Category: Energy & The Environment

The comments to Kevin Drum’s and Matt Yglesias’s nuclear power posts paint a picture with four features that are common in such debates but which I hadn’t really noticed before.

1. There’s a strong similarity between the Bushies and the anti-nuke forces in the way they deal with dissent. If someone who used to be on their side of the argument (about Iraq or nuclear power) comes down on the other side, it’s always from some character flaw or venal motive, never because thinking about it caused him (or her) to have a change of views.

Under these rules of engagement, apostasy makes any credibility the heretic might have built through expertise or devoted service instantly disappear. Moreover, any nasty thing you can think of to say about that person is worth saying, no matter how remote from the merits of the case. Take a look at the hit-piece on Moore at SourceWatch (made up to look like a Wikipedia entry) and linked to by David Rogers of Grist. Why should Burton-Marsteller’s record with the Argentine junta be of interest to someone who wants to know who Moore is? Is the fact that Moore had an op-ed in a newspaper that also publishes Henry Kissinger’s column really an argument against paying attention to his arguments?

2. Again, under these rules, the fact that a position is supported by someone your side has demonized (Michael Moore, say, or George W. Bush) proves not only that the position in question is evil but that anyone who supports it is mad, bad, or just plain stupid. And scatological insults are the most appropriate form of refutation.

Consider this from Matt’s comments (riffing on Matt’s remark that he hasn’t studied the problem carefully but leans toward the pro-nuke side):

I don’t know that much about it… but it all seems so scary and frightening to me that I think I will throw in with the crowd that brought us The California Energy Scam, Enron, Iraq, Katrina, and Iran. I am so scared, I think I just messed my pants. Please help me Mr. Bush!

Or, as one of Kevin’s commenters wittily remarks:

anyone favoring nuclear power is a homicidal, suicidal maniac.

and an erstwhile totalitarian

(Well, you wouldn’t really expect someone utterly ignorant of economics and engineering to know where the shift key is or what “erstwhile” means, would you?)

3. Bushies and anti-nukes are also alike in their faith in proof by assertion and repetition. If you say often enough that things are going well in Iraq, that proves that it’s so, and that the emerging civil war is merely imaginary. If you say often enough that there’s no way to dispose of nuclear waste, that instantly renders infeasible the proposal to: (1) recycle the plutonium into new fuel pellets: (2) store the small amount of truly “hot” stuff in swimming pools for a few decades until it cools down; and (3) vitrify (i.e., make glass bricks out of) the vast bulk of not-very-radioactive waste, including the “hot” material after a few of its half-lives, and build a pyramid somewhere in the desert, creating a glow-in-the-dark manmade wonder that ought to be good for the tourist trade.

4. Anti-nukes come in (at least) two flavors, not unlike the split between the social conservatives and the supply sider/neocon faction among the Bushies. One group of anti-nukes argues that of course we can have (and the third world can come to have) all the consumer goods we want without nuclear power and without cooking the planet. In lieu of explanations, that group then mumbles some mantras: “wind,” “solar,” “tidal,” and (the most potent incantation of all) “conservation.”

The other group of anti-nukes argues that of course we can’t and shouldn’t have worldwide prosperity on the consumer-capitalist model, and that the problems with nuclear power just illustrates that we need to learn (and to teach starving Africans and Asians) that less is more. In particular, central-station power generation is inherently, as an objective matter, pro-fascist, and all power must be generated in backyards as a matter of political principle. Amory Lovins has invented entirely new principles of economics and physics that prove this is perfectly feasible.

What’s fascinating is that the two groups, diametrically opposed on the central question of whether it’s OK to consume lots of energy, never criticise each other; they’re united against the common enemy.

Footnote

None of the above is to say that Patrick Moore is actually worth listening to. According to the Honolulu Observer (in a story that has a link from the Wikipedia entry on Moore) Moore seems to have told a biotech convention that global warming is good because it will increase the amount of arable land. If that’s what he really said, he has a screw loose somewhere, and if he really believes it then it’s not clear why he should count reducing greenhouse gas emissions from coal plants (as opposed to other noxious emissions from coal plants) as a benefit of going nuclear. That article is a much more potent reason to discount Moore than SourceWatch’s slime-and-defend on behalf of environmental orthodoxy.

In one of the early Democratic Presidential debates of 1992, when the late Paul Tsongas &#8212 then a Senator from Massachusetts with an impeccable environmental record &#8212 dared to express the opinion that nuclear power was preferable to coal on environmental grounds, Jerry Brown pointed at Tsongas and said to the crowd, “Ladies and gentlemen, you are now looking at the world’s first radioactive environmentalist.”

Thanks in no small part to Ralph Nader, opposition to nuclear power has been a shibboleth of the environmental movement. I learned about the mendacity and the Inquisitorial fanaticism of the Nader-led anti-nuke forces thirty years ago, when I worked for a leading anti-nuclear Congressman, Les Aspin. First, I noticed the prevalence of unfacts in Critical Mass propaganda, even on the breeder reactor issue where the anti-nuke forces clearly had the better end of the policy argument. Then I discovered that the confident Naderite prediction of one meltdown per 1000 reactor-years was entirely made up out of whole cloth, and started to think through the nuclear/coal comparison. Then, when I persuaded my boss to switch sides on the question of a moratorium on light-water-reactor construction (he’d authored the first bill on the topic, but declined to re-introduce it in 1995) I learned how nasty and unforgiving the Naderites were in the face of heresy.

In the face of the global-warming problem, this particular smelly little orthodoxy is beginning to break down. At least, one of the co-founders of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore, has come around, and he cites other high-profile heretics.

Opposition to nuclear power has always been based on a refusal to face the fact that, in the short-to-medium term, less nuclear power necessarily means more coal-fired power. But the truth is slowly sinking in, and leaking out, in part due to the global-warming problem and in part due to Nader’s self-discrediting antics in 2000 and 2004. (There’s actually a strong analogy between refusing to acknowledge that the alternative to Gore was Bush and refusing to acknowledge that the alternative to nuclear is coal.)

That’s not to say that the American approach to nuclear power generation makes any sense at all. It doesn’t. Having dozens of power companies operate one or a few reactors each is a recipe for inefficiency in construction and operation. The permitting process, which in effect requires a new design for each site, is a guarantee of expense and delay. If we’re going to build a new generation of nuclear power plants, we shouldn’t do so on forty-year-old technology. And we need a solution to the waste problem. (Mine would be to reprocess the spent fuel, recycling the plutonium into new fuel rods, separating the relatively small amount of very “hot,” short-half-life waste to be guarded for a few decades in swimming pools, and vitrifying the low-level waste into glass blocks out of which pyramids could be built somewhere in the desert.)

But even a dumb nuclear power program beats coal, which emits greenhouse gasses, particulates, and more radioactive material per kilowatt-hour produced (in the form of radon) than nuclear plants. Maybe &#8212 just maybe &#8212 the country is ready to learn that simple truth.

Hat tip: Kevin Drum.

Dan Mitchell, who knows as much about California’s budget woes as anyone in the state, has some thoughts on gasoline taxation in the latest California Business Journal. One thing he doesn’t mention: the incidence of a gasoline tax falls partly on resource-owners, so the Iranian mullahs would have somewhat fewer petrodollars to buy bombs with if drivers paid more to the tax-man at the pump.

Want More Roads? Raise the Gas Tax

Daniel J.B. Mitchell

In 1947, California Governor Earl Warren faced a dilemma. California’s population had risen rapidly during World War II and was continuing to grow as returning GIs resettled in the state. Yet the state had neglected its infrastructure for almost two decades, thanks to the Great Depression and then rationing of construction materials during the War. In particular, roads were inadequate and congested. Only one limited-access road had been built — what is now the Pasadena Freeway — and that road had been expensive. Where would new money come from for all the freeways that were still on the drawing board?

Warren’s solution was to raise the gas tax and other motor vehicle related taxes, earmark the money for transportation, and build the freeway system. But there was opposition from a surprising source. Oil companies apparently could not understand that with more and better roads, they would sell more gasoline. So they heavily lobbied the Legislature to block the Warren plan. Governor Warren’s response was to go to the people, not with 30-second sound bites but with radio addresses, explaining the need for new roads and the money to support their construction. He spoke with newspaper reporters and editorial writers and pushed his contacts in the Legislature on both sides of the aisle. After a fierce legislative battle — during which the bill was almost killed — the gas tax was raised and freeway construction was begun. So successful was the California model that nine years later the federal government adopted the same idea — an earmarked gas tax for transportation — to build the interstate highways.

Oddly, an increase in the state gas tax — currently 18 cents per gallon — is the missing element in Governor Schwarzenegger’s new infrastructure plans. The existing tax on gasoline and diesel will bring in about $3.5 billion in the next fiscal year, according to the Governor’s estimates. He proposes instead $12 billion in bonds spread out over 8 years and some toll roads. But an increase in the gas tax should be part of any transportation plan.

Bond financing absent new revenue sources simply adds to state debt financing loads. An increased gas tax could fund the bonds and/or provide for roads on a pay-as-you-go basis. Toll collection technology is difficult to retrofit on existing roads, particularly in urban areas. In contrast, we already have a system for collecting the gas tax.

The gas tax is a user fee. Drive more, pay more. Drive a heavy gas guzzler which creates more road wear, pay more. Drive in congested hours when gas mileage is low, pay more. So the gas tax encourages efficiency and environmentally-friendly. Reduce your driving, drive a smaller car, use public transit, avoid peak hours, and you pay less. Governor Schwarzenegger is fond of pointing to Governor Pat Brown, a Democrat, who expanded California’s infrastructure in the early 1960s. He should also be looking at the earlier example of Republican Earl Warren, who understood that ultimately you get what you pay for.

I finally know more than Mark about a psychotropic drug! At least if you don’t drink it. Ethanol, the characteristic solvent for social distance and shellac, is also a motor fuel with attractive characteristics: it’s made of sunshine and exactly the CO2 we like to take out of the atmosphere, it increases gasoline octane as an additive, it’s environmentally quite benign in spills and such, and it’s not imported from places with fractious and prickly governments.

However, it doesn’t just dribble out of corn plants: to get ethanol requires growing plants (fertilizer, tractor fuel…), hauling corn to a distillery, smooshing it up with yeast and keeping it warm (more fuel), distilling the alcohol out of the mush (more fuel), and various other industrial operations all of which use energy. A debate has been burbling for several years about whether we really wind up ahead in various important ways by substituting ethanol for gasoline in cars, and the issue has been confused by the patchwork of subsidies and regulations that distort market prices for fuels of all kinds.

A gang at the Energy and Resources Group and the Goldman School at UC Berkeley, who invited me to play with them over the summer and fall while we did the project, have clarified things greatly. In my view our most important finding is that the “net energy” measure, which looks only at the fossil fuel energy consumed to make a unit of energy in the form of ethanol, asks the wrong question. For example, if ethanol provided a means to take 100 joules of energy from coal and obtain 50 joules worth of ethanol, it would not necessarily be a bad idea. Coal is abundant and cheap; the problem with it is that when burned, it releases the “greenhouse gas” CO2. So one would want to ask about the greenhouse gases released (and other costs, of course), not the net energy, and if the CO2 from burning the coal were captured and sequestered, this notional technology would be a prima facie policy winner, allowing us to run cars cleanly on domestic abundant coal rather than imported, scarce petroleum.

Our article in Science (Farrell et al) is behind a paywall (today’s issue, if you have access to it) but also posted here, with the analysis behind it. This LA Times story is a pretty good report. What we found, adjusting six studies of ethanol input demands so they could be compared is that ethanol from corn (maize) as we make it today is a big petroleum saver, and offers modest gains in global warming, compared to gasoline. The specific technology used to make it matters a lot, but what matters more is the crop you start with: ethanol from grass or wood will be a very attractive fuel on energy, global warming, and petroleum displacement grounds.

We are beginning a research initiative that will give us a better look at other considerations like cropland fertilizer runoff, soil protection, and forest conversion to farms. The larger policy debate will be much occupied with conflict between the farm community already in the corn business and quite enamored of the subsidies and regulations that favor it, and the nascent industry of cellulosic ethanol; watch this space for updates.

Lead is hideously nasty stuff. The dose that will measurably lower a child’s IQ is measured in micrograms. Now maybe the lead that Toshiba warns about in the customer instructions Mike had such a good time making fun of is in nanograms, and is mentioned only because of California’s silly toxic substances law (another intitiative special).

But if not, then what’s lead doing in an ordinary power cord? “Wash hands after handling?” No, if there’s enough lead to matter in the power cord, throw the DVD drive away and never buy anything from that manufacturer again.

Update Duhhhhhh…A reader points out the obvious answer: solder. “Until very recently,” he reports, most electrical and electronic assemblies had milligrams, even grams, of lead in the form of solder.” But see Mike’s reply above for an alternative and more convincing answer: lead is used to stabliize the polyvinyl chloride — PVC used as insulation. A reader points out that most garden hoses are made of PVC, and a garden hose recently purchased from Sears carried a warning not to drink from it: a warning I would guess few children know about, let alone heed.

Mike is entirely right: the practice of throwing warnings about indiscriminately is bad for the public health. One the other hand, I’d like to know more than I do now about the quantitative relationships here: are we dealing with micrograms or nanograms? If it’s micrograms, then I’m not sure Mike is right that fire-safety considerations trump the toxic risk of lead

Second update Edited to get the units right; the relevant dosage is in the microgram range (single digits of micrograms per deciliter of blood) not the nanogram range. Perhaps if the lead had been taken out of gasoline in the 1930s rather than the 1980s I’d make fewer mistakes.

Third update Another reader points out that garden hoses are now made of PVC [Yup, but not all, and not all lead-stabilized. Good advice here. —mo’h]

This is very bad news, except maybe for Chinese extreme outdoor down clothing factories. London is at the same latitude as southern Hudson’s Bay; Rome and Madrid are about as far north as New York. Without the Gulf Stream pumped-hot-water heating system, Europe would be a very different place. The world may be getting warmer generally, but if (a fair number of scientists are starting to say when) the Atlantic circulation stops, some important parts of it will go the other way, and dramatically so. Just to offer one example, all of France could easily find itself above the practical limit of cultivation of Vitis vinifera, the wine grape.

Of course the habitability of a small continent isn’t something we should have to bear any economic cost to prevent, certainly we wouldn’t betray our most fundamental national principles of big houses and cars for a bunch of foreigners. Anyway, they’ve been taking all that heat right from Florida for centuries and not paying us a cent for it. Defeatist talk about a carbon tax just encourages…encourages somebody bad, certainly, I’m sure it’s treasonous.

But you might want to take your kids to Europe sooner rather than later to be sure they don’t miss it.