A move toward Climate realism: The EU admits nuclear and natural gas are part of the energy solution.

By The Editorial Board Wall Street Journal, Jan. 3, 2022 - Could this winter’s energy crisis be shocking Europe into climate realism? Believe it or not, the European Union is set to include nuclear and natural gas on the list of industries eligible for “green” investments. Someone please pass the smelling salts to the Sierra Club.

.... Wonder of wonders, nuclear and natural gas make the cut. The draft taxonomy released late on New Year’s Eve deems investment in nuclear power sustainable as long as the investment is made before 2045 and a plan is in place to dispose of the waste. The draft also includes natural-gas power plants built by 2030, subject to emissions limits and as long as they replace heavier-emitting plants.

The usual suspects are furious for the usual reasons. (If you are a WSJ subscriber, read it all.)

Rod's Comment: It may not be possible to significantly slow global warming, but if we

climate-warrior-romantic-environmentalists,
warming the planet for 47 years.

continue doing what we have been doing for the last 55 years, it is certain we will not slow it.  The world is producing more greenhouse gases; not less. The world is still warming.

Unfortunately, climate-warrior-romantic-environmentalists have been setting climate change policy and have set the US and the world on a course of more global warming. Dirty coal-burning power plants could be replaced by cleaner natural gas-powered power plants if not for "environmentalist" blocking of fracking. 

Nuclear is the most promising means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but "environmentalists" oppose nuclear and stop the building of nuclear plants that could replace coal-fired power plants.  What so-called environmentalists do that is not counterproductive is simply symbolic and ineffective and does nothing to slow greenhouse gas emissions, an example being stopping the keystone pipeline.  It is time that realist set policies that will actually slow global warming instead of leaving global warming policy to climate warrior enthusiast and romantics.

For more of my views on climate change follow this link. 

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Nuclear energy is the best solution for climate change

The Tennessean, Your Turn, Natalia M. Best, Guest columnist, Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022-  ...  I’m

very proud of my home state’s contributions to clean energy. Tennessee is the home of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory ... outstanding institutions of higher education ... leading the way to create sustainable, zero emission ...

... Climate Change Conference, COP26, in Glasgow. The U.N. Secretary-General admitted that nuclear power will be a part of the solution. The White House and State Department delivered other announcements that strongly support nuclear energy’s value in fighting climate change.

If nations and states do not increasingly commit to resilient, zero emissions energy alternatives like nuclear fission, extreme weather events like these could become more frequent, more severe or both.

While California and New York close and dismantle their nuclear power plants and increasingly turn to fragile, less reliable and less sustainable forms of clean energy like solar and wind, Tennessee’s two nuclear plants contributed 47% of the state’s electricity in 2020. This enabled the state to increasingly phase out other forms of energy with high carbon emissions

... when compared with all the existing clean energy alternatives, nuclear is the best, the most reliable and the safest large-scale clean energy solution we have for now. ... Given nuclear energy’s overdue recognition coming out of COP26, I’m hopeful more states will follow Tennessee’s lead by prioritizing and incorporating nuclear energy into their electric grids. (read it all if you have a subscription)

Rod's Comment: It may not be possible to significantly slow global warming, but if we continue doing what we have been doing for the last 55 years, it is certain we will not slow it.  The world is producing more greenhouse gases; not less. The world is still warming.

Unfortunately, climate-warrior-romantic-environmentalists have been setting climate change policy and have set the US and the world on a course of more global warming. Dirty coal-burning power plants could be replaced by cleaner natural gas-powered power plants if not for "environmentalist" blocking of fracking. 

Nuclear is the most promising means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but "environmentalists" oppose nuclear and stop the building of nuclear plants that could replace coal-fired power plants.  What so-called environmentalists do that is not counterproductive is simply symbolic and ineffective and does nothing to slow greenhouse gas emissions, an example being stopping the keystone pipeline.  It is time that realist set policies that will actually slow global warming instead of leaving global warming policy to climate warrior enthusiast and romantics.

For more of my views on climate change follow this link. 

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The Case for Combating Climate Change with Nuclear Power and Fracking

I share the concern of liberal environmentalist about climate change. I accept that climate change is real. However, I think the biggest friend climate change has is liberal environmentalist. Rejecting technology and market forces is assuring that climate change will continue. I think many environmentalist are so enamored of big government solutions that they are determined to lose the battle against climate change. They think that embracing solar and wind power and "economic justice" is a solution. I think they are really more concerned about economic redistribution and changing attitudes than they are about meaningful solutions. Many of the solutions they embrace, such as ethanol and focusing on mandating higher CAFE standards, are counter productive and properly inflating your tires and turning off lights is like handing out sponges to the passengers of the Titanic. Many of the solutions advocated by environmentalist make people feel virtuous but do nothing to solve the problem.

Many environmentalist oppose the solutions that could make a meaningful impact on climate change such as increasing the use of nuclear power and fracking. America's reduction in CO2 emissions has primarily occurred because of an increase in the use of natural gas, that came about due to fracking.

This article from the Harvard Business School explains why nuclear power and shale gas are on the right side of the fight against climate change, and why markets have a better shot at winning the fight against climate change than governments do.
The Case for Combating Climate Change with Nuclear Power and Fracking

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What do you think about global warming?

What I think about global warming can’t be put on a bumper sticker, not does it make a nice slogan. I think the issue is complicated with a lot of unknowns and there is a lot of components to the question. The question, “What do you think about global warming?” is really several questions. Do you think it is occurring? If that question is answered in the affirmative then that leads to other questions. If it is occurring, is it manmade? If it is manmade, what should we do about it? Assuming it is occurring, how severe is it? Do we have time to stop it? Can it be stopped? Below are my thoughts at this time.

(1) Climategate cast doubt on the theory of global warming. Climategate revealed data tampering, conspiracy and group-think. It showed that some scientist reached conclusions and forced the evidence to support the conclusions. Evidence that did not support the conclusions was doctored to show something it didn’t and then the raw data was destroyed. Scientist resisted efforts to comply with freedom of information acts and resisted efforts for others to see their research. Scientist who did not support the dominant theory were marginalized and silenced. For me, Climategate threw serious doubt on the validity the theory.

(2) Climategate does not negate the other evidence however. Despite the revelations of climategate there is still a large body of evidence that supports the climate change theory. There are hundreds of scientists throughout the world studying this issue. Many governments, organizations, and scientist all came to the same conclusion that climate change is occurring and it is manmade. I find it hard to believe that climate change theory is all a hoax and is a large enough hoax to encompass all of the individuals and agencies involved. Also, there is the physical evidence of shrinking glaciers and melting icecaps. I do not believe JFK was assassinated by elements of the CIA, or that 9-11 was an inside job, or that the moon landing was faked. I have a hard time believing in grand conspiracies. It is hard to get a large number of people to perpetuate a hoax or keep a secret. On balance, Climategate cast doubt on the theory of global warming but did not disprove it.

(3) The Consensus on global warming is less solid than has been presented. There are reasonable people and credentialed scientist who are critics of the theory or some aspects of the theory. These critics have been hushed and should be given a voice and platform. The science should not be considered settled.

(4) Climate change is occurring and has always occurred. The earth has always been cooling or warming. Climate has never been stable. That climate change is occurring and that there is a warming trend seems undeniable.

(5) We do not know the ideal temperature of the earth. Is one half of one degree less than it is today the ideal temperature? What should the temperature be? How do we know that what is occurring is not a natural fluctuation. The climate warmed in previous periods prior to man’s ability to impact it. If man’s production of global warming pollutants is causing global warming, perhaps it is even a good thing and is helping us avoid another ice age. How do we know that manmade global warming is not a countervailing force to global cooling? Maybe the scientist of the 60’s were correct after all and the world was heading for another ice age until manmade global warming reversed the trend. I have these doubts but will acquiesce and assume that global warming is a bad thing. I do wonder however how one determines that a degree less or a degree more is not really the ideal or natural temperature of the earth.

(6) Assuming climate change is global warming and it is manmade, I do not know that anyone knows what to do about it. Copenhagen accomplished virtually nothing and global warming emissions increased under Kyoto. Assuming global warming is occurring and assuming it is manmade; the prospects for stopping it are not very encouraging. Poor countries understandably are not willing to forgo the economic development that the prosperous countries enjoyed. I don’t blame them. In times of economic downturn, many in the developed countries are not willing to accept a curtailment of growth that would most likely be necessary to combat global warming and they are not willing to pay a fee to poorer, often corrupt, countries for those countries foregoing development.

(7) The current proposal for Cap and Trade will do virtually nothing to curtail global warming emission and will be detrimental to economic growth and simply expand government. In theory cap and trade could successfully curtail CO2 emissions. The cap and trade bill under consideration however, gives away too many credits and is in essence a tax on consumers. A revenue-neutral cap and trade with no give away of credits could possibly work, but has never been proposed. Another problem with proposed cap and trade is the use of carbon offsets. Carbon offsets are fraudulent and fictitious. A better method of reducing carbon emission would be a revenue neutral carbon tax.

(8) Carbon-based fuel should cost more. Even if global warming theory is incorrect we need to reduce our reliance on foreign oil. We need to do it for our national security. People will not conserve simply because it is a noble thing to do. If energy cost more, people would change their behavior. When gas was $4 a gallon people used less of it. If gas prices had stayed high we would have seen the popularity of smaller vehicles and carpooling. Over time high energy prices would cause people to choose to live closer to work instead of far-flung suburbs and houses with less square feet would be more desirable. Alternative fuels would flourish if only carbon based fuels cost more. Tinkering with CAFE standards and Cash for Clunkers programs and exhortations to combine trips and properly inflate your tires are going to have minimal impact on use of carbon fuels.

(9) Even if we had in place a workable cap and trade policy or a carbon tax and international treaties, I do not know that there is time enough to curtail carbon emissions sufficient to stop global warming. Assuming global warming is occurring, how fast is it occurring? I don’t know if the IPCC overestimates the danger from warming or underestimates it. According to Al Gore. the polar ice caps will be melted within five years. Other global warming alarmists likewise warn that the end is near. Even if we took immediate steps to radically reduce carbon emissions, it would take some years before the climate trend would be reversed. Reversing climate is like turning an ocean liner; it is not quick or easy. There may not be time to do it.

(9) Assuming climate change is real and it is global warming and it is manmade and the end is near, I think the solution for surviving it lies in geoengineering. I do not think we can save ourselves by abandoning technology. If I accept all of the above assumptions, then I think we need to pour money into efforts to use mankind’s ability to innovate and problem solve to combat global warming and in efforts to accommodate global warming. We need to move aggressively to manipulate the environment. We need to pursue ocean iron fertilization. We need to seed the atmosphere with reflective particles that will allow cooling of the earth while we have time to curtail harmful emission. We should aggressively pursue carbon sequestration. We should aggressively pursue replacing carbon-based energy with nuclear energy.

(10) Environmentalist may be the worse enemy of saving the planet. Assuming global warming is a reality and the survival of the planet is in danger, the environmentalist are likely to be the ones who will stand in the way of effective efforts to save it. I am not speaking of all environmentalists of course; I am myself an environmentalist. I love nature. I hike and birdwatch and I used to canoe and camp. I want clean air and clean water and I want to save beautiful vistas and natural waterfalls for future generations and I want endangered species to survive. I oppose mountain top removal and other practices that degrade the environment. I believe we should be good stewards of the earth. The most vocal of environmentalist, however, seem to have an agenda that goes beyond protecting the environment. Unfortunately, the most alarmist of the global warming theorist are also the people who think we need to live in harmony with nature rather than take dominion over nature and be good stewards of the earth. Rather than using clean nuclear energy to heat our homes they would prefer we shiver in caves. Much of the environmentalist movement is anti-human, anti-progress, anti-growth, anti-technology and anti-capitalist. Much of environmentalism is closer to an ideology and a faith than simply advocacy of policies that are protective of the environment. Instead of advocating practical solutions for combating global warming, many environmentalists are more concerned with changing people’s hearts and attitudes. Assuming global warming is real and the worst predictions are correct, the enemies of surviving it are the anti-technology and anti-market environmentalists themselves.

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Green Libs: Act Now to Stop the Nuclear Energy Stimulus Bill!

I know we on the right are doing all we can to stop this super spending bill, so I wanted to give our friends on the left a reason to join us.

To all of those people who think the only way to save the planet is for people to shiver in caves, the stimulus bill is bad news. To those who think that nuclear energy has no roll in curtailing greenhouse gas emission and think that we can replace dirty energy with nothing but solar and wind, you need to act now to stop this bill. A nuclear power plant is going to build in your backyard and you are doing nothing to stop it! I am not conning you. Here is a report from a good liberal blogger.

Why is that $50 billion radioactive antique toilet still in the stimulus bill?
By Harvey Wasserman
Created Feb 9
2009 - 9:29am

The infamous $50 billion nuke power loan guarantee package meant to use your money to build new nuke reactors has gone missing from saturation media coverage of Obama’s Stimulus Package. But it’s still in the Senate version of the bill, it could be voted on this week, and it could kill us all.

We have days---maybe hours---to stop it. While aid programs to the states, for education and the truly needy are slashed, this gargantuan boondoggle is poised to sail through with virtually no public knowledge. Published on The Smirking Chimp (http://www.smirkingchimp.com/)

If you really care about the planet read the rest of the article and act now. If you don’t act then we could become like France and get 70% of our energy from nuclear power.

I know if you are good liberal you don’t want to kill this bill. The only government programs that liberals ever disapprove of are national defense. So, I am not asking you to encourage you Congressman to kill the bill; I am asking you to call your congressman and Senator and ask them to remove this offensive provision.

Now I am for nuclear energy so why would I suggest this? Because this provision does not belong in a stimulus bill just as a lot of other things to do belong in the stimulus bill. Funding nuclear power plant insurance should stand or fail on its own merits. If Democrats get enough calls about this issue, they may decide to slow down the process of approving this bill and hold hearing to determine what is really in the bill. So, Liberals, please call your congressman now. If you don’t, then when they are building a nuclear power plant in your backyard, don’t blame me.

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Better Planet: Nuke Power is Earth's Friend

It’s time to replace coal power with wind and, yes, nuclear.

by William Sweet, Discover

Using coal to make electricity accounts for about a third of America’s carbon emissions. As a result, tackling emissions from coal-fired power plants represents our best opportunity to make sharp reductions in greenhouse gases.

Fortunately, we already have the technology to do that. Unfortunately, right now the United States is addicted to coal, a cheap, abundant power source. Burning coal produces more than half the country’s electricity, despite its immense human and environmental costs. Particulates and other air pollutants from coal-fired power plants cause somewhere between 20,000 and 30,000 premature deaths in the United States each year. Fifty tons of mercury—one-third of all domestic mercury emissions—are pumped into the atmosphere annually from coal plants. In addition, the extraction of coal, from West Virginia to Wyoming, devastates the physical environment, and its processing and combustion produce gigantic volumes of waste.

For the last decade, coal-burning utilities have been fighting a rearguard action, resisting costly antipollution measures required by environmental legislation. At the same time, they have been holding out the prospect of “clean coal”—in which carbon is captured and stored as coal is burned. But clean-coal technologies have yet to be demonstrated on a large scale commercially, and by the admission of even the president’s own climate-technology task force, clean coal doesn’t have any prospect of making a big dent in the climate problem in the next 15 to 20 years.

By comparison, nuclear and wind power are proven technologies that emit no carbon and whose environmental risks and costs are thoroughly understood and which can make an immediate difference for the better. (link)

Commentary
For those of us who accept the science of global warming and think we must find a way to curtail greenhouse emissions, we have reason to be disheartening. Meaningless, ineffective measures such as higher CAFE standards and ethanol mandates have been passed which do next to nothing to solve the problem. Our President for the last 8 years has shown no leadership on the issue and has silenced those who wanted to warn us of the seriousness of the issue. Cynical Democratic leaders advocate combating global warming and advocate lower gas prices in the same sentence. A terribly flawed Cap and Trade bill, which would have transferred vast amounts of wealth, perhaps destroyed our economy and done virtually nothing to curtail greenhouse emissions, was wisely defeated but promises to be brought up again next year. "Green" has become a chic identity, a lifestyle, and a fashion statement but not a call for action.

Yet, the solution is at hand, if only there was the political will. The three most important things we could do are (1) pass a carbon tax, (2) embrace nuclear energy, and (3) promote wind power. By most accounts we have 10 to 15 years to solve the problem but time is running out.

Wind power alone, the most popular of the options, will not solve this problem. Nuclear energy is a major part of the solution, yet is opposed by most environmentalist and we lack political leaders who will advocate for it.

New nuclear power plants are much safer than the generation of power plants of the past. Opponents of nuclear energy always trot out Chernobyl as a reason not to build nuclear power plants, when Chernobyl was a plant that would never have been approved anywhere except Russia. The problem of nuclear waste disposal is exaggerated and is offered as another reason not to pursue nuclear energy. Many opponents of nuclear power cite nuclear proliferation as a reason to oppose nuclear energy. Does anybody honestly think that whether Tehran or Pyongyang produces atomic bombs depends on how many reactors the United States decides to build in the next 10 to 20 years?

The best friend global warming ever had may be the environmentalist. However, they are wasting valuable time and energy preaching the virtues of properly inflating your tires and turning down thermostats, while standing in the way of real solutions. The environment is too important to be left up to environmentalist. Those of us who take the challenge of global warming seriously must not let the environmentalist stand in the way of policies that can save the planet. It is time to go nuclear.

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Is Nuclear Energy Our Best Hope?

by Gwyneth Cravens, Discover

Despite its negative image, nuclear energy may be the most efficient and realistic means of meeting the rapidly-growing demand for power in the United States. by Gwyneth Cravens

Four years ago this month, James Lovelock upset a lot of his fans. Lovelock was revered in the green movement for developing the Gaia hypothesis, which links everything on earth to a dynamic, organic whole. Writing in the British newspaper The Independent, Lovelock stated in an op-ed: “We have no time to experiment with visionary energy sources; civilisation is in imminent danger and has to use nuclear, the one safe, available energy source—now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet.”

Lovelock explained that his decision to endorse nuclear power was motivated by his fear of the consequences of global warming and by reports of increasing fossil-fuel emissions that drive the warming. Jesse Ausubel, head of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, recently echoed Lovelock’s sentiment. “As a green, I care intensely about land-sparing, about leaving land for nature,” he wrote. To reach the scale at which they would contribute importantly to meeting global energy demand, renewable sources of energy such as wind, water, and biomass cause serious environmental harm. Measuring renewables in watts per square meter, nuclear has astronomical advantages over its competitors.”

All of this has led several other prominent environmentalists to publicly favor new nuclear plants. I had a similar change of heart. For years I opposed nuclear power, but while I was researching my book Power to Save the World: The Truth About Nuclear Energy, my views completely turned around. (link)

Commentary

If one accepts the scientific consensus, as I do, that global warming is a very serious problem and must be addressed and be addressed soon, there is little to be encouraged about. Kyoto has been a dismal failure. The world's output of greenhouse gases continues to increase rather than decrease. The carbon trading and carbon off-set mechanisms are scandal-ridden and are ineffective. In 2007 the US passed new CAFE standards, which will take years to have any impact and then, only minimal. In 2008 the US Congress considered, and wisely rejected, a seriously flawed Cap and Trade bill. If the next Congress should revive and pass the bill, it will enrich some, at the expense of others. It may also very well destroy the economy, while having minimal impact on our carbon output. The G-8 summit passed a very weak declaration to do something about global warming, someday and even that was rejected by India and China. The promise of ethanol turned out to be false. Ethanol has led to higher food prices, increased starvation in the undeveloped world, and has done little to curtail greenhouse gases.

Looking for bright spots in a gloomy picture, gas prices have increased, which for the first time ever has resulted in Americans reducing the amount of driving they do. The bad news is that politicians of both parties are pandering to a public which wants lower gas prices. Another piece of good news is that, thanks to the efforts of oilman T. Bone Pickens, there is a major push to promote wind power. This renewable resource looks like a viable, alternative energy source. Wind power alone, however, can not meet our energy needs.

Nuclear energy may be our best hope. Nuclear energy may be able to curtail global warming in time to avoid a calamity. This energy source would definitely have to be coupled with other alternative sources of clean energy; policies that curb carbon consumption, and futher investment in some promising new technological developments in carbon sequestration. Nuclear is not without its problems, but not using nuclear energy is more threatening than using it. In the above article, the author makes this argument. Unfortunately, many of the people who are most passionate and proactive about global warming are also the same people most passionate about stopping nuclear energy development.

James Lovestock, one of the world's most prominent environmentalist, has gone from being an opponent of nuclear energy to a proponent. This article explains why Lovestock and other rational environmentalist are now supporting nuclear energy as an important part of the strategy for stopping global warming.

Nuclear energy supplies only 20% of America's energy needs. That percentage is constantly slipping, and no new nuclear plants have been built in America in 30 years. America's energy demand continues to increase, and the US is the world's greatest contributor to global warming. If we are serious about combating global warming, we need to embrace nuclear energy.

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Can Al Gore be Taken Seriously?

Al Gore's "A Generational Challenge to Repower America" Speech

Al Gore made a major speech recently and about the economic, environmental and national security crisis that we face as a result of global warming.

He could not have painted a bleaker picture. “The survival of the United States of America as we know it is at risk”, says Gore. “And even more - if more should be required - the future of human civilization is at stake.”

He says the climate crisis is getting worse quicker than predicted. He says that within five years there is a 75% chance that the North polar ice cap will disappear during the summer months.

He advocates a program of producing 100% of our electricity from solar, wind and geothermal power within ten years, and he is convinced that we have only ten years to act. “The leading experts predict that we have less than 10 years to make dramatic changes in our global warming pollution, lest we lose our ability to ever recover from this environmental crisis.”

I respect Gore for his tenacity and sincerity. I have no clue as to whether we have only ten years to act or not. Gore had me nodding in agreement when he said we should speed up the transition to clean energy by "insisting that the price of carbon-based energy include the costs of the environmental damage it causes.” I agreed wholeheartedly with Mr. Gore when he said, “I have long supported a sharp reduction in payroll taxes with the difference made up in CO2 taxes. We should tax what we burn, not what we earn. This is the single most important policy change we can make.”

I am very skeptical, however, that even with a complete replacement of the income tax with a carbon tax and a massive government development program, that we can achieve a transition to unproven technologies and a replacement of an infrastructure based on coal and oil in such a short period of time. The expense is incomprehensible.

I also think he downplays the sacrifice that would be required and paints a rosy picture of the economic benefit of the transition. He might also just be outright saying something that he does not really believe when he says, “The way to bring gas prices down is to end our dependence on oil and use the renewable sources that can give us the equivalent of $1 per gallon gasoline”.

I think he lost all credibility with the “$1 per gallon gasoline” argument. Also, I think Mr. Gore would be more believable if he recognized a role for nuclear energy in his proposal for addressing the global warming crisis. How can one totally ignore the role of clean nuclear energy in addressing the energy needs of the world? In France, nuclear supplies 70% of their energy needs. In contrast, nuclear currently supplies only 20% of America’s energy needs. Gore seems to pretend it does not even exist.

While I hope this speech leads to serious discussions about this important issue, Mr. Gore’s speech struck me as something more like Mao Zedong’s “Great Leap Forward” rather than a serious, practical proposal.

To go to the Gore website where you can view the video and read the text of his speech, click here: link.

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