Australian support for consideration of nuclear energy continues to grow.

Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers’ Union, is continuing to advocate taking a reasonable look at the role of nuclear energy as a means to achieve anthropogenic GHG emissions reductions. As you might expect from Australia’s largest trade union, their chief area of concern is the mitigation of GHG emissions, and the introduction of GHG emissions trading, without damage to Australian industries and industrial employment.

THE Rudd Government is being urged to embrace nuclear power as a source of clean energy, amid warnings its emissions trading scheme could result in desolating Australian mineral and metallurgy industries.

Just days before the Government releases a discussion paper on carbon trading, a new report shows Australia’s aluminium industry - employing 35,000 people - could be devastated.

Challenging Professor Ross Garnaut’s preferred model, the Australian Workers’ Union wants the key metals sector to receive a partial reprieve from carbon trading.

The union has a powerful ally: respected business figure and Commonwealth Bank chairman John Schubert.

Mr Schubert, who also chairs the Great Barrier Reef Foundation, says Canberra should “definitely look at” nuclear power.

“It needs to be a real option… should absolutely be on the table“, Mr Schubert said.

Howes has just released a report from Per Capita consulting on the effects of the emissions trading scheme on Australian industry - specifically the aluminium industry, in this case.

It says the future for the aluminium industry is grim if the Government gets the design of an ETS wrong.

Union and business leaders fear an ETS will cause job losses and send investment offshore, with the aluminium industry particularly vulnerable.

The Per Capita report says jobs could be lost to Brazil, China and India if Canberra imposes tough new laws.

The study recommends the Government give the aluminium industry a “partial exemption” from carbon trading for up to five years and embrace nuclear power.

Mr Howes said the report would bring a “bit of level-headedness” to the debate over emissions trading and climate change.

Mr Howes said he was sick of hearing claims that workers in “heavy-polluting” industries, such as steel and aluminium, could be re-trained in “green” industries.

Instead, workers could be “left on the scrapheap of history” and enter the ranks of the long-term unemployed, Howes claims.

Personally, I don’t agree with the popular conception that aluminium production is an especially highly GHG emissions intensive industry.

Direct GHG emissions intensity for aluminium production in Australia was 2.0 tonnes CO2-e per tonne of aluminium production in 2007 — down from 2.1 in 2006 and 5.0 in 1990 — an improvement over the 1990 level of 60 per cent.

Indirect GHG emissions intensity from electricity consumption for aluminium production remained at the same level as 2006 at 14.1 tonnes CO2-e per tonne of aluminium production — down from 16.1 in 1990 — an improvement of 12%. This reflects both energy efficiency and changes in greenhouse grid factors.

Australian aluminium production in 2007 (i.e. aluminium smelting, not alumina production) contributed 31.6 mt (million tonnes) of GHG emissions (CO2-e), comprising 3.95 mt CO2-e of direct PFC emissions, direct carbon dioxide process emissions and other site-level emissions, and 27.69 mt CO2-e of indirect emissions from electricity consumption.

The Australian aluminium smelting industry consumed 29,500 GWh of electricity in 2007, corresponding to an average GHG emissions intensity of 939 g/kWhe for the electricity consumed by Australia’s aluminium smelters - consistent with Australia’s extremely GHG intensive, overwhelmingly coal based electricity generation capacity.

[These statistics are taken from the Australian Aluminium Council's 2007 Sustainability Report.]

Indirect GHG emissions from fossil fuel electricity generation - which aren’t really emissions from the aluminium production industry at all - hence comprise 88 percent of the GHG emissions intensity ascribed to the aluminium smelting industry.

If the overall GHG emissions intensity of the electricity supply of 939 g/kWhe was cut to, say, 100 g/kWhe through the replacement of coal fired generators with nuclear energy, geothermal, solar thermal, hydroelectricity or what have you, then the greenhouse gas emissions of aluminium production in Australia can be cut from 31.6 mt to 6.9 mt - 3.52 tonnes CO2-e per tonne Al, compared with 16.1 tonnes CO2-e per tonne Al at present - a 78% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions intensity, and that’s on top of any further improvement in energy efficiency and/or process efficiency, PFC emissions reduction and so forth, in the industry.

Aluminium smelters are not at all the cause for concern here. The burning of coal and fossil fuel for essentially all the country’s electricity generation is by far the foremost concern that we need to address.

The AWU’s press release, and the 32 page analysis commissioned by the AWU from Per Capita, are available here.

Also, in Canberra today, economist Professor Jeffrey Sachs warns that the world must embrace nuclear power as one of its options if it is going to win the fight against the potentially catastrophic damage of anthropogenic greenhouse effect forcing.

Professor Sachs, director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and author of the book The End of Poverty, warned that global warming had the potential to undo the progress being made in the war on global poverty, making the tropics hotter and arid regions even more arid.

In Canberra to give a keynote speech today at the Australian National University’s annual China Update, he said the world would need to use every available technology - and develop some more - to reduce anthropogenic greenhouse forcing at the same time as rapidly expanding its output.

Professor Sachs, who has not supported nuclear power in the past, said better technology was the key to breaking the link between economic growth and carbon dioxide emissions, and the world could not afford to do without either nuclear power or cleaner coal.

“I support the reintroduction of nuclear power”, he said. “It’s hard to see how we’re going to get enough energy with low carbon emissions without nuclear playing a significant role.“

“If Australia chooses not to go that way, it’s going to have to go even more aggressively towards solar energy and carbon capture and storage. My own feeling is that nuclear is safe and cost-effective.“

Professor Sachs, 52, played a key role in drawing up the Millennium Development Goals that are the targets for reducing global poverty.

Yesterday he said climate change was one cause of the steep rise in world food prices, which is making food unaffordable in some poorer areas.

If the world can not afford to do without either nuclear power or “cleaner coal”, and nuclear power is already a developed, mature, proven technology across the world, and “cleaner coal” is far from it, then it’s not much of a contest, is it?

Genepax “Water Energy System”: Redux

An update on the latest “breakthrough car that runs on water!”:

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20080616/153301/

Kiyoshi Hirasawa, president of Genepax Co Ltd, unveiled part of the reaction mechanism of the company’s new fuel cell system called “Water Energy System” in an interview with Nikkei Electronics.

The system, which is capable of generating power with water and air, was first presented June 12, 2008. As reported in our previous article, the system produces hydrogen through a chemical reaction between water and a metal (or a metal compound) on the fuel electrode side (See related article).

Genepax uses a metal or a metal compound that can cause an oxidation reaction with water at room temperature, the company said. Metals that react with water include lithium, sodium, magnesium, potassium and calcium. The main feature of the Water Energy System is that it can be operated for a longer period of time by controlling the reaction of the metal or the metal compound, the company said.

According to Genepax, the metal or the metal compound is supported by a porous body such as zeolite inside the fuel electrode of the membrane electrode assembly (MEA). The products of the hydrogen generation reaction dissolves in water, and the water containing them will be discharged with water inside the system. Upon the completion of the reaction, the generation of hydrogen and power stops.

There is nothing revolutionary here - nothing that violates the laws of physics. Rather than “running on water” the device if fuelled with chemical potential energy in the form of a reactive chemical - such as lithium metal - that will spontaneously reduce water to hydrogen gas on contact, consuming the lithium. Energy is “stored” in such a material, which requires considerable energy input to create, and does not occur in the free metallic form in nature.

This is essentially nothing more than a non-rechargeable chemical battery. When its chemical “fuel” is depleted, it doesn’t work, and the chemical material must be replenished.

Anthropogenic GHG emissions in the developing economic powers.

In the discussion of anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and the international political efforts to respond to it, there isn’t much of an opportunity for discussion before somebody brings up the issue of the rising economic powers like India and China. I agree that there is a very large base of emissions in China and other developing economies - they’re building the equivalent of one large power plant every 10 days or whatever it is, but they’re building all the nuclear power and hydro that they can as part of that - but if they need coal fired plants as well in this early stage of their industrialisation, then they will build those, too.

Considering that energy consumption in most developed countries has usually grown faster than GDP during the early stages of industrialization, it is to China’s credit that although its GDP has grown by 9.5% per year over the last 27 years, their carbon intensity per unit of GDP has decreased during that time, rather than increasing along with the GDP. The reduction in carbon intensity for China has meant that its CO2 increase of about 5.4% per year has amounted to a little over half of its GDP increase during the same 27 years. [1] They’re doing a far better job than was done in the industrialisation of the Western societies.

Only one seventh of the population of China has access to constant reliable electricity. Are we to stop those Chinese having that access to electricity? They want to have a prosperous, developed, first-world standard of technologically developed society for all the Chinese people - who the hell are we to say that they shouldn’t, or can’t?

They want to have the same opportunity for industrialisation that the West has had - even if that means pollution first, and clean up later, exactly like it was done in the Western societies.

If the Australian government[s] were in charge of China, you can be sure they’d be doing a far worse job in managing the rate of increase greenhouse gas emissions whilst allowing economic development.

In discussions of the politics of responding to anthropogenic greenhouse forcing in the Western world, you’ll often hear the “Blame China - it’s all their fault, not ours!” position. So, what to do?

Is the anthropogenic forcing of climate change such a pressing, important issue that suppose we’re going to tell the Chinese, no, you’re not allowed to industrialize right now - maybe in 50 years or 100 years when everyone else has slashed their CO2 emissions? You’re joking, clearly - what are you going to do, go to war to stop them from having the same standard of living that we have?

Or, perhaps, we can give them as much aid as possible to build clean alternatives to coal fired power plants while they’re industrialising?

Chinese officials claim that they are doing a great deal that is often not visible, especially for a country as large, populous, and rurally undeveloped as it is.

But working against that, and equally non-visible, is the role of multinational ventures in China in contributing to its greenhouse gas emissions. As of 2004, 23% of China’s CO2 emissions were coming from China’s manufacturing of products destined for the West, providing an interesting perspective on China’s large trade surplus. [1]

Over half of those emissions driven by demand from the West are from multinationals and foreign owned factories in China, suppling all the crap that is destined for Wal-Mart and department store shelves in Australia, the US, and other western nations. It is pointed out that China is being demonised for having become the place where the western world effectively outsources much of its pollution.

Do we have a responsibility to deal with this in China, instead of just blaming them and refusing to do anything ourselves since they’re supposedly the problem?

We could fully encourage and support the export of all nuclear power, wind turbine, solar, hydro, etc technologies from the Western nations into China - and, given the seriousness with which anthropogenic greenhouse forcing is viewed as a grave issue, give them as much direct financial aid as we can to build these technologies as an alternative to new coal fired power plants.

Instead of, say, building a nuclear power plant in Australia, Germany, Italy, the US or UK or where ever to replace a coal fired power plant, what if we could just give the money to China and they will build them instead of coal plants - talk about an emissions trading scheme! That way, we’re making the same mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, we’ve silenced the “It’s all China’s fault, not our problem” talk, and we’ve also dealt with the political bickering in Australia (and a few other Western countries) over acceptance of nuclear power.

(Of course, this is a little hard to reconcile with the usual Western approach where power plants, nuclear, fossil or otherwise, are built and operated by corporations who can sell their electricity for profit - it really only makes sense in the context of nations operating under state ownership of power plants, like, say France.)

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming_in_China

The Garnaut climate change review draft report.

As many of you will know, Professor Garnaut’s much-awaited Draft Report on the implications of anthropogenic climate change in Australia was recently released. Let’s take a look at it.

[There's a mirrored host here, courtesy of the GreensBlog. Please be aware that that's a direct link to a very large PDF file.]

I haven’t read the entire thing yet, and I don’t expect that many of you have, either.

“In some industries, notably aluminium smelting and some steel production, indirect emissions in generating electricity would need to be taken into account. These emissions could be assessed according to a simple and robust approximation, based on the emissions intensity of the systems from which they draw their power, and made subject to the sectoral emissions tax. Indirect or embodied emissions that fell below a threshold would not be considered, in the interest of simplicity.”

“Chapter 9 suggested that under a reasonable set of assumptions about the threshold ratio and the permit price, only a limited number of industries might clearly satisfy the emissions intensity eligibility criteria. As the permit price rises, they may include — assuming an economy-wide emissions trading scheme — aluminium smelting, cattle and sheep products, cement production, and iron and early stage steel manufacturing.”

It all sounds terribly complicated, doesn’t it? I’ll be the first to profess that I’m not an economist, however.

The example of the aluminium production industry is one that gets bought up again and again in the context of high-GHG-emissions industries, and it raises an interesting question.

An aluminium smelter itself does emit a little bit of carbon dioxide and other GHGs, but not all that much by comparison to most other large industrial chemical and metallurgical engineering.

What an aluminium smelter does do, however, is consume large amounts of electrical energy, and this is where this notion about the aluminium industry being responsible for vast amounts of GHG emissions comes from.

The aluminium producer buys their electricity from the grid from the electricity generating utility. If we assume that this utility is predominantly operating coal-fired plants, then the utility is paying a high price for its large carbon dioxide emissions, under an emissions trading scheme.

The utility will inevitably pass this cost onto electricity consumers - so, is an industry such as the aluminium industry or steel industry being expected to pay for the carbon dioxide intensity of their energy use twice - once in the price of their electricity, and again simply because they’re using that electricity? That’s what the above passage seems to imply, doesn’t it?

The same scenario applies to every one of us, with regards to household electricity consumption. Could you reasonably be expected to pay for “your” carbon dioxide emissions corresponding, even after you’ve already paid them in the form of the bill from your electric utility?

Just like aluminium smelters or electric arc furnaces in industry, light bulbs or plasma TV’s aren’t responsible for significant direct greenhouse gas emissions - it’s fossil fuel combustion power stations that are.

Now, I’m pleased to note that there’s at least some mention of nuclear energy in the report, and it’s interesting to take a look at that, too.

This renewed demand arises from a combination of influences from climate change, energy security and relative costs. With more than one-third of currently estimated global uranium resources, Australia is well placed to benefit from this growth.

Doesn’t this sound - coincidentally - very much like the “Nuclear energy is fantastic for Australia - just as long as it isn’t actually in Australia” policy of the federal government?

The 2006 Uranium Mining, Processing and Nuclear Energy Review for the Commonwealth Government concluded: ‘Although the priority for Australia will continue to be to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from coal and gas, the Review sees nuclear power as a practical option for part of Australia’s electricity production. This conclusion was based on a cost of nuclear power of $40–65/MWh, which is within the range of the $35–80/MWh estimate of the Nuclear Energy Agency and the International Energy Agency from 2005, but below ranges specified in the more recent official UK publications of $60–80 MWh. Nuclear power stations will have been disproportionately affected by the recent increases in capital costs on account of their exceptional capital intensity, and will have been rendered less competitive by this development. Newer-generation nuclear technologies indicate potentially lower costs.

Less competitive with what? Less competitive in the presence or in the absence of an emissions trading scheme? How less competitive?

Increases in capital costs affect all energy systems - nuclear energy, fossil fuel combustion, solar, wind… you name it. In terms of the relative sensitivity to capital costs of nuclear power plant construction for a given amount of energy generated, nuclear energy is indeed quite competitive.

“Australia has better non-nuclear low-emissions options than other developed countries, especially (but not only) if carbon capture and storage is commercialised within the range of current cost expectations. Australia is a major net exporter of a wide range of energy sources, notably coal, liquefied natural gas and uranium. Transport economics should favour local use of those fuels in which the gap between export parity and import parity price is greatest (first liquefied natural gas, then coal). As a consequence, Australia is not the logical first home of new nuclear capacity on economic grounds.”

This sounds like the oft-encountered yet worrisome “fossil fuel combustion is the cheapest source of energy - so just use that instead, without bothering with those more expensive sustainable low or no emissions alternatives” reasoning.

Is that perhaps what we have to expect when we put economists in charge of preparing a review for the government of the impacts of anthropogenic greenhouse effect forcing in Australia?

Without real attention paid to the environmental impacts of fossil fuel combustion, the health impacts, and the energy security impacts, no energy system is competitive with cheap, abundant coal and petroleum on economic grounds.

“In Australia, as well as in most other developed and developing countries, public acceptability is an important barrier, that would need to be recognised as a constraint and a source of delays and increased costs by any government committed to implementation of a nuclear power program.”

“Given the economic issues and community disquiet about establishing a domestic nuclear power capacity, Australia would be best served by continuing to export its uranium and focusing on low-emissions coal, gas and renewable options for domestic energy supply. However, it would be wise to reconsider the constraints if:

• future nuclear costs come in at the low end of the estimates provided above
• developments in technologies reduce the need for long-term storage of high level radioactive waste
• there is disappointment with technical and commercial progress with low emissions fossil fuel technologies, and
• community disquiet eases.”

Many who support nuclear power already believe that the failure of fossil fuel combustion with CCS technology to deliver truly competitive and truly low-emissions energy is a foregone conclusion for the next several decades at least.

As for dealing with used nuclear fuel and high level radioactive waste efficiently, sensibly and safely, the efficient recycling of nuclear fuels and the deep geological permanent disposal of unusable long-lived radioactive wastes are already scientifically and technologically solved problems - only political debate remains as the “unsolved problem”

Ongoing developments in the design and construction of Generation III, III+ and IV are working to address concerns over the economics of nuclear power, as do rising natural gas and fossil fuel prices. The introduction of GHG emissions trading schemes increases the economic acceptability of nuclear energy still further, relative to other energy systems. It is always essential to approach these issues in the context of meaningful comparisons to other forms of energy generation - or realistic degrees of reduction in demand, or the slowing of demand growth. The energy, ultimately, has to come from somewhere.

This leaves public acceptance of nuclear power - supposedly - as the overwhelming issue preventing nuclear energy use within Australia.

Does this supposed community disquiet truly exist to a significant degree, or is it merely the meaningless noise of a vocal, fervent and dogmatic minority?

Acceptance of nuclear energy amongst the public may be swayed by dramatically increased energy costs, and failures to achieve desired reductions in GHG emissions, if real alternatives to coal and fossil fuels are not deployed in a meaningful way.

The 2007 McNair Gallup poll found 53% of Australians were opposed, 41% were in favour of the construction of Nuclear power plants and 6% were uncommitted.

It seems from the 2007 McNair Gallup poll that the need to consider nuclear power as an alternative energy source is considered increasingly popular amongst Australians, with more Australians conceding the need for nuclear power plants to be built in Australia.

The 2007 results contradict Peter Garrett’s claim that “Australians are very clear that they don’t want nuclear energy and nuclear power in this country.”, with 41% of Australians in favour for the construction of nuclear power plants.

Other informal polls, such as those run on the websites of Australia’s major newspapers every once in a while, continually return strong majority support for nuclear power. Some may question the reliability and coverage of such polls - but it is clear that as concern over anthropogenic greenhouse forcing and the use of coal grows, along with concerns of the economic impacts of GHG emissions trading and the need for large scale energy generation also grows, more effort needs to be made to gauge the true degree of community support for a rational, informed and sensible consideration of nuclear energy - along with greater education of the public, which is increasingly desired by the community.

In fact, I am not unconvinced that there is not already majority support for a rational, informed, dogma-free and sensible consideration of nuclear energy amongst the Australian public today.

Nuclear discussion quote of the day.

OK, I agree with the portion about how it is OK to stack solutions on top of each other on a graph, but I don’t understand at all why someone my age or younger would prefer small fossil fuel over any size low-GHG.

Please explain.

Karen Street

That’s from the comments thread accompanying Amory Lovins’ essay on GristMill,  in response to David Bradish’s debunking of Lovins’ claims posted at NEI Nuclear Notes.

I always considered this one of the most glaring problems with Lovins’s approach. How can small scale, decentralised or “micropower” generation possibly be preferable to nuclear energy when in practice, the overwhelming majority of the energy generated in such schemes is generated by burning dangerous petroleum fuel (natural gas, generally) and discharging the dangerous fossil fuel waste straight into the atmosphere?

Of course, if you’re really interested in decentralised “microgeneration”, and there are some reasons why some people might be interested in such technology, why not consider small scale, decentralised nuclear generation, like this, this or this?

Water desalination, energy use, and where that energy comes from.

http://www.foe.org.au/resources/chain-reaction/chain-reaction-editions/chain-reaction-102-april-2008/victorias-proposed-desalination-plant/

Here are some thoughts on water desalination, from the Friends of the Earth Australia. Personally, I don’t know why they aren’t actually concerned with the fossil fuel fired electricity generation instead of the desalination plant proposal - since the former is actually where the greenhouse gas pollution comes from.

2006 was Victoria’s worst recorded year for rainfall, yielding only 165 gigalitres of inflow to Melbourne’s catchments compared with the previous 10 years’ average of 453 Gl. In a panic response, the government opted for what had previously been an option of last resort - a desalination plant.

The proposed desalination plant will produce 150 Gl water per year, upgradable to 200 Gl. Melbourne currently uses approximately 380 Gl per year. At present, 450 Gl of urban storm water and 150 Gl of treated waste water runs into Melbourne’s bays and Bass Strait. Independent expert water authorities confirm that at least half of the storm water, and most of the treated water can be easily collected and reused, at less economic and environmental cost than the proposed water factory.

The desalination plant will require a massive 90 megawatts of power (120 MW if upgraded as proposed). In real terms that means one million tonnes of CO2 per year, equivalent to 280,000 new cars driving our roads.

For the above to be true, the greenhouse gas emissions intensity of electricity generation would have to be as high as 1267 g/kWh. There is no fuel around that has carbon dioxide emissions intensity that high!

The most dirty, polluting coal fired generators generate about 1000 gCO2/ kWh.

Even in Australia, where the majority of electricity comes from coal combustion, there is some cleaner generation capacity in use - namely natural gas and hydroelectricity. Overall, the greenhouse gas intensity of Australian electricity is probably somewhere down around 800 gCO2/kWh. Still very high, but nowhere high enough to validate the numbers above!

Melbourne’s current water delivery comes at a low energy cost due to the passive system of catchments and the use of gravity from the catchment dams to the points of use. According to the 2005-06 Victorian Water Review, Melbourne Water’s average energy use for treatment and water delivery was 0.4 megajoule/kilolitre and the total urban weighted average across Victoria was 0.24 MJ/kL for 2005-06. In contrast the desalination plant’s power consumption will be approximately 19 MJ/kL assuming it is powered by brown coal.

That 19 MJ/kL energy requirement is completely independant of “assuming it is powered by brown coal” - it could be powered by wind turbines and it would still be 19 MJ/kL.

The Victorian government argues that the desalination plant will be ‘carbon neutral’. The current Victorian maximum wind power capacity is 134 MW. The desalination project will require 90-120 MW. To be true to federal emission reduction targets, all potentially available “green energy” should be used to satisfy current requirements, or for new demands that have no better alternatives. Desalination certainly does have preferable environmental and economical alternatives.

Recycling of stormwater or rainwater requires energy inputs too, of course.

Let me express this concern over water resources and access to water like this.

The total amount of water on Earth never changes - the water doesn’t just dissappear.

It’s simply that where human populations exist, especially dense populations, a localised region of “reduced water entropy” is needed, to provide clean, potable water to the population. There’s plenty of water on Earth - you just need to get clean fresh water, and get it delivered to where it’s needed. With our engineering and technology, and usually a little bit of an energy input, there are plenty of ways to accomplish this on the scale needed.

Anti-nuclear Quote of the Day.

“Of course it [nuclear energy] isn’t sustainable. When finite resources are consumed, the amount decreases. Clearly consumption of the resource is unsustainable. Didn’t we learn that with fossil fuels and fossil water?” [source]

There’s no such thing as an infinite energy resource.

That’s the second law of thermodynamics.

In a thermodynamically isolated system, there’s no such thing as “renewable energy”.

Sooner or later the uranium runs out, sooner or later the radiological geothermal heat in the Earth runs out, sooner or later the hydrogen in the sun runs out… and sooner or later, the free energy of the universe runs out, and everything in existence ends.

There are no renewable energy resources, and there are no infinite energy resources - there are only those energy resources which are sustainable in practical terms over the foreseeable future of human civilisation on this planet.

In about 2.5 billion years time, the Andromeda galaxy and our own Milky Way galaxy are going to collide with each other and merge together. My astrophysics is a little bit rusty, but suffice to say that things could get a little interesting gravitationally for our solar system.

Planning things out regarding resource sustainability on Earth beyond such a timescale is impossible, and arguably, irrelevant.