|
MustangSuzie
outbound
10 Posts
Sarah
Missouri
USA
10 Posts |
 Posted - Mar 24 2007 : 2:20:30 PM
|
If yall get a chance to read it, there is an article in this weekends USA today about some environmental groups giving a second look at nuclear energy as a viable resource to reduce global warming. What are your opinions on that? Mine is that anything that makes such horrible waste that no one knows how to get rid of, is definitely NOT a good thing.
"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations." -From The Great Law Of The Iroquois Confederacy.
|
|
|
Jen
Expedition Leader
1384 Posts
Jennifer
Calico Rock
AR
USA
1384 Posts |
Posted - Oct 23 2007 : 08:24:27 AM
|
Deep Ambivalence re: Nuclear Energy and Clean Coal as Climate Change Responses
They buy time for conspicuous energy consumption; yet are
untested and far off, may cause further environmental
damage and consolidate global ecological overshoot
Earth Meanders by Dr. Glen Barry
http://earthmeanders.blogspot.com/
October 22, 2007
These essays have been silent on proposals for a nuclear
energy revival and clean coal carbon sequestration as
climate change solutions. I remain deeply uncertain and
even ambivalent regarding their desirability and ultimate
effectiveness. Nuclear and clean coal energies are the
logical next technological steps in the progression of
human dominance of the Earth. Yet at best they will only
delay energy shortages while contributing little to
climate change mitigation.
Nuclear energy and clean coal may need to be pursued, but
let us at least be honest regarding the full range of
choices and their implications. Their pursuit may well
keep the lights on for awhile longer. Yet key elements of
both remain untested, it is doubtful they can be ramped
up fast enough to levels required to mitigate climate
change, and both carry risks of serious long-term
environmental damage of their own.
What is missing in the promotion of industrial responses
to climate change and other eco-crises is an honest
assessment whether our efforts -- in a world that has
already overshot global ecological carrying capacity --
are best placed in further global scale technological
manipulation, or support for resurgent nature and a
powering down of industrial society.
There are well known concerns with nuclear proliferation
and waste disposal. Future generations for tens of
thousands of years will have to look after our nuclear
waste, while not making weapons from it, even as they
face potential cataclysmic nuclear accidents. Uranium
itself is becoming scarce, the full process from mining
to waste burial does release appreciable greenhouse
gases, building the number of nuclear plants needed would
be unprecedented if not impossible, and nuclear plants
require large amounts of water for cooling -- which
climate change may make unavailable.
Commercial scaled sequestration of carbon underground
from coal burning power plants remains untested both
technologically and economically. There have been no
large-scale demonstrations of the feasibility of burying
carbon from coal on land, or that it will stay
underground once buried. Building new clean coal plants
and retrofitting existing ones would take decades, which
we do not have to address climate change. One earthquake
or leak could in the future release huge amounts of
"sequestered" carbon at once with devastating impact.
Coal based energy devastates land, mountains and water
worldwide; which would continue.
The primary benefit of both new nuclear and clean coal
energy is that they would allow for continued profligate
and even wasteful energy use, putting off difficult
changes in energy policy. Their embrace would allow
energy conservation and efficiency measures, that some
suggest would lead to a less fulfilling life for the
energy rich, to be postponed. Energy shortages and
ecological collapse would be put off a decade or two,
allowing perhaps one more generation in over-developed
countries to enjoy McMansions, hummers, plasma TVs and
other benefits of energy misuse.
It is quite possible that embracing new nuclear and coal
energy will put off the pathologies stalking the human
race for awhile, but at the expense of distracting from
real solutions, and further entrenching trends that
threaten the biosphere and humanity. Assuming they work,
they would buy time on climate change, yet over-
population and consumption will continue apace. The
lights will be kept on a bit longer as we lose the
Amazon, go from 6.5 to 9 billion people, destroy vital
water resources, and the entire world strives for a
western consumptive lifestyle.
Perhaps nuclear energy and clean coal could be pursued as
one component in a vast program to save humanity and our
habitat. This would include programs to reduce human
population; pursue energy alternatives, conservation and
efficiency; preserve and restore ancient forests; and
reduce conspicuous and inequitable consumption. Their
energy could be used to tool a renewable energy
infrastructure. But this is not what is proposed. Rather
the key selling point is that both make it possible to
continue consuming electricity excessively for longer.
Humanity has a fundamental choice to make whether we are
going to primarily pursue technological, or nature based,
remedies to climate change and other ecological crises.
Will we seek to engineer a biosphere, or will we again
embrace living within the Earth and biosphere's natural
limits?
If we embrace natural responses; such as powering down
our economy, preserving and restoring ecosystems, and
reducing our population and consumption; we could still
pull back and avoid ecological collapse resulting from
exceeding the Earth's carrying capacity. We can also try
to do so by taking the Earth into human control, though
at greater risk and with grave uncertainties, for all of
our remaining time.
********************
Dr. Barry is founder and President of Ecological
Internet; provider of the largest, most used
environmental portals on the Internet including the
Climate Ark at http://www.climateark.org/ and
http://www.EcoEarth.Info/ . Earth Meanders is a series of
ecological essays that are written entirely in his
personal capacity. This essay may be reprinted granted it
is properly credited to Dr. Barry and with a link to
Earth Meanders. Emailed responses are public record and
will be posted on the web site unless otherwise
requested.
The View From My Boots: www.bovesboots.blogspot.com
|
 |
|
Is nuclear energy really green?
