Nobel winner: Nuke power must be part of the equation
PALO ALTO, Calif.--Add Nobel Prize winner Steven Chu's name to the ranks of scientists who advocate turning to nuclear power as an alternative energy source.
"Nuclear has to be a necessary part of the portfolio," Chu, the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, said during the annual economic summit organized by Stanford University.
Steven Chu: Nobel prize winner in physics
(Credit: Charles Cooper/CNET News.com)Chu, who also is professor of physics and molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley, said nuclear is the preferred choice to coal, pointing out that coal releases 50 percent more radioactivity than nuclear power plants.
"The fear of radiation shouldn't even enter into this, he said. "Coal is very, very bad."
That put an unexpected coda on Chu's appearance here, where he delivered a wide-ranging discourse on the state of the global environment. It didn't make for easy listening. After listening to Larry Summer's somber morning coffee disquisition, Chu followed by presenting a picture that was, at best, utterly gloomy.
Before you get started, let me be the first to concede the point: There is no unanimity about any of this. In the last couple of years, I don't think we've covered a hotter topic--no pun intended--than climate change. Some of you believe it exists, others think it's a politically correct cock-and-bull story.
But Chu, the 1997 Nobel winner in physics, wasn't in the mood for happy talk. He said forest alpine and snowpack glacier regions are shrinking around the world.
"Why are trees dying?" he asked rhetorically. "Because parasites aren't being killed by frosts. There was a prediction some years back that 78 percent of the trees in British Columbia would be dead by 2013. It turns out that about 40 percent are already dead, according to the Canadian government."
Describing what he believes has been a scattershot government initiative, Chu expressed skepticism about the free market's effectiveness in the face of a "commons problem," arguing that climate change "certainly is the common problem that we face today."
Elsewhere, Chu said wider use of wind as a clean-technology alternative will depend on finding ways to ship it thousands of miles from its sources.
"There is a technology that already does this, but there's nothing in it for power companies to do it on a national basis. They serve local regions," he said. "We're lagging behind the rest of the world."
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for more than 25 years. Before joining CNET News, he worked at the Associated Press, Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, and ZDNet. E-mail Charlie. 
What no one talks about is the use of petroleum for fertilizer. Something like 98% of world agriculture production is now dependent on petroleum based fertilizers. Cheap petroleum has allowed us to push world agriculture production in orders of magnitude beyond natural levels around the world - supporting may times the numbers of people that the world can feed without petroleum based fertilizers. If we reached Peak Oil in 2004 as seems apparent from the declining oil well out put reported from mature oil fields around the world - then it is just a matter of time until it fertilizer shortfall effects (or the lack thereof) on food out put is experienced in major ways - both in cost and in availability. While it isn't likely to be terribly sudden, it's related panic effects might be a lot faster than many people think - especially if our leaders continue to ignore what has been known for the past 30 years - regarding over population (something else they don't want to talk about). Even if food production decline is slow as in the best case - its still going to cause massive starvation in many economically marginal societies around the world. Think how China will react once the world stops buying from them. We aren't going to be buying food from them and we won't have gadgets at a higher priority than food. Will they tolerate a return to their recent poverty? Maybe, but do you think they will just quietly starve? If there are just serious major regional short falls in food production, it will produce massive social unrest and violence effects to a degree never before experienced on a global basis. The day of 9/11 will pale in comparison. A starving person and or their leader's risk profile changes dramatically from that of satiation - as does their reasoning under starvation conditions. Poverty can be tolerated by industrialized people, but the starvation of industrial societies will result in extortion for food by violence - terrorism and war.
Something else that isn't being discussed by our leaders is that we don't have a successful economic system that works without significant population growth. Considering that its over population that is the single greatest cause of almost all of our current global problems - from irrational individual violence (school shootings, terrorism, etc.), pollution, climate change - it appears more and more likely that as a species we are going to quite literally screw ourselves and our civilization as we know it... to death. These Nobel prize winners should receive another prize... one for massive understatement - unhappy talk or not.
Just like France -- Nuclear should be the cornerstone of our energy policy. As for the rest:
1) Global Warming Hysteria -- Our policy should be to never waste any resource and Never Never use food for fuel -- carbon footprints are far less of a real-world concern than H2O footprints
2) Peak Oil Hysteria -- Availability of plentiful oil and natural gas are now and will continue to be key to global economic performance for decades to come-- especially as transportation fuels and chemical feedstock. As a result we should aggressively search for extractable oil and gas wherever they are to be found -- and then when found ? extract them -- but especially within North American continent and in waters within our control {e.g. Anwar, coastal Gulf Area, Florida Atlantic, New England, tar sands, oil shales, methane-hydrates}
3) Regulatory Miasma ? we should always regulate on the basis of the best science, the least interference in the market and focus on the outcome ? letting improved technology take care of the details. In particular ? let?s get rig do the alphabet soup of gasoline blends, streamline the permitting process for oil refineries and nuclear power plants
4) Mid term Options -- By 2060 we should aim for an economy that is dominated by electrical energy (including electrified transportation whenever feasible) -- with the electricity in turn generated mostly by nuclear and coal (including clean coal) with about 20% from renewables (wind, water, solar)
5) Long-term {post 2060} -- To prepare for the long term -- We should make major investment in R&D in energy storage {batteries, fuel-cells, superconducting, etc} and distribution technologies along with continued efforts in commercializing promising science such as thermonuclear fusion, hydrogen extracted directly from water with sunlight, and nanotech-based solar cells
If one of the Presidential candidates offered this platform ? they would be elected in a landslide
Westy
- by Myjota March 8, 2008 12:51 PM PST
- nuke power is our future. i'm green
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