The “NY Times” reports today on the massive cost overruns of a nuclear power plant at Olkiluoto in Finland and, in the end, the uncertainty of the date of its completion, testing and operation - if ever.  The article reports that the difficulties with this flagship in the new generation of nuclear plants is making the American nuclear industry nervous.  “…early experience suggests these new reactors will be no easier or cheaper to build than the ones of a generation ago, when cost overruns - and then accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl - ended the last nuclear construction boom.”

Full disclosure:  I have had an aversion to nuclear power for decades.  I read Poisoned Power in 1971 and have seen precious little since then to change my mind about this pernicious technology.  I thought then and I thought now we can do better.  See some further thoughts here and here on nuclear power.  I wrote recently at this post about hearing the CEO of the largest nuclear power operator, Exelon, call for caution on proceeding with expansion until the waste storage issue is resolved.  I noted there:  “For a really in-depth and smart analysis from folks who’ve been studying nuclear power for decades, see Nuclear Power in a Warming World from the Union of Concerned Scientists.”

I just wanted to flag what I thought were some pretty good items out and about in the media lately.

China and Climate Change - One of the go-to guys for progressive economics, Paul Krugman, has a column today, Empire of Carbon, that is both pessimistic and optimistic.  (Boy, do I know that feeling when it comes to climate change!)  The bad news is that China is going to swamp the climate system with its coal-generated CO₂ if it stays on the trajectory it’s on now.  China doubled its output from 1996 to 2006, making it the world’s leading emitter of greenhouse gases last year.  Krugman gives a good précis here of the arguments that China makes for not changing course.  But, if the US, EU and other big developed economies throttle back our emissions - and there’s reason to believe it’s happening and will continue to happen (see last post below, among others) - then the Chinese and the other rapidly industrializing nations should have no excuse not to get on board.

The good news, according to Krugman, is “…that the very inefficiency of China’s energy use offers huge scope for improvement. Given the right policies, China could continue to grow rapidly without increasing its carbon emissions.”  Can you say renewables and energy efficiency?  It’s all there, just for the taking.

What if China and others don’t play ball?  “Sooner than most people think, countries that refuse to limit their greenhouse gas emissions will face sanctions, probably in the form of taxes on their exports.”  I think China will play ball.  For my reasons for thinking this, see China and Trade here.  As Krugman puts it:  “It’s time to save the planet. And like it or not, China will have to do its part.”

(For more on China and climate change, see the FPA blog on China.)

More on Cap-and-Trade - See this recent column from Krugman and this editorial from the “NY Times.”  Both are unequivocal in support of cap-and-trade.  Krugman notes “…a commitment to greenhouse gas reduction would, in the short-to-medium run, have the same economic effects as a major technological innovation:  It would give businesses a reason to invest in new equipment and facilities even in the face of excess capacity. And given the current state of the economy, that’s just what the doctor ordered.”

The Smart Grid - Here’s a great article from the “Financial Times” on the intersection of the smart grid and information technology.  There are huge business opportunities and the IT folks are all over that.  As the reporter says, “An unlikely marriage is being consummated. On one side is a monolithic industry, cautious, highly regulated and focused on ubiquity, reliability and affordability. On the other is an aggressively competitive sector with rapid product cycles and an insatiable hunger for innovation.”  It could turn out to be the proverbial “marriage made in heaven.”

Geoengineering - This is one of my least favorite of the red herrings being brought to you today by concern over the looming climate change crisis - see also nuclear power and carbon capture and storage (CCS).  A recent story in the FT series on Climate Change focused on this approach:  “altering the Earth’s systems.”  Giant sunshades in space, seeding the atmosphere with sulfur, making clouds at sea - all ideas, among others, that are advancing, in spite of the incredible costs involved and the potential to wreak even more havoc than the warming these schemes are intended to abate.  I was a little surprised - and alarmed - to learn that White House science advisor, John Holdren, said recently that geoengineering should not be “off the table.”

The pursuit of geoengineering is a considerable distraction to us in seeking to make the transition to a zero-carbon, sustainable world economy.  As Alex Steffen, the guiding hand at Worldchanging, wrote in February:  “Our goal should be to cool the planet in ways that reinforce and restore the resilience of its natural systems.”  In a book I’ve just reviewed, one of the authors says:  “If our goal is to produce a sustainable society, then to a certain extent, we will eventually need to mimic (and possibly enhance) natural systems.”

Speaking of Nukes … - I often watch some of the excellent C-Span programming during my lunch break.  (Am I a policy nerd or what?)  I just caught Exelon CEO John Rowe at the National Press Club talking about his company’s main product:  nuclear power.  According to their website, “Exelon operates the largest nuclear fleet in the United States, the third largest commercial nuclear fleet in the world, and is generating nuclear energy more efficiently than ever.” Mr. Rowe seems like a genuinely thoughtful and nice fellow.  One thing he said caught my attention:  Until we have a plan in place to store waste in the long term, then we ought “to go slow” on expanding nuclear power.  (These comments appear toward the end of the video, during the Q&A.  Start around 51:25.)

Waste is but one of several major concerns about nuclear power.  For a really in-depth and smart analysis from folks who’ve been studying nuclear power for decades, see Nuclear Power in a Warming World from the Union of Concerned Scientists.  I used this as a reading in my climate change class and it’s informative and useful.

Obama’s Team, Continued - Climate experts get key US posts is the headline from the BBC.  John Holdren, a physicist, Harvard professor, and director of the Woods Hole Research Center, has been named Obama’s top science advisor.  Holdren is a passionate advocate of early and decisive action on warming.  See also this from Woods Hole on the announcement in which Holdren says:  “None of the great interlinked challenges of our time - the economy, energy, environment, health, security, and the particular vulnerabilities of the poor to shortfalls in all of these - can be solved without insights and advances from the physical sciences, the life sciences, and engineering.”

Obama also named marine biologist Jane Lubchenco to head the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), an agency that has critical importance in how we monitor the environmental changes that are occurring.  She is a professor at Oregon State and another outspoken member of the scientific community on the issue of climate change.  See her webpage here.   (Coincidence that Michelle Obama’s brother is the basketball coach at Oregon State?  Probably.)

Further Thoughts on Poznan - There were several important developments at these UNFCCC meetings worth noting.  (See here and here for previous posts.)  The road to Copenhagen will yet be tortuous and stony, but, for one thing, the idea of intensified efforts on “reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation” (REDD) has taken hold.  We are not only diminishing the capacity of forests to sequester carbon in cutting them down, but burning them increases carbon dioxide.  (I’ve written about forests a number of times at the blog.)

REDD is a full-tilt assault on the problem and there are victories being won aside from the more deeply energized commitment won in Poznan.  Brazil has made the battle against rainforest destruction its own and that has incalculable value in setting an example for others.  I heard Stephan Schwartzman from EDF speaking this past week at a webinar about this and other REDD-related matters.

Another milestone occurred in the launch of the Adaptation Fund.  Bloomberg News put it this way here:  “Poor countries at the United Nations climate talks in Poland may win approval to tap into a $990 million fund as early as next month to cope with the damage of global warming, their biggest victory in 11 days of debate.”

Another of the main developments was the firm commitment to an arduous work plan for the coming year.  See this summary from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and the comprehensive coverage from the UNFCCC, which includes webcasts, and all the documentation.  Finally, listen to Yvo de Boer, UNFCCC executive secretary, at his final media briefing.

Smart Grid, Green Buildings - Further to my notes below on the smart grid, see Intelligent Buildings Meet the Smart Grid from “GreenerBuildings News” and the accompanying articles.  As Rob Watson, the executive editor, notes “Today, we recognize that a network of decentralized, building-level services connected through the grid results in a much more robust, and sustainable, alternative than the autonomous Earthships of yesteryear.”

In a related story, from RenewableEnergyWorld.com, titled Report Details Potential of Combined Heat and Power in US, we learn that if the US had 20% of generating capacity coming from CHP by 2030, we would realize a 60% reduction of the projected increase in carbon dioxide emissions.  I heard an energy consultant once say that not having CHP as a standard should be construed as criminal behavior.  You can see why.

Renewables Beat the Old Energy - In another item from the always excellent RenewableEnergyWorld.com, we get that a study from Stanford gives quantitative reasons why nuclear, coal and biofuels are very much the wrong path if we want “to improve energy security, mitigate global warming and reduce the number of deaths caused by air pollution”  You can read this important paper here, at “Energy & Environmental Science.”  (See also my reference to a terrific article, “Exajoules of Hope,” at a post from August.)

Here are some items that I think are worthy of your attention.  As always, there is a lot happening, so I can only hope I'm looking at some of the more interesting and salient issues.  Don't forget to visit some of the sites at the Blogroll at right for all sorts of great stories and various compelling angles on recent developments.

Nukes , I want to flag two recent articles by the venerable Matthew Wald at the "NY Times" on the state of nuclear power in the US.  A Cautious Approach to Nuclear Power from September and Nuclear Power May Be in Early Stages of a Revival.   As I think I've made clear here, I'm a longtime nuclear power antagonist and I've seen little over the past 35 years to make me change my view.  Even the specter of catastrophic climate change impacts can't get me there.  What strikes me in these two articles is the reiteration of the concerns regarding the extraordinary capital costs involved, the persistent lack of real technical and political progress on the safe storage of waste, and the recognition of the looming opposition to new individual nuclear power plants.  The Union of Concerned Scientists, with whom I did a little work on opposing a plant in Wisconsin back in the mid-1970's, is quoted in the second of Wald's articles.   "David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer, said it was too soon to say that opposition was weaker now than during construction of the older plants, when grandmothers tried to block bulldozers.  "We've got the grandmothers; we just don't have the bulldozers.  There's not the Kodak moment that a lot of these protests need.'"

See also this argument at RenewableEnergyWorld.com, Nuclear Denial, from an experienced energy hand on the facts in the case on our dearth of answers on the critical question of storage.   

The Impacts of Coal Mining , While we're worrying, and entirely rightly so, about the massive GHG burden from coal-fired power plants, we may tend to forget the environmental and public health nightmare that coal mining is in many communities, particularly in Appalachia.  I wrote about The Crime of Mountaintop Removal Mining last May.  Now the Bush Administration is rushing a regulatory change that will further enable the destruction of countless more hundreds of square miles of wilderness and the endangerment of public health.  See Now or never from "The Daily Independent" of Ashland, Kentucky, this from the "Wall St. Journal" and this editorial, More Sadness for Appalachia from the "NY Times." 

Get with the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition for more information and a hard-hitting approach to battling this continuing travesty. 

Two GHGs On the Increase , This story from the AP, courtesy of the "Star Tribune" of Minneapolis-St. Paul, warns that two potent greenhouse gases, methane and nitrogen trifluoride, are a growing concern.  My post on Nitrogen from early September , and more specifically the comment there , touched on nitrogen trifluoride, a critical component in the manufacture of High-Def TVs.  Two researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have done groundbreaking work on the prevalence of this potent GHG.  See this release from Scripps.  Given the growing use of this chemical and its potential for serious damage, it will need to be included in the list of greenhouse gases that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change regulates.

We've looked at methane several times, most recently in Permafrost (Or Not).  The AP story says:  "After almost eight years of stability, atmospheric methane levels ‚ measured every 40 minutes by monitors near remote coastal cliffs ‚ suddenly started rising in 2006. The amount of methane in the air has jumped by nearly 28 million tons from June 2006 to October 2007. There is now more than 5.6 billion tons of methane in the air." 

Green Schools , I'll leave you with one upbeat story.  (My ratio of bad news to good news is usually higher than in this post.)  "The U.S. Conference of Mayors has formed the "Mayors’ Alliance for Green Schools,' which will work with the U.S. Green Building Council" according to this article at "GreenerBuildings."  The international movement to increase the energy efficiency and to maximize the use of clean energy in our built environment is critical, and I've reported on it any number of times here.  Schools are a logical place to walk the walk on the environment and energy and enable students to both live and learn the important lessons of how to create a sustainable world.  See also the American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment. 

These are some juicy items I've been saving up.  They probably should be savored by you and me more fully, "But at my back, I always hear, time's winged chariot hurrying near."

PV Paint , This is very beautiful, as an old rugby clubmate of mine might've said:  Solar Paint on Steel Could Generate Renewable Energy Soon from the excellent RenewableEnergyWorld.com. 

Bad News on Emissions , Here's a depressing but not overly surprising story from the AP:  Global warming pollution increases 3 percent.  One positive outcome of the world recession into which we're heading , or into which we've already headed , may be the slowing down of our GHG emissions.  It's certainly not how we want this to happen.  Let's just hope that we can keep moving forward, if more slowly economically, and continue to transition to a low or zero-carbon world.

Nukes &  Renewables‚
This item from the "Palm Beach Post" says that the Florida PSC staff has recommended against including nuclear power in the state's portfolio of renewables.  This has national implications.

Coal Plants Diminished Role? , Here's an eyecatcher from "USA Today" that also has national implications:  Utilities shrink the role of coal on global-warming worries.  I wrote about some of the hits that old King Coal's been taking at Coal Takes Some Lumps back in February.  These are new, very interesting developments being reported.

The Physical Science Basis , Here's an excellent update on the science of global warming from the venerable "Scientific American."  If you've not been following every development , who can? , this is a great place to dig in.  See also the IPCC's definitive Working Group I report from 2007.

In my post from March 29 on the "State of the Planet "08" conference, sponsored by The Earth Institute and "The Economist," I talked about a close encounter I had with the gentle Chairlady of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.  We talked about nuclear power and I said, among other things, that societies needed to choose and any emphasis on nuclear power would necessarily take a tremendous amount of wind out of the sails, or turbines, as "twere, of the renewables industry.

Here's an excellent ten-minute video from Greenpeace UK that makes my point rather well.

I headed up to Columbia University this past week to check out the Earth Institute's State of the Planet 08 conference.  As usual, I couldn't devote as much time as I would've liked to the conference sessions, but I came away with a few good insights nonetheless.  Thursday, I attended a press briefing with Jeffrey Sachs, the director of the institute and a real force for fostering sustainable development; plus the very worthy Jan Egeland, former UN chief of humanitarian affairs; Carl-Henrik Svanberg, CEO of Ericsson, the cell phone makers; and Vijay V. Vaitheeswaran, a senior correspondent for "The Economist" and an expert on energy and automotives.

One of Ericsson's emphases is on bringing mobile telephony to the developing world.  This was characterized as the "singlemost transformative technology in the developing world."  See Ericsson's CSR pages for a ton of information on how engaged they are.

The discussion came to climate change, not surprisingly, and Sachs emphasized the importance of an integrated approach that would create an "incentive" system (cap-and-trade) along with technology policy.  Egeland said that mitigation is important, but that adaptation is critical at this point.  There are extremely vulnerable populations that need to be buffered from the increasingly intense effects of storms and other climate-induced disasters.  Drought, of course, is another looming specter.  Vaitheeswaran, a compellingly intelligent speaker, has written a new book, ZOOM: The Global Race to Fuel the Car of the Future, and he said we're looking at a billion cars on the planet soon, with two billion not so far in the future.  That's the bad news for global warming.  The good news is that the renewable energy revolution could well be driven (pun intended) by a new generation of cars.  (Sadly, I missed Vaitheeswaran moderating a formal debate , "Proposition:  “The United States will solve the climate change problem."  It was, by all reports, lively and smart.  You and I can see it here though.) 

Well, at the press briefing, I was going to ask about biofuels but before I was called on, Sachs read my mind.  (As you may recall, I've been writing about this a fair bit, including this post from last month:  Are Biofuels A Bummer?)  Responding to a question about energy, Sachs quickly segued into a blistering critique of present biofuels policy.  He called US and EU policy in this area "misguided."  He said that biofuel production is driving up food prices worldwide.  In his talk to the conference on Friday, he outlined a ten-point plan for the next President on sustainability and eliminating biofuel subsidies was one of the points.  Sachs also has a new book:  Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet. 

I am forced to say that a talk given on Friday left me a little breathless.  Lady Barbara Thomas Judge, an American it turns out, is the Chairman of the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority.  She gave a talk on the virtues of Nukes.  She trotted out a number of the same canards I've been hearing, on and off, for over thirty years:  Three Mile Island and Chernobyl weren't so bad.  People want nuclear power plants in their communities.  You can't rely on renewables because the power is intermittent and we haven't learned how to store it.  A new take on the theme of the acceptable risk of nuclear power was the somewhat blithe statement:  "Life is about risk." 

Another assertion was that 90% of nuclear waste comes from weapons production, not power production.  Sorry, Lady Judge, but that dog don't hunt.  Here's just one quote from the US DOE website:  "As of December 2005, the United States accumulated about 53,440 metric tons of spent nuclear fuel from nuclear reactors. In addition, there will be about 22,000 canisters of solid defense-related radioactive waste for future disposal in a repository." 

You can see Lady Judge's talk here.  I had the opportunity to talk with her a little later.  I ventured that her pooh-poohing of the role of renewables was not correct.  I mentioned the recent analysis from Daniel Yergin's Cambridge Energy Associates that there was $7 trillion in business looming just over the horizon.  (See my post here.)  She said that she very much supported renewables but that you needed nuclear power as well.  I said that societies needed to choose and any emphasis on nuclear power would necessarily take a tremendous amount of wind out of the sails, or turbines, as "twere, of the renewables industry.  I pointed out that not a watt of electricity would be generated from nuclear power in this country were it not for the Price-Anderson Act that, for all intents and purposes, insulates the industry from liability.  The private insurance industry wouldn't touch nuclear power with a ten-foot control rod.  Lady Judge was poised and gracious and I thanked her for entertaining my point of view.

The idea that nuclear power is something of a silver bullet for climate change certainly seems to be gaining traction, at least in the UK and in France.  I think that the Earth Institute's embrace is more-than-a-little off from their prevailing theme of sustainability.  Part of the problem lies in the continuing overemphasis, in my opinion, on the central power generating paradigm.  I think that the world will profit, in every way, from a shift not only to renewables but to the distributed generation model that renewables can empower.

I had time to catch a bit of the panel on "Identifying Energy Solutions for Sustainable Development."  Paula DiPerna of the Chicago Climate Exchange gave a lucid and illuminating talk on carbon finance.  (I've written about that a number of times under Carbon Markets.  This, of course, is a critical part of solving the climate change problem.)

The Earth Institute and many of the participants at this conference are doing groundbreaking work in sustainable development.  It's exciting to hear so many of these initiatives discussed.  Check out the conference videos to catch some of the excitement.

Tropical Forest Loss , Following on my last post (see below) about the destruction of hugely productive carbon sinks for conversion to cropland for the production of biofuel feedstocks, it is relevant to see the testimony from three very worthy leaders in the fight against rainforest loss.  The House of Representatives' Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing last week, Fire and Rain: How Destruction of Tropical Forests is Fueling Climate Change, in which Thomas Lovejoy (Heinz Center), Stuart Eizenstat (Sustainable Forestry Management), and Stephanie Meeks (Nature Conservancy) all gave expert testimony. 

Nuclear Waste , I wrote about Nukes last month and thought you should see this article, As Nuclear Waste Languishes, Expense to U.S. Rises, by the excellent "NY Times" reporter Matt Wald.  Wald has been on the nuclear power beat, among others, for many years, and always has an important story to tell.  Yucca Mountain, the government's proposed repository for the long-term storage of radioactive waste, is decades behind schedule.  (See the DOE's Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management [OCRWM] for more on Yucca Mountain.)  Aside from the dangers of storing waste in temporary storage at 122 sites in 39 states, there's the cost owing to the fact that the federal government has to pay the utilities for its not receiving the waste long-term as it had promised to do years ago. 

Carbon Dioxide to Gasoline , Scientists Would Turn Greenhouse Gas Into Gasoline is the headline for this "NY Times" article about how two Los Alamos alchemists, I mean scientists, would make gold from lead, I mean gas from carbon dioxide.  "The idea is simple," we are told.  "Air would be blown over a liquid solution of potassium carbonate, which would absorb the carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide would then be extracted and subjected to chemical reactions that would turn it into fuel: methanol, gasoline or jet fuel."  The energy demand for this process, perhaps not surprisingly, would be enormous.  There is an interesting post and some useful comments at "Dot Earth," the fine blog by "NY Times" reporter Andrew Revkin.  One of the comments seems on the mark:  "We would get a lot more bang from just using the electricity their system requires to directly power vehicles than using that electricity to make a liquid fuel."  And we could do it without coal or nuclear power plants.  I've heard Jim Gordon, Cape Wind's developer, say that, on a good day, not only would the wind farms produce enough electricity for all of Cape Cod's and the Islands' needs, but that there would be excess to power electric vehicles.  I have been dreaming about precisely this since the first Earth Day.

Smart Grid , "The Toronto Star" had a thoughtful column on this yesterday.  (I wrote about smart grids here in December.)  With the burgeoning of wind and solar projects in Ontario, there's a move to get the grid there, as well as in North America and the rest of the world for that matter, more responsive to renewable energy projects.  As the article notes, "Managing the power coming from a dozen or so massive plants is relatively easy compared to a "distributed generation' model that essentially involves thousands of mini power plants contributing electricity to the grid at different times of the day."  As one consultant is quoted:  "Any kind of distributed energy needs some kind of connectivity and two-way communications."  (For more on DG, see this from the DOE.)

I'm not entirely sure how, but I seem to have avoided one of the several six-hundred pound gorillas in the climate change room for nearly a year:  nuclear power.  It might have something to do with the fact that , full disclosure time , I started my environmental activist life a good long time ago fighting against nuclear power.  I have not really changed my view.  No need to go into any of that here now, though.

That being said, it is certainly important to note the many ins and outs of this key power source.  For background, the U.S. Department of Energy has some useful resources here.  For an up-to-date "factbox" on the world's 439 operating nuclear power plants, see this from Reuters' "Planet Ark."

The big story of the day is that the U.K. government has announced a decision to forge ahead with a new generation of plants.  See New nuclear plants get go-ahead from the BBC.  The plants will be privately built, generally in the footprint of existing plants.  (The BBC story, not incidentally, has links to a ton of useful background material on nukes in general and Britain's history in particular.)  The government's announcement has not come without voices in opposition.  In short, "Critics say new reactors will be expensive, dirty and dangerous."  The government's white paper on "The Future of Nuclear Power" can be found here, along with a considerable body of back up material.

"Planet Ark" has another story about how the British decision is going to influence others.  None of this, of course, is happening in a vacuum.  One of the drivers for the adoption of nuclear power is the threat of catastrophic climate change, with such ecological pioneers as James Lovelock and Steward Brand among the proponents of nukes.  A number of nations, including the United States, Russia, China, France and Japan, announced a pact in September to create a Global Nuclear Energy Partnership.  Here's a news item, again from "Planet Ark," on the creation of this entity.

Whether you like it or not, nukes are very much in the mix, and it's incumbent upon all of us concerned about climate change and the issues surrounding it to educate ourselves on the subject.  You'll be seeing more here.