In his column in Monday’s Washington Post, Sebastian Mallaby mocks the idea of a U.S. energy policy aimed at achieving energy security, calling it, among other things, a “chimera”¯ and “dumb objective.”¯ He bases his argument on two main points. The first is that eliminating Middle Eastern oil imports would not dry up terrorists’ financing, since oil, regardless of its origin or destination, sells at a global price. This is basically true (although it ignores the fact that the significant reduction in demand would almost certainly drive this price down).
It is Mallaby’s second point, however, that is troubling to me. He says that an energy policy focused on security would have no effect on carbon emissions in the U.S., and would, in fact, increase them, because current alternatives - shale oil, coal, and ethanol - create just as much, if not more, carbon emissions than traditional oil. And I suppose that, on its face, this argument is accurate. But it is accurate only in terms of the alternatives that are offered. For example, say I offer you this scenario: “You have to travel from Washington to Los Angeles, but your car has broken down. It will now be inefficient for you to take the trip, because you have to walk, or ride a bicycle.” This statement would be true only because I’ve limited your choices. If I were to also say you could take an airplane, I would have actually offered you an alternative that would be more efficient than your original plan to travel by car.
And therein lies the problem with Mallaby’s argument - he omits the best possible option from his list of alternative sources of energy: nuclear power. Unlike solar, wind, and other renewable sources of energy that are still probably decades away from being competitive with oil in terms of cost, nuclear energy is cost competitive right now. It is abundant, efficient, affordable, and safe, and produces virtually no carbon emissions. Why liberal environmentalists like Mallaby and Al Gore (who conveniently omits any mention of nuclear power from his popular film An Inconvenient Truth) refuse to acknowledge the potential of nuclear energy is very puzzling to me.
The bottom line is this: renewable energy sources like solar, wind, and biofuels will be a huge part of our energy future. But it will take time to develop these technologies. Nuclear energy technology is ready today, and is our best available alternative to traditional fossil fuels. A market-based carbon cap will have many benefits in terms of alternative energy development, but perhaps the most immediate, and most important, will be a renewed focus on nuclear power. By embracing nuclear power, we can prove that reducing carbon emissions and achieving energy security are not mutually exclusive goals.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 16th, 2007 at 12:16 pm and is filed under Alternative Energy Technology, National Security, Oil and Gas . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
January 16th, 2007 at 1:47 pm
You might find this interesting if you’re looking for inside perspective on nuclear in the U.S.
http://RadDecision.blogspot.com
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:02 am
It is indeed astounding that so many people (both in and out of government) willfully ignore the nuclear option. But it’s not more of the old-style light-water reactors that we should be building:
We need to move to one or more of the ”4th-generation” reactor designs, that have huge advantages over the commercial reactors we are operating in this country today.
For almost everything people need to know for an initial overview, see the December 2005 issue of Scientific American, pages 84-91:
”Smarter Use of Nuclear Waste”
Given the focus of this website, y’all are probably familiar with the September 2006 special issue of Scientific American: Entire issue is on ”Energy’s Future Beyond Carbon”.
Like former CIA Director Jim Woolsey and others have said:
~~”Every year we send billions of dollars to people who want to kill us.”
My take: We need to get going on reasonable and practical ways to stop doing that, with all deliberate speed. While they have their place up to a point, since the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow 7 x 24, solar and wind are not going to get us there.
SIDEBAR: I got here from you ad on soundpolitics.com
January 23rd, 2007 at 10:23 am
Checkout what France is planning. http://www.uic.com.au/nip28.htm
January 23rd, 2007 at 12:03 pm
People,
I’m not sure what a 4th generation reactor can do for us today, in an much as they won’t be off the drawing board for at least three more years, and are not slated for production until 2030. Nuclear energy development in this country was leading the world until Jimmy Carter was elected. With one stroke of the pen, he single-handedly ended the nuclear power industry in the U.S. by shutting down the Clinch River Breeder Reactor project. For twenty years there was not another reactor ordered here.
Granted, it wasn’t all Carter’s fault, even though the man can’t pronounce ‘nuclear.’ The fiasco called Marble Hill in Indiana, the use of a butter valve in a steam line at Three Mile Island (coupled with the redundant failure of reduntant safety systems compounded by operator errors), Chernobyl, and a glaring lack of science education in the U.S. all contributed to a public perception of a grave danger associated with nuclear power. The movie “China Syndrome” did not help at all. The population does not understand nuclear power, and thus fears it. They don’t understand coal-fired power plants either, but they grew up with coal, so coal is accepted because it is familiar.
We have come to rely on the ready release of stored energy. Fossil fuels are stored sunlight, converted eons ago by the heat and pressure of geologic action into the familiar forms of today. We learned decades ago to convert municipal garbage into crude oil through heat and pressure, but the process was not then, and probably still is not, economically feasible. And the efficiency was a very poor 1 to 2 percent. Today, we have markedly improved the efficiency by using plasma chemistry. The process is energy intensive, to be sure, but the waste stream is next to non-existent. Plants are under consideration as I write this.
The question is how to store available energy supplies for later use. The earth receives daily from the sun more energy than we need in a year. We just don’t have any way to store it. Wind power is also quite sufficient, but hard to store. Hydroelectric power could be used on a far wider basis, but we will have to contend with the extreme environmentalist lobby in order to build the necessary facilities. Geothermal power is available in some places, but we have that same lobby of earth-first fanatics who don’t want foot prints in the wilderness, let alone geothermal power plants.
We have some decisions to make. Unless we want to go back to subsistence agriculture powered by muscle, we will need energy we can carry. Today, that means fossil fuels or bio-fuels. The jury is still out on bio-fuels. So far, the energy yields and economics are not encouraging. But technologies are improving. Indiana farmers are being told that within ten years, crop oils may constitute up to ten percent of the feed stream for our state’s crude oil refineries. At the same time, producing land is being developed into housing. Homeowners spend huge sums of money, and use large amounts of fuel and pesticides and herbicides and fertilizers to tend a crop they never eat or sell: their lawns. I wonder how much I could get from a half acre of soybeans?
January 23rd, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Wayne Tucker noted:
”I’m not sure what a 4th generation reactor can do for us today, in an much as they won’t be off the drawing board for at least three more years, and are not slated for production until 2030.”
That is the big problem with Gen-IV nuclear: It’s just not a priority at the national level. What I would like to see is a push for a national commitment to accelerate that schedule as much as reasonably possible; i.e.:
Not a Manhatten-or-Apollo-stype all-out panic (which is always hugely wasteful of $$), but rather actions by the Federal government to facilitate concerted actions by national laboratories like Livermore and Los Alamos, and private companies who already have expertise in this area (General Atomics, for example). One of the most urgent needs is to move forward with a relatively large-scale demonstration of the Gen-IV fuel cycle.
With a serious, sustained commentment to Gen-IV nuclear, SURELY we could shave 10 years or so off that current 2030 target ?? If we could do that, and then also pursue the other promising technologies that are being looked at, it would make a big difference.
And Wayne is absolutely right about the disasterous decision by Jimmy Carter on Clinch River: Another sad triumph of political-correctness over promising science.
Apollo 11 landed on the moon just over 8 years after President Kennedy launched the effort. While as per above an all-out panic project is not called for in this case, I have to believe that with a serious commitment we can do considerably better at getting Gen-IV nukes online than 2030.
January 23rd, 2007 at 2:19 pm
The policy on energy needs to look at the big picture, not one or two magic bullets. Th solutions lies in multiple sources including geothermal (there are numerous hot spots to be exploited) nuclear, get to our own oil/gas resources in the gulf, Alaska, and elsewhere, increase the use of coal, and stop supporting some bio-fuel projects that cost more energy than they make (corn for example has a larger carbon footprint than anything else but is subsidized as an alternative that is politically correct). Use of corn also drives up the price of corn foods, tortilas in Mexico, corn at the grocery (from 10 cents per ear to nearly a dollar an ear lately) and drives up the costs of meat because of the corn fed to cattle.
Any electric or hybrid vehicle should be able to be rechagred from any outlet. Recharging a battery from the on board motor is just using gas to convert mechanical power to electrical/chemical and there are always loss conversions. In real life every owner of a hybrid vehicle I know (about a dozen) report gas milage at half or less than the EPA highway estimate, some even lower than the gas only equivelent model.
Homes and businesses could use solar for electric and heat but the systems costs take 20 or more years to recover. Some places have wind driven generators but again, the cost recovery is in decades. If all appliances were AC/DC powered it would make some self sufficient systems easier and less costly. Eliminating the DC to AC conversion and directly powering appliances off the DC battery reduces system cost.
Less trucks, more trains. Trains are more energy efficient, yet the trucking lobby has held a control over federal monies spending more on highways and less on rails. Truckers argue speed of service, and for perishable items that is important, however, at least 70% of truck loads are not time sensitive and improved rail systems could reduce the transmodal conversions. Electric engines vs diesel-electric, are more energy efficient, allowing more frequent local links from the modal terminal to end terminal. Unfortunately the last train to business deliveries in cities ended around 1947 and the facilities decimated and abondoned. Small fuel cell or electric trucks could provide local delivery from local train terminals on freight sorted to delivery address as the big package delivery companies do (such as FedEx, UPS, etc). If operated as package delivery vs random load, the packing of train cargo could be just as efficient as designated use hopper car trains.
Mass transit sucks. Chicago has taken down about as many miles of track as it has laid and operations are less frequent, less reliable than ever before. There is no commuter rail within 20 miles of my home, never has, and maybe in 2020 a rail link will come close (5 miles). But I and a lot of other baby boomers no longer commute to the city or will be retired before anything is done. Transit is also poor becuase of multiple transfers to get from A to B. Long routes have been broken into segments for labor costs, but the passengers transit time is increased by the additional wait for the next bus or train to arrive or have to pay extra for the route extensions/changes. When I had a 44 mile commute, it took about an hour by car. I tried public transit. That took a drive of 9 miles to the nearest access. Then a buss ride to the train, the train to a 4 block walk, to another bus. Total time 3 hours 12 minutes. If I were to miss the train, its an additional hour to the next one, and upon arriving, the bus service is no longer in rush hour, so a longer wait for the next buss. As a handicapped person, that 4 block walk was sheer torture and took 45 minutes. Total transit cost: $15.50. Cost of driving: $6.75. Bring back the electric street cars, get rid of the carbon fuel busses. With the reduced truck traffic (from the increase use of electric trains) there will be less stalled traffic to halt street cars and other vehicles.
Mini cars: Europe,Japan, India and other countries have models of vehicles not offered here. The Mini Cooper/BMW has barely hit the market here, the VW bug is still with us, but there are tiny fuel efficient city cars from dozens of manufacturers in Europe, South America and just about every where else, but not in the USA. The EPA and other rules are carefully crafted to prevent these vehicles from the US market so the bloated mismanaged US manufacturers (GM, Ford) aren’t forced to make small less profitable cars. Chrysler just plain sucks, even under the Mercedes-Benz moniker. Toyota will be the #1 vehicle sold in the US in the immediate future if GM, Ford don’t cleave off about 200 million tons of fat, and decide to offer lean clean efficient vehicles. They also have an interest in making crappy short lived cars in order to sell new ones to replace worn out old (4-5 year) ones. Ha ha, My 79 Caddy still runs perfectly and will last aother 30 years. Imagine not having car payments for 30-40 years while all those plastic cars become hefty bags to carry out the rest of the plastic trash.
Lets get geothermal going. Divert some river water near Yellowstone, drill some holes, pump in cold, suck out steam, turn some low pressure turbine generators. Need more power? drill more holes. Don’t have water/ Make some thermo couples, bury them where there is a good thermocline, charge up the batteries 24/7 no moving parts, no waste generation.
We don’t need dams to make electric power from running water. The old technology of grinding mills using the water wheel can make a lot of small generator systems with no waste, doesn’t disturb the fish, quiet, and no energy costs, only system costs. Works on any running stream, creek, river with running water. You can even build a simple float to accomodate different seasonal water levels. I bet we could put 20,000 or more on the Mississippi alone!
Don’t have wind? Make a chimney! No cost of energy low power system, uses natural barometric pressure differences. Every tall building could have them running 24/7 in the smoke shafts. When not making power, they could be the exhaust fans in event of fire or other mass air movement need.
Buring trash? Why not capture the heat in a boiler to make steam for small electric generator? Shred the paper and other burnables, light, recover the carbon energy as electric or steam heat for nearby structures. There is no shortage of trash. Reduce the Trash Mountain land fills at the same time. Process the biodegradeables to fertilize public lands, or sell it as Milorganite (Milwaukee, WI’s recycled organic matter fertilizer). Tires and old rail road ties make lots of energy when properly shredded and burned.
Require the replacement of all auto batteries using lead with Lith-ion or other high weight/power ratio battery. Less weight, less lead, longer life.
Somewhere a few years ago I read that nearly half the electric power generated is lost in long distance transmission. Some high KV lines were doubled or quadrupled to reduce this loss, using aluminum cable. If we introduce any percentage of the above local power generation systems, it reduces the requirement for long distance transmission, reducing the transmission loss making the power grid more efficient and less cycle loaded. We’ll never eliminate the power grid because of the industrial needs, but a savings of 10% through the use of local generation would be millions of barrels of oil or cubic feet of gas a year.
Cut the red tape and bring on the nukes. It’ll take 20 years to get a new reactor on line, but lets double the capacity by 2040. Lets add some secondary energy recovery to get more heat out of the cooling tower discharge.
And for the politicians, make them ride bikes to generate power for electric lights in the meeting chambers. It will serve several purposes: the hot air of windy speakers will be put to good use, their flabby bodies will be more fit, they will talk less and work harder in order to get off the bikes, exercising more than their lips, and feel the pain of energy costs personally, not at the tax payers expense. Lastly, if they aren’t peddeling, they can’t cast their electric vote. In the non legislative season, they have to work at a commercial business not their own, earning wages and paying taxes for a hard days work like the rest of us. The job wages are directly subtracted from their public wages for additional taxpayer savings.
Even better, if they don’t get a job, they pay unemployment INTO the system for their lagress.
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:13 pm
I have hope that there are right minded individuals in government, like yourself’s, who have started Terra Rossa to keep us informed of the real energy problem and it’s solutions.
Today, all we hear about is Global Warming, which is just junk science. If say the environmentalist really wanted to eliminate carbon monoxide in the air, then we should go with Nuclear Power Generation, which is the safest and cheapest method for generating electricity without adding carbon monoxide in the environment. But, what about the nuclear waste? We don’t have to store it in Yukka Mountain, NV. The spent fuel rods can be reprocessed and re-used. Japan has perfected this process and has reprocessing in operation with more to come online in the near future.
Also, we should fight the development of ANWR in Alaska and other domestic reserves to lessen our dependence on Middle Eastern Oil, who’s regimes use our dollars to for military and weapons to support attacks against us. This would also lessen those South American Countries, who have turned more and more towards Socialism and hostile to the U.S. Having more reserves available will solve one problem, but we need to build more refineries too.
I have hope that there are right thinking people in government that have real solutions to solving our energy needs.
Keep up the good work and keep me informed.
Thanks,
January 23rd, 2007 at 3:21 pm
I have hope that there are right minded individuals in government, like yourself’s, who have started Terra Rossa to keep us informed of the real energy problem and it’s solutions.
Today, all we hear about is Global Warming, which is just junk science. If say the environmentalist really wanted to eliminate carbon monoxide in the air, then we should go with Nuclear Power Generation, which is the safest and cheapest method for generating electricity without adding carbon monoxide in the environment. But, what about the nuclear waste? We don’t have to store it in Yukka Mountain, NV. The spent fuel rods can be reprocessed and re-used. Japan has perfected this process and currently has reprocessing plants in operation now with more to come online in the near future.
Also, we should fight for the development of ANWR in Alaska and other domestic reserves to lessen our dependence on Middle Eastern Oil, who’s regimes use our dollars to for military and weapons to support attacks against us. This would also lessen those South American Countries, who have turned more and more towards Socialism and hostile to the U.S. Having more reserves available will solve one problem, but we need to build more refineries too.
I have hope that there are right thinking people in government that have real solutions to solving our energy needs.
Keep up the good work and keep me informed.
Thanks,
January 23rd, 2007 at 4:18 pm
The energy companies own all the oil, gas and coal in the ground and until it is depleted they will not allow (through their lobbying efforts) nuclear energy in the U.S.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:31 pm
The US Navy has been using nuclear power since the fifties. All the ‘NAY SAYERS” predicted a major nuclear accident in a US port before the seventies came around. I know, I was there. Didn’t happen! Our entire submarine fleet and most larger surface craft are using nuclear power and much of that technology is ancient by todays standards. The French are going ahead full speed with nuclear power. The FRENCH, think of it, are ahead of us. We have a repository (Yucca Mountain) built to take our nuclear waste, but the same people that lobied to have it built in their state (now that it’s built) don’t want it. Imagine that. Our nuclear reactors can’t blow up or have the same problems as Chernoble because of their design. Look at Three Mile. A major screw up by the operators with almost no enviromental impact. why do we let the likes of a Carter and Gore scuttle nuclear energy. And what happened to Carter who commanded a nuc sub? How or why did he get into the Navy Nuclear Program if he dosen’t believe in it? Rickover required a minimum of a 120 IQ for officers and enlisted so unlike Gore, he can’t use ignorance as an excuse. Perhaps we should put some federal funds into Cold Fusion. If it worked we could forget about fossel fuels, nuclear waste and even global warming.
January 23rd, 2007 at 8:46 pm
There are people in government seriously moving toward a future powered by nuclear energy. Proof of this? GNEP, i.e., Global Nuclear Energy Partnership. Perhaps I am an idealist, but I like the sound of this initiative, started by Bush in 2004. Check out http://www.gnep.energy.gov/ for details.
January 24th, 2007 at 7:17 pm
Not to pick nits, but you need to bone up on energy technologies and make your knowledge base a little more current.
Wind power is not only competitive with other energy sources as of today, but it’s also the second-fastest growing source in the US (behind natural gas-fired turbines). It will not “take time to develop these alternatives,” because these alternatives are already being aggressively deployed, for a profit. That type of language is the mark of a technological bias, and engineers shouldn’t care about that sort of thing.
I’ve always supported nuclear as long as it can compete in the marketplace with the other very-viable options that are out there.
I’ve issued challenges to nuclear (and coal, for that matter) proponents all over the internets: let’s dump all the subsidies, including the hidden ones and negative externatlities of unpaid liabilities, disposal and storage costs; create a level playing field based on the fundamental right of human beings to breathe clean air; and let the market decide which energy source is best.
I have yet to find a taker who doesn’t work for a wind, solar, geothermal, natural gas or bio-gas firm.
(NOTE: I don’t think nukes are a public saftey risk, but I also don’t work for the insurance industry and so can’t address the issue of liability.)
I’d like to note that Duke announced last week that it’s backing away from its grandiose proposals for two new nukes on the east coast because - surprise, surprise, they can’t compete in a free market.
Anyone on this site want to advocate for capitalism in the energy market? I’m dying to know.
February 2nd, 2007 at 11:03 am
I’m all for ending all subsidies. That would let each alternative compete on it’s merits and not be biased by government programs and money. Nuclear power is one thing we need to do but I think currently it’s costs will be higher. The problems with solar and wind power and it’s like are storage. They cannot be relied upon for power 24×7x365. We must have a mix of energy sources to meet all demands.