The Nuclear Option for TreeHuggers
by TreeHugger on 04.23.05
Uncle TreeHugger is back for Earth Day. This time He Wants You to 'pull the trigger' on the "nuclear option". Media pundits and industry advocates, whether by intent or accident, are setting the stage for a comprehensive Federal energy bill by arguing that a revival of nuclear energy can save the world from Climate Change disaster. The footnote, of course, is that this would happen through government (taxpayer) support. This same nuclear industry has for decades accused its opponents of being Luddite. In a remarkable turnabout, the nuclear industry and the media echo chamber sound like a doom-saying bunch of danged TreeHuggers.
Now here's what Uncle TreeHugger wants you to do. So listen up, you grinning Ex-Luddites. You’re going to go pretend that you go for it hook, line, and sinker. Pump it up for weeks after Earth Day, protesting and petitioning like there’s going to be no tomorrow. Photoshop some great web sites and protest signs that say: "Stop Climate Change, Build More Nucs"; or, “Nuculears Good, Climate Change Bad". Stuff like that.
You old timers are pretty good at chants. Get creative. Maybe rent a suite in New York's best hotel and call a press conference where you announce that you’ll stay in bed until Congress agrees to fund more climate-fixing “nuculears”. For you supporting protestors outside, best if the camera sees a mixture of dreadlocks and dark suits.
Uncle TreeHugger does not care whether you believe any of this or not. The point is purely tactical. Our objective is to get the media all fired up and focused on Climate Change, helping those in denial, propagandized into submission, or living in general ignorance to sense the risk and demand a role in finding solutions.
You know how journalism works. To be "fair and balanced" broadcast news editors will invite nuclear industry and DOE representatives to give their thoughts on the urgency of Climate Change impacts and whether nuclear generation offers a solution. Once this goes down, there are only two outcome scenarios that are possible. One: they say “no big deal, and we didn't really mean it”; and the "nuclear option" fizzles away. Two: they go for the bait, and prattle on about how much ‘the world needs endless more nuclear power to save us from Climate Doom’.
Either way, TreeHuggers win. Either the one-off, top-down approach goes away or great masses of people snap to attention, heading the US to the tipping point that Europe and Japan long ago reached.
If you’re queasy, Uncle TreeHugger wants you to keep these things in mind: it takes decades to design, test, prototype, license, and commercially develop any new nuclear technology. They've got water shortage issues to overcome for the cooling, and Mega-Mansion filled suburbs have crept around many of the sites they'd have their eyes on. New reactors designs are out there, but none licensed for commercial use. Nuclear generators are not competitive without direct government support, in a time of accelerating budget deficits.
Conversely, a privately capitalized wind farm can go up in about a year once the grid is upgraded to take the power and permits issued.
Solar power sales continue to grow in the 20% per year range while material costs and production cost efficiency increase steadily for the system manufacturers.
By the time the nuclear industry is ready to apply for new licenses and present the government with really big engineering invoices, we'll have had a decade to work for a more balanced energy policy at all levels of government.
Go on TreeHuggers. Reframe the debate. Hoist ‘em by their doom-saying petards.
by: John Laumer
...or three: (imho, the more likely scenario.) with our full backing, the govt proceeds to invest heavily in nuclear technology with grants, subsidies and tax breaks resulting in an declined support for all sustainable energy development by mainstream and corporate america. 'look how much cheaper and more efficient this nuclear power plant is than that bird-chopping wind farm'. they will frame the issue as clean, green, cheap, and independent without ever acknowledging 'climate change'. the urgency of global warming subsides, oil prices drop due to reduced demand and development of fuel efficient vehicles loses all momentum. we continue to create the most dangerous waste imaginable that will have to be kept under guarded lock and key for millenia and we get to live under the fear of chernobyl disasters for the rest of our lives.
i don't see much wisdom in this strategy. it's far more complex (and dangerous) than "only two outcome scenarios that are possible". i've shown one here, no doubt there are many more in between the doomsday and the pie-in-the-sky.
Agree that more plausible scenarios are possible.
Your's, hijiki, feels like the one that gets trotted out inside the Beltway every few years, as it is, behind closed doors, with no grass-roots involvement. Pulling the nuclear trigger now drags it out into the light of day and adds emotional gravity.
More scenarios anyone?
i didn't quite get your response. trotted out inside the beltway? no grassroots involvement in what? who's closed doors? sometimes these things are hard to understand through the prose. i just made this scenario up through common sense.
it sounds like you're trying to solve the problem by stirring up controversy to get attention no matter the cost... and i think you're toying with an unacceptable cost here. is it comparable to advocating guns in schools in order to cast light and bring emotional gravity to the school violence problem. yeah, it would work to that end, but maybe not a good idea. like buddying up to one devil in order to shine a spotlight on another devil?
These are desperate times, which call for desperate measures. The analysis, which I had hoped UncleTreehugger made explicit enough, but maybe he did not, is that the downside of pulling the trigger is nill due to the stew the industry is and will be in for unrelated reasons. A large portion of running nucs are about to go "off license" within a few years, they've all go pools full of spent rods, there's no feasible disposal option yet, and no one is saying whose going to pay for the decomissioning when its needed (soon for some). Rather than being a high risk gambit with the devil, I'd see it as calling their bluff. Got a crisis on our hands? OK show us the product you'd use to solve it. Silence.
i think you're making too many assumptions for the amount of risk. you're assuming it's a bluff which we have no reason to believe. are you really only hearing silence right now? the global warming debate is already coming to the fore without 'desperate measures'. it's all over the media right now and there are very few detractors left. i just explained how your claim that there is no downside is a false assumption.
nuclear power has a bad reputation right now (for good reason) and to your point is in a state of decline, but with full government backing (money & propaganda) it wouldn't take long at all to overcome these obstacles. with environmentalist backing, you'd end up with nuclear power being embraced by the mainstream. that ten year lead time is wishful thinking at best.
what is still unclear is whether you are advocating nuclear power or merely the use of it as a media tool? if you're advocating use, then you are indeed siding with one devil in order to spotlight another devil. but it sounds like you want to use it as a tactical device with the hope that it will fail to materialize, in which case you're still not providing a solution and the response in terms of 'the product used to solve it' is the same: 'silence'... plus a lot more wasted dollars.
My goal is just the same as Uncle TreeHuggers (in bold). As long as LESS than 1% of the US populace (by last week's Harris Poll of over 3000) think that environmental risk is a serious problem, we will remain at square one on climate change solutions. My personal goal is to drag the "solutions" debate into the open, out of control of the lobbyists and propagandists, as soon as possible. I understand that you not share with me a sense of how crucial this is. On that note, UTH signs off.
i assumed you and UTH were the same?
sorry to offend, but you passed of each point i've made as irrelevent... at least that's how it reads to me. the absolutist/commanding tone of this post was provocative. obviously i DO share the sense of urgency or i wouldn't be having this discussion. i'm merely taking issue with whether your approach is a wise one. i think it's disrespectful and unhelpful to gloss it over as a lack of concern.
of=off