How Bad Is Global Warming?

[Ben D]

'....

Neon, it's being reported on lately because the IPCC WG II released the group's final draft for the AR5 on March 31, 2014.

Oh, and they must have felt it important to remind us we're still idly standing by watching the end of the world.

I mean, Noah?

No biggie Iam, but for the record, the present intense media blitz was the release of IPCC WG III (AR5 Final Draft).

Interestingly, Nuclear Energy is one recommended for 'tripling to quadrupling by 2050'...Hansen will be happy, he's been pushing for Nuclear for some time..

....and yes...As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

[Hammer of Los]

...
How bad is global warming?

Dunno.


...

[Iamwhomiam]

'....

Neon, it's being reported on lately because the IPCC WG II released the group's final draft for the AR5 on March 31, 2014.

Oh, and they must have felt it important to remind us we're still idly standing by watching the end of the world.

I mean, Noah?

No biggie Iam, but for the record, the present intense media blitz was the release of IPCC WG III (AR5 Final Draft).

Interestingly, Nuclear Energy is one recommended for 'tripling to quadrupling by 2050'...Hansen will be happy, he's been pushing for Nuclear for some time..

....and yes...As it was in the days of Noah, so it will be at the coming of the Son of Man.

Those of you not wanting to read this may want to skip to the last two links and visit those.

Sorry, Ben. The report(s) you're referring to are the Final Draft of "Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change" and a Summary for Policymakers both were released on Saturday, April 12 by WG III and pertain to cost of mitigation. Conversation regarding this report is limited to the costs to preparing for and adapting to climate change, or "Avoided Costs" and has just begun.

The Summary for policymakers released by WG II was released on March 31, 2014 and brought the discussion forward these past two weeks.

From WG III's Summary page:

Summary for Policy Makers

NOTE:

The Final Draft Summary for Policymakers was submitted to the Twelfth Session of Working Group III on Berlin, 12 April 2014 for approval. The approved Summary for Policymakers was accepted by the Thirty-ninth Session of IPCC on the same day.

Before publication, the Summary for Policymakers (including text, figures and tables) will undergo final quality check and copy edit.

The designations employed and the presentation of material on maps do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

Which was accessed from WG III's page.

Final Draft

Note:

This document is the copy-edited version of the final draft Report, dated 17 December 2013, of the Working Group III contribution to the IPCC 5th Assessment Report "Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change" that was accepted but not approved in detail by the 12th Session of Working Group III and the 39th Session of the IPCC on 12 April 2014 in Berlin, Germany. It consists of the full scientific, technical and socio-economic assessment undertaken by Working Group III.

The Report has to be read in conjunction with the document entitled “Climate Change 2014: Mitigation of Climate Change. Working Group III Contribution to the IPCC 5th Assessment Report - Changes to the underlying Scientific/Technical Assessment” to ensure consistency with the approved Summary for Policymakers (WGIII: 12th/Doc. 2a, Rev.2) and presented to the Panel at its 39th Session. This document lists the changes necessary to ensure consistency between the full Report and the Summary for Policymakers, which was approved line-by-line by Working Group III and accepted by the Panel at the above mentioned Sessions.

Before publication, the Report (including text, figures and tables) will undergo final quality check as well as any error correction as necessary, consistent with the IPCC Protocol for Addressing Possible Errors. Publication of the Report is foreseen in September/October 2014.

Disclaimer:

The designations employed and the presentation of material on maps do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change concerning the legal status of any country, territory, city or area or of its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

http://mitigation2014.org/report/final-draft/

WG II's final draft, Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability, and its Summary Report were both released on March 31, 2014.

Both the Summary Report for Policymakers and the final draft of Climate Change 2014: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability prepared by WG II can be accessed from the group's home page:
http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/

All reports can be accessed via the IPCC's home page:
http://www.ipcc.ch/

Also see:
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/
http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg3/

Lastly, Ben, your nuclear dreams are all wet and like all such fantasies, will bring nothing desired to fruition.

[Laodicean]

RIP Michael C. Ruppert

[Ben D]

Lastly, Ben, your nuclear dreams are all wet and like all such fantasies, will bring nothing desired to fruition.

It's not my dream Iam, it's the IPCC...this is their wish list to world governments as targets to meet....

http://report.mitigation2014.org/spm/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers_approved.pdf

Final Draft Summary for Policymakers IPCC WGIII AR5

..page 15 of 33...

At the global level, scenarios reaching 450 ppm CO2eq are 
also characterized by more rapid improvements of energy efficiency, a tripling to nearly a 
quadrupling of the share of zero‐ and low‐carbon energy supply from renewables, nuclear energy 
and fossil energy with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), or bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) by 
the year 2050 

[stillrobertpaulsen]

Global warming

Another week, another report

Options for limiting climate change are narrowing
Apr 19th 2014

THE Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a gathering of scientists who advise governments, describes itself as “policy-relevant and yet policy-neutral”. Its latest report, the third in six months, ignores that fine distinction. Pressure from governments forced it to strip out of its deliberations a table showing the link between greenhouse gases and national income, presumably because this made clear that middle-income countries such as China are the biggest contributors to new emissions. It also got rid of references to historical contributions, which show that rich countries bear a disproportionate responsibility. That seems more like policy-based evidence than evidence-based policy and bodes ill for talks on a new climate-change treaty, planned to take place in Paris next year.

The new report is intended to measure how far governments have met their promises, formalised in 2010, to keep the global rise in mean surface temperatures compared with pre-industrial times to less than 2°C. It says they are miles from achieving that goal and are falling further behind.

Between 2000 and 2010, it says, greenhouse-gas emissions grew at 2.2% a year—almost twice as fast as in the previous 30 years—as more and more fossil fuels were burned (especially coal, see article). Indeed, for the first time since the early 1970s, the amount of carbon dioxide released per unit of energy consumed actually rose. At this rate, the report says, the world will pass a 2°C temperature rise by 2030 and the increase will reach 3.7-4.8°C by 2100, a level at which damage, in the form of inundated coastal cities, lost species and crop failures, becomes catastrophic.

The report looks at what would be needed to rein back the rise in temperatures, so that it would not exceed 2°C. This, it says, would mean cutting greenhouse-gas emissions in 2050 to between 30% and 60% of their levels in 2010. Unfortunately, emissions are still rising and are likely to increase by around 10% by 2030, at which point, the IPCC suggests, there will be only a 33-66% chance of hitting the 2°C target. By 2100, moreover, the burning of fossil fuel would have to cease altogether unless all the carbon dioxide thus generated is captured and stored.

The panel puts enormous weight on carbon capture and storage (CCS): in some versions of its calculations, doing without it raises the cost of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions by between 30% and 300%. But CCS remains unproven at a large scale.

The IPCC still thinks it might be possible to hit the emissions target by tripling, to 80%, the share of low-carbon energy sources, such as solar, wind and nuclear power, used in electricity generation. It reckons this would require investment in such energy to go up by $147 billion a year until 2030 (and for investment in conventional carbon-producing power generation to be cut by $30 billion a year). In total, the panel says, the world could keep carbon concentrations to the requisite level by actions that would reduce annual economic growth by a mere 0.06 percentage points in 2100.

These numbers look preposterous. Germany and Spain have gone further than most in using public subsidies to boost the share of renewable energy (though to nothing like 80%) and their bills have been enormous: 0.6% of GDP a year in Germany and 0.8% in Spain. The costs of emission-reduction measures have routinely proved much higher than expected.

Moreover, the assumptions used to calculate long-term costs in the models are, as Robert Pindyck of the National Bureau of Economic Research, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, put it, “completely made up”. In such circumstances, estimates of the costs and benefits of climate change in 2100 are next to useless. Of the IPCC’s three recent reports, the first two (on the natural science and on adapting to global warming) were valuable. This one isn’t.

[Iamwhomiam]

Emissions estimates are based upon different countries Greenhouse Gas Inventories. Each US state has or is suppose to have already completed an inventory of all sources of carbon compounds being emitted from all any any sources, natural and man made, that exists within their borders.

All nations and states participating in the UN sponsored IPCC should have submitted their greenhouse gas inventories, as well, for their regions of responsibility.

But like many guessing games, especially those 'requiring' industry to 'self monitor' and report any and all exceedances of reportable dangerous emissions beyond the tonnage limit allowed by their permit, and without any regulatory oversight or verification, even through real-time verification which is readily available with today's state of the art monitoring devices, whatever is being reported is being under-reported.

To be fair, some real time pollution monitoring devices are installed and are accurately measuring, but for only a very few toxins.

Notice I mentioned tonnage of pollutants. Most do not realize many sources of toxic emissions are not required to report any data whatsoever.

These are "small industrial" or governmental sources generally considered as "small" sources by regulators, in most cases emitting less than 10,000 tons per annum. That's tons of chemical particles so tiny as to be invisible to the naked eye, but easily deeply inhaled by infants and aged alike of all species.

Some toxins found in industrial emissions indeed are required to be reported to regulators at lower quantities than thousands of tons. Monthly record keeping is required and annual reporting is required for some. But like any Title V Air Quality Permit that is issued, dioxins, perhaps the most dangerous of all non-radioactive man made chemicals, so dangerous that regulators require their release to be measured in grams, is only reported every 5 years. The life of all Title V permits is 5 years, when they must be renewed or modified to meet current conditions.

In my experience, industry drags their feet, delaying their compliance and in turn, the permit approval process oftentimes delayed. Sometimes this process takes years and in some cases beyond the date it would have needed the permit to be renewed if had been issued in a more timely manner but wasn't due to the corporate polluter's foot dragging.

And then regulated industry complains about how arduous the compliance process is, claiming regulation is too costly, and should they comply, damning to their ability to compete, and finally, after damning the environmentalists for causing ALL their problems, they sue the regulators in an effort to moot the regulations they call nothing more than an annoying waste of money, but rational folk call taking protective measures in order to avoid future costs to society. (remediation of environment and paying for healthcare for those whose lives are shortened by their involuntary exposures to industrial pollutants.

But hey, we're making headway. First the bad news...

Really, it's more like a commercial message brought to you by the Hunt bros.

The menace of methane
Study: Emissions at some Pennsylvania wells unexpectedly high

By Jennifer A. Dlouhy, Hearst Newspapers
Updated 10:48 pm, Monday, April 14, 2014

Washington

Researchers found higher-than-expected emissions of a potent greenhouse gas emanating from Pennsylvania wells, according to a study published Monday that adds to concerns about the environmental footprint of natural gas.

The study, conducted by Purdue and Cornell universities and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, is the latest to scrutinize methane emissions associated with natural gas development, with implications from New York to Texas. Using a specially equipped airplane to identify plumes of methane gas, the researchers tracked large emissions to seven wells being drilled in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Methane emissions associated with these hotspot wells bored into the Marcellus Shale were as much as 1,000 times greater than the Environmental Protection Agency's estimates for natural gas drilling operations — a phase in the exploration-production chain not typically linked to high methane releases.

"It is particularly noteworthy that large emissions were measured for wells in the drilling phase — in some cases 100 to 1,000 times greater than the inventory estimates," said Purdue chemistry professor Paul Shepson.

That could be an indication that the EPA's inventory does not reflect methane being unlocked as drill bits pass through underground coal seams or other processes, Shepson said.

The seven high-emitting sites represented just 1 percent of the total number of wells but 4 percent to 30 percent of the emissions in the area.

"This is another example pointing to the idea that a large fraction of the total emissions is coming from a small fraction of shale gas production components that are in an anomalous condition," Shepson said.

Methane, the main component of natural gas, is 28 to 34 times more potent than carbon dioxide over 100 years, even though it dissipates much more quickly in the atmosphere.

Although methane has declined 11 percent since 1990, some expect it to start climbing again as a result of the domestic drilling boom. Significant methane emissions could undermine the climate change benefits of generating more electricity from natural gas, which produces about half as much carbon dioxide as coal does.

The new research adds another piece to a complex methane puzzle, suggesting a possibly wider opening for emissions at the beginning of the natural gas supply chain and underscoring concerns about the EPA's existing estimates.

The agency's inventory generally relies on discrete measurements — often taken by industry at the ground level — which then are extrapolated and applied more broadly. The Purdue-Cornell study suggests that ground-level data could be incomplete, failing to account for some methane that is detected by monitors higher up.

Separate research on the horizon could help explain discrepancies between top-down aerial monitoring and bottom-up, ground-based data. As part of a study coordinated by the Environmental Defense Fund, both types of measurements were taken in Texas' Barnett Shale in October. The University of Houston, University of Texas-Dallas, the University of California at Irvine and several other institutions are collaborating on that project.

Steven Hamburg, EDF's chief scientist, said more investigation is needed to put readings into perspective. "We have to look at how individual observations fit into the bigger picture," Hamburg said.

Energy companies have already taken some steps to plug methane leaks at oil and gas wells.

Katie Brown, a spokeswoman for the industry group Energy In Depth, noted that two of the researchers involved in the latest study, Cornell ecologist Robert Howarth and engineering professor Anthony Ingraffea, have been critical of natural gas previously. Howarth was the lead researcher behind a 2011 study on methane leaks that is widely cited by gas industry foes.

"Direct measurements have shown that methane emissions are far below what alarmists have claimed," Brown said. "You have to give credit to these guys for their persistence and inventive ways of making their argument, but the science hasn't changed."

Concerns about methane leaking from wells, pipelines, processing equipment and local distribution systems are feeding state and federal regulation. In New York, the fears could play a role in the state health's department's review of the hydraulic fracturing process that involves pumping water, sand and chemicals underground, as well as Gov. Andrew Cuomo's final decision on whether to permit the activity.

The EPA is also deciding whether to impose new rules aimed at paring methane emissions from oil and natural gas activity, as part of a broad blueprint released by the White House last month.

http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/The-menace-of-methane-5402413.php

You knew the good was coming, right?

Court Strikes Down Toxic Loophole for Cement Plant Pollution
Ruling means less mercury and other toxic air pollution will be emitted

April 18, 2014
Washington, D.C. —

Contact:
Liz Judge, Earthjustice, (970) 710-9002
Bill Freese, Huron Environmental Activist League, (989) 464-2689

April 18, 2014

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has struck down an EPA-created loophole that would have made limits on toxic air pollution from cement plants harder to enforce. When the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wrote the cement plant rule, it invented an “affirmative defense” that allowed plants that violate emission standards to escape having to pay penalties as long as they claimed the violation resulted from a malfunction.

“The court’s decision rightly tells polluters they won’t get a free pass when they spew uncontrolled toxic emissions into the air we breathe,” said Seth Johnson, Earthjustice attorney. “The communities who have been burdened by excess mercury, particulate matter, and other hazardous air pollution that plants blame on ‘malfunctions’ can now rest assured that plants won’t have a license to emit pollution at will.”

“With this ruling and Lafarge's compliance with the recent legal ruling we here in Northeast Michigan are looking forward to a safer environment and the cleanest air in over 20 years,” said Bill Freese, director of Huron Environmental Activist League.

“The demise of the ‘affirmative defense’ will encourage cement plants to invest in effective pollution control technology, and that is a very positive step toward strengthening public health,” said Jennifer Swearingen, board member of Montanans Against Toxic Burning.

“We are so relieved that the court has acted to protect the public's health by striking down a 'malfunction loophole' for cement plants, that would have allowed uncontrolled toxic emissions,” said Jim Travers of Albany-based Citizens' Environmental Coalition.

The court’s ruling is especially significant because by revoking the “affirmative defense” policy that lets plants dodge liability for exceeding emissions limits, this decision sets a precedent for how the EPA drafts air safeguards moving forward. The Clean Air Act allows people who are affected by illegal air pollution to hold polluters accountable by having courts impose penalties on them.

For decades, the EPA allowed polluters to dodge these penalties because it said plants didn’t have to meet standards when they claim to have malfunctioned. After Earthjustice got that policy thrown out in 2008, the EPA tried to create this new “affirmative defense” version of it. Now the EPA—and polluters—are on notice that standards have to be fully enforceable.

With its partner organizations, Earthjustice has worked on securing effective and enforceable safeguards against cement plant pollution for more than a decade. In this suit, Earthjustice represented Sierra Club, Cape Fear River Watch (NC), Citizens’ Environmental Coalition (NY), Desert Citizens Against Pollution (CA), Downwinders at Risk (TX), Friends of Hudson (NY), Huron Environmental Activist League (MI), Montanans Against Toxic Burning (MT), and PenderWatch and Conservancy (NC). Natural Resources Defense Council was also a petitioner.

Read the decision.

Contact:
Liz Judge, Earthjustice, (970) 710-9002
Bill Freese, Huron Environmental Activist League, (989) 464-2689
URL: http://earthjustice.org/news/press/2014/court-strikes-down-toxic-loophole-for-cement-plant-pollution

Yes, we won.

More about this later:

Emission cuts applauded
New technology cited in plant's rebuilding

<snip>

New technology at the plant will cut emissions of sulfur oxides by 95 percent, nitrogen oxides by 60 percent, fine particulate matter by 37 percent, and mercury by 66 percent, said Gene Kelly, regional director of the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

But right now I've gotta run... It's He Has Risen Day.

And he's been leaving those stinky eggs everywhere again this year.

My apologies to Heathens everywhere who think they are Christians.

What a great day 4/20 is!

My writing is almost intelligible!

Happy Easter, Happy Passover, and happy almost May 1st.

Man, it sounds so wrong to say happy Easter and happy Passover.

[Iamwhomiam]

Lastly, Ben, your nuclear dreams are all wet and like all such fantasies, will bring nothing desired to fruition.

It's not my dream Iam, it's the IPCC...this is their wish list to world governments as targets to meet....

http://report.mitigation2014.org/spm/ipcc_wg3_ar5_summary-for-policymakers_approved.pdf

Final Draft Summary for Policymakers IPCC WGIII AR5

..page 15 of 33...

At the global level, scenarios reaching 450 ppm CO2eq are 
also characterized by more rapid improvements of energy efficiency, a tripling to nearly a 
quadrupling of the share of zero‐ and low‐carbon energy supply from renewables, nuclear energy 
and fossil energy with carbon dioxide capture and storage (CCS), or bioenergy with CCS (BECCS) by 
the year 2050 

Ben, the country of Germany is about the size of New Mexico (a bit smaller) or Montana (a bit larger).



A vastly better world is possible.

But you will need to do more than change the channel on your television if you want to realize such a better, safer and healthier world. But this change for the better will be all but impossible to achieve without abandoning for energy production all sources of fossil fuels as well as the failed mad experiment brought to us by insane scientists we call nuclear power.

One thorium reactor, another potential nuclear energy source I do not support has been planned to be built in the US. It is 5 years away from becoming functional. It it is successful, another would take another 5 years to build. So maybe, without crippling cost overruns or excessive delay, in 10 years we might have one full sized working thorium reactor.

That's just about when the two approved Georgia power plants are planned to come online.

3 new nuclear power plants coming online ten years from now is not a solution to solve anyone's energy problems. And it is all but impossible for sufficient nuclear power to be built to become a viable energy replacement for fossil fuels within a meaningful timeframe.

Nuclear power is done with. Forever.
Right after the next radioactive disaster.

Those GE Mark Is and IIs are pretty old and everyday that passes, we come closer and closer to our own unique Fukushima disaster.

[Ben D]

...and then there's France....

Nuclear Power in France

Updated February 2014

France derives over 75% of its electricity from nuclear energy. This is due to a long-standing policy based on energy security.

France is the world's largest net exporter of electricity due to its very low cost of generation, and gains over EUR 3 billion per year from this.

France has been very active in developing nuclear technology. Reactors and fuel products and services are a major export.

It is building its first Generation III reactor.

[Iamwhomiam]

"Low cost of operation" is a myth. The industry is tremendously subsidized without which the industry would fold. Every day Uranium becomes more scarce, and tons of highly radioactive spent fuel is generated. Reprocessing spent fuel is extremely expensive and extremely energy intensive as well as extremely dangerous. These costs are never properly accounted for when deriving cost per gigawatt produced.

This is old news, but sill recent enough to be relevant:

France Wakes Up to the Fragile Case For Nuclear Power
Posted on March 20, 2014 by Euan Mearns

This is a guest post by Andrew McKillop. Andrew has held posts in national, international and European Commission energy, and energy policy divisions and agencies. An extended bio is given at the end of the post.

It's a bit long. http://euanmearns.com/france-wakes-up-to-the-fragile-case-for-nuclear-power/

I'm not sure you will read it, but everyone who is interested in such things should. Or you could write to a friend of mine, French nuclear power expert Yves Marignac. Here's what he had to say back in 2009 when I hosted him through several meetings with our state and federal legislators responsible for guiding their nuclear power and waste policies:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 15, 2009

CONTACT

Alis Aaron Wolf, NIRS 703-276-3265

European Expert: U.S. Policymakers Are "As Wrong As They Can Be" About the French Experience With Nuclear Power

Marignac Says "Far From Being a Model, France Should be a Powerful Cautionary Tale for the U.S. about the Folly of a Headlong Rush into More Nuclear Power".
WASHINGTON, D.C.///September 15, 2009///
U.S. policy makers are in the grips of "dangerous and costly illusions" if they think that France is a model showing how nuclear power could be implemented aggressively in the United States, according to Yves Marignac, a leading international consultant on nuclear energy issues and the executive director of the energy information agency WISE-Paris.

In visits this week with state and federal officials, Marignac is debunking the myth of the so-called "French nuclear model" that is being touted as a blueprint for the revival of the embattled nuclear power industry in the U.S. His visit comes at a particular key time, as the U.S. Senate considers additional subsidies to the nuclear industry in its version of pending climate legislation and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) seeks public comment on weakening the rules for loan-guarantee bailouts of proposed new reactors.

Yves Marignac said: "I am at a loss to understand how the United States could be so far off the mark in its understanding of the French experience with nuclear power. The so-called 'success story' of the French nuclear program, which is being promoted so assiduously by the U.S. nuclear industry, is a complete disconnect with the stark reality of the 50-year history of rising costs, steadily worsening delays, technological dead-ends, failed industrial challenges and planning mistakes. The United States could make few worse mistakes than embracing France's sorry nuclear legacy. If American policymakers are going to weigh the example of France, they need to get the facts instead of settling for the fantasy being sold to them by the US nuclear industry."

In his remarks today, Marignac noted the following key problems:

• French nuclear technology is deeply flawed. The French EPR Reactor is a new reactor design developed by the company Areva in cooperation with the German firm Siemens. Serious doubts have been raised about the safety and cost of the EPR. Experience in the construction at the two sites where EPRs are being built, in Finland (Olkiluoto 3) and France (Flamanville 3), has revealed serious and fundamental weaknesses in design, problems during construction phases and soaring costs. British and Finnish nuclear regulators have also raised significant safety questions, in particular about the computerized command and control system proposed for these reactors.

• French nuclear reactor construction delays are getting steadily worse, not better. Alongside increasing costs, construction times have proven to be problematic. The last four reactors that were built in France, two units in Chooz and two in Civaux, were only connected on average 10.5 years after construction work began, and subsequent safety problems caused further delays. Their official industrial service only started in 2000 and 2002 respectively, some 15.5 and 12.5 years after construction started.

• French nuclear reactor costs are just as out of control as they are in the U.S. The EPR has been promoted as a technology that makes nuclear energy cheaper and more competitive. When the decision was made to build an EPR in Finland in 2002, the government promised that it would cost Euro 2.5 billion and take only four years to build. The final contract, three years later, put the price at Euro 3 billion and construction time was set at 4.5 years. Since construction began in summer 2005, a variety of technical problems have led to a three and a half-year delay, extending the construction period to at least 7 years. The currently estimated additional cost is Euro 2.3 billion, raising the current price tag to Euro 5.3 billion, almost 75 percent over the initial estimate. More problems, delays and cost overruns are likely to occur before the project is completed. In September 2008, Nucleonics Week quoted an Areva official, saying that Euro 4.5 billion will be a minimum price for any new EPR — almost twice the initial estimate. The other EPR being built in Flamanville, France, was approved in 2005 on the basis of a 2.8 c€/kWh cost estimate, which was increased by EDF in December 2008 to 5.4 c€/kWh, although EDF itself estimated that it should be below 4.6 c€/kWh to guarantee profitability.

• Nuclear power in France has not promoted energy independence. Nuclear power in France is a major presence, providing 76 percent of electricity produced in 2008. However, electricity accounted for only 20.7 percent of the final energy consumption in France that year. Excluding electricity exports, the overall contribution of nuclear power to France's final energy consumption is only in the range of 14 percent. If the real aim of the nuclear programme was to reduce oil dependence, then it has clearly failed in its objectives. Over 70 percent of France's final energy is provided by fossil fuels (oil, gas, coal), with oil accounting for 49 percent of the energy consumption in 2007. Nuclear power cannot provide energy security, as it only has a marginal effect upon oil consumption, which is dominated by the transport sector. France consumes more oil per capita than the European average, and despite its long-term objective to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by three-quarters, it seems incapable of bucking an upward trend. This is due largely to the weak policies on energy efficiency and new energy sources, influenced by the lock-in of nuclear power.

• French nuclear power is not "safer" ... and the nation does not have a long term solution to waste storage. The operators of the 200 nuclear facilities in France declare a very large number of events — considered relevant for safety — every year. EDF alone declares between 10,000 and 12,000, of which 700 to 800 are deemed "incidents" or "significant events". Large amounts of radioactive waste arise from the French nuclear programme. In total, close to 890,000 cubic meters (m3) of radioactive waste had been produced by the end of 2004. Almost 40 percent of this amount is linked to reprocessing. This total does not account for some 12,000 m3 of waste from the reprocessing plant in Marcoule that was dumped into the sea in 1967 and 1969. While reprocessing is presented as a means to reduce the volume of highly-radioactive long-lived wastes in final disposal, it actually increases the complexity of waste management, and thereby the danger for the population and environment. Reprocessing comes with numerous extra nuclear facilities and transports, each creating extra safety risks. But also 'normal' radiation exposure arising from routine operations increases, for example by the radioactive discharges of La Hague reprocessing plants, with authorized discharge levels up to 1000 times higher than those applying to the nearby Flamanville nuclear power station. And even France, supposedly the country of nuclear expertise, has no long-term solution for its nuclear wastes.

• Nuclear power in France is not popular. The pursuit of the nuclear program in France is a permanently undemocratic choice. Contrary to the image presented in the United States, the French population is no more in favor of nuclear power than the European average — indeed a majority is opposed to the building of new plants. Surveys repeatedly show that the public lacks confidence in the institutional promoters of nuclear power.

• The "nationalized" nuclear model in France is completely incompatible with the market-driven U.S. In 2001, Compagnie Générale des Matières Nucléaires (Cogema — General Company for Nuclear Materials), a private company established in 1976, merged with Framatome, the nuclear reactor builder, to create the Areva group. Currently, 96 percent of the share capital of the Areva group is held by the French state and large French industries. Electricité de France (EDF), the French electric utility, was established in 1946 through nationalization of a number of state and private companies. First and foremost responsible for overseeing development of the electricity supply across France, today EDF operates all 59 nuclear reactors in service in France. EDF was partly privatized in 2005-2006, but the French government still retains control 84.9 percent of its shares.

• State ownership of French nuclear power means that the true costs are hidden. Though largely in an indirect fashion, French taxpayers bear a large part of the nuclear costs. The French government, as both the regulator of electricity prices and the owner of the utility EDF, has been able to overcome the main obstacle to nuclear power by planning, at liberty, the return of capital costs from nuclear investments. French public funding is widely provided to the nuclear industry, from financing extensive R&D programs to guaranteeing low-rate loans. Official cost estimates for nuclear power tend to neglect or downplay hidden costs from the fuel cycle, waste management, decommissioning of nuclear facilities, security, infrastructural changes and state guarantees for liabilities. All in all, nuclear power is highly subsidized by the French taxpayer.

ABOUT YVES MARIGNAC

Yves Marignac is executive director of the energy information agency WISE-Paris, which he joined in 1997, after four years shared between academic research at Paris-XI University and applied studies in the French nuclear institute CEA and the nuclear company STMI. His consultant work covers a wide range of nuclear issues for various institutional bodies and NGOs at the national and international level. In 1999-2000, Marignac participated in the economic evaluation of the nuclear option commissioned by French Prime Minister (known as Charpin-Dessus-Pellat report), and in 2001 he was a co-author of a report to the European Parliament's Scientific and Technological Option Assessment (STOA) Panel on reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel. In 2005, he acted as consultant to the Commission that organized the institutional public debate on the project of the new French reactor, EPR (Flamanville-3).

Marignac is the author or co-author of a number of books and other publications, including Nuclear Power, the Great Illusion - Promises, Setbacks and Threats (October 2008) and Spent Nuclear Fuel Reprocessing in France (April 2008).

CONTACT: Ailis Aaron Wolf, (703) 276-3265 or aawolf@hastingsgroup.com.

EDITOR'S NOTE: A streaming audio replay of the news event is available on the Web at http://www.nuclearbailout.org.

http://www.nirs.org/press/09-15-2009/1

Ben, you and a few others need to read more information that challenges your confirmation bias. Doing so will then allow you to weigh evidence unfamiliar to you and with that and your own previously researched evidence, form an informed viewpoint from which you might be able to argue intelligibly.

I feel the need to issue a Trigger Alert, but maybe I'm the only one this will trigger into action: http://www.cectoxic.org/NuclearPower.html AND http://www.cectoxic.org/Radioactive.html

http://www.nirs.org/

[Hammer of Los]

...
Only nuclear industry advocates and desperate unimaginative bureaucrats favour nuclear energy.

I think it behoves us all in the western world to lower our energy consumption and look for means of micro generation.

Micro generation would create a far more robust, independent infrastructure less subject to commercial exploitation.

Further investment in solar, wind and tidal power are needed.

Those are clean and renewable.

Exotic technologies are likely waiting in the wings.

Well, I live in hope, ya know.

But I don't think BenD is advocating nuclear power.

Are you Ben?

I think folk here just like to argue sometimes...

We all have to work together for a cleaner, greener future.

xxx
...

[Sounder]

Here is another Andrew Mckillop article for you Iamwhomiam.

I will lay a wager that you do not care for this article near as much as his previous article.

And I will hazard a guess Iam that your reading of this article will do nothing to challenge your confirmation bias.

By the by, your personal efforts do not 'prove' CC or anything else.

Climate Change, Central Banking And The Faustian Bargain
Politics / Climate Change Apr 16, 2014 - 02:36 PM GMT
By: Andrew_McKillop

Gunther Schwab's Dance With Death
A safe interval after World War II, in the 1950s, the former Nazi intelligence officer Gunther Schwab published his massive-selling book “Dance With the Devil”. In it, he fine-tuned what Nazi propagandists found to be the “interesting bits” of CO2 global warming theory first developed by Svante Arrhenius at the end of the 19th century, which is essentially unchanged today. By a massive irony, Arrhenius welcomed human emissions of CO2 from industry, and the possible climate warming they produce because he thought they could fend off – but not prevent – the next and coming Ice Age.

The Nazi interest was naturally more primitive and violent. Schwab's 1958 book mixed and mingled longstanding German fear and fascination with industry, automation and cybernetics – dating back to the iconic philosopher Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) – with Nazi racism and arrogance. Schwab disguised this in the 1950s as an “appeal to Humanity”, drawing on Goethe's legend of Faust.

Al Gore, James Lovelock, James Hansen and the IPCC have themselves profitably peddled the same save-the-world line. Today, almost certainly, Schwab would have also woven peak oil and resource depletion into his Doomster tale, and could have delivered an even better script for Hollywood's serial idea-thieves and idea-killers. Adding central banking, Schwab could have scooped the market.

Goethe's Faust sequence of plays resulted from 35 years of writing and re-editing through 1795-1830, and hinge on our fear-and-facination of the human powers of the mind and the leaps of imagination it enables. Due to science, industry enables massive wealth creation, but the vast leaps of financial imagination, credit and debt creation that are part and parcel of industrialization can be evil and lead to a tragic end. Also, the created wealth tends to be fragile, uncertain and superficial – but the damage caused can be longstanding. Other spinoffs from the Faustian theme which exists in European myth and culture from long before Goethe or the 20th century Nazi ideologists, include the fear and fascination of man creating dangerous but powerful semi-human monsters, like Frankenstein. Heroic video game series of today continue this fear and fascination with the cult of robots.

In Goethe's time, simple-minded persons were fascinated with automatons or clockwork-driven figures able to chime church bells, saw wood and beat anvils – enabling them to launch flights of human fantasy. Goethe confronted our human fear that industry and science are a two-edged sword, partly satisfying the desire for total power, but generating an inevitably final recourse by human beings to blend magic, ritual, myth and fury – into what we can call New Age anti-rational thinking, today!

In any case, Schwab grotesquely exaggerated Arrhenius' theory, just like Al Gore, and forecast the swamping of the world's coastal cities by the programmed and inevitable melt of the planet's glaciers and ice caps. In his 1958 book, he reproduced the Nazi line of propaganda – that only Aryan industry would be permitted after the triumph of the Third Reich – by arguing that industry must be heavily controlled and limited “by Humanity”. If not, disaster is certain.

Goethe and James Law
Unknown to many, Goethe was fascinated by the “financial miracle” that Law worked in France through the period of about 1715-1721. Goethe used the already-old legend of Mephistopheles or Mephisto as a key player in his morality play, Faust. Mephisto certainly dates from Ancient Greek myth, and was for example heavily used by Shakespeare long before the year 1600, as a Modern Devil who works evil – but with the final objective of removing and recycling the souls of sinners. Translated to Wall Street and modern financial market regulatory parlance, Mephisto preached and then punished overreach, insider dealing and conflict of interest.

Goethe played on the basic human surprise, disbelief and rejection of the reality that industry, science and technology do not usher in a world of utmost wealth for all persons. James Law attempted his own, highly modern financial remedy to this drab reality through enabling and encouraging, with French royal patronage, massive speculation in worthless financial junk paper assets. These of course soon collapsed under the weight of their own idiocy.

James Law can readily be called the Father of Fractional Banking, and its inevitable twin of frenetic stock market speculation. In Faustian language, he was a Mephisto.
Drilling deeper into the human psyche, Goethe extracted and utilised the literal bases of the Mephisto legend, of deliberate and willed self-delusion as a primal sin or fault of the human being. Obfuscation and double-think, the cult of ambiguity, are constant primal human faults as human society weaves its way towards destruction. With little surprise therefore, Germany's central bank president Jens Weidman has gone on record, several times, comparing the action of Mario Draghi and the Governing Board of Europe's ECB, to a Faustian bargain or set of moral choices.

In Goethe's long cycle of Faustian plays, Faust portrays Mephistopheles saying this to the Emperor: “Such paper, in the place of actual gold, is practical: we know what we hold … Wise men will, when they have studied it, place infinite trust in what is infinite.” Faust then switches to Biblical morality. He adds that if humans execute the bidding of Mammon “This is how we know it is the last hour”.

The Lure of Central Banking
The gospel of central banking started slowly, in Europe, but spread widely in the interwar period of 1918-1939. By 1980, over 100 were in operation. Today, with the rapid spread of globalization, there are over 170. China’s central bank is today the second largest in the world!

By and large, all central banks have adopted the same basic operating policy. They claim they can “fine tune” inflation, and both enable and control debt growth in the commercial banking system. But their Faustian power – and primal fault – is that technically, they can print and create money out of thin air. No private individual or company can do that.
The world's 8 largest central banks of today have a so-called “balance sheet” which has at least tripled from 2008, to around $16 000 billion today, or about 25% of world annual GNP. Much more dangerous, almost certainly, there is currently no way their “Quantitative Easing” can tail off or taper down without a collapse in paper equity prices. Necessarily, this has one very simple and baleful impact on that thing called the real economy - uncertainty is paramount, reflecting the Faustian paradigm of constant and creeping fear of overreach.

As a consequence, most of the “money printing” of the central banks sits idle as cash deposits and private bank reserves with the regional central bank. This itself is a prime reason why consumer price inflation has not yet risen sharply, but self-delusion prevails in the fond hope “that the economy will come right in the fullness of time”.

In Faust, Mephisto's alluring recommendations to the Emperor wreaked havoc due to no alternative being available. On the path of infinite money, there is no road back. As a US Federal Reserve banking chief, Richard W. Fisher, head of the Federal Reserve Board of Dallas recently stated, nobody on the US Fed's governing committee, nor among the USA's regional Fed boards “really knows what is holding back the economy”. So they have applied Keynesian lore and myth, and printed money to oblivion. In Faust, the inveterate gambler's urge to double his bets and try again, in the pathetic belief that this time he will win, is a major theme.

The ability to “create” unlimited money (either technically, temporarily or permanently) is an uber-powerful weapon. Yet it confronts the proven inability of governments to create wealth and growth. The central bankers' “Faustian bargain” only delays the consequences of unreal and bad policies, and cannot prevent the ultimate damage of their past excesses. Ultimately, the destruction of productive capital will come home to roost. In sum, the central bankers, like Faust are only buying time.

James Law discovered rather rapidly that there is no such thing as a free lunch. Wealth is only created through labor and savings. Ultimately, all money is owned by the Emperor – or someone or some entity. It is not faceless. As the Mephisto legend rewritten by Goethe, and its previous avatars concluded, the crazed human race for infinite wealth and power leads to infinite and total loss, but with that loss, redemption is possible.

By Andrew McKillop
Contact: xtran9@gmail.com
Former chief policy analyst, Division A Policy, DG XVII Energy, European Commission. Andrew McKillop Biographic Highlights
Co-author 'The Doomsday Machine', Palgrave Macmillan USA, 2012
Andrew McKillop has more than 30 years experience in the energy, economic and finance domains. Trained at London UK’s University College, he has had specially long experience of energy policy, project administration and the development and financing of alternate energy. This included his role of in-house Expert on Policy and Programming at the DG XVII-Energy of the European Commission, Director of Information of the OAPEC technology transfer subsidiary, AREC and researcher for UN agencies including the ILO.

[Ben D]

Hi Hammer, I view the task of safely harnessing nuclear fission energy as an evolutionary prerequisite technological step on the way to safely harnessing fusion energy...mankind's destiny is about what and who we are in the context of the cosmos...not limited to the context of just one planet....the very atoms that make up our bodies has been formed from star nuclear fission and fusion energy...we are made of star stuff and to the stars we shall return...to suggest mankind should view our destiny as one forever confined to a physical terrestrial environment in some form of sustainable 'battery hen farm' socialist economic system is the dream of the Devil.

[Sounder]

You strike me as being a rather conventional thinker, Ben D

Given that the standard model will likely be superseded, we may find that boiling water with nuclear power has been a rather crude innovation.

That is an odd connection to suggest that us being ‘formed from star nuclear fission and fusion energy’, has anything to do with the use of nuclear power.

As to your last sentence; I agree that this would be an odd destiny to choose and that many do seem to choose that, but we still do have an inclination if not obligation to make the best of it, for ourselves and our community, as long as we do live in this physical terrestrial environment.

[Ben D]

You strike me as being a rather conventional thinker, Ben D

Given that the standard model will likely be superseded, we may find that boiling water with nuclear power has been a rather crude innovation.

That is an odd connection to suggest that us being ‘formed from star nuclear fission and fusion energy’, has anything to do with the use of nuclear power.

As to your last sentence; I agree that this would be an odd destiny to choose and that many do seem to choose that, but we still do have an inclination if not obligation to make the best of it, for ourselves and our community, as long as we do live in this physical terrestrial environment.

Haha the irony, you talk about my conventionality in the same breath as the conventional contemporary human 'standard model' of the universe...contemporary cosmologies are relatively primitive wrt reality, but that is to be expected when they are limited by a dualistic perspective on the non-duality of the Cosmos.

The connection is that our destiny is of and among the stars, and we can't leave this rock without understanding and mastering the nuclear and beyond technologies that will take us there...it is about what and who we really are!

Oh yes,,,the 'let's have our cake and eat it too' Laodician luke warmers...fine if that's your choice..but the 'hot' view is that the physical reality is such an insignificant part of the Cosmos, the next step is to evolve an energy form, and sooner rather than later. So I live my life in a way that is primarily conducive to the unfolding evolution towards humanity's greater cosmic destiny....not in way that is primarily meant to conserve the present state of humanity and the associated environment that spawned it.

Sorry to move into esoteric territory but you forced my hand... for to be honest, my sense of destiny is way beyond the conventional conceptual framework context.