reform has been put in place to reduce foreign dependencies, especially in the sectors of Energy and Agriculture. Any subsequent effort to retake growth shall hit the same old problems of a transport infrastructure almost entirely dependent on Oil and on an anaemic agricultural production. Any expansion of economic activity will continue to imply an expansion of the commercial deficit. While this knot isn’t undone there’s no way out for Portugal.

The austerity policy is, in face of this context, a way for whom leads the country and the European Council to neglect power. It is a turn of the backs on the responsibility invested on elected politicians to lead their citizens, to look out news paths into the future. They limit themselves to a scared (or scary?) rhetoric, that neither solves nor reforms, but simply spreads poverty. These are leaders that will hardly ever be remembered positively.

The example of Portugal supports my contention that the main thing that helps to cut CO2 emissions is not renewable energy, but economic decline.

Speaking more generally, the things that are conveniently ignored in all these rah-rah spin stories are transportation and space heating. Those are a lot tougher nuts to crack than getting electricity to run the lights.

[kristopher]

29. Tougher nuts to crack?

No, they are an integral part of a renewable solution. The next time you hear someone opine about the amount of storage needed to make renewables work, bear in mind that battery electric vehicles and heating/cooling applications are perfectly suited to act as modes of storage for variable generation.

This is "Renewables 101". Are you seriously saying you aren't aware of how a world of renewable energy will function?

I'd suggest you read some literature that takes the overarching view of the issue. The best package is probably Rocky Mountain Institute and the recently published "ReInventing Fire".

Executive Summary

<snip>

In 2010, the United States (excluding non-combustion uses as raw materials) used 93 quadrillion BTU of primary energy, four-fifths of it fossil fuels. Official projections show this growing to 117 quads in 2050. But delivering those same services with less energy, more productively used, could shrink 2050 usage to 71 quads, eliminate the need for oil, coal, nuclear energy, and one-third of the natural gas, and save $5 trillion in net-present-valued cost. As a better-than-free byproduct of efficient use and a continued shift to renewable supplies, fossil carbon emissions would also shrink by 82–86% below their 2000 levels despite the assumed 2.58-fold bigger economy than in 2010.

Natural gas saved through more-efficient buildings and factories could be reallocated to cleaner, cheaper, and more efficient combined-heat-and-power in industry (though we conservatively assume none in buildings), to displacing oil and coal in buildings and factories, and optionally to fueling trucks. America’s energy supply in 2050 would end up roughly three-fourths renewable and one-fourth natural gas (the same fraction as in 2010, but of a smaller total—one-fourth less primary energy and one-third less delivered energy). The remaining gas use, which is probably conservatively high, could phase out over a few decades after 2050. Meanwhile, the United States could take advantage of new shale-gas resources if their many uncertainties turned out well, but not be caught short if they didn’t. Biomass would supply about six times more energy in 2050 than in 2010—two-thirds from waste streams (chiefly in industry) and one-third from cellulosic and algal feedstocks whose production wouldn’t interfere with food production nor harm soil or climate. Liquid biofuels needed for transportation would be equivalent to less than one-sixth today’s total U.S. oil consumption.

To shrink U.S. energy use while GDP grows 158% is not a fantasy; in nine of the 36 years through 2009, the U.S. economy actually did raise energy productivity faster than GDP grew. Chapters 2–5 show how to do that every year, with major competitive, security, health, and environmental advantages, simply by using energy in a way that saves money, modulating demand unobtrusively over time to match en ergy’s real-time value, and optimizing supply from the cheapest, least risky sour ces. This transition won’t be easy, but will be easier than not doing it. It is already underway, driven inexorably by innovation, competition, and customer preferences. Just as whale-oil suppliers ran out of customers in the 1850s before they ran out of whales, oil and coal are becoming uncompetitive even at low prices before they be come unavailable even at high prices. It’s about $5 trillion cheaper, and smarter in other ways, not to keep on burning them, even if their hidden costs were worth zero.

Realizing this potential does not require business to take a hit or suffer a loss. On the contrary, Reinventing Fire applies normal rate-of-return requirements in each sector, so each proposed change must earn at least a 12%/y real return in industry, 7% in buildings, and 5.7% in electricity, and new autos must repay any higher price within three years. Actually, the suggested investment portfolio considerably outperforms these hurdle rates: the Reinventing Fire strategy would achieve Internal Rates of Return averaging 33% in buildings, 21% in industry, 17% in transportation, and 14% across all sectors—including making the entire electricity system clean, secure, reliable, resilient, flexible, and at least 80% renewable. These are among the highest and least risky returns in the whole economy.

Overall, a $4.5-trillion extra investment would save $9.5 trillion, for a 2010-net-present-valued saving of $5 trillion during 2010–2050, and many key risks to individual business sectors, the whole economy, and national security would be mitigated or altogether abated. Counting the important hidden benefits and costs (to health, productivity, security, etc.) not included in these figures would ...

http://www.rmi.org/rfexecutivesummary

[GliderGuider]

30. I know that's the renewable dream, and that RMI are the head dreamers.

One scenario (not the only one, just a representative one) that I find more believable goes like this:

Assumptions:

• Oil supply peaks in 15 years, and over the next 30 years oil consumption is approximately flat at today's value.
  
• The shortfall in oil supply of about 30% by 2040 is filled by electric cars.
  
• Gas and coal consumption rise due to increasing wealth (GDP/capita) and population growth.
  
• Coal use is suppressed by about 15% globally due to wind and solar coming on line. .
  
• Gas consumption continues its current straight-line growth, rising by 50% by 2040.
  
• Coal use increases on an approximately straight line, but at a lower slope than today, rising by 35%.

Results:

• Carbon emissions rise by 25% from 34 mt/yr today to 42 mt/yr in 2040, driving CO2 levels to about 475 ppm.
  
• Methane feedbacks kick in seriously in about 10 years, raising the CO2e to 525 ppm in 2040, just short of the IPCC RCP8.5 value.
  
• Rising CO2e gives a global average surface warming of about 1.5C in 2040
  
• That temperature rise begins to break down tropical and sub-tropical societies as their large cities lose social cohesion.
  
• Global carbon emissions level out by 2050 due to social breakdown
  
• We hit 2100 just short of the RCP8.5 value, at about +4C.
  
• Global civilization loses its cohesion and begins to fragment under multiple stresses around 2075.
  
• The fragmentation of global civilization is complete by 2100.
  
• Despite that fragmentation, CO2e and temperature continue to rise due to the methane feedbacks that were triggered over 50 years before.
  
• Humanity enters a Toba-style bottleneck some time in the first half of the 22nd century.

Again, this is not the only possible scenario, but is representative of my thinking. IMO this scenario is somewhat conservative, depending on the strength of the CH4 feedbacks. It is one realistic possibility, that is in line with IPCC projections.

I simply don't believe the RMI fantasies.

[kristopher]

31. It was abundantly clear you haven't got a clue...

...what those "RMI fantasies" actually say. If you had known the content, you wouldn't have made post #28. You've been predicting doom in one form or another for many years now, and every prognostication you've made has betrayed you and forced you to find another avenue specifically designed to lead the unwary to a despair, gloom and pessimism intended to make nuclear power seem worth pursuing.

You've never wavered from that mission, and it is nothing more than fearmongering of the very worst sort.

[GliderGuider]

32. I call it "refining my understanding of the situation"

Don't worry, I'm, not trying to convince you. I use your posts mostly as incentive to develop my thoughts further. I don't expect you to like what I say, or agree with it. Instead, I expect negative feedback from you, and frankly use it to help me with my "mission" as you put it. You're consistently helpful that way.

I understand that what I think of as realism, you see instead as "fearmongering". That's fine, there are plenty of people on your side of the fence to counterbalance my views. A few pessimistic voices should be expected on such a fraught issue. They do little harm, especially on a side-issue board with a small readership on a web site devoted mostly to very different topics.

IMO it's a good thing to have an open marketplace of ideas, so those who read these views can make up their minds in the presence of as wide a range of opinions as possible. You think I'm uninformed, I think you have your head so far down in the weeds that you've lost sight of the big picture. I don't see any problem at all with that difference of opinion, and I'm quite happy to let others make up their own minds one way or the other.