Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

Battling nuclear means fighting for more climate change and ocean acidification

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“In These Times” published an article that was slanted in favor of the groups that have organized themselves to fight against the licensing and construction of Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear power plants throughout the southeast United States. The article, titled After Fukushima, New Fears in U.S. quotes people from NC Warn, the Friends of the Earth, and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League along with the ever present antinuclear “nuclear engineer” named Arnie Gundersen.

Here is the “In These Times” mission statement on the organization’s “About Us” page.

In These Times is a nonprofit and independent newsmagazine committed to political and economic democracy and opposed to the dominance of transnational corporations and the tyranny of marketplace values over human values. In These Times is dedicated to reporting the news with the highest journalistic standards; to informing and analyzing movements for social, environmental and economic justice; and to providing an accessible forum for debate about the policies that shape our future.

Based on that statement, I derived a reasonably good guess about the interests of the readers and composed a response comment that I hope will encourage some critical thinking about why they have been told so many negative things about nuclear energy.

There is nothing like a little cognitive dissonance to initiate a complete change of mind and attitude. Here is the comment I posted – I am looking forward to some interesting discussion. I will let you know if that actually happens or if I end up getting completely ignored.

The stability of the world’s climate and the productivity of the world’s oceans are being severely threatened by the effects of continuously dumping massive quantities of CO2 (and other more noxious combustion byproducts) into our global atmosphere. That dumping is caused by the fact that 85% of human society’s energy needs are supplied by burning fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas.

The only reliable alternative to continuing to burn hydrocarbons is fissioning uranium in nuclear energy facilities. World-wide, starting from proof in 1942 that it was possible to build a reactor that could sustain an energy producing chain reaction, hundreds of thousands of highly trained and educated engineers, technicians and scientists have worked diligently to develop nuclear power systems that now produce the energy equivalent of 12 million barrels of oil per day (as much as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait combined).

That incredible feat has come with less than 100 fatalities around the world – quite an impressive safety record for such a productive industrial enterprise.

There are a few isolated critics with accepted technical credentials who do not like the technology and work diligently to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. At least some of those critics, like the quoted Gundersen, do it for a substantial paycheck (often $300 per hour) for his “expert witness” services. That beats the $40K per year he was earning as a school teacher after being fired from his job as a corporate VP in the early 1990s and before he took up antinuclear activism as a product line for his consulting company.

Fossil fuel interests provide at least some of the money that funds the organized opposition groups that are fighting against the only real competition that the fossil fuel industry has. Those interested parties (oil&gas companies, pipeline companies, banks, governments, oil oligarchs, OPEC, Russia, etc) want to keep their 85% market share and the wealth and power that goes with it.

The AP1000 is a safe design that is being built today in China. It was developed over a long period of time with strong support from US taxpayers. It should be built in large quantities here in the US.

Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
http://atomicinsights.com

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. On this specific topic, I invite you to read this article that calls on great statemanship:

    http://thebreakthrough.org/blog//2011/01/why_climate_science_divides_us-print.html

    You can find this fantastic sentence on the need to go nuclear to fight climate change:

    ‘One of our Senior Fellows and author of The Climate Fix, Roger Pielke Jr., likes to paraphrase Walter Lippmann on this point – the goal of politics is not to make people think alike, but rather, to make people who think differently act alike.’

    • Daniel,

      That was the best article on energy and climate I have read, far and away the best! Thank you so much for that link. This is what I have long felt and somewhat argued here. That Nuclear unites in ways that other energy sources do not. I am not specifically opposed to Solar, passive energy systems or battery storage, I simply understand they are not adequate to replace our current sources. Nuclear is adequate for most of our needs. The other areas can be addressed with a mixed approach.

      House Bill 909 has many things in it that will cause the hackles of greens to rise, but it also contains the types of benefits to the development of nuclear, with clear time lines and reasonable expectations to allow this superior technology to win in the market place.

  2. Maybe I’m overreaching here, but at least here in NYC on the local cable stations, you nary hear words or mentions of “global warming” — almost as though they know one of the chief ways to avoid it is going nuclear. Really, we’ve a heat wave and a half here that ought be plastering “global warming” all over the headlines and its advocates screaming and it’s not happening. Could Fukushima be a cause???

    James Greenidge

    • People on both sides of the global warming issue have stated that weather does not equal climate. You can’t point to extreme cold or heavy snows during the past winter as disproof of the global warming hypothesis. Likewise, it should be no news to anyone that it tends to get hot in July in the northern hemisphere. It is only after several years/decades worth of data analysis can one make a conclusion about the average temperature trend.

      • @Pete 51

        Point well taken on global warming. But no one is diverging on the acidification of the oceans.

        This is where we have to act. Now is the time.

  3. I see both Rod and Jack Gamble were up early to enter the lion’s den and have him for breakfast.

    Soon the lion’s jackals will awaken from their Friday night bongfest to join the fray.

    If the long list of fans of Atomic Insights made it a point to comment on one anti site every day, we might start to make a difference in that “cognitive dissonance” factor. It’s interesting to trade technical trivia among fellow nukes, and there is comfort in having a common point of view, but the battlefield is over there deep in enemy territory. Let’s take it to him.

    Rod, your synopsis is another A-plus, and you didn’t hesitate to point out that Emperor Gundersen, may not be, ahem, attired as resplendently as some of his minions believe.

    • Pro nuclear comments are routinely disallowed on “green” blogs like Huffpo, Grist, and Joe Romm and eventually if persistent the commenter is given the boot. As well, antinuke types can use all kinds of rhetoric, and ad hom attacks on pronuke commenters and when the hapless individual responds in kind he will immediately get the boot from the site.

      So keep in mind it is a tough thankless job.

      • Seth – I have had good luck in getting my comments reviewed and approved on sites like Huff Post and Climate Progress. I also try not to respond “in kind” to the unkind words that I occasionally receive in response.

      • Seth,

        I am able to get comments on many of these sites and I try to keep a factual and polite demeanor as I do this. I remember that I am commanded by Christ to love my neighbor as myself and to do good for my enemy. Strong disagreement can be done with grace. I do confess to not always succeeding at that but it is my constant goal.

  4. Rod, the cite should be In These Times, not “Inside” etc. Nice post. Thanks for all you do.

  5. The increase of CO2 concentration in atmosphere is partly due to our cutting down forests for farming and other developments and digging up fossil fuels for industrial development. However, the nuclear non-carbon power is only one of the solutions. Our agriculture could ‘reap’ the fruits of higher CO2 and temperatures by actually using up the greenhouse effects. Growing more of plant varieties with faster biomass growth could reduce these effects and the biomass could be used as food or fuel.

    • Plants can only do so much. Each plant will have a threshold where there is too much CO2 for it to live in. You cannot for example, grow a plant in a Pure CO2.

      Eventualy The worlds Forests will take care of the CO2, but only if we stop putting in more than they take out.