Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Climate Change. Show all posts
Dec 28, 2009
Climate Change - Who Pays the $100B Annual Tab?
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke of the U.S. and other countries "mobilizing" $100 billion a year by 2020 to help poor nations deal with climate change. A large chunk of this money would likely come from companies in the developed world buying "carbon credits" to offset greenhouse-gas emissions from their own factories, said the administration official.
The purchase of the credits would fund activities that avoid carbon emissions in the developing world: preserving forest land in Brazil, say, or installing solar panels in villages in Africa. There would be some government money, which would go largely to projects unlikely to attract private capital. Among them, the administration official said: building dikes or storm-warning systems in low-lying, poor countries particularly threatened by a potential rise in sea levels triggered by climate change.
One hopeful sign in Copenhagen for people in the carbon-trading business is a potential agreement to allow the sale of carbon credits produced by saving forests. Trees consume carbon dioxide as they grow, and thus offset some of the world's greenhouse-gas emissions. The sale of carbon credits from preserving trees could generate about $5 billion by 2015, most of it from U.S. firms. Curbing deforestation, in turn, could generate another roughly $20 billion in annual investments in developing countries, for instance, in technologies to monitor tree growth and materials necessary to make the projects work.
Oct 2, 2009
Chamber has it wrong this time.
Exelon, a power company that operates the country’s largest fleet of nuclear reactors, announced today that it would withdraw from the United States Chamber of Commerce because of differences with the chamber’s climate policy — making it the third major utility to do so in just over a week.Last week Pacific Gas & Electric announced plans to leave the chamber. PNM Resources, a New Mexico utility holding company, did the same shortly thereafter.
Exelon’s move was announced this morning by John W. Rowe, its chairman and chief executive, in a speech this morning at an energy-efficiency conference.
Judith Rader, an Exelon spokeswoman, confirmed that the company would not renew its membership because of the chamber’s “opposition to climate legislation.”
Draft climate legislation is expected to be unveiled in the Senate this week. A climate bill narrowly passed by the House of Representatives in June.
The chamber has not yet responded to an e-mail message requesting comment. It supports reduction of greenhouse gas emissions in principle, but rejects any approach that it believes would drive up the price of energy and send American jobs overseas. It has vigorously opposed climate legislation. According to The Los Angeles Times, chamber officials have called for a reexamination of the Environmental Protection Agency’s global warming findings, as part of a “Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century.”
The "scopes" type trial would be such a waste of time. You can always find proponents for both sides of any argument, but the bottom line science for this one does not lie. Bottom line, our window of opportunity to address global warming in a reasonable and semi-affordable manner is closing - we will solve this issue, but the longer we wait, the more it will cost. When utilities disagree, you know there is something wrong.
Sep 28, 2009
What U.S. Should Really Fear About Nuclear Power
I appologize in advance for the length of this entry. One of the challenges we are going to be debating in the next few months, prior to the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference in December, is how to reduce our carbon footprint. This is probably even more critical to the future of our country than the health care debate, but it is not getting the same press. How we get our energy, both for electricity and for our transportation, will be changing, period. We take the ability to flip a switch, and have lights, for granted. Building power plants and associated 
infrastructure takes decades, and hence, it is not sexy to the press, and it is complicated, so few take on the issue. As I state in my profile, I work at a nuclear power plant (actual picture to the right) and believe in the safety of this technology, and that it must be a part of our energy solution. The following press release provides an excellent summary of the challenges and issues. If you are short on time, I highlighted some interesting facts at the end.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 -- The office of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., issued the following news release (edited with some commentary inserted):
Communications experts say that fear is the best way to get attention when you're trying to win an argument. [we certainly have seen the fear card thrown lately in the health care faux "debate"] Groups who oppose nuclear power have certainly mastered that technique by playing to economic, environmental, and safety fears. So I'd like to introduce a little element of fear into my argument here.
I want to suggest what could happen if we don't adopt nuclear power as a more important part of our energy future- if Russia and China and a lot of other countries go ahead with nuclear - as they are now - while we get left behind. Are we going to be able to compete with countries that have cheap, clean, reliable nuclear power while we're stuck with a bunch of windmills and solar farms producing expensive, unreliable energy or, more likely, not much energy at all?
The whole prospect of the United States ignoring this problem-solving technology that we invented is what I fear most about nuclear power. "The world still looks to us for leadership in this technology. They'd prefer to copy what we've already done. They don't like being on the cutting edge." [but if we do not build new nuclear, we will be left behind]
China bought Westinghouse and GE reactors back in the 90's, with the rights to reverse engineer future plants. China's next wave of reactors is going to be built with Chinese technology. By 2008 the Chinese had shovels in the ground. They started talking about building 60 reactors over the next 20 years and just recently raised it to 132. They're in the nuclear business.
What have we accomplished in the meantime? Well, people have been talking about a "nuclear renaissance" in this country since the turn of the century. In 2007, NRG, a New Jersey company, filed the first application to build a new reactor in 30 years. Other companies have followed suit and there are now 34 proposals before the NRC, but nobody has yet broken ground. [It will be at least 4-5 years before a construction permit is issued]
As countries began constructing new reactors, it quickly became clear that the bottleneck would be in forging the steel reactor vessels. These are the huge, three-story-high, forged steel units that hold the fuel assembly - the reactor core. That means forging steel parts that may weigh as much as 500 tons. In 2007 the only place you could order a reactor vessel was at the Japan Steel Works and they were backed up for four years [that is where we had our AREVA replacement reactor heads forged].
Everyone started saying, "This is going to be what holds up the world's nuclear renaissance. They'll never be able to produce enough of those pressure vessels." So what happened? Well, first Japan Steel Works invested $800 million to triple its capacity. They're going to be turning out 12 pressure vessels a year by 2012. Then the Chinese decided to build their own forge. In less than two years, they put up a furnace that can handle 320-ton parts. They turned out their first components in June. Now they're building two more forges. So you won't see the Chinese standing in line in Japan any time soon.
The Russians are doing the same thing. They're in the midst of a big revival, planning to double the production of electricity from nuclear power by 2020. They're also building a forge and just cast their first 600-ton ingot in June.
France, Britain, South Korea and India are all following suit. Very soon, every major nuclear country in the world is going to be able to forge its own reactor vessels - except one. And that's us. No steel company in America is capable of forging ingots of more than 270 tons. We're still stuck in the 1960s. That means when it comes to building reactors we'll have to stand in line in Japan or somewhere else. In fact, just about everything in our first new reactors is going to be imported. The nuclear industry tells us that at least 70 percent of the materials and equipment that go into those first few reactors will come from abroad. That's because we've let our nuclear supply industry wither on the vine.
In 1990 there were 150 domestic suppliers making parts for nuclear reactors. Today there are only 40 and most of them do their business overseas. Of the 34 proposals before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 20 are designed by Westinghouse, now a Japanese company and, nine are from Areva, the French giant. General Electric, the only American company left on the field, has partnered with Hitachi. They sold five reactors to American utilities but fared poorly in the competition for federal loan guarantees. Two utilities have now cancelled those projects and there are rumors that GE may quit the field entirely.
So let's take stock. There are 40 reactors now under construction in 11 countries around the world, none of them in the United States. In fact, only two are in Western Europe - one in Finland and the other in France, both built by Areva. All the rest are in Asia. Although we haven't gotten used to it, Asia may soon be leading the world in nuclear technology. Japan has 55 reactors and gets 35 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, almost double the 19 percent we get here.
South Korea gets nearly 40 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is planning another eight reactors by 2015. So far they've bought their reactors from the Japanese but now they have their own Korean Next-Generation Reactor, a 1400-megawatt giant evolved from an American design. They plan to bring two of these online by 2016. Taiwan also gets 18 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is building two new reactors.
We're gradually losing our economic place in the world. Now a lot of people say, "Well, what's the difference? So what if we fall behind on nuclear technology? We'll just forge ahead with something else." Well, there are several reasons to be concerned: 1) First there's energy security. America already spends $ 300 billion a year importing 2/3rds of our oil from other countries. If we remain on the current path of no new nuclear power or start depending on other countries to build our reactors and supply us with fuel, we're going to be even more vulnerable than we are now. The best way to reduce imported oil, aside from ramping up domestic production, will be to use electricity to power cars and trucks. And, how can we criticize India and China for not reducing their carbon emissions when we refuse to adopt the best technology ourselves?
If we move toward a nuclear-based economy and we have to import 70 percent of the technology and equipment, how are any better off than when we're importing two thirds of our oil? We'll just be creating jobs for steel workers in Japan and China instead of in the United States. If we don't move toward a nuclear powered economy but try to do everything with conservation and wind and solar, we're going to be sending American jobs overseas looking for cheap energy. So to insure we have enough cheap, clean, reliable electricity in this country to create good high-quality, high-tech jobs, here's what we have to do. The United States should double its production of nuclear power by building 100 nuclear reactors in 20 years.
Just The Facts :o)
Nuclear today provides 70 percent of our carbon free electricity. Wind and solar provide 4 percent. Nuclear plants operate 90 percent of the time. Wind and solar operate about one third of the time.
The Obama Administration's Nobel prize-winning Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, says nuclear plants are safe and that used nuclear fuel can be safely stored on site for 40-60 years while we figure out the best way to recycle it.
Producing 20 percent of electricity from wind, as the Obama Administration proposes, will require building 186,000 fifty story turbines, enough to cover an area the size of West Virginia - plus 19,000 miles of new transmission lines to carry electricity from remote to populated areas.
100 new nuclear plants could be built mostly on existing sites. To produce 3-6 percent of our electricity, taxpayers will subsidize wind to the tune of $29 billion over the next ten years. The 104 nuclear reactors we have today were built basically without taxpayer subsides.
It will cost roughly the same to build 100 new nuclear plants (which will last 60 to 80 years) as it would to build 186,000 wind turbines (lasting 20 to 25 years). And this does not count the cost of transmission lines for wind.
There will be twice as many "green jobs" created building 100 reactors as there would be building 186,000 wind turbines.
An America stumbling along on expensive, unreliable renewable energy, trying to import most of our energy from abroad, is going to be an America with fewer jobs and a lower standard of living. Nuclear opponents continue to prey on fear of nuclear power. The truth is that if we want safe, cost-effective, reliable, no-carbon electricity we can no longer ignore the wisdom of the rest of the world. The real fear is that we Americans are going to wake up one cloudy, windless day when the light switch doesn't work and discover we've forfeited our capacity to lead the world because we ignored nuclear power, a problem-solving technology that we ourselves invented.
http://alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Home
infrastructure takes decades, and hence, it is not sexy to the press, and it is complicated, so few take on the issue. As I state in my profile, I work at a nuclear power plant (actual picture to the right) and believe in the safety of this technology, and that it must be a part of our energy solution. The following press release provides an excellent summary of the challenges and issues. If you are short on time, I highlighted some interesting facts at the end.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 -- The office of Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., issued the following news release (edited with some commentary inserted):
Communications experts say that fear is the best way to get attention when you're trying to win an argument. [we certainly have seen the fear card thrown lately in the health care faux "debate"] Groups who oppose nuclear power have certainly mastered that technique by playing to economic, environmental, and safety fears. So I'd like to introduce a little element of fear into my argument here.
I want to suggest what could happen if we don't adopt nuclear power as a more important part of our energy future- if Russia and China and a lot of other countries go ahead with nuclear - as they are now - while we get left behind. Are we going to be able to compete with countries that have cheap, clean, reliable nuclear power while we're stuck with a bunch of windmills and solar farms producing expensive, unreliable energy or, more likely, not much energy at all?
The whole prospect of the United States ignoring this problem-solving technology that we invented is what I fear most about nuclear power. "The world still looks to us for leadership in this technology. They'd prefer to copy what we've already done. They don't like being on the cutting edge." [but if we do not build new nuclear, we will be left behind]
China bought Westinghouse and GE reactors back in the 90's, with the rights to reverse engineer future plants. China's next wave of reactors is going to be built with Chinese technology. By 2008 the Chinese had shovels in the ground. They started talking about building 60 reactors over the next 20 years and just recently raised it to 132. They're in the nuclear business.
What have we accomplished in the meantime? Well, people have been talking about a "nuclear renaissance" in this country since the turn of the century. In 2007, NRG, a New Jersey company, filed the first application to build a new reactor in 30 years. Other companies have followed suit and there are now 34 proposals before the NRC, but nobody has yet broken ground. [It will be at least 4-5 years before a construction permit is issued]
As countries began constructing new reactors, it quickly became clear that the bottleneck would be in forging the steel reactor vessels. These are the huge, three-story-high, forged steel units that hold the fuel assembly - the reactor core. That means forging steel parts that may weigh as much as 500 tons. In 2007 the only place you could order a reactor vessel was at the Japan Steel Works and they were backed up for four years [that is where we had our AREVA replacement reactor heads forged].
Everyone started saying, "This is going to be what holds up the world's nuclear renaissance. They'll never be able to produce enough of those pressure vessels." So what happened? Well, first Japan Steel Works invested $800 million to triple its capacity. They're going to be turning out 12 pressure vessels a year by 2012. Then the Chinese decided to build their own forge. In less than two years, they put up a furnace that can handle 320-ton parts. They turned out their first components in June. Now they're building two more forges. So you won't see the Chinese standing in line in Japan any time soon.
The Russians are doing the same thing. They're in the midst of a big revival, planning to double the production of electricity from nuclear power by 2020. They're also building a forge and just cast their first 600-ton ingot in June.
France, Britain, South Korea and India are all following suit. Very soon, every major nuclear country in the world is going to be able to forge its own reactor vessels - except one. And that's us. No steel company in America is capable of forging ingots of more than 270 tons. We're still stuck in the 1960s. That means when it comes to building reactors we'll have to stand in line in Japan or somewhere else. In fact, just about everything in our first new reactors is going to be imported. The nuclear industry tells us that at least 70 percent of the materials and equipment that go into those first few reactors will come from abroad. That's because we've let our nuclear supply industry wither on the vine.
In 1990 there were 150 domestic suppliers making parts for nuclear reactors. Today there are only 40 and most of them do their business overseas. Of the 34 proposals before the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, 20 are designed by Westinghouse, now a Japanese company and, nine are from Areva, the French giant. General Electric, the only American company left on the field, has partnered with Hitachi. They sold five reactors to American utilities but fared poorly in the competition for federal loan guarantees. Two utilities have now cancelled those projects and there are rumors that GE may quit the field entirely.
So let's take stock. There are 40 reactors now under construction in 11 countries around the world, none of them in the United States. In fact, only two are in Western Europe - one in Finland and the other in France, both built by Areva. All the rest are in Asia. Although we haven't gotten used to it, Asia may soon be leading the world in nuclear technology. Japan has 55 reactors and gets 35 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy, almost double the 19 percent we get here.
South Korea gets nearly 40 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is planning another eight reactors by 2015. So far they've bought their reactors from the Japanese but now they have their own Korean Next-Generation Reactor, a 1400-megawatt giant evolved from an American design. They plan to bring two of these online by 2016. Taiwan also gets 18 percent of its electricity from nuclear and is building two new reactors.
We're gradually losing our economic place in the world. Now a lot of people say, "Well, what's the difference? So what if we fall behind on nuclear technology? We'll just forge ahead with something else." Well, there are several reasons to be concerned: 1) First there's energy security. America already spends $ 300 billion a year importing 2/3rds of our oil from other countries. If we remain on the current path of no new nuclear power or start depending on other countries to build our reactors and supply us with fuel, we're going to be even more vulnerable than we are now. The best way to reduce imported oil, aside from ramping up domestic production, will be to use electricity to power cars and trucks. And, how can we criticize India and China for not reducing their carbon emissions when we refuse to adopt the best technology ourselves?
If we move toward a nuclear-based economy and we have to import 70 percent of the technology and equipment, how are any better off than when we're importing two thirds of our oil? We'll just be creating jobs for steel workers in Japan and China instead of in the United States. If we don't move toward a nuclear powered economy but try to do everything with conservation and wind and solar, we're going to be sending American jobs overseas looking for cheap energy. So to insure we have enough cheap, clean, reliable electricity in this country to create good high-quality, high-tech jobs, here's what we have to do. The United States should double its production of nuclear power by building 100 nuclear reactors in 20 years.
Just The Facts :o)
Nuclear today provides 70 percent of our carbon free electricity. Wind and solar provide 4 percent. Nuclear plants operate 90 percent of the time. Wind and solar operate about one third of the time.
The Obama Administration's Nobel prize-winning Energy Secretary, Steven Chu, says nuclear plants are safe and that used nuclear fuel can be safely stored on site for 40-60 years while we figure out the best way to recycle it.
Producing 20 percent of electricity from wind, as the Obama Administration proposes, will require building 186,000 fifty story turbines, enough to cover an area the size of West Virginia - plus 19,000 miles of new transmission lines to carry electricity from remote to populated areas.
100 new nuclear plants could be built mostly on existing sites. To produce 3-6 percent of our electricity, taxpayers will subsidize wind to the tune of $29 billion over the next ten years. The 104 nuclear reactors we have today were built basically without taxpayer subsides.
It will cost roughly the same to build 100 new nuclear plants (which will last 60 to 80 years) as it would to build 186,000 wind turbines (lasting 20 to 25 years). And this does not count the cost of transmission lines for wind.
There will be twice as many "green jobs" created building 100 reactors as there would be building 186,000 wind turbines.
An America stumbling along on expensive, unreliable renewable energy, trying to import most of our energy from abroad, is going to be an America with fewer jobs and a lower standard of living. Nuclear opponents continue to prey on fear of nuclear power. The truth is that if we want safe, cost-effective, reliable, no-carbon electricity we can no longer ignore the wisdom of the rest of the world. The real fear is that we Americans are going to wake up one cloudy, windless day when the light switch doesn't work and discover we've forfeited our capacity to lead the world because we ignored nuclear power, a problem-solving technology that we ourselves invented.
http://alexander.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=PressReleases.Home
Feb 6, 2009
Climate Change - What Can We Do???
Think climate change is too big of a problem to solve? Think again. Small changes in our everyday lives can make a big difference.Easy Things You Can Do To Help Our Climate:
TIP: Travel light. Walk or bike instead of driving a car. Cars and trucks run on fossil fuels, which release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In the United States, automobiles produce over 20 percent of total carbon emissions. Walk or bike and you’ll save one pound of carbon for every mile you travel.
TIP: Teleconference instead of flying. For office meetings, if you can telephone or video conference, you will save time, money, and carbon emissions. Airplanes pump carbon emissions high into the atmosphere, producing 12 percent of transportation sector emissions.
TIP: See the light. Use compact fluorescent light bulbs. These energy-efficient bulbs help fight climate change because they reduce the amount of fossil fuels that utilities burn. You will save 100 pounds of carbon for each incandescent bulb that you replace with a compact fluorescent, over the life of the bulb.
TIP: Recycle and use recycled products. Products made from recycled paper, glass, metal and plastic reduce carbon emissions because they use less energy to manufacture than products made from completely new materials. For instance, you’ll save two pounds of carbon for every 20 glass bottles that you recycle. Recycling paper also saves trees and lets them continue to reduce climate change naturally as they remain in the forest, where they remove carbon from the atmosphere.
TIP: Inflate your tires. If you own a car, it will get better gas mileage when the tires are fully inflated, so it will burn less gas and emit less carbon. Check your automobile monthly to ensure that the tires are fully inflated. Follow this tip and save 300 pounds of carbon dioxide for every 10,000 miles you drive.
TIP: Plant native trees. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the air and use it as their energy source, producing oxygen for us to breathe. A tree in the temperate zone — found between the tropics and the polar circles—can remove and store 700 to 7,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime. A tree that shades a house can reduce the energy required to run the air conditioner and save an additional 200 to 2,000 pounds of carbon over its lifetime.
TIP: Turn down the heat. Heating and air conditioning draw more than half of the energy that a home uses in the United States. Turn down the heat or air conditioning when you leave the house or go to bed. You can easily install a programmable thermostat that can save up money and carbon.
TIP: Buy renewable energy. Electricity generation produces 40 percent of carbon emissions from the United States. A growing number of utilities generate electricity from renewable energy sources with solar panels, windmills and other technologies. If your utility offers renewable energy, buy it. If not, send them a message asking for clean energy.
TIP: Act globally, eat locally. If you shop at a supermarket, the food you buy may travel in a plane from the other side of the world, burning fossil fuels the entire trip. Shop at a local farmers’ markets and you will find fresh and healthy food, and help save our climate.
So what does it mean? Click on this LINK if you want to calculate your carbon footprint. Then, you can determine how much the changes above can start to reduce this footprint. For us, as a two person household, in Indiana, and based on my 80 mile round trip commute, our carbon footprint is 70. U.S. average for a two person household is 53, and World Average is 11. So, even though we recycle, keep the house cold in the winter and rarely use A/C in the summer, we can and must do more. How does your house stack up to the U.S. average and World average for your household???
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