Pandora’s Promise Upside Down

We haven’t mentioned Pandora’s Promise for a while, but the pro-nuclear energy documentary continues chugging around the world and picking up play dates. Its director, Robert Stone, has written a very specific editorial in Australia’s national newspaper, The Age, not about his movie – though he does tout it a bit - but about nuclear energy down under.

Like much of the world, the main fuel that lights Australian homes and powers Australian industry is coal. The difference is that Australia's dependence on coal is nearly double the global average.

That’s actually a good point that one does not see too often. Australia as we’ve noted before is about as anti-nuclear energy as a country could be – with its neighbor New Zealand a close contender – it’s practically an article of faith there. All power to antipodean pro-nuclear activists, but from afar, it seems an intractable position.

But the result has been that the country has exceptionally limited alternatives to its coal plants. It’s become, ironically, an impressive polluter – it’s been working to decrease its emissions, but lately has moved to roll back its efforts.

And Stone makes the point that this has decided consequences:

Australia is particularly vulnerable to the impact of climate change, as evidenced by the recent drought, heat waves, floods and fires. That so much of the population lives close to the coast makes rising sea levels a concern. Ocean acidification, a direct consequence of CO2 emissions, threatens the Great Barrier Reef. So there's no question that Australians have an interest in tackling this problem. The commitments to renewable energy and carbon trading are examples of the seriousness with which it is being taken. But it's not nearly enough, not by a long shot.

Stone does make the play for Pandora’s Promise:

What if both accidents [in Chernobyl and Fukushima] (horrific as they were) when put into perspective actually prove the opposite of what anti-nuclear groups contend? What if this extraordinarily powerful technology once associated with the existential threat that defined the Cold War, turned out to hold the key to solving the great existential threat of the current era?

Hmmm! Might there be a movie that answers these questions?

Given what must be Stone’s primary objective – selling his movie - this is an impressively good op-ed that makes its case without hyperbole or overly partisan construction. In itself, it makes a good case for him as a filmmaker and as a man who takes very seriously what he documents.

For more on the movie, see NNN’s Unofficial Guide to Pandora’s Promise.

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“The humanitarian imperative to using nuclear power”

What can be happening in editorials these days? Is nuclear energy going pear shaped under the weight of – economics? natural gas? gastric distress? No, none of these. Actually, the views of different news outlets and their op-ed writers is not so bad.

Take this from NJ dot com, a website shared by several state papers (the op-ed comes from the Times of Trenton):

There is good reason to give nuclear power a fresh look. It can replace fossil-fuel-burning power plants for generating electricity 24/7, avoiding air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions that could contribute to global warming.

This is nothing new to readers here, but we certainly purr when we hear it in the mainstream press anyway.

Now, this is interesting, an argument that really does tend to dwell among the nuclear friendly only:

There is a humanitarian imperative to using nuclear power. More than 2 billion people still lack access to electricity for basic needs such as clean water, cooking, sanitation and light. Nuclear power has the most potential to close the gap in energy availability between the world’s rich and its disadvantaged people.

Writer James McGovern really picks up points for promulgating what we might call the existential argument for nuclear energy. Electricity can transform a hell scape of underdevelopment into a (relative) garden of progress. We’re well past the point where people must have electricity and at the point where they will have it, one way or another. And McGovern, an energy consultant, sees that clearly.

The bottom line is that nuclear power is not the problem, but part of the solution. Together with further improvements in energy efficiency and renewable energy sources, it can have a major positive impact in the battle against climate change.

Yup. He’s right every step of the way.

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From the International Business Times:

South Africa is the only sub-Saharan African country with active nuclear power plants. But research-oriented nuclear reactors have been tested in a few other countries -- including Kenya, Ghana and the Democratic Republic of the Congo -- and it is clear that there is widespread interest in a nuclear-powered future all across the continent. Uganda, Nigeria, Senegal, Niger and others have expressed interest in building up nuclear expertise within their borders.

Exactly what McGovern is talking about. The whole article is worth a read.

See, the thing is, many countries are struggling toward a late industrial revolution – a late information revolution – and the developed world has lately decided that carbon emissions are bad. But how do we keep the developing world from using fossil fuels if that is the easiest way to make electricity? Can we, morally? No, but we can suggest an alternative that keeps both goals in sight.

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From The Australian:

The inclusion of nuclear power in Australia's electricity generation mix could reduce power prices by 20 per cent and save about $150 billion from now until 2050 in greenhouse gas abatement costs and the health costs of burning fossil fuels, an analysis of future energy options has found.

This will never, ever happen, no matter what – I mean, the Australians accepting nuclear energy (you can throw New Zealand in there, too). It’s like a national blood pact, signed at birth. Love to see it happen, doubt it ever will. But that’s okay – tougher nuts are sweeter to crack.

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Right Side Up Down Under

Something we always like to hear:

Nuclear energy has received the thumbs up from a former anti-nuclear environmentalist who co-authored an independent report pitting the advantages of nuclear energy against renewable energy for electricity generation.
Ben Heard told a uranium conference in Adelaide today that nuclear power presented lower start-up costs, lower cost electricity, much smaller land use, no use of fresh water, more reliable generation capacity and other advantages compared to renewable energy.

Lower startup costs? He’s got numbers.

Key takeaways include nuclear power requiring a capital cost of between $3.5 billion and $4.8 billion for a 690* megawatt equivalent plant compared to $8.1 billion for a 1,460MWe equivalent combined renewable energy plant as well as requiring 2 square kilometers of exclusive land compared to 18.1 square kilometers for the renewable option.

I’d like to see those num – oh, wait, I can?

Heard’s comprehensive, self-funded report (Zero Carbon Options – Seeking an Economic Mix for an Environmental Outcome) analyses 13 specific benchmarks to identify the most efficient energy source to replace two small coal-fired power stations at Port Augusta in South Australia.

And wouldn’t you know – the report has its own attractive website – www.zerocarbonoptions.com. Here’s the direct link to the report. A chart on page 12 sets the baseline – the report uses a CANDU reactor on the nuclear side – and page 24 onward compares nuclear energy with what it calls combined renewable energy – wind and solar.
What motivates the report is the replacement of two coal plants with a combined capacity of about 1460 megawatts. According to the report, the CANDU reactor was chosen because it matches that figure almost exactly. That may seem a little flimsy as a rationale, but there it is.
The report is quite long, and I’m not sure the comparison is completely fair – if I’m not missing it, it ignores the intermittent nature of renewable energy. Comparing the two tends to almost over favor nuclear energy. But that in itself is fair enough – if you’re replacing a lot of baseload energy, it doesn’t hurt to bring in baseload energy.
And the demonstration of cost is interesting, too, though it has a lot of moving parts – in the case of wind, literally a lot of moving parts.
We’ll probably be watching Australia move ever closer to nuclear energy for the rest of our lives. There have always been strong voices there in favor of it, but the Australian dislike for it seems almost a birthright, genetic. But we’ll see: more surprising things have happened.
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I was curious about the description of Heard as a former anti-nuclear activist. I looked to see what there was to know of him and found this description of his work at The Conversation:

Ben is also Founder of Decarbonise SA, a not-for-profit collective with the aim of achieving a rapid decarbonization of electricity in South Australia through fostering understanding and acceptance of nuclear power. A former trenchant nuclear opponent, Ben’s growing appreciation of the climate crisis lead him through research and a change of position. His presentation “Nuclear Power: From Opponent to Proponent” has been delivered to over 600 people including the State Conference of the Local Government Association of South Australia.

But wait. If he’s been at this for awhile and even has a “collective” around it, I wonder when he was a “trenchant nuclear opponent.” His self-written biography at Decarbonise SA explains this. Nothing sinister about it, aside from the fact the press stories about him have grabbed at the anti-nuclear turncoat angle quite hard.

The worst though was this: the logical part of my brain was telling me loud and clear that the broadly accepted set of energy solutions for climate change, namely renewable technologies and improvements in energy efficiency, had not a hope in hell of solving this problem on their own. No matter how optimistically my peer group and I talked them up, the reality of the scale of the climate crisis kept crashing the party. Things were getting worse, not better, and there was really no solution on my radar. Well, there was one, but I didn’t like it… nuclear power.

So - he was anti-nuclear when he was younger and chatting up the issue with his friends, but found a professional direction after his climate change epiphany (he also teaches at the University of Adelaide). I’m not tweaking him here – it happens all the time. But unlike, say, Patrick Moore, he doesn’t seem to have made this change during his professional life, which would have had a decided impact. But that’s okay – it’s overstated but not wrong. He did have a change of heart.
I was amused to read that Friends of the Earth has an Australian branch and have had at Heard over this (no link – you can find it easily enough):

A mining industry magazine article says that Mr. Heard was "once a fervent anti-nuclear campaigner". However there is no evidence of Mr. Heard ever having any involvement whatsoever in anti-nuclear campaigning let alone 'fervent' involvement. And no evidence that Mr. Heard has made any effort to correct the error in the magazine article.

No evidence that he hasn’t, either. I love how FOE jumps from the mundane to the diabolic in one short hop – it’s like a sour magic act intended to scare children. But however (and whenever) Ben Heard became pro-nuclear, power to him.

*EDITOR'S NOTE:  Due to a typographical error, this figure was incorrectly transcribed as 6,690 megawatts. We regret the error.

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Little Controversies: A Slew of Nuclear Energy

From U.S. News and World Report:

Despite a slew of developed nations putting the brakes on nuclear programs in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster, global nuclear energy generation is expected to increase significantly, climbing 30 percent by the end of the decade, according to recent research.

A slew? Is that like a murder of crows?

Rapidly increasing demand for electricity coupled with surging fossil fuel prices is making nuclear power an increasingly attractive option for many countries, especially in those where large-scale alternative-energy generation—such as wind and solar—is impractical. Around 45 current nuclear-free nations including the United Arab Emirates, Turkey, Poland and Bangladesh are looking at adding the controversial power source to their energy portfolio, the GlobalData report noted.

That controversy might be a little overhyped if 45 countries that have never used nuclear energy are considering implementation. If you’ve really got to promote the idea of controversy in the teeth of contrary evidence, have at it. (Honestly, the story isn’t that bad and its data points are solid. What we’re talking about here is the requisite thicket one has to cut through to get to it.)

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From Mother Jones:

But beyond his job in academia, [Department of Energy Chairman-designate Ernest] Moniz has also spent the last decade serving on a range of boards and advisory councils for energy industry heavyweights, including some that do business with the Department of Energy. That includes a six-year paid stint on BP's Technology Advisory Council as well as similar positions at a uranium enrichment company and a pair of energy investment firms.

Heaven forbid a prospective Energy Secretary should have been involved with energy companies. Mother Jones admits this is not so controversial. This is, though, in the magazine’s view:

"His connections to the fossil fuel and nuclear power industries threaten to undermine the focus we need to see on renewables and energy efficiency," said Tyson Slocum, director of the energy program at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen.

No, it doesn’t, because the fossil fuel and nuclear energy industries know that utilities pursue energy diversity as well as energy efficiency. Moniz isn’t a child – he can separate the interests of nuclear and fossil fuel industry nabobs and energy policy in general. Really, people don’t live in test tubes.

To be fair, the story points out that Energy Secretary Steven Chu had ties to BP but nothing has suggested he favored the company while in office. That’s probably the view one should start with – there really isn’t any smoke here much less fire.

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From Visual News (out of Australia):

Can Harnessing Ships and Tides Beat Nuclear Power?

I’m going with No.

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If Nuclear Energy Is Immoral…

Sen. Barnaby Joyce

"If we are fair dinkum about reducing carbon emissions, and we want to have a minimum carbon emission form of power, then uranium is where it's going to be."

And as we know, Australia is fair dinkum, but nuclear energy is not part of the equation. The speaker is Senator Barnaby Joyce, who quite rightly wonders why his country is so eager to export uranium if nuclear energy is so -

"Let's be honest, if you think nuclear energy is immoral, why on earth are you exporting uranium?"

What he’s reacting to is the decision to start mining the (plentiful) uranium in the Queensland province. Apparently, that won’t happen right away.

AUA [Australia Uranium Association] communications director Simon Clarke said uranium was already being sold from existing mines in other states.
"But the estimate of the price that would make it viable to build new mines suggest that the market will be ready for new mine capacity in some time from five to seven years," he said.

The decision to allow it after a years-long ban has aroused a bit of controversy, though from this distance it looks small beans. This comments from Australian Conservation Foundation member Dave Sweeney is about as rough as I could find:

DAVID SWEENEY: The mining sector is a whale, the uranium is a minnow. It produces and contributes about $750-800 million a year to the national coffers, or that's what it generates. It sounds like a lot to an individual. It's not much to a mining sector.

Which sounds like something the mining sector will determine, doesn’t it? Not too rough. Take a look here for some resource maps of Australia’s uranium holdings – Queensland is the big province in the northeast.

But that brings us back to Joyce, who is raring to go on nuclear energy.

Senator Joyce applauded the decision but went further, asking if it was OK to export uranium, then why was it not right to use yellowcake for nuclear power in Australia.

Fair enough.

He said he would welcome a debate on nuclear power in Australia as would many of those in government.
The comments came as federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said yesterday nuclear power was not part of Australia's future.
"The Australian Government has basically said we are committed to all potential forms of clean energy from an innovative point of view, other than nuclear, which is a proven clean energy technology," he said.

Which is true. Australia is very stubborn on this issue, and chatter about starting a discussion has gone on for years. So no need to hope for the formation of the Nuclear Fair Dinkum Commission tomorrow.

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Another Environmentalist for Nuclear Energy

We've been talking a lot about Australia in recent weeks (click here and here), where the debate over nuclear energy has been heating up. Long one of the world's top sources of uranium, some folks in Australia are wondering out loud whether or not it might be a good idea to turn to a home-grown energy source to generate electricity.

One of the people helping to drive that debate is Ben Heard of Decarbonise South Australia and Think Climate Consulting. A one-time skeptic, he's now embracing nuclear energy as the only rational way to battle climate change while producing the electricity we need to power advanced societies.

Recently, Heard took part in a television debate sponsored by the Australian Broadcasting Company. As we've written before here at NEI, we're not climate scientists and don't take a position on the validity of research that has concluded that climate change is caused by human activity. However, it's only logical to conclude that you want to reduce the amount of carbon emitted to the atmosphere while still generating enough electricity to power a modern society, nuclear energy has to be part of your energy portfolio.

With that, I'd like to share Heard's opening statement from the ABC debate:



Powerful stuff. Hat tip to Rod Adams for picking up the clip.

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Australia Unto UAE

Just for fun, let’s combine a couple of topics into something miasmic – who knows, maybe even phantasmagoric. Lately, we’ve noted that despite some expectation in the press that nuclear energy would go gently into that long night, it seems be staying out in the daylight. Even countries that have notably downbeat on ever implement nuclear energy have shown at least shivers of interest.

Thus, this editorial in the Canberra Times:

The United Arab Emirates is not a country that springs to mind as one in need of nuclear power. The small federation on the Arabian peninsula has oil reserves ranked as the world's sixth largest, and could conceivably use this resource to generate cheap and plentiful power for decades.

The news hook here is that UAE has pacted with Australia for some of its plentiful uranium to run its reactors, but I found the Canberra Times’ bluntness, which can sound a little rude to American ears, to be refreshing:

Although the UAE's foreign minister stressed that it was not a commercial export agreement, anti-nuclear campaigners in Australia criticized the development, saying that not only was it out of step with energy developments elsewhere in the world, but that it risked adding to the region's volatility.

Such anti-nuclear sentiment is routine in the environment movement, though seldom accurate or rationally based.

The editorial takes a swing at the German decision to close plants, saying that “it is by no means clear that this is practicable or advisable.”

Can’t say there’s anything to disagree with here, but it does beg the question, what then about Australia, mate?

It makes good sense for the UAE to go nuclear: doing so allows it to save its non-renewable oil for export rather than using it to generate electricity, and significant new economic development opportunities will be created in the process. Would that Australia was similarly pragmatic about its own long-term energy strategies.

Not to tell an Australian his or her business, but just wait. It only seems a matter of time.

PS: The headline is great: Dismiss Nuclear Energy at Peril – although, to be honest, the editorial doesn’t match its headline that well.

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And it we’re going to tweak Australia with the UAE even if inadvertently, it only seems proper to see how the UAE is doing with its nuclear facility.

The United Arab Emirates geared up Wednesday to begin construction of its first nuclear energy plant after the oil-rich country's nuclear regulator gave its blessing for work to begin.

The green light by the UAE's Federal Authority for Nuclear Regulation will make the seven-state federation the first country in more than two and a half decades to begin building its first nuclear power plant.

This happened last month. The home page for the UAE regulator, acronym FANR, is English friendly and worth a visit. Maybe the good English language has to do with the way UAE builds website and perhaps something more to do with FANR’s director, General William Travers, who hails from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Just as a reminder, most of UAE’s seven emirates are very lightly populated (Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Sharjah have about 80 percent of the population) and the country in total has about 8.2 million people. That’s almost double its population five years ago, largely due to foreign workers – only about 30 percent of the current population is native Emirati.

The nuclear facility will take some advantage of the fact that most of UAE’s land could be considered remote.

The license covers the construction of the first two reactors of a plant slated for a remote coastal site near the border with Saudi Arabia.

So we know that UAE will be getting uranium from Australia. What about the reactors?

ENEC in late 2009 awarded the $20 billion contract to build the power plant to a consortium led by Korea Electric Power Corp. The Korean company beat out more seasoned atomic power producers in France, Japan and the United States. It will be the first time South Korea is building a nuclear plant overseas.

ENEC is the Emirates Nuclear Energy Corp., which will operate the facility. The first reactor is expected to go online in 2017.

I’ve no real point here – well, maybe that the UAE has been remarkably determined to get a nuclear energy infrastructure up and running and have wasted no time doing so. We’ve been following this since at least 2008 when it still looked as though Abu Dhabi would go it alone with the help of the British. And now ENEC is assembling the pieces it needs to be online by 2017. All this activity has an almost old-fashioned vibe to it, doesn’t it?  - to a time when essential infrastructure projects could go from ideation to fruition in no time flat. (We should note that the American projects in Georgia and South Carolina are zipping right along, too.)

A model of the UAE nuclear energy facility. I may have overlooked it, but it seems not to be named yet. Maybe it’ll be Al Ruwais after the nearest town.

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Upside Down Down Under

I mentioned the other day that nuclear energy is not everyone’s best friend – sad but true - and named Australia as having a particularly long-lived animus toward it. That’s been crumbling over the last few years, as Australia has found it difficult to move forward with its carbon emission reduction plans.
According to the World Nuclear Association, in 2009 Australia generated almost 54 percent of its electricity from black coal, 22 percent from brown coal and 15 percent from natural gas.
That’s not the mix that will achieve the country's goal. Hydro is on the list at 4.5 percent, but other renewables barely register. Australia is rich in resources, a net exporter of coal and uranium (more on this below). And of course, it is blessed with considerable sunshine and wind.
In the meantime, the country has taken an exceptionally aggressive stance on greenhouse gasses by passing new energy legislation (think cap-and-trade married to a carbon tax), encouraging energy efficiency and implementing (and incentivizing) wind and solar energy installations.

The Australian Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency – a nice descriptive title – has more on this.

This aggressive effort to rein in greenhouse gasses may be a bit implausible. The Brookings Institute, a Washington think tank, gets to the heart of this about as well as we could:

Although Australia has approximately 23 percent of the world’s uranium reserves, there is currently no political support for building nuclear power stations. These factors highlight that reducing CO2 emissions from the electricity sector will be significantly more challenging for Australia than for the U.S.

Brookings also offers a chart that updates the World Nuclear Association’s chart of Australia’s energy sources to 2011 – and they’re the same as in 2009.

That may help explain why there has been some thaw among the antipodeans regarding nuclear energy.

Neither major political party formally backs domestic nuclear power, but the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bob Carr, has said it should remain an option and the Resources Minister, Martin Ferguson, has insisted it is still ''a live debate in Australia, despite the best efforts of the Greens and non-government organizations to demonize the discussion''.

(The major parties are the Liberals – who are <sigh!> conservative – who names these parties, anyway? - and Labor – who are the liberals. Labor has the majority currently, with Julia Gillard as prime minister.)

Some thaw, I admit, not a full-bore melt. At least this leads to an exceptionally lively debate. Imagine an American anti-nuclear group amping up the message to 11 and you get this:

The report on the catastrophic potential of nuclear warfare has important implications for the ongoing debate over nuclear power. Apologists for the nuclear industry trot out any number of furphies [tall tales] in their efforts to distance nuclear power from weapons of mass destruction proliferation, but the facts are in. There is a long history of ostensibly peaceful nuclear programs providing political cover and technical support for nuclear weapons programs — and an expansion of nuclear power can only exacerbate the problem.

Yes, the facts are in. The human race is doomed. Visit www.nei.org for a full measure of furphies.
In contrast, nuclear energy advocates will rarely tread into panacea or utopia-like territory. Still, the more careful language does have an impact:

Nuclear power should be considered if the carbon tax does not make renewable energy competitive against coal and fossil fuels, former chief scientist Robin Batterham has said.

His comments echoed those of the chair of climate change at Adelaide University, Barry Brook, who said last week that it was ''inevitable'' Australia would be forced to choose nuclear power, most likely by 2020.

''If geothermal doesn't deliver fairly quickly, that takes that off the list,'' Professor Batterham said. ''If wind doesn't get its economics an awful lot better fairly quickly, there isn't going to be a big increase [in wind power].''

Well, nothing’s “inevitable” except death and taxes, but Brooks’ insistence does have a zeal to it.  The story goes on to say that Batterham believes that nuclear energy is not the slam dunk Brooks imagines. Still, he says, “Let's make sure we shake a few [energy] alternatives as well as seeing nuclear coming to a house near you.''

So – new nuclear build in Australia next year? Let’s not get crazy. But the presence of a bracing debate and support from key government officials – plus the country’s determination to meet its greenhouse gas emission targets – brings it closer than it’s ever been. Hmm - maybe New Zealand is not as out-of-the-question as it once seemed.

The Ranger uranium mine. Did we mention that Australia has uranium? A lot of uranium. According to the World Nuclear Association, “Australian exports over the last five years have averaged just over 10,000 tons/year U3O8, and in 2009 provided 15.7% of world uranium supply from mines.   Uranium comprises about 35% of the country's energy exports in thermal terms.” Australia holds about 23 percent of the world’s uranium reserves, the largest in the world. Talk about energy security! Now it just needs the facilities to be secure with.

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