Humble Oil, who is today more known as Exxon, pretty much nailed it back in the 60’s with this advertisement from a 1962 edition of Life Magazine. Oh, the grim irony. It’s also available in full view on Google Books.
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This past weekend around 50 000 people from around Germany protested in Berlin against nuclear energy. The demonstrators protested against threats from the current right wing government to extend a deadline for the country’s 17 nuclear reactors.
“In Berlin an estimated 50,000 people have joined a demonstration against nuclear power in the run-up to the German general elections.
The rally was headed by a convoy of 350 tractors, which drove past the office of Chancellor Angela Merkel,” Radio Netherlands Worldwide reports.
Back in 2001 the former Social Democratic chancellor, backed up by the Greens, pushed through a new legislation in 2001 that would phase out nuclear energy from Germany within two decades. But the Social Democratic and Green government lost the election in 2005 to a right-wing coalition consisting of the current Chancellor Angela Merkel’s center-right Christian Democrats and the liberal Free Democrats.
Angela Merkel, who successfully blocked a strong climate deal for the European Union last year, now wants to scrap the nuclear phase-out legislation that the SPD pushed through in 2001. This is similar to what is happening in Sweden after a coalition of right-wing parties won the recent election there. According to Merkel, Germany “cannot phase out nuclear energy as quickly as some imagine.”
The Times Online are reporting that France have been forced to close down a third of its nuclear power stations this summer due to heatwaves:
“France is being forced to import electricity from Britain to cope with a summer heatwave that has helped to put a third of its nuclear power stations out of action.
With temperatures across much of France surging above 30C this week, EDF’s reactors are generating the lowest level of electricity in six years, forcing the state-owned utility to turn to Britain for additional capacity.
Fourteen of France’s 19 nuclear power stations are located inland and use river water rather than seawater for cooling. When water temperatures rise, EDF is forced to shut down the reactors to prevent their casings from exceeding 50C.”
It seems thirsty nukes can’t take the heat and that climate change puts nuclear energy into hot water. A question we must all ask our self: as the planet is warming up, is nuclear really a smart move?
Energy Bulletin has an interesting interview with Michael C. Ruppert, author of “A Presidential Energy Policy: Twenty-five Points Addressing the Siamese Twins of Energy and Money”, about peak oil and the end of cheap oil.
“Peak Oil is not just the end of globalization. I was saying clearly that globalization was dead five years ago. It was obvious. But Peak Oil is potentially the end of the human race and that outcome is perhaps just a few years away unless the human race essentially throws every ideological sacred cow out the window and starts with a fresh piece of paper.
[…]The collapse of industrial civilization within the next five to ten years (perhaps sooner) is inevitable. It is the degree of collapse, what is destroyed in the collapse, how many people will have to die in the collapse, and what will survive the collapse that I and many others are fighting for now. That is what every human being should be concerned about and nothing less. Pursuing options while not rapidly disengaging from the current economic paradigm of infinite growth is the only real issue confronting the entire species. To not do that will be literally to consign unborn generations and those under 40 to death or a living hell.”
Read the whole interview over at Energy Bulletin.
Also watch George Monbiot interviewing Fatih Birol, International Energy Authority’s chief economist, about the new startling and worrying prediction for the date of peak oil.
A recently published report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace shows that nuclear power cannot solve climate change due to time and safety limits.
“After several decades of disappointing growth, nuclear energy seems poised for a comeback. Talk of a “nuclear renaissance” includes perhaps a doubling or tripling of nuclear capacity by 2050, spreading nuclear power to new markets in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, and developing new kinds of reactors and fuel-reprocessing techniques. But the reality of nuclear energy’s future is more complicated. Without major changes in government policies and aggressive financial support, nuclear power is actually likely to account for a declining percentage of global electricity generation.”
According to the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook 2008 nuclear power’s share of worldwide electricity generation is expected to drop from 15% in 2006 to 10% in 2030.
The report, titled “Nuclear Energy: Rebirth or Resuscitation?“, comes to the conclusion that states interested in nuclear energy should be aware of the costs and risks involved in nuclear energy, as well as the time it takes to construct a nuclear plant.
Before the global recession hit (and reduced the soaring price of fossil fuels), the “market cost” of the best renewables had become similar to that of coal burning-based power (see “Hope: best renewables cost same as coal power. “One Day Pathétique” Symphony painting”).
However an Ontario, Canada Government commissioned analysis has revealed that when you take environmental and human mortality impacts into account the “true cost” of coal burning-based power was 4-5 times greater than the “market cost” – this making the best renewables and geothermal much cheaper than the “true cost” of coal burning-based power (see “Ontario study identifies social costs of coal-fired power plants”).
Another way of seeing this is that it can be estimated (from arithmetic projection from the Canada study) that about 5,000 Australians die every year from the effects of deadly pollutants from coal burning (heavy metals, carbon monoxide, radioactivity, soot, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide) i.e. Australia sacrifices 5,000 lives each year on the altar of heavily-subsidized coal burning-based power (see “How many people die from Carbon Burning and Climate Change each year?”).
In an interview with the Guardian last week Al Gore talked about the climate negotiations in Copenhagen this year, the European carbon market, climate change deniers, smart grids and nuclear energy.
The most surprising comment from Gore was about nuclear energy and its role in fighting climate change. According to Gore nuclear energy is not the answer to our problems because it’s dirty, too expensive, unsafe and that it poses a threat to world peace.
“I’m not a reflexive opponent of nuclear. I used to be enthusiastic about it, but I’m now sceptical about it. There’s a few reasons. Let’s assume for the moment that we will solve the problem of long-term storage of radioactive waste. Let’s assume also that we’ll figure out how to standardise their design as [each plant] is currently unique and that enhances the risk of operator accidents. Let’s assume we can solve the terrorism threat to nuclear reactors. That still leaves a couple of very difficult problems.
Last year I reported about Vattenfall, Europe’s third-largest energy company which is entirely owned by the Swedish government, and their latest greenwashing campaign. Their campaign involved a “climate manifesto” to hide their own dirty businesses, and on top of that they also created loads of small yellow plastic men which they placed around the world to show their “environmental support”.
Back then the greenwashing campaign faced protests from environmental organizations such as Klimax and Greenpeace. And last week the “Yellow Army Fraction” liberated 44 of these yellow plastic men from one of Vattenfall’s offices in Sweden:
“Yellow plastic figures has been Vattenfall’s way to try fool the public that they’re actually doing something about the climate change other than pollution through large scale coal fire power plants. What they didn’t take into consideration was the fact that the figures would come alive and organize! Today the Yellow Army Fraction liberated 44 of their fellows in their struggle to crush Vattenfall and their dirty industry and saving the planet in the process. No more coal!”
Watch the liberation: (more…)
The Reality Coalition recently released a new TV ad, called “Air Freshener“. It’s directed by Academy Award winners Joel and Ethan Coen. In the ad a pitchman tries to sell a “Clean Coal Clean”-scented air freshener that works just as well as “clean coal.”
“We were excited to be part of this important project and tell another side of the ‘clean’ coal story,” said the Coen brothers.
The “Air Freshener” ad is the first in a series of ads that are directed by the Coen brothers for the Reality campaign. The new ads are designed and produced by Boulder, Colorado-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the agency responsible for the ground-breaking “Truth” anti-tobacco campaign.
The Swedish right-wing government seems hell-bent on continue its climate wrecking journey. After calling for as much as 88% of the EU emission cuts to be allowed to do overseas in development countries the government now want to scrap a 30-year-old ban on the building of nuclear power plants.
“The Swedish plan was agreed by the center-right coalition government and foresees the building of new reactors at the 10 sites where reactors still are operating. Under the plan, which still needs approval from the country’s parliament, Sweden would replace existing reactors gradually.”
While ignoring the 1980 referendum when a majority of the Swedish people voted to end expansion and completely phase out nuclear energy they also seem to take no notice of the facts that nuclear energy is still dangerous, not cost-effective, and too expensive and will even worsen climate change.
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