One part missing from your account is the role of unfounded fears in Europe (flamed by Russian operatives) that kept countries from fracking for natural gas and continue to cause countries to shut down perfectly good/safe nuclear plants. A good source of information in this area is Mark Nelson of Radiant Energy Group on Twitter. Here's a…
One part missing from your account is the role of unfounded fears in Europe (flamed by Russian operatives) that kept countries from fracking for natural gas and continue to cause countries to shut down perfectly good/safe nuclear plants. A good source of information in this area is Mark Nelson of Radiant Energy Group on Twitter. Here's a recent sample:
Mark Nelson
@energybants
GERMAN MINISTERS PUSH QATARI GAS WHILE LYING ABOUT ENERGY
Yesterday ministries controlled by the Green party double down on their Big Lie: that extending their biggest, cheapest carbon-free power plants can't help with energy.
False: it's worth *65 LNG supertankers* every year
Mark Nelson
@energybants
Numbers:
Six reactors, 60 TWh per year. Would take 100 TWh of natural gas heat to replace this electricity, unless done entirely with coal (but then coal elec couldn't replace gas).
100TWh = 17,900,000m3 LNG
266,000m3 = capacity of 1 Qatari "Qmax" LNG tanker
As for my comment about "unfounded fears", note that Germany's decision to shut down nuclear plants instead of coal has led to some 1100 premature deaths per year due to coal pollution (11,000 or so total by now):
These deaths are apparently far preferable to deaths by nuclear power, which, per kWh of energy produced, is as safe or safer than solar or wind. In fact, far more people are killed *every year* due to Germany's preference for coal over nuclear than have ever died as a result of nuclear power plant accidents. In fact, only one nuclear power plant accident is known to have had adverse health consequences for the public: the Chernobyl accident, which, 35 years later hasn't turned out to be the level of disaster initially anticipated. And the Chernobyl reactor (RBMK) was *inherently* unsafe. The rest of the world uses inherently safe reactors (i.e., that can't have a runaway chain reaction of fission). (Yet the press was woefully unaware of this in recent reporting about Ukrainian nuclear plants.) And all reactors across the world have been updated to avoid a repeat of Fukushima, which killed no one due to radiation and no measurable health consequences are expected. It never should have been evacuated. See, for example:
Everything I'm saying is freely available information from the Chernobyl Forum, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, the medical field of Health Physics and the plethora of organizations and specialty careers that work with ionizing radiation safety in medicine and nuclear plants. Still, the press continues to consider Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Science their go to source of information on all things nuclear, despite the fact that these organizations donations *depend* on them spreading false information about all things nuclear in order to drum up donations. Will it ever end?
I don't know your position on all of this, Irina. I very much enjoy your column, so I've taken the time to fill you in a little bit on nuclear power in case you don't know much about it. After all, all realistic IPCC scenarios for decarbonization call for substantial increases in nuclear power because of its ability to cover for the vicissitudes of solar and wind, yet the Green movement continues to fight the IPCC recommendations tooth and nail and the current natural gas issue in Europe is one of the unintended consequences.
Of course, Belgium was planning to shut down all 7 of its nuclear plants (~50% of electricity) by 2025 due to green pressure and replace them with, of course, natural gas! Though Belgium has been forced to extend two plants for 10 years, it is stubbornly sticking with plans to close the rest (despite pleas from opposition party to keep them open).
One part missing from your account is the role of unfounded fears in Europe (flamed by Russian operatives) that kept countries from fracking for natural gas and continue to cause countries to shut down perfectly good/safe nuclear plants. A good source of information in this area is Mark Nelson of Radiant Energy Group on Twitter. Here's a recent sample:
Mark Nelson
@energybants
GERMAN MINISTERS PUSH QATARI GAS WHILE LYING ABOUT ENERGY
Yesterday ministries controlled by the Green party double down on their Big Lie: that extending their biggest, cheapest carbon-free power plants can't help with energy.
False: it's worth *65 LNG supertankers* every year
Mark Nelson
@energybants
Numbers:
Six reactors, 60 TWh per year. Would take 100 TWh of natural gas heat to replace this electricity, unless done entirely with coal (but then coal elec couldn't replace gas).
100TWh = 17,900,000m3 LNG
266,000m3 = capacity of 1 Qatari "Qmax" LNG tanker
67 Supertankers
As for my comment about "unfounded fears", note that Germany's decision to shut down nuclear plants instead of coal has led to some 1100 premature deaths per year due to coal pollution (11,000 or so total by now):
https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w26598/w26598.pdf
These deaths are apparently far preferable to deaths by nuclear power, which, per kWh of energy produced, is as safe or safer than solar or wind. In fact, far more people are killed *every year* due to Germany's preference for coal over nuclear than have ever died as a result of nuclear power plant accidents. In fact, only one nuclear power plant accident is known to have had adverse health consequences for the public: the Chernobyl accident, which, 35 years later hasn't turned out to be the level of disaster initially anticipated. And the Chernobyl reactor (RBMK) was *inherently* unsafe. The rest of the world uses inherently safe reactors (i.e., that can't have a runaway chain reaction of fission). (Yet the press was woefully unaware of this in recent reporting about Ukrainian nuclear plants.) And all reactors across the world have been updated to avoid a repeat of Fukushima, which killed no one due to radiation and no measurable health consequences are expected. It never should have been evacuated. See, for example:
https://aeon.co/ideas/fear-of-radiation-is-more-dangerous-than-radiation-itself
Everything I'm saying is freely available information from the Chernobyl Forum, the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, the medical field of Health Physics and the plethora of organizations and specialty careers that work with ionizing radiation safety in medicine and nuclear plants. Still, the press continues to consider Greenpeace and the Union of Concerned Science their go to source of information on all things nuclear, despite the fact that these organizations donations *depend* on them spreading false information about all things nuclear in order to drum up donations. Will it ever end?
I don't know your position on all of this, Irina. I very much enjoy your column, so I've taken the time to fill you in a little bit on nuclear power in case you don't know much about it. After all, all realistic IPCC scenarios for decarbonization call for substantial increases in nuclear power because of its ability to cover for the vicissitudes of solar and wind, yet the Green movement continues to fight the IPCC recommendations tooth and nail and the current natural gas issue in Europe is one of the unintended consequences.
Of course, Belgium was planning to shut down all 7 of its nuclear plants (~50% of electricity) by 2025 due to green pressure and replace them with, of course, natural gas! Though Belgium has been forced to extend two plants for 10 years, it is stubbornly sticking with plans to close the rest (despite pleas from opposition party to keep them open).
Nelson is great. His cutting analysis has been invaluable.