Go Nuclear to Avert Climate Change

Is wind really that much more expensive in the long term? Building enough to supply the whole of the UK would be would obviously cost a lot to set up, but when it's there our electricity should be damn near free and we can really make a difference to climate change. Supply and demand, wind and other renewables are infinite therefor it will be cheap. Things are priced on how much of it there is, that is why our bills are going up as resources are diminishing. Only with renewables will they be cheaper. The trouble it the power and oil companies have worked this out which is why they are not building renewable energy stations.

Rather than reading what the Sunday Times made up about me, I'd encourage you to read what I actually wrote, which is available for free online in my book, Sustainable Energy - without the hot air (www.withouthotair.com).

I know better than to advise Britons where to seek their energy, but I ought to point out a couple of important omissions in this article.

First, known reserves of fuel are always a small fraction of what's actually available. For example, there are only three years' known reserves of oil in the world but no one believes the world will run out of oil in three years. Nor will the world run out of uranium in forty years, or eighty or whatever it is antinukes are saying now. The data is tabulated here.

The world will use nuclear energy because it will not adapt to part-time electricity sources. It follows that old technology will be abandoned in favor of advanced fuel cycles which will push the available fuel well into the thousands of years.

Second, uranium and thorium are better distributed than oil. Some of the richest sources are located in modern democracies, Canada and Australia being prime examples. So importing uranium will be much less problematical than importing oil from Mideast monarchies and unpredictable dictatorships.

Dear Professor Mackay,

firstly it's nice to hear from you. I repeated those figures from the Sunday Times about 3x the UK's electricity can be got by a four fold increase in our nuclear power because I think they've got them wrong. We get about 20% of our electricity from nuclear don't we, and so we could close to double the amount by 4x the level of current nuclear power; rather than the "threefold" they claim?

As I stress, I am not anti-nuclear at all, but we need to provide enough uranium fuel for it into the future especially if the amount is to be expanded. There are many sources of uranium, especially phosphate rocks, but the EROEI falls as they become less rich.

I will indeed read your book.

Regards,

Chris Rhodes.

Dear Global Changes,

it has been reckoned that we would need to build one new wind turbine a day for the next 12 years to meet our carbon emission targets by this technology. http://ergobalance.blogspot.com/2008/06/new-wind-turbine-every-day-for-12-years.html

Hence the scale of engineering is absolutely huge as it is for all kinds of renewable technology, and most of it would need to be built from scratch. Oil will be needed to run vehicles and equipment to maintain them, and materials to build new, unless these machines are all electric or run on hydrogen, which again would take decades.

The loss of oil remains the underpinning problem and its rate of recovery rather than how much may ultimately be recovered.

Regards,

Chris Rhodes.

Dear Red Craig,

I am completely in agreement with what you say. Nuclear will certainly remain a vital and substantial component of the energy-mix. The issue of political stability is key. However, do we not need to use oil to run vehicles for mining operations? I'm sure that alternative means will be found over the long time that nuclear will be used and my main point here is that we should begin to seek alternative sources, and to construct thorium based reactors (e.g. the liquid fluoride reactor) since there is around threefold more thorium worldwide than uranium.

What is you view on breeder reactors, which would eke-out uranium supplies for centuries? Using thorium is of course a breeder technology.

Again, in all cases we need a massive swathe of new engineering and technology, and if that is our direction, to begin its inauguration quite rapidly,

Regards,

Chris Rhodes.

Professor Rhodes, thanks for your thoughtful reply.

Breeder reactors are part of the advanced fuel cycle, and the technology is well-developed, so they are the obvious next phase of nuclear energy along with modern fuel reprocessing.

Motor fuels are the most difficult technology challenge we face in the area of energy. The solution that seems most reasonable from here is some compound based on sustainably-produced carbon that stores hydrogen. It may resemble Green Freedom (find with Google), which is achievable with current technology. But we have to find a solution because vehicle emissions alone exceed what the planet can tolerate. Whatever solution we find will also reduce the emissions resulting from uranium and thorium mining operations.

The headline of your article, taken together with the text, appears to be part of the nuclear/antinuclear debate. But the last paragraph makes an essential and unassailable point, that energy consumption must be reduced. The challenge is to persuade people to accept higher efficiency standards and give up extravagant energy use. Can elected representatives impose strict regimens on the public and still be re-elected?

Dear Red Craig, thanks for your response. I think we both the answer to that: no, elected governments could not do that and be re-elected. It would be too unpopular and I think frightening too. Only some kind of dictatorship could force changes in how we live to that extent - and that does seem unthinkable. That said, it may be simply a matter of cost, e.g. If people can't afford ?5/litre for fuel they won't drive a car. But what happens then? Alternatives have to be implemented or we may descend into anarchy. I realise this reply is cyclic, as we are back at the original question of re-election.

All the best,

Chris.