1,000 words

[OKIsItJustMe]

Last edited Tue Apr 29, 2025, 05:14 AM - Edit history (1)

Lan, X., Tans, P. and K.W. Thoning: Trends in globally-averaged CO₂ determined from NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory measurements. Version Monday, 14-Apr-2025 09:08:57 MDT https://doi.org/10.15138/9N0H-ZH07

[NNadir]

1. Happily, the collapse of the planetary atmosphere is nowhere near as costly and dangerous as nuclear energy...

...and of course, we shouldn't worry, we should be happy:

As I've been hearing for most of my adult life - and I'm not young - solar and wind and batteries and hydrogen will save us.

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. "solar and wind and batteries and hydrogen will save us"

Yes, I tire of this.

I also tire of nuclear zealotry.

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/multimedia/videos/how-can-we-get-carbon-emissions-to-net-zero

How Can We Get Carbon Emissions to Net Zero?

31 March 2021
The world faces a growing demand for energy. At the same time it needs to tackle the realities of the climate crisis. For climate change goals to be met by 2050, 90 per cent of electricity will need to be produced by low carbon sources. Nuclear power together with other sources of clean energy will be part of the solution.

[NNadir]

4. Trust me, I find disingenuous claims to give a shit tiresome.

I'm quite sure that there are people disinterested in what I find tiresome just as I am disinterested in finding what they find tiresome.

Sometimes I hear from tiresome people pretending to give a shit about the collapse of the planetary atmosphere but clueless enough to call practical insights "zealotry," about a desire for answers to simple questions.

In general these sorts require simplicity because they are incapable of nuanced thought, and certainly devoid of any perspectives on say, engineering, nuclear, chemical, electrical, environmental or otherwise. I seldom see any in this class who show any evidence of having read a technical treatise or paper of any kind.

I note with some disgust that there are right wing assholes who call interest in climate science the province of "zealots." As in the former case, in general they reveal themselves to be fools.

Here's a simple question preceded by an unambiguously true statement.

The unambiguously true statement:

In the 21st century trillions of dollars have already been spent along with incalculable reams of rhetoric saying that so called "renewable energy" and energy storage would address climate change which has now become extreme global heating.

The simple question:

Are they?

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. If we go to a world where nuclear energy is the sole primary energy source...

…research into batteries, hydrogen and other forms of energy storage/carriers will still come in handy.

We will likely still drive cars, which will probably not carry their own nuclear reactors.

They will likely carry batteries (or something very much like a battery) or some sort of fuel cells and fuel tanks.

We will likely still use industrial processes requiring "process heat.”

https://www.iaea.org/newscenter/news/national-nuclear-energy-plans-for-clean-power-heat-and-hydrogen-showcased-at-iaea-iea-event

National Nuclear Energy Plans for Clean Power, Heat and Hydrogen Showcased at IAEA-IEA Event
Matt Fisher, IAEA Department of Nuclear Energy
MAR 12 2021

…

“Comprehensive decarbonization by 2050 is a gargantuan undertaking that will require the full range of low carbon energy sources,” said Henri Paillere, Head of the IAEA’s Planning and Economic Studies Section and a co-host of the event. “We will need massive amounts of low carbon electricity, heat and hydrogen, and nuclear power can contribute to producing all these provided there is clear policy support.”

…

One of the great advantages of nuclear power over wind and solar is its relative constancy. — It’s good for providing “base load power."


Unfortunately, demand is not constant. It rises and falls.


So, either we would need to build slightly more nuclear capacity than necessary to meet peak demand (because, what with climate change, on hot days, people may run their air conditioners more) or we can store energy during times of low demand to use during times of peak demand (making more efficient use of those nuclear reactors.)

[OKIsItJustMe]

6. Nuclear Engineering International: Renewables and the role of nuclear

https://www.neimagazine.com/analysis/renewables-and-the-role-of-nuclear/?cf-view

Renewables and the role of nuclear
While long considered appropriate only as baseload generation, the Dalton Nuclear Institute argues that flexible nuclear power could be achieved through use of cogeneration of heat and power. This approach would substantially improve the overall system economics and support net zero by 2050 scenarios. What’s the catch?

Staff Writer February 12, 2025


Heat and hydrogen production could be deployed at scale to give nuclear increased flexibility

A new report by the Dalton Nuclear Institute, part of the UK’s University of Manchester, has explored how renewables and nuclear power can jointly contribute to achieving net zero.

Focused on the UK, the report ‘The road to net zero: renewables and nuclear working together’, nonetheless applies to many nations and regions. It states that while renewable energy is expected to play a large role in achieving net zero ambitions, their variability opens the door to alternatives, including nuclear. The report argues that to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 there will need to be a significant increase in the proportion of energy that is delivered by electricity, and which must be predominantly low carbon. This is reflected in the anticipated shift to a greater role for electricity to support transport, domestic heating and industrial processes, for example.

…

By building a large nuclear capacity for cogeneration activities it is possible to divert the nuclear energy to provision of electrical power for the grid very cheaply when needed. This has the potential to become a very low-cost option provided the total support for the grid over the year is kept to below 20% of the total use.

However, with higher temperature Advanced Modular Reactors (AMR) this approach can be taken even further by utilising thermal energy storage, which offers a lower cost solution to energy storage. Thermal storage would be a key element for the use of nuclear heat for cogeneration and also decouples the reactor from the electricity generation process. This enables a larger generating capacity to be provided, which would in turn deliver a larger effective capacity for grid support when needed. The costs of doing this would be much lower than providing more dedicated power plants for high levels of demand but with low capacity factors. The provision of thermal storage also opens up the possibility of reactor cogeneration at industrial sites where nuclear plants would be co-located with energy-intensive industrial applications. Such sites could accept excess variable renewable electricity which would otherwise be curtailed, for applications like hydrogen production, and support them with nuclear heat to increase efficiency. This approach can also reduce carbon emissions.

…

[NNadir]

8. So called "renewable energy" worship is a popular cult to which all must genuflect.

This includes the nuclear industry. If I were in charge of the nuclear industry or even a part of it, I would avoid such genuflections. They serve no one.

Appeal to the marketing stance of the nuclear industry's efforts to jive with popular but stupid and destructive enthusiasm for so called "renewable energy" does nothing at all to avoid the vast destruction associated with the reactionary pretense of making energy supplies dependent on the weather.

In this case it is merely an effort to change the subject from the very simple question I asked, which I'll repeat in a slightly longer form: Are the trillions of dollars spent on so called "renewable energy" and energy storage in the last decade doing a damned thing to address the extreme global heating crisis before us?

In the last 12 years, 78 new nuclear reactors have been connected to grids around the world at a cost of less than half a trillion dollars, including only two in the United States, the high costs of which can be attributed to the efforts of antinukes to destroy nuclear manufacturing expertise in this country. The US is now 20 to 30 years behind China and Russia in reactor technology, having once been number one. The 78 reactors built, overwhelmingly by Chinese and Russian engineers are producing over three Exajoules of primary energy.

The weak "appeal to authority" argument fails to address whether spending over five trillion dollars on so called "renewable energy" and energy storage infrastructure that will be landfill in two more decades could have shown the result that spending the same amount on nuclear infrastructure that will function for a considerable fraction of a century would have shown.

A very crude calculation, pure BOE, that by multiplying the cost ratio 5/0.5 = 10 we could have added 30 EJ per year to the world energy supply from nuclear, to total 60 as opposed to the miserable coal and gas dependent 16 EJ solar and wind crap produced as of 2023, while tearing the shit out of precious wilderness.

Advocates of so called "renewable energy" are full of shit when they claim to give a rat's ass about climate. The raison d'etre has always been to attack nuclear energy. The Germans destroyed nuclear infrastructure. They didn't ban coal. They embraced coal. The carbon intensity of German electricity borders on criminal.

A little honesty would be appreciated but I certainly can't expect honesty in the age of the big lie. Lying is certainly not the pure province of the orange slime mold in the White House. Antinukes including "I'm not an antinuke" antinukes have a real problem with honesty. I have never met one who seeks to complain about fossil fuels with anywhere near their enthusiasm of their complaints about nuclear. I can't imagine one complaining about "fossil fuel zealots" for example, although very clearly such zealots exist and have, in fact, left the planet in flames. On the other hand they carry on insipidly about purported "nuclear zealots" effortlessly. (I do have a funny story about one of the professors in my son's nuclear engineering department said about zealots in this case a nuclear zealot, but I won't tell it here.)

Have a nice afternoon.

[hatrack]

3. At least it's not Tommy Tuberville demanding that we develop nuclear fusion "before China does" . . .

[OKIsItJustMe]

7. Oh, hell, if it gets us to fusion faster, by jingo, let's make it a race!

Maybe it’s just me, but my priority is to at least try to “save the planet."

[hatrack]

10. He may as well demand that we "beat China" in the development of faster-than-light travel . . .

But then, he wasn't elected for his intelligence.

Come to think of it, what was he elected for?

[NNadir]

9. Although i am grateful for the science lectures at PPPL, many of which are about...

...how wonderful fusion energy will be, along with insights into the physics of fusion, there is no evidence that even if fusion reactors are built, that they will be affordable, reliable, or sustainable.

Besides the material science implications of handling neutrons at 14 MeV, a factor of 10 higher than fission neutrons, there isn't enough tritium on this planet as of 2025 to run a fusion reactor at 1000 MWe for a year.

I'm unimpressed with the handwaving about lithium metal blankets to breed tritium. I may be naive but somehow I have a feeling that lithium gas/plasma will mess with the stability of the magnetic confinement field.

Fusion reactors, even if they were made workable, will be too late to address extreme global heating because it is already "too late." Extreme global heating is here and fusion reactors aren't.