The Environment: Nuclear power!

Last week, the Finnish government greenlit the construction of two new nuclear power plants. I consider this a signal victory for environmentalism and security.

First of all, this transforms the balance of payments of the Finnish electricity grid, so to speak. At the moment, Finland is more dependent on imported electricity than any other European country. Some of it comes from Scandinavia, but the majority of the electricity we import comes from Russia. That isn't a nice situation to be in for purposes of security policy. The new nuclear plants will end Finland's energy dependence on Russia.

Secondly, and much more importantly, they will finally allow Finland to stop using fossil fuels for electricity generation, thus making the most important contribution to diminishing global warming that we can. As I explained earlier, power generation is the biggest single source of greenhouse gas emissions worldwide.

Predictably, the Finnish "environmental" movement is up in arms over this. The Green party, which is currently in government as part of a coalition, has protested strongly, but like they always do, has done nothing but protest. I thought I should address this, as opposing nuclear power is, to me, the most illogical and senseless part of the "environmental" movement.

Basically there are two kinds of renewable energy, "old renewables" (mainly hydroelectric power) and "new renewables" (solar, wind, tidal and geothermal energy, to name a few). Of these, we're utilizing hydroelectric power pretty much to its maximum extent. The ecological effects of dams are so profound that it's hard to see any developed countries building any more of them. As for the new renewables, at the moment, they're a pipe dream. They're the energy generation means of the future, sure, but that future is a long time and a gigantic investment in R&D and plant away. To stick with our example, Finland, at the moment none of the new renewables are cost-effective. All Finnish wind power generation runs at a net loss and must be heavily subsidized by the government.

To convert current electricity production from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources is, if not completely impossible, far too expensive to contemplate. In the alternative, our energy policy options are either continuing to burn fossil fuels or replacing them with nuclear power. With a (slowly) growing population and a growing economy, we can't very well reduce electricity consumption by the kind of amounts it would take to get rid of Finland's electricity deficit and stop using fossil fuels.

The safety hazards of nuclear power plants in normal operation are grossly exaggerated, but the problem of nuclear waste is real. Interestingly, the problem could be very much reduced if we used nuclear fuel more efficiently, but that's a topic for another time. However, nuclear waste is a much smaller problem than global warming. Anti-nuclear campaigners make much of the horror of leaving nuclear waste to future generations. What about leaving them a world that's at about the same temperature as this one? Surely the consequences of runaway global warming are infinitely worse than those of a very minute amount of nuclear waste?

It's this failure to prioritize that I find most galling about the current "environmental" movement, by which I mean Greenpeace and their ilk. The inordinate attention they pay to the problem of nuclear waste nicely obscures the greater problem: how will we generate electricity without using fossil fuels? I stress, again, that renewable energy sources like solar power are simply not practicable yet.

The only current alternative to building nuclear power is continuing to use fossil fuels. Not only does burning fossil fuels for electricity generation make the largest single human contribution to the greenhouse effect, but in normal, day-to-day operation, coal plants kill people. They produce air pollution that shortens the expected lifespan of everyone living around them.

So the question is, really: do we want to stick with a form of power generation that not only kills people through air pollution but also makes a huge contribution to global warming, or build nuclear power? By taking the latter route, Finland will be able to entirely stop burning fossil fuels for electricity generation. That is a huge step toward doing our part to mitigate the effects of global warming. And it's only possible with nuclear power.

At the same time, it must be done despite the active campaigning of Greenpeace and the Finnish green movement. In my opinion, their opposition to nuclear power is nothing more than a cheap popularity stunt to capitalize on technophobia and old Cold War-era fears of nuclear annihilation, which have nothing whatsoever to do with nuclear power. It's an excellent example of how the Green movement is no longer an environmental movement, because in this case, they are allocating considerable funds and energies toward fighting against the only form of power generation that does not contribute to global warming.

In short, while preaching the dangers of global warming, the Green movement opposes the phasing out of fossil fuels as quickly as possible. How is that environmentalism?

The Environment: carbon dioxide emissions

To start with, let's try to frame the problem.

**

56.6% of total greenhouse gas emissions are CO2 emissions created by burning fossil fuels (IPCC, AR4, Figure 1.1b). According to the US Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center, total world CO2 emissions in 2006 were 8230 million metric tons. This subdivides by type into 1521 mmt (million metric tons) from gaseous fuels, 3108 mmt from liquid fuels, 3193 mmt from solid fuels and some 400 mmt from cement production and gas flaring.

The IPCC's Working Group III, Assesment Report 4 (link):

The largest growth in CO2 emissions has come from the power generation and road transport sectors, with the industry, households and the service sector remaining at approximately the same levels between 1970 and 2004 (Figure 1.2). By 2004, CO2 emissions from power generation represented over 27% of the total anthropogenic CO2 emissions and the power sector was by far its most important source. Following the sectoral breakdown adopted in this report (Chapters 4–10), in 2004 about 26% of GHG emissions were derived from energy supply (electricity and heat generation), about 19% from industry, 14% from agriculture, 17% from land use and land-use change, 13% from transport, 8% from the residential, commercial and
service sectors and 3% from waste (see Figure 1.3).
[IPCC III, AR4, 1.3.1]

Sources of direct global CO2 emissions in 2004 were as follows [IPCC III,AR4,1.3.1], in GT CO2/year:

Electricity plants: ~10 GT
Industry (excluding cement production): ~5 GT
Road transport: ~4.5 GT
Residential and service sectors: ~4 GT
Deforestation: ~3 GT
Other: ~2 GT*
Refineries etc. ~2 GT
International transport (incl. aviation and marine tpt): ~0.5 GT

(*: "Other domestic surface transport, non-energetic use of fuels, cement production and venting/flaring of gas from oil production)

10% of the emissions counted as deforestation are from burning wood as fuel.

**

So in short, the most significant source of CO2 emissions is electricity generation, closely followed by industry and road transport. It's worth noting that that bugbear of the environmental movement, air travel, is way down on the list.

This strongly suggests, at least in my opinion, that any policy aiming at reducing CO2 emissions would need to focus on these areas.

The Environment: Energy policy, Obama style

BBC: Barack Obama eases offshore oil drilling ban

Oil firms could be given the chance to explore for reserves off the US coast for the first time in decades, under plans outlined by President Obama.

The White House says drilling will be allowed off Virginia and considered off much of the rest of the Atlantic coast.

The plans would overturn moratoriums on exploration put in place in the 1980s.

Analysts say the move, designed to cut dependency on foreign oil, is aimed at appeasing Republicans to help pass Mr Obama's climate-change proposals.

Here's a prime example of environmental policy. Yes, the United States is ridiculously dependent on oil. At the same time, its gigantic greenhouse gas emissions are contributing very powerfully to global warming. So what's the Obama administration's solution? Drill for more oil!

To make this case very briefly, in my opinion, the convergence of several trends offers a unique opportunity for true vision in politics. First, the sorry state of the American automobile industry. Secondly, increasing awareness of the strategic impacts of US dependency on imported oil. Third, increasing awareness of the need to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr. President, how about doing something to address all these concerns at the same time? Don't invest in more oil; invest in hydrogen or electric vehicles to replace petroleum-driven cars. There is significant technology emerging in both: a hydrogen supply network is operating in LA today, and electric cars continue to take giant leaps forward. Making an investment in these forms of propulsion now could restore the US automobile industry to global leadership. And hey, you're basically the chairman of the board of every car company in the States except Ford anyway after the bailouts.

But instead, Mr. President, you make a little money letting people you don't know drill for oil. So much for green jobs, right?

I firmly believe that the biggest obstacle to fighting global warming is, at the end of the day, the unwillingness of governments to pay more than lip service to actually doing anything. Here's another example.

The Environment: Introduction

I made a post on my Finnish-language blog about how I thought Earth Hour was rubbish. Not because I don't believe in global warming or I don't believe we shouldn't be doing something about it, but because I firmly believe that trying to get people to switch their lights off is a horribly inefficient, even counterproductive way to mitigate global climate change.

So far, expressing that opinion has cost me one friend. Several other people have disagreed with me in less drastic ways, and I want to explore this issue further.

Around the same time, my good friend Aaro wrote in his blog about how overpopulation threatens the Earth: if we don't change our lifestyles, he says, our children will be "really screwed" by 2050 when the world's population may approach 11 billion. I also think he's being very silly, but we're still friends (I think!). Of course, just saying he's being silly isn't very constructive criticism.

These are by no means the only debates I find myself in on the topic of the environment. After all, these are complex issues we're talking about here. I and my co-bloggers want to properly address them, so we're starting a series of posts titled The Environment. We hope to cover several broad topics, including:

The limits to growth
Probably not the book, but the topic in general. What are the limits to the growth of the human population? Is overpopulation a real threat to the ecology of the planet and our welfare in it? Are we running out of resources?

Climate change
I think I can speak for all of us when I say that we agree that global warming is happening, and it is strongly affected by human greenhouse gas emissions. We want to look at this topic in some detail. How much greenhouse gas are we emitting? What human activities are contributing the most toward climate change? We may even take a brief foray into alternate history.

The forgotten environmental issues
It feels to me like most people today equate environmental issues with climate change. During the course of this series of posts, I also want to pay attention to some of the "forgotten" environmental issues. Even though global warming is very real, it doesn't mean that we can afford to ignore other pressing issues like overfishing and air pollution.

What can we do?
Interspersed with all this is the most interesting question: what are we going to do about all this? The ambitious goal of this series is to try to figure out what kind of environmental policies we should be advocating in our communities. Should we all become vegetarians? Should we participate in Earth Hour? How should we generate electricity?

**

So, to sum up, this is the first post in a series under the label "The Environment". Over the coming months, several of us will be posting about a range of environmental topics. Our goal is to eventually create a series of summaries on the topics I've listed above. At first, the posts may be somewhat random, because we will do this using hypertext. Some of our first topics will be an overview of CO2 emissions, a look back at the Montréal Protocol that banned CFCs, and some hard limits on human population growth. We'll be working from the bottom up to put together a comprehensive look at the large issues. The first summaries will follow, um, later.

So stay tuned!