Write to climatechange@flinders.edu.au

Thoughts on the Victorian Bushfires
From Andrew Campbell.
We need to be better prepared for a dryer, warming climate which is likely to double the number of days of extreme fire danger by 2020.
For the full text click HERE

Some climate howlers  - claims and facts
From George Monbiot Wednesday February 18 2009
guardian.co.uk
 
George's Will's latest column in the Washington Post affords us a fascinating insight into how certain climate change myths pass through the media unchallenged.
All these howlers are examples of stories that, for climate change deniers, are too good to check. They come up again and again on websites and in newspapers, which accept them without examination. Perhaps because George Will is one of the paper's star columnists, they have now found their way into the Washington Post, which prides itself on fact-checking.

Claim one:
"In the 1970s, a major cooling of the planet" was "widely considered inevitable" ? "the world's climatologists are agreed" that we must "prepare for the next ice age"

Fact:
A recent paper (pdf) in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society shows that
" ... despite active efforts to answer these questions, the following pervasive myth arose: there was a consensus among climate scientists of the 1970s that either global cooling or a full-fledged ice age was imminent ... A review of the climate science literature from 1965 to 1979 shows this myth to be false. The myth's basis lies in a selective misreading of the texts both by some members of the media at the time and by some observers today. In fact, emphasis on greenhouse warming dominated the scientific literature even then.

Claim two:
Since September, however, the increase in sea ice has been the fastest change, either up or down, since 1979, when satellite record-keeping began.

Fact:
I can find no evidence of this. The published evidence suggests that the increase in Arctic sea ice this year has been significantly lower than the average since 1979, and follows a very similar trajectory to that of 2006-07.

Claim three:
According to the University of Illinois' Arctic Climate Research Center, global sea ice levels now equal those of 1979.

Fact:
When I contacted to the Arctic Climate Research Center to ask if this claim was correct, the Center's Bill Chapman wrote this:
No, it is not correct. I don't know where they are getting that. As of today, there are 1.43m km sq less Arctic sea ice than this same date in 1979. (Roughly the size of two Texas-sized states).

Claim four:
According to the UN World Meteorological Organization [WMO], there has been no recorded global warming for more than a decade.

Fact:
The most recent WMO statement (pdf) shows a continuing warming trend over the past decade, and reports that "the linear warming trend over the past 50 years (0.13C per decade) is nearly twice that for the past 100 years."

To see this story with its related links on the guardian.co.uk site, go to http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/georgemonbiot/2009/feb/18/climate-denial-george-will

More discussion on seeds from AON list server.:

22/10 From John Paull
The ICARDA link identifies SYNGENTA as a sponsor. SYNGENTA is actively patenting & GMing food. eg:http://www.nwrage.org/index.php?name=News&file=article&sid=647:-) JP

22/10 From Annie Bollitho
On the one hand there are issues of access and safeguards from biopiracy. On the other there's the reality that catchments are in shocking repair, many rivers don't have flows, ecosystems aren't doing well, and that people still live in places trying to grow things. What loses focus in representations of scientists undertaking heroic work on behalf of the future generations of eaters is the complexity of saving and maintaining seed in situations where it has grown in the past and needs to be able to grow in future.

22/10 From Bryant Allen
Ken Street works for ICARDA based in Damascus, Syria. ICARDA is a
member of CGIAR. For a statement about ICARDA's principles in
relation to private enterprise, see:
http://www.icarda.org/PDFs/Intl_Cooperation/PrivateSector.pdf
http://www.icarda.org/
It took 2 minutes on Google to find this out.

22/10 from Stephen Healy
Thanks Daniel some take a less benign view as these (links I was sent) detail:
NATO’s Doomsday Seed Vault in the Arctic
Using "Climate Change" as a Pretext to Appropriate World Seeds' Treasure
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=10300
"Doomsday Seed Vault" in the Arctic
Bill Gates, Rockefeller and the GMO giants know something we don’t
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7529
Faults in the Arctic Seed Vault: not everyone is celebrating Svalbard
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8218

22/10 From Daniel Robinson
I haven’t seen the documentary, but if it is one of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) International Agricultural Research Centre (IARC) gene-banks then it should be controlled by the FAO International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture (ITPGRFA). Now anyone who wants to access such material from these gene-banks has to sign a standard material transfer agreement. There are detailed conditions about what you can and can’t do with such resources, but one important thing is that you cannot claim IPRs that may limit the facilitated access to the materials or their components. This is certainly not an all encompassing solution – it doesn’t necessarily apply to germplasm in situ or in many other gene-banks and research facilities, plus it only applies to agricultural genetic resources. Plants with associated indigenous/local medicinal knowledge face similar issues that CBD working groups are trying to resolve.
There are ways that developing countries can attempt to mitigate ‘biopiracy’ and these related issues. If it is of any interest I’ve written about it here:
http://www.iprsonline.org/unctadictsd/docs/Robinson%20Sui%20Generis%20March07.pdf

Discussing ABC TV1 Seed Hunter
8:30pm Tuesday, 21 Oct 2008
Have your say at: http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/MessageList.aspx?b=81&t=1&te=False

From the Seedsavers Network: http://www.seedsavers.net/
Seed Hunters or Future Poachers?
The recent ABC documentary Seed Hunter [1] presented some fascinating scenes from the weird world of plant-based patent prospecting. In the 60-min doco, we are introduced to Dr Ken Street, a veteran scientist and part of new breed of bio-prospectors dubbed Seed Hunters, suggesting capture and exploitation. Dr Ken is such a friendly and likeable plant collector. We follow him to exotic locations such as remote Tajikistan farming villages where he calmly collects rare seeds from farmers with no access to the modern world of science. To watch Dr Ken at work in these remnant reserves of biodiversity, we could be forgiven to think all is safe and well.

But by the end of the doco, you might begin to suspect this is nothing more than genteel piracy.
However our research here at Seed Savers reveals that two Australian government agencies, in the early 2000s the Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia (AGRIC) and the Grains Research and Development Corporation (GRDC), decided to apply for intellectual property monopolies on two chickpea varieties. These seeds were originally collected from farmers in India and Pakistan by botanists (seed hunters) just like the gentle Dr Ken.
Once collected, the seeds are held in international seed banks, "for security and safety". But of course these government administered seed banks also provide sample seeds to any "qualified researcher" that requests them. What happens next? The researchers, such as those working for the GRDC and AGRIC walk across the street to the patent office. If they are the first ones in the door, they can apply for a patent on these seeds that have been bred over thousands of generations by indigenous farmers.

Outrageous
We wonder whether the farmers who so generously shared their ancestral seeds with nice Dr Ken realised that they were destined for the breeder labs to extract genes and transfer ownership to multinational seed corporations? Did they ever imagine that their seeds may come back on day to them reborn as a patented and protected seed variety making it illegal for themselves to save?
Fortunately in the case of the chick pea, word got out and under intense public pressure the government agencies dropped their claims. But this is an exceptional case: around the world more and more of these so-called seed hunters are successfully poaching the genetic heritage of the world’s most advanced farming cultures.
We believe there is an alternative seed saving philosophy that prevents the poaching of the world’s precious diversity reserves.
Our own recently released documentary, "Our Seeds: Seeds Blong Yumi" is a 57 minute film shot in 11 countries and made for Pacific audiences that celebrates traditional foods and the plants they grow from. The film introduces the tribal farmers who save seeds and stand at the source of humanity's diverse food heritage. Please have a look at our two minute trailer.
If you watch our documentary in full, at the end of the rolling credits there is a statement that says it all: "no seed have been removed in the making of this film". This is because we don't hunt for seed but organize with tribal communities to make their crop inventories and keep their crop diversity alive.
Have your say: visit the ABC website and let them know how you feel, and then come to our site and learn a different way. http://www2b.abc.net.au/tmb/Client/MessageList.aspx?b=81&t=1&te=False

From Simon Batterbury
October 21
Not bad, but what an overblown commentary full of doom-laden overgeneralisations about overpopulation, desertification, and the world's poor not having enough to eat by 2050.

The real issues were not treated.  Will Monsanto and their ilk will get hold of what Ken Street and colleagues have now placed in the gene bank for the benefit of humanity - 'lost' landraces of wheat and chickpea tolerant of temperature extremes and drought - and then develop high yielding GM varieties from them that will further erode the world's landraces and genetic diversity? You could image that this work would result in aggressive patenting of genetic markers originating from what are essentially some of the oldest crop varieties in the world, and their wild relatives.  

In other words, will the 'lost crops' be used to generate commercial GM varieties, or somehow be transformed in a more benign, old-style plant breeding regime by CSIRO's crop adaptation people?

And what did Street have to travel all the way to Svalbard just to pop some lentil seeds into deep storage? Couldn't they have saved the carbon and sent them north from Syria without him? All for 30secs on screen.

From Stephen Healy
October 22
Who controls that vault, what arrangements are in place to facilitate access to it, by whom and under what conditions?

ABC Guide October 21
Seed Hunter
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/guide/netw/200810/programs/ZY9145A001D21102008T203000.htm
Seed Hunter is a one-hour documentary, as part of the ABC's Future Makers series, about
the hunt for seeds that may help save the world from its greatest ever crisis - a global food
shortage brought about by human-induced climate change.

As Australia and much of the world wrestles with hotter weather and a dwindling water
supply, mass starvation on a global scale is on the cards if we can't find ways to improve crop
resilience. Scientists are exploring many solutions to adapt our food supply, including going
back to Mother Nature herself to locate the genes that can withstand our changing climate;
genes that, thanks to a high-yielding monoculture, have almost disappeared.

Australian scientist Dr Ken Street, aka the 'Seed Hunter', spends his life searching for the tiny
seeds that could play a role in helping food producers around the world. This film follows Dr
Ken, the 'Indiana Jones' of agriculture, on a journey from the drought-ravaged farms of
Australia, to the heart of the Middle East, to the mountains of Tajikistan as he hunts for
elusive wild chickpea that can survive temperatures of 40 degrees above and below zero.

Sounds simple enough until you realise that land clearing, urbanisation and modern farming
systems have all but wiped out these ancient food sources. The rare wild chickpea's tough,
resilient genes could help transform the modern chickpea variety, enabling it to be grown by
more people.

At journey's end, Ken travels deep into the Arctic to deliver his precious bounty of seed to the
impenetrable 'doomsday vault', built as a back-up for the world's seed supply of every food
type known to humankind.

Letter written by Jeremy Wikinson in response to an article in the Frankfurter Rundschau about Germany's need for coal fired plants.

Bring-on those coal fired power stations, really? Joshca Fischer seems to have come-out on the side of coal as the key to meeting Germany’s energy needs in the immediate future, but is his
vision blurred or does he has a tendency for strategies that are ultimately self-destructive. It seems that the insatiable drive for growth is ultimately self defeating, we cannot go on increasing our population. We are reaching, or have already overshot, the carrying capacity of the planet, and we only cling-on due to our harnessing of fossil energy. In a way, continued growth is a kind of insanity, and all native peoples prior to the influence of Europeans learned to live within the limits of their immediate environs. In the era of globalisation, our immediate environs are now the whole planet, there is nowhere left to run. To harness more coal based energy to grow the
economy will only speed the decline of our economies as the impacts of climate change start to bite more deeply, to continue this path is to destroy the very enterprises that we desperately seek to protect.

There is another way, all we need is the vision and courage to change direction and start to do things differently and right away. With regard to climate change, the majority of the CO2 in the atmosphere and warming our climate has come from the activities of Britain, Germany and the
United States, we in the West are mainly responsible for what is happening now, so we should show some honourable behaviour and take a lead in changing our ways.

If we operate from the context that continued growth is insane, but with the caveat that we must grow other areas of our economies, mainly in the non-fossil energy and energy efficiency realms, then we are starting to steer in the right direction. It is often argued that Germany is very energy efficient, perhaps we are, but this doesn’t necessarily mean we are small users of energy, we clearly are not. Our penchant for comfort, luxury and motor cars has us up there amongst the most energy hungry people on the planet, yet it is clear that there is enormous room to
reduce our energy needs and these are in general through simple behaviour changes en-mass, as well as, institutional initiatives and public education campaigns. To give a few simple examples, our shopping centres and retail outlets are lit largely by halogen spot lights at 25-35 Watts a piece, millions of them glowing across Germany, the modern equivalent light emitting diode sets can produce the same amount of light for only 2-3 Watts each (a potential 10-fold reduction in energy use). In my university, the lights are always on, empty stair wells constantly lit with a few kilowatts, and this multiplied thousands of times across the country. Clearly we can do a lot better. In our public transport, in Frankfurt, our older trams are already pumping-out heat
that has the inside temperatures of trams at reaching 30°C. Is it a bit strange to dress-up for the cold outdoors only to be cooked once indoors. Space heating through-out Germany is hugely energy intensive.

We need to turn down the thermostat, are we all such “weich Eier” after all? This is to illustrate only a few examples of mass energy waste in Germany, I could write-on all day on the subject, but I will leave you to ponder the subject.

With regard to energy production, is coal really the only answer? In Spain, for example, the investment in wind energy has been very impressive and up to 23% weekday peak energy needs can be met by wind, and at the weekend this rises to around 40%. We see plenty of wind
turbines in the East, but we Westerners are a little conservative and have failed to appreciate the elegance and value of wind-turbines. How many wind turbines could we build for the price of a coal powered station? Another area that has had little discussion is the new class of nuclear power generating systems. Please wait a moment, before you dismiss then with a sudden knee jerk reaction, the new reactor designs actually eat the waste from convential atomkraft plants and render a less dangerous waste, and they harness a far greater proportion of the energy within the nuclear material, and they do not require newly mined uranium (which can only meet current needs for a further 70 years).

These new breeder reactors are much smaller and have a fail safe design, and can be built much more quickly than conventional reactors, the decommissioning costs are less and they can use wheapons grade fissile material and hence eat through our stock-piles of war heads from the
Cold War. I have never been an advocate of nuclear power, but in the face of the 99% certain climate change impacts if we continue burning coal, the low probability of a nuclear disaster is a much better risk from a business and economic stand-point.

It’s time to get clever and abandon those old technologies, time is fast running-out, once the Arctic Ice has gone heating will progress a lot faster, the Greenland Ice-cap is accelerating it’s melt, the rising sea level, which is also accelerating, will destroy vast areas of fertile land, displaced hundreds of millions of people to I don’t know where, and ruin billions of euros worth of communications infra-structure. The costs of burning coal will be far greater than the costs of leaving the stuff in the ground where it needs to stay. There should be no further
need for discussion and we as individuals need to tell our leaders what we want, and I personally want a planet that is habitable for my children and with the many splendours of nature for them to enjoy.

Dr Jeremy Wilkinson. Wilhelm-Leuschner Str., 60329 Frankfurt am Main. 19
Sept 2008.

Further reading: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/

James Hansen wrote:
Good news from the UK: the Kingsnorth Six were acquitted by a Crown Court jury.
They were members of a group of 23 Greenpeace volunteers who had attempted to shut down the Kingsnorth coal-fired power plant, specifically the six were the ones painting the smokestack with "Gordon Bin It" when interrupted by the police. Their defense was 'lawful excuse', that they were protecting property of greater value (the Earth!) from the impact of climate change. We will need our Mercedes-driving lawyer friends to tell us if the verdict has greater significance -- but the jurors were common people, not politicians. It was an impressive show -- judge and lawyers with their white wigs -- hopefully it has an impact.

Written testimony that I submitted for the case, at http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/20080910_Kingsnorth.pdf is a bit
long. The "Summary Facts" are below. The main point, that the government, the utility, and the fossil fuel industry, were aware of the facts but continued to ignore them are more generally valid worldwide. It raises the question of whether the right people are on trial.

Trip Report
by Nasa's James Hanson

For full text click HERE

a) His visit to Germany, UK and Japan and his discussions there.
b) His call for a moratorium on new coal fired power plants
c) The case for more research into 4th generation nuclear power fast breeder reactors.
d) Boron powered hydrogen cars
e) Global governance and captains of industry
f) A flood of hostile, sceptical emails and a debunking of their fallacies
g) How science and scientific models work

350.org
From Jeremy, July 4.
James Hansen's target for recovering from the worst impacts of climate
change is to get CO2 back down from 385ppm to 350ppm. This is the basis
of the youth orientated 350.org. The key outcome is to stop expansion of
coal burning for electricity and to phase out coal fired electricity,
through a dramatic expansion of renewables with a low-loss DC grid to
create a balanced energy network... still barely feasible.

He also demonstrates how UK, US and Germany are the key historical
polluters by volume and that the majority of the CO2 in the air is ours,
the Chinese input so far has been relatively small. In many ways to
point a finger at China is to obfuscate the responsibilities of the west.

350.org might be a good vehicle for campaigning and engaging the young
who stand to gain most by making change now

Second generation biofuels

22 May
From Dr Stephen Clarke, Leader of Materials & BioEnergy Group at Flinders University,  Faculty of Science and Engineering,  School of Chemistry, Physics & Earth Sciences (ATAS Australian Affiliate Councillor to ICTAC).

There is much that needs doing in developing 2nd-gen biofuels. These 2nd-gen biofuels do not impact on food supply, and given skyrocketing fuel prices and the climate change crisis we are now facing, we need to move forward pretty quickly.

Nymex crude oil prices have just hit $130 USD per barrel and with the close link between crude oil price and petrol pump prices, I can see petrol prices hitting $2 or even $3 per litre quite quickly. This will have a significant cost-push inflationary effect on our economy, which Fuel-watch schemes, rising interest rates or fiscal policy simply cannot address. We are likely to see rising inflation, rising unemployment and rising interest rates because the wrong financial levers are currently being pushed to address this looming inflation crisis.

From Constance Lever-Tracy 16 April
Biofuels and food prices
Why does the current furore, about the contribution of biofuels to rising food costs for the poor, fail to discuss and evaluate:

• the much bigger diversion of agricultural land to foodstuffs for beef cattle, to satisfy rising demand for meat;
• the contribution higher food prices must surely make to the incomes of poor farmers in developing countries ?

From Dr Heather Paull    Heather.paull@flinders.edu.au

Global dimming as cause of the drought?

On February 19, 2008, a report using NASA MODIS and TOMS data written by Keith Potts of 
Cereal Electricity Pty Ltd of Australia was presented and tabled in the House of Representatives of the Parliament of Australia. 
The report titled, "Aerosol plumes, the cause of droughts and El Nino events by regional 
dimming" shows correlations between aerosol plumes, sea surface temperature and drought variables in southeastern Australia. 

The report was presented directly to the Australian Parliament and has not undergone scientific peer review. 
Keith Potts' paper is available at: http://www.graceresearch.com/KeithPotts.pdf 
Does anyone know more about the case or its credibility?

Reply from Constance Lever-Tracy:
As I understand it aerosol dimming actually reduces global warming, by blocking the entry of heat to the atmosphere.
It has been argued that the eruption of Mount Pinatubo in 1992 produced lower global temperatures for a few years.
Efforts to reduce pollution may thus actually exacerbate warming!

Biofuels and hunger

To: weekly.letters@guardian.co.uk
John Vidal's article (Climate change and shortages of fuel signal global food crisis 09.11.07) may be right but would have been more convincing if contrary arguments had been disproved rather than ignored. We have long been told, for example, that the food produced by subsidied Western farmers was ruining both the home and export markets of poor farmers in developing countries. Would not many of them then benefit from the conversion  of US grain fields to biofuels?
Again, Jatropha plants, for biodiesel, have been claimed to thrive on arid land unsuitable for food production. Vidal denounces India's plans to plant them, without mentioning this claim. Finding strategies that can be effective against both world hunger and global warming is not helped by blanket dismissals.

Constance Lever-Tracy

Might biofuels kill four (!) birds with one stone?
Matthew Warren argues that only by converting a large proportion of agricultural land from food production, could biofuels (made from soya, corn and sugar cane) make a significant contribution in Australia, Europe or the US. He suggests Brazil’s use of sugar cane for its own massive ethanol needs has helped drive up the world price for sugar from US$4c a pound to US$18c in the last four years.

The Doha round of world trade talks has collapsed on the refusal of Europe and the US to stop supporting their farmers, thus blocking food imports from developing nations. These in turn have refused to open their markets further to manufactures and services.

If developed countries were to shift their agricultural supports from food to biofuels might we see:
• Reduced dependency on fossil fuels
• New markets for developing countries
• Continued support for farming communities
• A new growth of world trade?

Of course there must be major flaws in such a utopian win/win scenario but I can’t quite see what they are.

Constance Lever-Tracy

RESPONSES AND DISCUSSION ON SOUTH AUSTRALIAN DRAFT GREENHOUSE BILL

Greenhouse draft bill response 2
26 July 2006
I agree with Dr Fiona Young that Part 1, Section 5, Subsection (2), which was quoted, is problematic. I believe that the problem is not in that subsection but is in subsection 5, which states (5) The Minister may from time to time vary any determination or target under subsection (2) after taking into account new or updated methodologies or advice with respect to the calculation, assessment, measurement or reporting of greenhouse gas emissions, or any other factor considered relevant by the Minister.

This means that at any point the minister can alter the methodology used to determine the 1990 base line level. The check on this power is subsection 6 which states that any change in methodology must be published publicly.

The concern about measurement is legitimate, the Europeans have been having all sorts of problems with measurement in their emissions trading scheme, but it will still be a very easy way to water down the legislation.

If the network is going to put in a recommendation on the draft bill I would suggest that a possible solution would be to use the interim target clause in Part 1, 3, (1), (b), (i),
(1) The objects of this Act are—
(b) to promote commitment to action within the State to address climate change through—
(i) the development of specific or interim targets (as appropriate) for various sections of the State's economy;
The goal of 20% of electricity production produced by renewable means by 2012 is the first of these interim targets. I would suggest that we recommend that while the methodology for the 60% cut by 2050 can be reviewed at will, that all interim targets have definite methodologies and quantified targets that are set in stone at the time they are agreed upon.
As most interim targets will have a timeframe of 5-10 years an unsupportive minister could change the 2050 target but would have to wait until all the interim targets expired before significantly watering down the bill, which would be longer than most ministers are in their jobs.

Another clause that needs to be commented on is Part 1, 3, (2), (c)

(2) In seeking to further the objects of this Act, the achievement of ecologically sustainable development will be guided by the following principles:
(c) if there are threats of serious or irreversible damage to the environment, lack of full scientific certainty regarding climate change should not be used as a reason for postponing preventative measures.

The use of ‘if’ suggests that there may not be threats, so it is problematic to state that inability to resolve the ‘if’ through science should not be a limitation to action. You could equally argue in a policy that states that we need to build a planetary defence system to defend earth from attack by aliens that lack of full certainty about an alien attack should not be used as a reason for postponing building planetary defences. I am very concerned that this clause would be a giving a free kick to the John Howards, Christopher Piersons and Andrew Bolts and others who argue that we shouldn’t do anything about climate change because of uncertainty.

I would suggest the language of this clause should be changed to
(c) As the climate is a complex system there is and, will continue to be, inherent uncertainty about the state of climate change and the future effects of climate change preventative measures should therefore be based on the balance of scientific evidence of the future risks of climate change and should be guided by the precautionary principle.

Timothy House
Dept. Public Health
tim.house@flinders.edu.au

Greenhouse draft bill response 1
20th July 2006
Hi
I applaud the introduction of this bill. I would like to see it strengthened, although I recognise the need to negotiate with conflicting interests. One change that might not be too controversial but that might strengthen the bill has to do with Section 5:
---------------------------------------------------------------------
The Minister may, in connection with the operation of subsection (1) and for the purposes of any other provision of this Act
(a) determine the method for calculating greenhouse gas emissions for the purposes of setting relevant 1990 levels (the baseline), and then determine a figure that represents that baseline;
(b) determine the method for calculating any reduction in greenhouse gas emissions;
(c) set sectional or interim targets and specific baselines for particular areas of activity (as components of the overall baseline);
(d) make other determinations that assist in measuring greenhouse gas emissions within the State.

A minister who did not wholeheartedly support the target reduction in emissions could choose a method that overestimated reductions, thus finding it easier to appear to meet the target, or could choose a method that overestimated 1990 levels, again to make it easier to appear to meet the provisions of the legislation. I would like to see more independence in this section. Why not use the methodology established by the CSIRO already? At least they are semi-independent of state (and in theory also federal) government influence.

Dr. Fiona Young
Room 5E 112, Dept. of Medical Biotechnology,
School of Medicine, Flinders University
GPO Box 2100, Adelaide, 5001, Australia

Tel: 08 8204 4377, Fax: 08 8204 4101
Email: fiona.young@flinders.edu.au

Rising sea levels or sinking atolls?

Christopher Pearson in ‘Rising Tide of Bad Science’ ( in the Weekend Australian Inquirer, June 10-11 p28), cites Ian Plimer (head of Earth Sciences University of Adelaide) that Pacific Island atoll nations are sinking as a result of a normal geological process, not rising seas. Similarly ‘the tidal measuring station at Port Adelaide is sinking, thereby recording a sea level rise’. Pearson concludes that Labor should not be ‘creating unrealistic expectations that, as the largest regional consumer of fossil fuels, Australia has endless obligations to a new class of medicants from Kiribati, Tuvalu and Carteret or the Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia’
Please send any comments to climatechange@flinders.edu.au . We will happily publish any debate on our Web site.

Positive feedbacks of melting Ice

Question sent by Jeremy Wilkinson to Professor Lonnie Thompson of Ohio State University, principal investigator and lead author of PNAS paper

Does the latent heat absorbed in melting the glaciers significantly offset atmospheric heating (or are they an inconsequential "indicator" or "vital sign" of global warming)?

In other words will the loss of the ice significantly accelerate heating (aside from other positive feedback mechanisms, such as permafrost melting and the release of CO2 and methane) In asking this, I am prompted to think of reduced albedo and enhanced surface warming.

Reply
Dear Jeremy: This is a good question and I do not know of a global calculation of how reduced global ice cover and thus how reduced latent heat absorbed in melting glaciers will accelerate global temperature rise. However, I expect the impact would be large as glaciers are one of the balancing mechanisms in reducing the rates of temperature rise and currently cover about 10% of the earth's surface. Thus, as the ice fields or sea ice cover is reduced less energy is reflected to space (snow reflects up 90% of the incoming radiation) and more dark surfaces (land and ocean) are exposed as ice cover diminishes thus leading to more absorption, warmer temperatures and more ice melt. There is a fear with the reduction of Arctic sea ice cover for example that we may be approaching a tipping point beyond which the sea ice can never recover due to this positive feedback in the system.

Another important issue here of course is the fact that ice is in fact a threshold system. It is stable at temperatures below freezing and ice loss is mainly by sublimation which takes about 540 Kcal/kg once the 0 degree isotherm is passed due to warming then ice loss is by melting which requires only 80 Kcal/Kg or about 7.5 times less energy kicks in. Thus, for ice fields like those on the summit of Kilimanjaro once that 0 degree isotherm is passed the rate of ice loss accelerates.

As you say, the loss of global ice cover leads to reduced albedo and
enhanced surface warming accelerating our plunge into a warmer world.

NUCLEAR DEBATE

(To read it chronologically please scroll to the end. Further contributions welcome)

Nuclear debate 11
4 July 2006-07-06

Dear Climate Change Network Members,

attached is a fascinating article about the prospect of thorium nuclear reactors - if they can be made to work they create little waste and actually use current nuclear waste as part of the process for producing energy. Thorium is more abundant than uranium and Australia has most the know reserves...but the 'ideal' remains mainly theory. ABC Radio National 'Counterpoint' program yesterday had an interesting discussion of matters nuclear http://www.abc.net.au/rn/counterpoint/ (you can listen to it ...worth the 15 mins). Click here to see attachment.

Best wishes, Haydon

Nuclear debate 10

29 May 2006

Dear Climate change network members,

The media is now alive with discussion of a host of ‘nuclear matters’. The most significant in terms of its genuinely positive dimension concerns whether Australia is able to enrich uranium and thereby value add to the raw resource. In my opinion this is incredibly important as it's possible that a portion of the additional export revenue (massive I understand) could be directed toward a host of carbon emission abatement programs in Australia and, why not, in those countries to whom we export enriched uranium.

But for the moment I’m keen to continue to critique what I see as muddled headed thinking within the radical green camp of anti nuclear activists.To follow up on some interesting issues I debated, I think fruitfully, with Jeremy and Lee last week I begin with the main challenge to the anti nuclear camp.

Can you present a convincing case that alternative sustainable non-finite energy sources are able to supply what is called base load electricity demand in the next few decades in countries such as China and India?

In a nutshell, the question is - can the anti nuclear camp present, with political, social and economic ‘realities’ in mind, how China and India, for example, may – before ‘its too late’ - move from high carbon dependency in power generation to using alternative sources of electricity (and if hydro isincluded in any answer I ask, why should one believe the Three Gorges Dam – which when up an running will supply 10% of China’s electricity – is a long term renewable solution?)

I spent much of last Easter arguing along similar lines with chief Friends of the Earth anti nuclear campaigner, Jim Green (Jim emailed me after reading an op-ed I had published in the Herald Sun). I respect the views of my opponents (even when they tell me what I should be reading! And then find out I've been setting the likes of Clive Hamilton as required reading for my students for years!)

I probably agree with many of their views, but on matters other than nuclear. Importantly I’m open to being dissuaded from what is, for me, a relatively recent ‘conversion’ to the virtues of nuclear power for some countries. I'm not particularly comfortable with the position I take, but, on balance, it is the sensible position to take.

Megacities and consumerism….

Jeremy offers a comment on mega-cities that I find revealing. In response to my argument about the growth of industrial societies in India and China and the rise of the mega city that he says, "Perhaps mega-cities simply are unsustainable in the long term."

Well yes, maybe, in the long term. But for the next few (many probably) decades they are very real and they use power primarily based on carbon burning. These cities cannot be wished away, nor is it wise to hope for a sudden repudiation of consumerism and market economics by governments in India and China, or anywhere for that matter.

Radical greens want to wish away the drive toward high consumption that is now such a settled part of political and economic cultures of most countries. Asian mega cities will continue to grow and, in the process as wealth increases lower population growth rates – one of the key virtues of industrialization and mega cities, actually. The problem for radical greens is that they seem to think the growing Asian middle classes (and the established consumer middle classes in the West) are going to just wake up one day and decide that their lifestyles are horrendous. Or they will have read Clive Hamilton’s diagnosed ‘affluenza’ and seek a remedy! I find it a pity that so much mental energy is wasted on such fanciful hopes.

Accordingly, I ask, shouldn’t the focus be squarely on finding means to limit the carbon emissions in these cities using a mix of alternative energies and nuclear rather than glibly say such cities are unsustainable in the long term? Hybrid cars along with solar on most roofs would be a big advance (and China is very good on the latter) but the former requires heavy base load electricity. The Radical Greenies’ purism’s lack of practical sense. In general radical greens/environmentalists are ‘purists’ they crave policies totally rooted in alternative sustainable energies and demand profound lifestyle changes as the only answer to a host of environmental problems. While I’m not one to deny a role for keeping utopian ideas alive (the stuff of political philosophy lectures, books and many a grand thesis), this purist craving should not be at the expense of also recognizing contemporary political and economic reality. There is not enough power available from alternative sources to meet – to come even close to meeting – the energy demands of most advanced industrialized societies and, in particular, India and China. Renewable energies cannot supply base load power requirements (see, albeit an nuclear industry association argument – but a strong one I believe, on these points http://www.uic.com.au/nip38.htm- “Renewable Energy and Electricity” Nuclear Issues Briefing Paper 38 December 2005)

If radical greens among the climate change network members (who are still reading our debate!) could present a convincing argument that wind and solar, bio-fuels and geo thermal etc are realistic options for keeping the economic motors of China and India (and most every other country) ticking over, then the case against nuclear power would be much stronger. The point is, I don’t believe that that can be done.

A question that arises constantly in this debate is whether or not alternative energy sources, such as wind, tidal ,solar, bio-fuels and geo thermal (and hydro...maybe?) etc could sometime in the next 30 years, supply the energy needs of China and India (and most every other country). Projections vary from country to country and, if you include hydro, the scenario for alternatives looks quite good in some cases BUT, even at best hope of 20 to 30 per cent (and that’s just a few countries – I’m happy to be corrected but that is my reading of the situation. None of the clean energy sources can hope to even come close to replacing the heavy base load power generation of coal, hydro and nuclear -even when best projections on the spread of more efficient consumer energy practices. And that’s the main game, reducing base load carbon with something less harmful to greenhouse; it just seems difficult, when the economics are factored in, to get away from nuclear playing a big role in some countries, not all, but particularly China and India. Of course, cleaning up coal (gasification and geo sequestration) offers hope, but appears very expensive and with the range of nuclear power plant types now on offer the old argument that nuclear power is incredibly expensive is less valid today. (But yes, in Australia cleaner coal burning and sequestration my make much more sense than building nuclear power plants)

Let’s say that at an academic rational level alternative energy did present convincingly as a replacement to carbon and nuclear, the politics student in me wants to point out that powerful economic interests, rooted in coal, oil and, to a lesser degree, nuclear industries, would hardly give up and not fight the matter. They’d fight with all their advantages and governments would, for the
most part, yield to most of their demands – that’s the reality of ‘power politics’, I’m afraid. Of course, there is considerable room for policy manoeuvre and more so in the more robust liberal democracies, but that’s not China, nor India, nor much of Asia. Moreover, acceptance of alternative energy sources is much higher now within governments and corporate boardrooms than a decade ago. There’s much potential for big business to play a big role in promoting alternative energy, but they won’t do this (nor will government) by agreeing with radical lifestyle changes demanded by radical greens. It’s a matter of seeing a mix of all low or non-carbon based energy sources gradually replacing the heavy carbon based sources.

*************
What it takes to build a reactor

Jeremy says, "It takes 10 to 20 years to build a reactor as well." Well …does it? Maybe in Australia starting from scratch and having to find the skills, legislation and bureaucracy but in other countries the situation is, it appears, rather at odds with anti nuclear efforts to discredit, or not recognise, the latest developments.

I read that construction time is much less than that; for example, the Chinese will be building the latest model nuclear reactors in 4 to 6 years. Apparently the latest model Westinghouse AP -600 nuclear reactors, with an active life of 60 years, takes a mere 3 years to build. Even if the nuclear industry associations’ websites, where I find such information are, all in unison exaggerating, I’ll still wager their construction time projections are closer to the mark than those put forward by green radicals.

************

Short term? Does it matter, and what about nuclear waste?

Purism is again evident when Jeremy argues that he hasn’t ‘seen anything to suggest that nukes are more than a short term fix that provides a long-term problem’

The obvious reply is to say, ‘what’s wrong with short term answers when no viable practical long term answer exists?’

Nuclear power is an important stop gap – a very important one it appears – giving more time for the world of R and D to unleash alternatives the can deliver large scale base load electricity. However, maybe nuclear is more than just short term, if the Scientific American article is correct (attached to an earlier email) and Generation 4 nuclear power reactors (still on the drawing board) are as efficient and safe as projected, then actually the short fix may be longer, much longer. But I do prefer longer term answers other than nuclear, but unlike the radical greens I am pragmatic and wish to see policies in place that reduce coal and oil dependency.

As for the nuclear waste problem Â…I just make more an assertion for the moment. The technology/science is available re safe storage but the politics of Nimbyism presents the main problem, no doubt about that. The US, Sweden and Finland (and I believe Russia) are well advance on their respective long term repositories. But, of course, they are not perfect and no one can predict the politics in 4, 5 or 400 centuries times regarding how ‘safe’ the waste will remain – but the geology is, I believe, where waste (particularly if parts of outback Oz were chosen) safe for the millennium.

Dr Haydon Manning
School of Political and International Studies
Flinders University
GPO Box 2100
Adelaide, 5001
http://www.ssn.flinders.edu.au/politics/

Nuclear debate 9

Jeremy's reply to Haydon

Haydon wrote: I think you would require a PhD to meet your desire for 'the full picture’ - who manages to ever produce the 'full picture’. You'd have to be qualified in climatology, economics, geology, biology, political science etc to get within a bull's roar of being able to present ‘the full picture'. Alas, I admit, I fell way way short ... anyway, some future comments.....

Jeremy: We have all of those people and they've done the research. That's why we have people like Stephen Schneider as thinker in residence. In any case many of the big picture resource constraint questions can be answered by simple arithmetic. It's an illusion that we need masses of detailed information. When looking at things at such a large scale, a few years error is irrelevant. So we can adequately answer key questions.

Haydon wrote: The only leaders capable of shifting the populations away from consumerist culture are dictators. I'd rather gamble on their absence (I'd not trust a 'Greenie' dictator) and have faith in current liberal democracy to muddle its way through proposing a variety of energy sources that include nukes and, of course programs to make for much more efficient use of energy in the domestic and industrial sphere. And these include alternative renewable - for sure - and even, where it fits, permaculture...nothing wrong with that - just cannot see it working so well in mega cities!( but I could be missing something here...?)

Jeremy: We certainly don't need a dictator. Look at Sweden for example, very democratic and closer to the true sense of the word. They've committed to being fossil fuel free by 2020. Now that's a courageous stance. My impression from talking to people is that they're jaded and resigned. They want a fresh approach, something positive. Perhaps mega-cities simply are unsustainable in the long term.

Haydon wrote: Of course, no one has the numbers! Well maybe some of the miners have done projections, they probably have, but I doubt that this would satisfy your apparent desire for certainty before promoting the use of nuclear power in China and India (and other Asian countries). Rather, as I see it, it's about reasonable expectation that the drilling will produce the uranium goods - and from what I read these expectations are far from being unrealistic re finding buck loads of high grade uranium across SA and the NT.

Jeremy: I get that we'll find very valuable quantities of U. Great. And how long will that push forward the envelope? It's easy enough to calculate the area and depth of the Gawler Pluton, then assume some typical U%age, then you can have a ball park range of what you might expect to recover. Then you can calculate a range of lifespan for the resource based-on current usage, growth in usage, growth + efficient use etc.. It's not rocket science - you don't need a PhD.

Haydon wrote: Oil will run out, so will coal and so will U...in time. It's a matter of adjusting and becoming more smart and efficient at what humans do in the economy now and for the next few decades because in large part there are NO significant limits to growth (but big debate of course on how we define growth, but broadly I mean GDP growth).

Jeremy: Ah, GDP growth (assuming national growth here - not globally). Fair enough. Specific. Good. Thanks. Yet I still ask the question: Are you personally up with the facts on global oil and gas resources? This is really key to assumptions about future economic workability. If you're not up with this, I invite you to check-it out. The Hirsch Report is a good place to start (attached).

Haydon wrote: If the original thesis by the club of Rome in the book 'Limits to Growth' was true, was to be believed, we'd all be rooned by now, wouldn't we? But new ways of doing things (science and research and market adjustments) have rolled on to underpin a hyper consumerism. I do believe in the West we could, and may begin to, move back from hyper consumerism, but in the East, forget it -they want to approximate our lifestyles and little is going to stop that, I'm afraid. But smart energy use will, I hope, avoid the worst of climate change. Obviously climate change is happening and will get worse (tho I understand in some parts of the globe it may be an actual benefit to humans if not all eco-systems)

Jeremy: As far as climate change is concerned, this is not what the science tells us. We have more energy in a dynamic system, hence the extremes of all climatic behaviours that are regularly occurring. Europe is likely to get much colder, and the north Atlantic oscillation drives the whole ocean circulation and climate system. If this slows down and stops, which evidence
is suggesting there will be huge impacts on fisheries and the climate response is unpredictable. It could get much hotter or much colder (check-out Goodstein’s writings).

It's good to be optimistic, but not if it's a state of uninformed "hope". One of the things that recurs for me is that we as scientists haven't effectively communicated our message. Or, that people simple do not want to know, because the reality of our big experiment on planet earth is too scary
to truly face up to.

Haydon Wrote: the question is how to arrest the worst case scenario and that, for mine, requires working with, and not totally against, the current power political-economic power structures (or masters, whatever you chose to call the elites). They set the agenda and it does not have much sympathy with your political ideology. I'm not saying your ideology is wrong, just not best able to address the main game/debate over how to begin to see governments in the west and east reduce carbon emissions.

Jeremy: They set the agenda. We allow them to set the agenda. You're suggesting that we all stay small as humble citizens living at the whim of our political masters. We shouldn't be afraid of them, THEY should be afraid of us – which actually they are, which is why we see short term politics aimed at staying in power.

The important point here is just because we have "political masters" we should not assume that the information they have is complete. If we know more about the facts and can see something missing in the information that underpins their decisions and choices, we have an obligation to provide the
missing numbers. Granted, they might not want to know it, but if we don't offer it they don't have the choice.

My view is to take the politics out of it and provide information. So it's not about being totally for or against anything. It's about knowing "what's so".

I haven't seen anything to suggest that nukes are more than a short term fix that provides a long-term problem. It's the physical truths which we need to get clear about.

You know, if we argue for the limitations in our thinking, we help to keep them in place. It's a kind of subtle resignation that nothing we can do makes a difference. If we all act collectively that this is true, as a society we crush the potential for real change - business as usual is inevitable. In your perfect world, without any constraints on your thinking, how would you have it look? Just allow yourself to speculate for a moment. What would it be like?

Best regards,

Jeremy.

Nuclear debate 8

Dear network members,

The Advertiser were keen to run the op-ed piece on matters nuclear I wrote with my colleague, Andrew O'Neil that was published in the Courier Mail a few days ago - see attached, albeit with one variation, we added Tim Flannery as a current advocate for nuclear power in lieu of James Lovelock - more a 'local' focus.

If you're keen to read the type of green NGO 'spin' on nuclear issues we critique the link to that is given by On Line Opinion - http://www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=4504

The issue of enrichment is clearly hotting up as well, but possibly the horse has bolted re Australian involvement in the latest laser technologies for enriching uranium - which I understand use less energy and creates less waste. Anyway, attached is a newspaper report on the aussie company, Silex and its deal with General Electric. If any one knows more about Silex's apparent break-through technology - its positive and negative sides - please email.

Best wishes

Haydon

Nuclear debate 7

Hi to all Climate Change networkers,

Yesterday Constance forwarded and email from Sam that urged us to read a document from FEASTA. Sam said,

"Hi everyone,

maybe others are already ahead of me on this, but further to my previous email re. references for discussing nuclear energy in an intelligent fashion, I STRONGLY recommend the following as THE 10-12 pages of easily digested info that you must read if you never read another word! Note that the final section concerns Peak Oil and really in a number of ways is the clincher!

_http://www.feasta.org/documents/energy/nuclear_power.pdf_

Below are my comments on some aspects of the document, time simply does not permit my addressing most of the points.

As you will see I'm far from convinced by their argument, one very similar to recent documents put out by the Australian Branch of the Friends of the Earth. I'm a member of the Australian Conservation Foundation and don't agree with their position on matters nuclear, but I still strongly support the organisation.

best wishes
Haydon Manning

__________________________

Sam,

you’re saying we should discuss nuclear matters in an intelligent manner, yes, I agree, but it needs to be recognized that environmental NGOs like FEASTA and FOE ‘spin’ as much as do nuclear industry associations – in my view often faster!

Below are some views on the ‘must read’ FEASTA document.

Feasta says nuclear power plants last 24 years, I've read recently that so-called generation 3 and 4 reactors last 60 years...see the attached document, albeit nuclear industry spin, but I don’t think they are lying…I do think FEASTA is being rather misleading, though!

Just in case you are not acquainted with it, I draw your attention to an article published in "Scientific American" last year. (attached)

http://www.nationalcenter.org/NuclearFastReactorsSA1205.pdf

This document is one our Premier or the directors of BHP don't want to read, but it does favour Nuclear Power just says it's possible to use nuclear waste to fuel nuclear power stations without having to mine or enrich the stuff! I am not sure why this new nuclear technology is not being followed up - but I'm trying to find out more about it. But the
point is, I think, FEASTA is way out of date and basically engaged in older style green anti nukes campaign. Mind you, I have my doubts about the technology described in the piece (fast neutron reactors) because this week the Australian firm, Silex, announced a big deal with General Electric to develop is laser based uranium enrichment technology. I’m no expert on Silex but it appears that this new technology would see uranium enriched using far less energy – of course one the arguments made against nuclear power is that it uses a lot of carbon based inputs to get up and running (this is an interesting point but one that often neglects to mention the carbon inputs into constructing coal or gas fired power stations, or for that matter building hundreds and thousands of wind turbines). Point is, would Silex being doing what it’s doing and GE investing so much in a dud technology….? Unlikely, but this would be, I think, the conclusion of those who hold to the fast reactor future. Anyway, all very interesting and something I intend to follow up when time permits.

Anyway back to FEASTA -

Much of their case rests on arguing that that uranium will be in short supply. Well yes, and no - due to its low price, for much of the last two decades, there has been little exploration for uranium in Australia, or elsewhere. So it follows, at the moment, to conclude that future nuclear power plants will face very high prices due to lack of supply. But, as with oil in the 1970s, when the prices rises the incentive to explore grows, and incredibly so. And that is exactly what is happening across outback SA and much of the NT at the moment - seismic geological studies suggest there is an abundance of uranium... and we'll have a fair idea in the next year or so just how much of what is expected to be
very high grade uranium (meaning it requires less energy to be enriched).

I don't think there is a case for nuclear power in Australia, yet. After all, it is partly due to those seismic studies that geo-thermal is now being taken seriously and may be part of the answer for Australia's future energy needs, let’s hope so. Also, it is probably cheaper to invest in cleaner coal given our abundant coal resources. Nor do I think any of the 'lean energy' arguments of Feasta are a problem, they are clearly part of the answer. The problem is, too many 'greenies' are blinkered to either or type considerations of alternatives to coal, oil and gas. I actually like to see smart public policy linked to our sales of uranium, and enriched uranium (and maybe even nuclear waste storage) using the huge profits to be director toward investments in longer term lean energy. We could begin with massive subsidies for householders to take up solar and not just hot water, the full roof coverage and do this with massive injections of capital into solar energy production.
Point is, why can't our involvement in the nuclear fuel cycle see us cross subsidise alternative longer term sustainable energy? One thing I do know is that such subsidise are unlikely without big tax increases and, say, a carbon tax...and fat chance of that for the foreseeable future.

I find it puzzling why any one believes that lean energy, on its own, could, in the near future (next 50 years, say) contribute significantly to the energy demands of China and India's mega cities and there mega industrial development - and when you throw in there mega consumerism, particularly cars and desire to live in modern houses (albeit towers we might find undesirable) then surely, the advocates carbon reduction are compelled to see nuclear as a 'gap' filler - until better choices come along.

Building nuclear power plants and decommissioning takes up carbon energy (but arguably less carbon in the future for decommissioning) but build coal and gas plants require bulk carbon based energies. I read recently that the number of wind turbines required to produce the equivalent of one nuclear power plant would require so much steel and concrete that they would add, nett, to carbon emissions - so, perhaps the either or type argument (nuclear v alternatives should be put aside.

And one other question to those who favour alternative lean type energy at the exclusion of all other possibilities, do you include Hydro? I noticed some green ngo spokes people are keen on Hydro...that would interest the Tasmanian Hydro Commission, I bet!

There's much to debate on these matters - including I guess what I consider to be now establish fact, namely that high grade nuclear waste can be stored safely (especially if we Aussies hosted storage in areas of outback SA and WA where Pangea geological formations are found, the problem is the politics, not the science, and here it is NIMBYism – this makes it almost impossible. You’d have to see both major parties in agreement that the economic benefits are so great that they believe they could convince the public to back the idea. Mind you, if part of the profit to be made from such a facility (dump, if you like) were earmarked for investment in renewal energy development and subsidies to
consumers and industry to take up, say, solar, then, maybe, just maybe opinion would swing in favour of the idea.

Sam you believe FEASTAs final paragraphs are the 'clincher' - I'm not so sure. I'd like to believe this utopian vision, but alas, I'm too much the realist these days to buy what I'm afraid I see as an indulgent type of argument. We cannot afford to be utopians hoping massive changes in social behaviour away from consumerism because this is simply not going to happen. FEASTA argue

What lean energy sources could hope to power for example, Shanghai, Bejing, Mumbai etc! The profound changes in behaviour and economy - just what are they? These need to be spelt out to give FEASTA's argument the credibility it seeks. I believe they would advocate a massive change toward ending consumerist culture and decentralising power - is that possible within a liberal democratic framework and would the Communist Party of China wake up one day and say we've got it all wrong for the last 25 years? Somehow I doubt it, so is the logical political point of FEASTA one that leads to advocating the rise of an eco-fascist state...I wonder? Or is it just utopian dreaming. Well it doesn't bare much wondering as the whole idea is fanciful and FEASTA and other like environmental NGOs need to 'get real' and engage robustly with the economic power constraints of modern market economies and with the culture that we are so deeply embedded within, namely consumer culture.

Anyway, I stand to be corrected on any of the above, I am not an expert on the nuclear fuel cycle, but who is with a social science/humanities background...?

What I am keen to advance is a risk management type argument - in a perfect world I'd be thoroughly for leaving U in the ground, and once marched in Adelaide streets shouting that message. But with the emergence of India and China, and much of Asia, as industrial economies and high consuming societies (that are not going to renege on this path
of human/social development) it appears that the risk of advancing nuclear power, is a 'risk' worth taking. It is not a permanent answer (though maybe if the Sci American article is correct) as the more sustainable energies path is the long term answer. But none of these come close to addressing the energy needs and lifestyle aspirations the vast
majority of people, many of whom live in mega cities. Short of an ecological fascist dictator arriving on the global scene, I don't see how nuclear power cannot be on any realistic environmentalist's agenda.

Nuclear debate 6

Jeremy replies to Haydon:

Haydon wrote: Hi Jeremy, it puzzles me why you think, I think, nuclear is the "answer"... I don't. Rather I argue it is part of the answer. - an answer that takes into all type of non-carbon based energy sources. Moreover, nuclear is not necessarily part of the answer for all countries and it is probably the case that we in Oz don't need it, especially if geo-thermal becomes asignificant power source.

Jeremy: But you are pushing nuclear as part of the answer, and you're not providing the full picture in terms of energy viability/sustainability. I'm simply providing some of what we know.

Haydon: why do you think BHP and a host of other uranium explorers now – or about to - drill into the Gawler Craton will not find bulk uranium -high grade to is the expectation, meaning it will take less energy to enrich. It seems basic market economics is forgotten by many environmentalist - as price goes up old oil fields become attractive and in the case of uranium, worth looking for. Sure, oil is on the decline, but there is a hell of a lot of exploration still going on, its days are numbered but there are still quite a few to go, unfortunately.

Jeremy: How much high grade bulk uranium is anticipated? How does this compare to existing uranium resources? Work that out and then calculate how much longer that will extend the nuclear era.

Next, there is some interesting technology out there. Fine. And as you rightly say probably not an option for a small population such as SA. Where are the numbers? What are the efficiencies? How energy/greenhouse intensive are the new processes. By all means push the idea but be transparent about the numbers. Rightly the economics is valid; however there comes a point where the costs monetarily and in energy terms outweigh the benefits of exploiting the resource. If more energy is expended exploring and exploiting the resource it has no value.

That's like saying I have 5 buns. I'll climb this mountain to get the three buns that are at the top, and you eat the five just to get up there!!! Now I have fewer buns and I'm stuck up a mountain.

Alternatively, there simply isn't any of your resource left. Like I said before even if we found another Saudi Arabia it wouldn't solve the problem. If it aint there it aint there. We live on a finite planet. Our oil resources took millions of years to develop, we've used up half the oil in 130 years, the next half will take 30 years.

Haydon: How can a 'rational realist' conceive of massive changes to consumerist culture (particularly emerging at a rapid rate Asia) somehow going away any time in the next five to eight odd decades - the decades when making deep cuts into carbon emissions is so desperately required.

Jeremy: So when you look in terms of 5 to 8 decades the consumerist growth, will have been curtailed by the price of oil, and the fact that we will be producing perhaps half to a third of current output. The system cannot help but be slowed down. We have no choice. We either gracefully adjust what we are doing or we hit the sides of the bottle - i.e. reach the limits of our resources. (Basically we've scoured the dry land surface of the earth for oil, deep water oil is highly vulnerable to extreme weather, and
non-conventional oil such as tar sands are incredibly greenhouse intensive - and oil shale, forget it, it's a net energy loser.

Population growth of 1.2% that's a doubling in 60 odd years, can't happen. Planet earth imposes it's own physical constraints. How are the carbon cuts going to be made other than behavioural change?Basically, consumerism = energy + raw materials = carbon emissions + waste.

We don't need technology; we need courageous leadership and open information.

Best regards,

Jeremy

Nuclear debate 5

Hello Lee and Haydon,

Jeremy has forwarded your exchange on and I'd like to second what he has said. While I think it's extremely valuable that such debates are occurring locally, we need to ensure we are both objective and informed. Until I read Jeremy's post I don't think I had this sense at all from what was being said - I don't think what I've read really qualifies as an informed debate I'm afraid.

There are two documents I have read in the past week that I would recommend. One is Albert Bartlett's treatise on the population challenge (or rather the population 'bomb' that is currently going off and that we and our children will face over the next 2 decades). The second is the FEASTA analysis of the prospects of nuclear power as a solution to the world's woes. I would expect that the message of the former is already obvious to you. The message of the latter may not be simply because nuclear power (especially in Australia) is the stuff of legends and dreams, even amongst 'scientific' folk.

Some basic facts:
1. To cater to the energy needs of China and India alone in a way that sufficiently reduces their GG output to effectively limit projected global warming would require thousands of reactors, each:
- costing over a billion dollars
- each taking at least 15-20 years from idea to commissioning
- each lasting about 25-40 years before need to shut down
- each spending 20-30% of their lifetime shut down for maintenance
- each requiring at least as many dollars and at least twice as much energy/oil to decommission as they consume in their building.

The obvious question (even before we get on to waste, hazards, NIMBY, inabilityy to power transport, proliferation of hazard/weapons etc) is simply 'is this possible within the window of opportunity we have?' and 'can it be funded?'

I leave the answer to you and others...

2. Is any of the above sustainable. I don't mean in terms of GG output. That's actually the least of our worries in a major sense. I mean, is it an endeavour and legacy that we can realistically leave for future generations that will sustain them? Is it something that can be physically and financially sustained in the active and effortful sense of the word?

Again I leave the answer to others...

3. The nuclear industry is entirely predicated on 'affordability'. At every single level of the technology! To date, of the modest 400-odd operating reactors as well as major uranium mines, all receive substantial if not enormous levels of State subsidy, either financially, in kind or via specific regulatory provisions that free their enterprises from what might otherwise be crippling and financially unsustainable 'ultimate business costs' (such as costing decommissioning, storage and disposal of waste, community risk management etc). More specifically the nuclear energy industry, along with coal-fired electricity, is entirely dependent on assumptions of the availability of cheap oil. We're at peak oil now. Australia certainly is long past its indigenous peak. We have no future guarantee at all of affordable or reliable supplies of imported oil from Malaysia or Indonesia - our main sources.

In a severely energy constrained world (or where basic energy costs become astronomical) is taking on such a marginal source of supposedly 'base-load' power really the right choice?

4. Finally, all of us - if we want to engage in useful 'debate' - must acknowledge that uranium fuel is a finite resource. As Jeremy has pointed out, meeting the entire world's current electricity needs would use up all of the realistically extractable (the 'affordable') fuel within a decade. Even if only China and India go nuclear, your talking about a fuel supply for less that 3 decades.

One has to really ask (taking point #1 into account), does this really make sense?

Again, I leave the answer to others.

Why do I not seek to answer these questions myself and enter into your 'debate' (apart from the fact that I'm not invited to)? Basically because, as a member of the community - a consumer of energy services - as well as someone who wants to leave something decent to my decendants, I've decided that the time for 'debate' is over. The problem is so urgent that I for one cannot justify the sort of silly posturing that I read everyday and that seems to pass for 'debate' in this country. Time to think about the children's children and act!

If you are really interested in answering some of these questions please have a look at this first (only about 12 pages, very readable):
http://www.feasta.org/documents/energy/nuclear_power.pdf

...and then the UK's Sustainable Development Commission on nuclear power - see:

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/060306.html
&
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=344 (free electronic access)
&
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=345 (Porritt's commentary)

Sam Powrie,
Chair, Bicycle Institute of SA, Member of Adelaide Peak Oil.

Nuclear debate 4

Dear Lee and Haydon,

I’m happy to pitch-in but would like to keep it short! I spend more time corresponding on environmental and resource issues than I do doing my paid work!!

Haydon asked if he was missing the point, well yes there are some key points that commonly get overlooked in these discussions.

Some simple truths about why Nuclear power simply won’t save the day.

Key points that commonly get overlooked in discussions about nuclear power, these relate to the energy life cycle of the entire process, the life-span of the “nuclear era” and the bigger picture context regarding oil, food, population and the carrying capacity of our finite planet.

As a physical/environmental scientist and mathematician I’d like to raise the following points:

1. Nuclear power plants are short-lived – neutron bombardment results in embrittlement of reactor components and limits the safe operating life to 40 odd years.
2. Nuclear fuel supply is short-lived - Global Uranium Resources will not provide viable fuel for more than 45 years (At current production rates – approx. 2.5% of final global energy demand).
3. We have around 450 reactors in use. To produce all of the energy we get globally from fossil fuels we would need 10,000 of the largest reactors available and the available fuel would last around 10-20 years (http://www.energybulletin.net/2311.html - Dr David Goodstein, Caltech, Pasadena).
None of this accounts for growth in population and energy demand (check-out http://www.hubbertpeak.com/bartlett/).

Without getting into any of the many other deeper philosophical discussions about the use of nuclear power, it should be clear that nuclear power does not offer a long term “sustainable solution” to our energy problems.

As yet another short-term technological fix a move to nuclear power would merely push forward the time when we really have to face up to behavioural change to reach sustainability.

In any case, the following points mean that nuclear power will not really even help us in the short term:

Global oil production is at peak output.
53 oil producers have already entered the period of terminal decline.
Even if we found another “Saudi Arabia” (263 billion bbl, 19.4 % of global conventional reserves) – it would only add another 7 years supply at current rates of production (and demand is growing at 3% per year i.e. demand will double in 23 years).
Essentially oil supply (lack of) and cost will severely limit our ability to adapt – we should have planned for all of these problems decades ago. As Bartlett puts it, modern agriculture is all about converting oil into food – 10 units of energy for each 1 unit food energy produced (and that’s before it hits the supermarkets).

Rather than continuing with the illusion that “growth” will save us, or that we can sustain our current lifestyles we need to be realistic about the physical limitations that our resources and environment impose upon us.

One of the implications of steady growth is that you don’t even know that you have a problem until the last minute.

For example we talk of 1.2% growth as being small globally. At that rate the global population doubles every 60 years. 60 years is not a long time! Can any of you out there imagine how we’ll fit another 5.5 billion people on the planet let alone feed them. Great if the earth were flat and infinite, eh?! OK, so 70 million more people to feed each year.

Basically, we’re far beyond the carrying capacity of the planet (without abundant cheap energy – which means fossil fuels). The only path to a sustainable population is to reduce our numbers and power down. Anything else is madness.

The fact is that the price of oil is already causing “demand destruction” in poor countries. This means black-outs, famine and collapse in agricultural systems. We are already eating into the worlds grain reserves – we’re eating more than we can produce. Demand destruction means that the rich people get access to the oil, but it doesn’t mean that we are immune from the knock-on effects of food production losses in the third world. The message to us wealthy folk in the west is that we have to take responsibility for our activities and the impact of our actions globally.

Call me an idealist. I call myself a rational realist. We need an open discussion about facts and the simple indisputable maths of the whole bigger picture. Ideas and dreams are just that, they don’t exist here and now, and to continue as we are doing is certain to bring greater misery in the longer term.

I hope this gives you some food for thought.

Best regards,
Jeremy.


Jeremy Wilkinson
FRC3e
Room 433, EngineeringBuilding
FlindersUniversity
GPO Box 2100M, Adelaide SA 5001
Phone: +61 (8) 8201 5354, Fax: +61 (8) 8201 5624
Email: wilk0151@flinders.edu.au

Find out what’s really going-on around the world and what you can do:
www.fromthewilderness.com
www.hubbertpeak/bartlett
www.peakoil.net
www.adelaidepeakoil.com
www.aspo-australia.org.au
www.postcarbon.org

Nuclear debate 3

Constance, up to you whether you want to post my reply to Lee's email of earlier today - this sees us engaged in a debate and that may be of interest to others.
Needless to say this is a 'hot debate' but it seems to be being side tracked by 'Howard hating' and that's a pity in my view. Anyway, there a plenty of juicy issues arising in my debating with Lee, maybe others may like to pitch in with their views. Also I've attached link to World Nuclear Association for reference.

Cheers
Haydon

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Reply to Lee by Haydon Manning

Dear Lee,

It will be a pity if the debate over nuclear power here, and internationally, leads to a persistently 'either - or' type discussion - i.e., either alternatives or nuclear.

For mine the debate should be about exploring in an open minded fashion (driven by the need to seriously consider 'risk management' type thinking) the appropriateness of nuclear power for any given country. At the moment, the prospect of nuclear power in Oz seems unnecessary given the hope of geo-thermal and the fact that we have abundant coal and gas.
Nuclear is just not cost competitive with coal and gas, although it would be, might be, if we taxed carbon - but what party is going to propose a new tax?!

Of course, coal and gas, but particularly coal, are bad news on the carbon front. Australia's contribution to overall greenhouse emission is a paltry at 1 per cent making it quite misleading as many greenies do to beat up the population for being "grubby", i.e. high per capita emitters - our geography dictates this high per capita, making it silly, I believe, to compare us with Western Europe (but that's a whole debate on its own!) While I favour cleaning up coal, ahead of going nuclear, and of course more govt action to encourage and subsidise consumer up take of solar, I cannot see where wind fits in, in any significant way. It appears that the number of wind turbines required to produce the equivalent power of a nuclear plant would take so much steel and concrete that they'd be a nett major greenhouse contributor. So much for the virtues of wind on a large scale (plus the absence of any aesthetic virtue).

As for the problems with fast breeder reactors - well I'm no expert - but the attached document, albeit from 'the industry' suggests there are a range of options and, as I understand it, generation 3 and 4 reactors are not all fast breeders and are much safer and produce less waste. I understand that the Finns have just commissioned a new reactor with none of the problems you mentioned (or the other email) and likewise the reactor commissioned in Japan in 1996.

In the end the main game for the planet, and our children’s' children, is being played out in China and India where both countries are clearly determined to forge a development path akin to ours --- Bookman's idea is of permaculture is, somehow, 'off the plant 'as an answer. All very quaint for the middle classes but laughable as an answer where it really matters. I do believe that in the west we will begin to reduce emissions, probably not at a sufficient rate, but reductions will happen because there is the science and capital, and the public pressure, to
reduce but it won't be driven by massive lifestyle changes away from consumerism - as virtuous as that might be.

For mine, our research into genuinely helping reduce carbon emissions, where it really matters, concerns focusing on China, India and Asia in general. We should be looking at the whole mix, nuclear, cleaner coal, hydro, geo-thermal, cleaner oil (biodiesal and ethanol) and, of course wind, tidal and solar. In a perfect world I'd still be shouting 'leave uranium in the ground' but as a realist and, I guess and 'environmental pragmatist' there just is not the time to stick by this mantra or argue that 'alternatives' are the only way forward.

A question - does your advocacy for alternative energy include Hydro as an alternative? If so, should Tasmanian hydro be entering the debate advocating damming the Franklin? There's lots of clean energy there that could be sold to the mainland. The Chinese built the Three Gorges Dam and I now find few environmental NGO opposed to it, in fact hydro now seems to be in favour. I would hate to see the hydro destroy the wilderness but if in coming decades the choice was between nuclear and damming the Franklin, I'd be with the former. I guess it comes down to how much faith you have in government and the watch dog role played by the media, and a host of environmental NGOs , to see that Australian nuclear plants, and waste disposal, is conducted competently.

At the base of my openness to matters nuclear lies the assumption that alternative energy will not replace the heavy weights - coal, gas, oil and nuclear - in the near future, and that consumerist lifestyles are not about to go out of favour here, or in China. I suppose if we had a fascist dictatorial type government we could rejig the whole way of life and move toward a 'permaculture' or Clive Hamilton vision of a less consumerist type lifestyle but it could only be done by force and, I bet, the elites in control would still enjoy their consumption. Anyway, that's not about to happen! So, we are stuck, thankfully, with a less than perfect liberal democracy and a public culture reasonably firmly wedded to consumerism. The realist in me says we must work our research projects and arguments for changes in govt policy against this background.

Tell me if I'm missing the point - I might be - but is it not the case that, the case for a much more 'alternative energy' future (that excludes, by the way, large hydro schemes) is based on an assumption that it is possible for Commonwealth and Federal governments to curtail markedly our consumerist lifestyle ? It seems to me that this is the premise of most of those who argue that 'alternative' energy represents the main means for reducing greenhouse and it is, ultimately, a flawed case because its assumption is not sustainable.

Looking forward to seeing you at the meeting, and no doubt carrying on our debate.

Best wishes

Haydon

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Lee's reply to Haydon -

Thanks for the detailed response, Haydon. I agree with you on many points.

Where I stake out separate territory is on scale: for me the argument favouring local, near-local, and small-scale over centralised and massive is not just philosophical. In almost every respect it is cost-effective (especially because local communities 'own' the energy source and thus have incentives to conserve). It is inherently democratic, where nuclearism automatically reduces citizen rights and access (see Robert Jungk's The Nuclear State which still persuades, especially in a centralised politics like China's). It augments, rather than bypasses, local knowledge, skills, and training, thus doing far better on a 'watts per job' basis.

But the most important value from my perspective is minimisation of catastrophic harm. Small-scale industries, even if they spectacularly fail, do not threaten the same numbers as massive stand-alone plants.
The Three-Rivers Dam is just the wrong way to go (as in the Narmada in India) because one failure threatens millions and millions; and the very scale of the enterprise increases complexity of the component parts and thus augments the potential for system failure.

If a way could be found to produce small, local, low-cost nuclear systems, I would switch my priorities in an instant (because coal is so negative on most counts, including the fact that coal-fired energy is also large-scale and centralised). But nothing I have read suggests this is soon to happen; in fact, the proponents of nuclear energy (like
the World Bank delight in Big Dams) suggest just the opposite -- make it bigger, 'cause that's better. Obviously the same logic applies to wind generation: local small-scale wind generators should be achievable if that's where our research dollars were funnelled.

What truly riles me is thinking of the $15 billion the French spent on the Superfenix, when I recognise what advances we (or even the French!) could have made if those funds had been spent on alternatives.

I am far from convinced that such logic could not be embraced in both India and China. In India I well recall the wonderful emphasis on small engineering that produces state of the art portable generators and home-kitchen grain mills that I am still waiting to see in Oz. They understand about local control. And in China the same principle is
being recognised with rice cultivation, with strong grassroots resistance to introduced 'super-grains' (esp. GM varieties) in place of the hundreds of local varieties ideally suited to their micro-environments. (Here too, large-scale = catastrophe, in the form of plague crop viruses tied to broad-sown species.)

Plenty still to talk about, but you can see my resistance to nuclear generation is not based on uranium per se (despite all its problems) but the scale of its use; and until (if???) someone actually does produce marketable small-scale cold fusion, we are still talking about exhausting a non-renewable resource so bugger the future, we want it now.

On that cheery note! Go well, L Lee L-O

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Haydon reply to Lee mk. 2 -

Lee, well I guess we will just differ, massively. I'm just a boring environmental pragmatist and no longer a believer in 'small is beautiful' type arguments as offering much of an answer to the huge task of making deep cuts into greenhouse. That's not to devalue the importance of community and the local level in a host of other aspects
of social and economic life.

Basically you argue for a sort of anarchist position - I think (eco-anarchism of Bookchin, perhaps) with a high stress on local communities. I just don't see this as at all realistic given the political and economic power elites that call the shots in our country and without any social check in China. However, I am more optomistic about the is room to move on the policy front because these elites share a common cause with all of us - elite and non-elite - namely to keep the air we breathe clean. The elites have, however, the basic support of their general populations, namely they stand up for consumerism - I don't reckon this is about to disipate any decade soon, we are stuck with it or 'affuenza' as Clive Hamilton calls it.

I think, what your position requires is the ditching of consumerism and possibly liberal democracy along the way, in favour of local level participatory type democracy. This is, if I am right, essentially utopian and there is nothing wrong with utopian thinking but I just don't want to personally spend time thinking this way anymore! We don't have the time for it - as the climate changes - , the issues are too pressing.

As for the three gorges dam, well apart from the hydro the vision, it was also about saving lives from flooding... pretty valid really given Chinese history.What 'alternatives' do you think the French should have explored in lieu of not spending 15 billion? Could they have gone totally solar and tidal...? I doubt it. Maybe spending on cleaner coal, but that is only fairly recent as an option, still remains an option to, I think. So, what alternatives are there, maybe some hydro in the French Alps? I've actually no idea...but your argument does stack up if you assume an end to consumerism and a move to the local and the permaculture. Alas, for mine, just to unrealistic. You say you are not convinced that local and small scale is not the answer for China and India - where is there any evidence that the governments of these countries, and their elites, show any interest in such answers, and for that matter, where is there any evidence of social movements of any significance arguing for this course of action?

I'm not saying large scale always best, but it is very much the norm. Small scale demands massive changes in lifestyle and qualifies human aspirations for a higher consumption - alas we are a mix but acquisitiveness is part of our human nature, something I've come to recognise having originally largely rejected it as part of human nature.

Cheers

Haydon

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The invitation is there to join in! Haydon

Nuclear debate 2

Key references for discussing nuclear energy in an intelligent
fashion. Click here

Nuclear debate 1
I thought the attached piece by myself and Haydon Manning - published in yesterday's Courier-Mail may be of interest.

Best wishes,
Andrew

--
Dr Andrew O'Neil
Senior Lecturer and Director of Studies
Graduate Program in International Relations
School of Political and International Studies
Flinders University
Tel: 618 8201 3067
Fax: 618 8201 5111
http://www.ssn.flinders.edu.au/politics/