11:55 to be exact

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The voice in the “11th Hour” preview [peep below] claims the time is 11:59. Well, according to the Doomsday Clock, the time is actually 11:55 – two minutes closer to the apocalypse than we were in 2002, twelve minutes closer than we were in 1995 and the closest we have been to total destruction since 1984. What is the Doomsday Clock you might ask?

The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clockface maintained since 1947 by the Board of Directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago. It uses the analogy of the human race being at a time that is a ‘few minutes to midnight’ where midnight represents destruction by nuclear war, and has appeared on the cover of each issue of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since its introduction. The clock was started at seven minutes to midnight during the Cold War in 1947, and has subsequently been moved forwards or backwards at intervals, depending on the state of the world and the prospects for nuclear war.

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In 2007, for the first time, the “minutes to midnight” have been set to include the imminent threat of climate change.

Fossil-fuel technologies such as coal-burning plants powered the industrial revolution, bringing unparalleled economic prosperity to many parts of the world. In the 1950s, however, scientists began measuring year-to-year changes in the carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere that they could relate to fossil fuel combustion, and they began to develop the implications for Earth’s temperature and for climate change.

Fifty years later, leading scientists agree that carbon-burning technologies continue to make Earth warmer at an unprecedented rate. They warn that the consequences could drastically alter both the planet and human life. Already, ice packs in Greenland are rapidly disappearing, which, in turn, threatens the existence of hundreds of species such as polar bears and the traditions of whole societies such as the Inuit. The future looks even bleaker, as scientists continue to observe cascading effects on Earth’s complex ecosystems.

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As the authority on the nuclear threat, it is interesting to see the Atomic Scientists’ coverage of nuclear energy as a source of green energy. Here are a few diverse opinions from a panel:

Amory B. Lovins, the chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute:

Nuclear power is unnecessary and uneconomic, so we needn’t debate its safety. As retirements of aging plants overwhelm construction, global capacity and output will decline (as they did slightly in 2006). Most independent analysts doubt the private capital market will finance any new nuclear plants. Even in the United States, where new subsidies would roughly repay the next six units’ entire capital cost, Standard & Poor’s said this wouldn’t materially improve the builders’ credit ratings. I expect this experiment will be like defibrillating a corpse: It’ll jump, but it won’t revive.

Nuclear power’s market meltdown is good for global development: Saving electricity needs around 1,000 times less capital and repays it about 10 times faster than supplying more electricity. Shifting capital to saving electricity can potentially turn the power sector (now gobbling one-fourth of global development capital) into a net funder of other development needs. Further, an efficient, diverse, dispersed, and renewable energy system can make major supply failures, whether caused by accident or malice, impossible by design rather than (as now) inevitable by design.

R. Stephen Barry, the former Special Advisor to the Director of Argonne National Laboratory for National Security:

Nuclear power has become more and more reliable and increasingly safe. While no energy source is risk-free, nuclear power probably represents the safest electricity source in overall costs of human life–and also the most reliable. Nuclear reactors now perform at about 90 percent of their theoretical limits; 20 years ago, it was roughly 60 percent. New designs of conventional light water reactors will be safer still, because they’ll have inherent, gravity-driven self-quenching that won’t require active steps by operators if something goes wrong.

The direct cost of nuclear power now is indeed higher than that of coal-, oil-, or gas-generated electric power. But this wouldn’t be the case if the indirect costs of environmental damage from greenhouse gases were formulated into the cost, which would happen if a carbon tax were introduced. Even without a carbon tax, at least one extensive economic study found that the cost of nuclear reactors will drop after the first three or four new nuclear reactors are built, making nuclear competitive with fossil-fueled generating plants.

The emotional reaction to resist nuclear power is an interesting analogue to the emotional reaction to deny the likelihood of human-generated climate change. The two positions have remarkable similarities, at opposite ends of a common scale. Let’s hope there’s enough rationality for us to make our way in a healthy, sustainable manner between those emotional extremes.

Peter A. Bradford, a former member of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission:

A sensible approach to climate change would put a significant price on fuels according to their carbon content. It would offer nondiscriminatory, governmental support to technologies according to their ability to achieve reductions rapidly, economically, and acceptably to the public. It would insist that any nuclear power growth occur in ways that diminish the association between nuclear power and proliferation.

Instead, too many nuclear proponents have turned to their old playbook– pushed power plants; postponed problems. Nuclear power’s asserted comeback in the United States rests not on newfound cost competitiveness, but on an ancient formula: licensing shortcuts, risks borne by customers and taxpayers, political muscle, and ballyhoo. Climate change has replaced oil dependence as the bogeyman from which nuclear power can save us.

Bradford cites a really interesting paper (PDF, 1 MB) featured in the September 2006 Scientific American by Princeton professors that “introduces the useful concept of a “wedge,” defined as any measure that would lead to a global reduction of 25 billion tons of carbon dioxide emissions relative to business-as-usual over the next 50 years.” This paper gives nuclear the credit of one wedge, if its production is tripled and replaces coal-based power. The path upsizing nuclear to this scale, however is neither a cheap nor a pretty one.

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Tick-tock.

[Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists; Scientific American]

One thought on “11:55 to be exact

  1. Perhaps you may find interest in the latest nuclear news articles:

    The Japanese earthquake story continues to be updated.

    TEPCO ups report of impact of earthquake on its reactor

    The Japanese company TEPCO has revised upwards its estimates of the impact of the recent earthquake in Japan on one of its reactors. It is now saying that 400, not 100, drums of low level waste overturned and that the amount of very weakly radioactive water that leaked into the sea was 50% higher than recent estimates.

    However, before worrying about the leak it should be noted that the water that leaked was only two and a half times more radioactive than regular Bordeaux wine!

    click here for more information

    Russian-built reactor operates at full power in China

    The Tianwan 2 nuclear reactor, built by Russia in China, operated at full power for five days in mid-July. The plant is due to enter full commercial service in a few months. The Russians have already built one reactor at the Tianwan site and they have contracts to build two more soon.

    click here for more

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