One of the weaknesses of Informed Comment is the author's tribalism; he's a Democrat.
We have two War Parties. That's the problem I have voting. One party has a small and ineffectual anti-war wing. The other party has a 'realist' wing, mostly out of office, and a handful of neo-isolationists. Members of both parties vote overwhelmingly for the bloated Pentagon budget, voted for an open-ended authorization for Bush 43 to use force as he saw fit, and boast about the military-industrial jobs they bring to their districts.
Recently a 19 year old American citizen, armed only with a video camera, was murdered in international waters by commandos of a foreign nation. Shot five times at close range. I queried my congressional delegation, all Democrats, as to when there might be congressional hearings on this murder. I was met with a deafening silence.
Under Obama, the drone war escalates, the secret prisons remain, 'special forces' operate in even more countries, the lies about 'collateral damage' (read 'murder of unarmed civilians') continue.
I won't soon forget that the foundations of the Cold War militarization of American society were laid during the Truman administration. He was the first president to lead us into a major war (sorry, 'police action') without a congressional declaration of war, and the one who decided we would support the French in their misguided attempt to recreate French Indo-China.
Admittedly, the rhetoric from the Republicans is nastier and more bellicose, but effectively, in terms of votes, treasure wasted and blood spilled, there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two war parties. A plague on both their houses.
There wasn't a link to reply to your reply, so I'm putting it here.
A couple of things you might want to ask about when you talk with your technical colleagues:
Mass production of small (< 1 MW), modular nuclear power units that would be shipped to where they are used, rather than being constructed on site. Bringing mass production methods to bear could be key to a rapid deployment of nuclear power.
In the news recently has been investment in the development of a 'traveling wave reactor' which could burn actinides, the elements with long half-lives that are the worst part of the nuclear waste problem.
There a lot of new tech in the nuclear power field; it's going to be interesting to see what works out and what doesn't. I hope we Americans have the gumption and political will to get back out in front with this technology and not just leave it to the Indians, Chinese and others.
One final point: even taking into account Chernobyl, fifty years of nuclear power has killed fewer people than die in a few months from the extraction and use of fossil fuels.
OK. Your book was already on my reading list so I bumped it to the top and checked a copy out of the library. I've carefully read the first chapter and any entries in the index concerning energy.
Your book shows you much better informed about energy issues than I had gathered from your blog entries. That first chapter is an excellent (for the most part) summary of the history of the West's relations with Muslim-majority oil producing countries. I would quibble with your ready acceptance of OPEC claims for their oil reserves; these numbers aren't audited & since their quotas are determined by their reserves, they have every incentive to exaggerate.
I especially appreciate your mention of oil exporting nations consuming more of their own production as their economies grow. This is a restraint on the global supply of petroleum that's often not taken into account.
I believe that my point was not that solar and wind are comparable to fusion, a promise for the future, but that storage to overcome the intermittency problem is. That's something you mention in your book; storage is a serious problem for widespread deployment of wind and solar power. All the money in the world thrown at the problem is no guarantee of a solution, especially in a timely fashion.
The single paragraph about nuclear energy on page 33 is extremely disappointing. I don't think anybody except doctrinaire Republicans think that nuclear power is a magical solution to our energy problems, just an important part of the mix. There are no magical solutions in engineering. Nuclear power is, however, something we can deploy NOW, especially if we want to replace aging coal fired power plants with zero carbon emission power sources.
The waste problem can be dealt with by not producing most of it in the first place (4th generation reactor designs are much more efficient in their use of fuel) and by reprocessing and burning most of what we have already produced, rather than storing or burying it (the Americans have given up on fuel reprocessing, the French have not).
Running short of nuclear fuel is also not possible, if we combine breeder reactors with the use of thorium (an element much more abundant than uranium and nowhere mentioned in your book or on your blog; it's hard for me to take seriously any critic of nuclear power who seems totally unaware that there is an alternative to uranium).
Finally, your comment on page 232 about convincing Iran that nuclear power is not the way to energy independence because they might meltdown in an earthquake, "Like all reactors, they could be subject to meltdowns, such as the one at Chernobyl . . ." is problematic for two reasons.
First, Chernobyl was terrible not because it melted down, or even because it had incompetent management that allowed the meltdown to occur in the first place, but because the Russians were stupid enough and cheap enough to build such a reactor without a containment building.
Secondly, there are a number of 4th generation reactor designs that are self-quenching and therefore inherently incapable of meltdown by design. They should be not only much safer but cheaper to build as well, since they won't require multiple redundant cooling systems to guard against meltdown.
Otherwise, good book. I look forward to reading the rest of it. And I really appreciate this blog. But you're still mostly unconvincing to me on energy issues, esp. as a critic of nuclear power.
There is a form of magical thinking that asserts that if we just have a Manhattan project or an Apollo project, we can solve any technological problem. This is false. Those projects had goals that were known to be solvable, only the engineering details had to be worked out.
Many billions of dollars have been poured into controlled fusion research. Fusion as an energy source remains fifty years away, just as it was fifty years ago. Some problems are intractable. In fact, most problems are intractable due to physical reality and engineering trade-offs. (Where is my affordable flying car?)
I am well aware of the subsidies and externalities of fossil fuel production. Even taking those into account, it is hard to see how wind and solar will ever replace more than a portion of the 85% of our energy consumption now provided by oil, coal and gas.
Consider a major move to replace liquid fuels with electricity. We have to have base load (the current that's always in demand) and load following (people get home from work and turn on appliances) sources of electrical power. Wind and solar don't work well for these, for the simple reason that we cannot command the wind to blow or the sun to shine. All the money in the world won't change that physical reality. (You like to bring out Denmark as an exemplar of what can be done with wind, but omit the fact that they can buffer their contribution to the European grid with hydro and coal sourced power from the surrounding countries.)
It is true that major breakthroughs in energy storage would obviate this fundamental problem with wind and solar. Such a breakthrough would have to be both very energy dense and economically affordable. Unlike the Manhattan and Apollo projects, we don't know what form the end goal might take; they didn't require fundamental breakthroughs in technology and scientific understanding, just refining and improving what we already knew. And cost was not really a factor for those projects, as it must be for any storage technology we widely deploy.
One of my big problems in deciding who to vote for these days is the emotional opposition to nuclear power by so many Democratic politicians and their supporters. They seem to be stuck on Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Yucca Mountain, as if 4th generation nuclear power technologies didn't exist (cheaper, safer and producing much less and shorter lived waste). In the meantime, the Indians are forging ahead with thorium fuel-cycle reactors and other 4th generation nuclear technologies. (The U.S. and India are the nations with the largest known thorium reserves.) Unlike future storage solutions for wind and solar, many of the fundamental technologies for 4th generation nuclear power are well understood, only the engineering details and trade-offs have to be worked out.
We might have chosen a different path. More than fifty years ago, Admiral Rickover warned us we would be facing a fossil fuel crisis in the early 21st century. We, as a society and aided and abetted by the political influence of the fossil fuel industries, chose to largely fritter away this half-century. Now we have run out of time, particularly if we want to quickly reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.
You view the world through the eyes of an historian and political commentator. You seem to think that getting off fossil fuels is just a matter of political will and redirecting the subsidies that fossil fuels get to alternatives.
I view the world through the eyes of an engineer and technologist. I simply don't see diffuse and intermittent solar and wind as capable of replacing more than some portion of energy dense and easily transported fossil fuels, particularly in the short-run. I also find that most people don't grasp how energy intense an industrial civilization really is (1000 barrels of oil per second, globally!).
Your blog is invaluable, professor. Considering how much of the American media is dedicated to reflecting and reinforcing Americans' fantasies about ourselves and our nation, you provide a much needed service. You cast your information net wide and your commentary about Middle Eastern politics and history is truly well informed. You provide the context and details to help keep me reality-based. (Many of your posts here boil down to this: 'The American media is reporting X, but it ain't that simple. Let me explain.')
I am here to tell you that I find your occasional comments on energy issues to be naive at best, lacking both context and detail and ignorant of the engineering challenges. Due to fundamental issues of physical reality and the need for technologies that don't yet and may never exist, replacing fossil fuels with alternatives is, and will continue to be, a much harder problem than you think.
On the contrary, Afghanistan has a plethora of mineral resources.
That doesn't mean I disagree with getting out of there but the mistake needed to be corrected.
One of the weaknesses of Informed Comment is the author's tribalism; he's a Democrat.
We have two War Parties. That's the problem I have voting. One party has a small and ineffectual anti-war wing. The other party has a 'realist' wing, mostly out of office, and a handful of neo-isolationists. Members of both parties vote overwhelmingly for the bloated Pentagon budget, voted for an open-ended authorization for Bush 43 to use force as he saw fit, and boast about the military-industrial jobs they bring to their districts.
Recently a 19 year old American citizen, armed only with a video camera, was murdered in international waters by commandos of a foreign nation. Shot five times at close range. I queried my congressional delegation, all Democrats, as to when there might be congressional hearings on this murder. I was met with a deafening silence.
Under Obama, the drone war escalates, the secret prisons remain, 'special forces' operate in even more countries, the lies about 'collateral damage' (read 'murder of unarmed civilians') continue.
I won't soon forget that the foundations of the Cold War militarization of American society were laid during the Truman administration. He was the first president to lead us into a major war (sorry, 'police action') without a congressional declaration of war, and the one who decided we would support the French in their misguided attempt to recreate French Indo-China.
Admittedly, the rhetoric from the Republicans is nastier and more bellicose, but effectively, in terms of votes, treasure wasted and blood spilled, there's not a dime's worth of difference between the two war parties. A plague on both their houses.
There wasn't a link to reply to your reply, so I'm putting it here.
A couple of things you might want to ask about when you talk with your technical colleagues:
Mass production of small (< 1 MW), modular nuclear power units that would be shipped to where they are used, rather than being constructed on site. Bringing mass production methods to bear could be key to a rapid deployment of nuclear power.
In the news recently has been investment in the development of a 'traveling wave reactor' which could burn actinides, the elements with long half-lives that are the worst part of the nuclear waste problem.
There a lot of new tech in the nuclear power field; it's going to be interesting to see what works out and what doesn't. I hope we Americans have the gumption and political will to get back out in front with this technology and not just leave it to the Indians, Chinese and others.
One final point: even taking into account Chernobyl, fifty years of nuclear power has killed fewer people than die in a few months from the extraction and use of fossil fuels.
Professor Cole,
OK. Your book was already on my reading list so I bumped it to the top and checked a copy out of the library. I've carefully read the first chapter and any entries in the index concerning energy.
Your book shows you much better informed about energy issues than I had gathered from your blog entries. That first chapter is an excellent (for the most part) summary of the history of the West's relations with Muslim-majority oil producing countries. I would quibble with your ready acceptance of OPEC claims for their oil reserves; these numbers aren't audited & since their quotas are determined by their reserves, they have every incentive to exaggerate.
I especially appreciate your mention of oil exporting nations consuming more of their own production as their economies grow. This is a restraint on the global supply of petroleum that's often not taken into account.
I believe that my point was not that solar and wind are comparable to fusion, a promise for the future, but that storage to overcome the intermittency problem is. That's something you mention in your book; storage is a serious problem for widespread deployment of wind and solar power. All the money in the world thrown at the problem is no guarantee of a solution, especially in a timely fashion.
The single paragraph about nuclear energy on page 33 is extremely disappointing. I don't think anybody except doctrinaire Republicans think that nuclear power is a magical solution to our energy problems, just an important part of the mix. There are no magical solutions in engineering. Nuclear power is, however, something we can deploy NOW, especially if we want to replace aging coal fired power plants with zero carbon emission power sources.
The waste problem can be dealt with by not producing most of it in the first place (4th generation reactor designs are much more efficient in their use of fuel) and by reprocessing and burning most of what we have already produced, rather than storing or burying it (the Americans have given up on fuel reprocessing, the French have not).
Running short of nuclear fuel is also not possible, if we combine breeder reactors with the use of thorium (an element much more abundant than uranium and nowhere mentioned in your book or on your blog; it's hard for me to take seriously any critic of nuclear power who seems totally unaware that there is an alternative to uranium).
Finally, your comment on page 232 about convincing Iran that nuclear power is not the way to energy independence because they might meltdown in an earthquake, "Like all reactors, they could be subject to meltdowns, such as the one at Chernobyl . . ." is problematic for two reasons.
First, Chernobyl was terrible not because it melted down, or even because it had incompetent management that allowed the meltdown to occur in the first place, but because the Russians were stupid enough and cheap enough to build such a reactor without a containment building.
Secondly, there are a number of 4th generation reactor designs that are self-quenching and therefore inherently incapable of meltdown by design. They should be not only much safer but cheaper to build as well, since they won't require multiple redundant cooling systems to guard against meltdown.
Otherwise, good book. I look forward to reading the rest of it. And I really appreciate this blog. But you're still mostly unconvincing to me on energy issues, esp. as a critic of nuclear power.
I know you said not to bother, but I have to.
There is a form of magical thinking that asserts that if we just have a Manhattan project or an Apollo project, we can solve any technological problem. This is false. Those projects had goals that were known to be solvable, only the engineering details had to be worked out.
Many billions of dollars have been poured into controlled fusion research. Fusion as an energy source remains fifty years away, just as it was fifty years ago. Some problems are intractable. In fact, most problems are intractable due to physical reality and engineering trade-offs. (Where is my affordable flying car?)
I am well aware of the subsidies and externalities of fossil fuel production. Even taking those into account, it is hard to see how wind and solar will ever replace more than a portion of the 85% of our energy consumption now provided by oil, coal and gas.
Consider a major move to replace liquid fuels with electricity. We have to have base load (the current that's always in demand) and load following (people get home from work and turn on appliances) sources of electrical power. Wind and solar don't work well for these, for the simple reason that we cannot command the wind to blow or the sun to shine. All the money in the world won't change that physical reality. (You like to bring out Denmark as an exemplar of what can be done with wind, but omit the fact that they can buffer their contribution to the European grid with hydro and coal sourced power from the surrounding countries.)
It is true that major breakthroughs in energy storage would obviate this fundamental problem with wind and solar. Such a breakthrough would have to be both very energy dense and economically affordable. Unlike the Manhattan and Apollo projects, we don't know what form the end goal might take; they didn't require fundamental breakthroughs in technology and scientific understanding, just refining and improving what we already knew. And cost was not really a factor for those projects, as it must be for any storage technology we widely deploy.
One of my big problems in deciding who to vote for these days is the emotional opposition to nuclear power by so many Democratic politicians and their supporters. They seem to be stuck on Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Yucca Mountain, as if 4th generation nuclear power technologies didn't exist (cheaper, safer and producing much less and shorter lived waste). In the meantime, the Indians are forging ahead with thorium fuel-cycle reactors and other 4th generation nuclear technologies. (The U.S. and India are the nations with the largest known thorium reserves.) Unlike future storage solutions for wind and solar, many of the fundamental technologies for 4th generation nuclear power are well understood, only the engineering details and trade-offs have to be worked out.
We might have chosen a different path. More than fifty years ago, Admiral Rickover warned us we would be facing a fossil fuel crisis in the early 21st century. We, as a society and aided and abetted by the political influence of the fossil fuel industries, chose to largely fritter away this half-century. Now we have run out of time, particularly if we want to quickly reduce our carbon dioxide emissions.
You view the world through the eyes of an historian and political commentator. You seem to think that getting off fossil fuels is just a matter of political will and redirecting the subsidies that fossil fuels get to alternatives.
I view the world through the eyes of an engineer and technologist. I simply don't see diffuse and intermittent solar and wind as capable of replacing more than some portion of energy dense and easily transported fossil fuels, particularly in the short-run. I also find that most people don't grasp how energy intense an industrial civilization really is (1000 barrels of oil per second, globally!).
Your blog is invaluable, professor. Considering how much of the American media is dedicated to reflecting and reinforcing Americans' fantasies about ourselves and our nation, you provide a much needed service. You cast your information net wide and your commentary about Middle Eastern politics and history is truly well informed. You provide the context and details to help keep me reality-based. (Many of your posts here boil down to this: 'The American media is reporting X, but it ain't that simple. Let me explain.')
I am here to tell you that I find your occasional comments on energy issues to be naive at best, lacking both context and detail and ignorant of the engineering challenges. Due to fundamental issues of physical reality and the need for technologies that don't yet and may never exist, replacing fossil fuels with alternatives is, and will continue to be, a much harder problem than you think.