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All IPCC definitions taken from Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis. Working Group I Contribution to the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Annex I, Glossary, pp. 941-954. Cambridge University Press.

Recommended suppleental reading:

Nuclear power ‘cannot rival renewable energy’ by Paul Brown, Climate News Network, Jan 14, 2020

Markoh at 11:49 AM on 21 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

Eclectic @92 why are you resorting to personal abuse and racism?

My question was very clear. If you don't want to answer it, the good news is that you don't have to.

Moderator Response:

[PS] Eclectic was out of line but accusations of racism will not further useful discussion. Given confusion by other commentators, your question was apparently not clear to them and so best to clarify rather than perpetuate a misunderstanding.

Markoh at 11:45 AM on 21 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

JH @87 a reference for which assertion do you mean? That limestone is primarily calcium carbonate or a reference that the worlds limestone was laid down during the time atmospheric CO2 was many times higher than today? as far as I can tell, they are the only assertions that I made.

BarbNoon1 at 11:27 AM on 21 January 2020

Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming

One more. As far as "grass fed" and "sustainable," this article does the math and determines that grass fed and grazing are not sustainable.
https://sentientmedia.org/is-grass-fed-cattle-a-sustainable-farming-practice/

BarbNoon1 at 11:15 AM on 21 January 2020

Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming

Okay. You may have to copy and paste these into your browser
1. "Too much choline . . . ."
http://www.clevelandheartlab.com/blog/choline-tmao-heart-health/
2. "Heart disease in children by age 10. If you don't want to watch the video, there is a transcript at lower left.
https://nutritionfacts.org/video/heart-disease-starts-in-childhood/
3. Dairy causes cancer. This video is heavily sourced with peer reviewed articles all the way through.

https://youtu.be/HXWaCfWi1_U

I am satisfied with the discussion we've had.

scaddenp at 10:45 AM on 21 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

It is not in dispute that limestone has been laid down when CO2 concentrations are much higher than today (though buffering means that pH was still around 7.5 or higher). See references I supplied further up. It means that organisms have to expend more energy to extrude shell which over long time frames they can adapt to.

However, the issue today is very rapid change in CO2 which results in acidification proceeding faster than organism can adapt and far, far faster than buffering by weathering can ameliorate pH. The paleo record shows this has been a problem for organisms in the past during such rapid excursions, and worse still, CO2 levels may be climbing far faster than in any known previous acidification events. Look for papers on PETM.

BarbNoon1 at 10:22 AM on 21 January 2020

Animal agriculture and eating meat are the biggest causes of global warming

You mention children and eggs and milk, and I will not teach you about health in detail here, except to say that all American children who follow the Standard American Diet by age 10 have striations of fat on their hearts - yes, the start of heart disease. Milk has hormones, and Casein and IGF-1 growth hormones can CAUSE cancer, and even spread it. Eggs are high in cholesterol and have too much choline which can lead to heart disease. I spend hours researching and teaching health.
Now, why in the world would I just talk about ethics, when veganism causes such damage to the environment. Sprayed ammonia from farms can travel up to 300 miles and land in water where they cause algal blooms and fish kills. It's pretty hard to get away from the pollution when a 200 milking cows produces the same amount of urine and feces as 8,400 people.

You tell me to leave the global warming subject alone, yet, in climate change marches, subjects like light bulbs, turning off water and recycling are seen. I thought you just wanted to see fossil fuel marchers! I understand what you are trying to say, and I will think more on it, but when it takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce 1 pound of beef, it should be talked about as an important amount of climate change!
Yes, I agree with Bozzza that so many of our problems come with over-population. Are you going to tell Bozzza to keep a low profile and not let population control enter the climate change conversation? All of it should be in the conversation. We definitely need worldwide readily available birth control for women and equal rights!
All these subjects are interconnected. Don't worry, I won't be holding a "Go Vegan" sign at climate change protests. I work in a different way.

I do need to learn more about what we can do about fossil fuels, but it always seems like it is up to a very stubborn government that ends up doing nothing. I do talk about CO2 when writing representatives and when explaining the "driver" of climate change to other people.
I don't even see a problem. I just think you are one of the delayers when it comes to cleaning up this environment by eating a truly sustainable diet.

Moderator Response:

[PS] Excess white space removed. Please remember to support assertions (many of them in first paragraph) with references. Otherwise comments may be deleted for sloganeering.

Eclectic at 09:50 AM on 21 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

Markoh , forgive my bluntness ~ but you seem to be having difficulty in asking a straight question. Is English your first language?

Please put some careful thought into how you frame your question, so that your meaning is clear. Don't rush, but take your time so that you express your underlying concerns about whatever it is that's puzzling you.

@87 , it appears that your assertion is that the high CO2 concentrations in the distant past would have been incompatible with the life cycle of organisms which (ultimately) produced limestone/chalk ~ such as the White Cliffs of Dover. Best, if you cite a source which supports that assertion. But if that was not exactly what you meant, then please re-phrase your comment in a better form. Clarity please !

nigelj at 09:18 AM on 21 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

MS @136

"In addition, nuclear supporters like you and Nigelj make repeated, false claims about renewable energy. These false claims make people think that the only solution we have might not work. Deniers like the two of you need to be told you are making false claims. "

What a load of false, arrogant, bullying, totally unsubstantiated rubbish. The most I have done is post links from credible, mainstream authorities. Either retract and apologise or I'm going to lodge a formal complaint with this website. You got three days.

Moderator Response:

[PS] This is going right over the line. Both of you are respected commentators and name calling is not promoting any kind of constructive discussion. I would call on both of you to stick the argument and discussions of references supplied, and to read each others contribution carefully before rushing in.

Markoh at 09:13 AM on 21 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

JH @87 a reference for which assertion Do you mean? That limestone is primarily calcium carbonate or a reference that the worlds limestone was laid down during the time atmospheric CO2 was many times higher than today? as far as I can tell, they are the only assertions I made.

Moderator Response:

[JH] A reference for the assertion that the world's limestone was laid down during the time atmospheric CO2 was many times higher than today.

Eclectic at 07:58 AM on 21 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

Markoh , the answer is in the reply I gave you. Please read it again, particularly the second paragraph.

It is the combination of ocean chemistry status and the biological evolution of organisms to suit the status quo.

Buffering effects within the ocean, plus the ability of organisms to evolve protein structures that fit their environment. The calcite and aragonite forms of calcium are stabilized/supported by protein matrices, analogous to the way that protein matrices maintain the calcium crystals in your own teeth and bones.

Given enough time, organisms can produce remarkable evolutionary adaptations. Look at the chemistry of single-celled organisms that thrive on the deep surfaces of arctic/antarctic ice, at sub-zero temperatures (at which you yourself would be dead within the hour). At the other end of the scale, are thermophile organisms that thrive in hot springs ~ at temperatures where your own body proteins would be cooked (literally cooked . . . into a frizzle of damaged proteins).

Markoh, evolution takes time to get there. It's the rapid changes which are damaging to individual species and the total ecology of lifeforms.

cyster at 06:48 AM on 21 January 2020

New rebuttal to the myth 'Holistic Management can reverse Climate Change'

What great rebuttals to this article. It is strange that it was even published with so many errors. Thought I would add these links as well.

1) Texas A&M study finds 1.2 tons of carbon per acre per year (1.2 tC/ac/yr) drawdown via properly-managed grazing, and that the drawdown potential of North American pasturelands is 800 million tons (megatonnes) of carbon per year (800 MtC/yr).

Teague, W. R., Apfelbaum, S., Lal, R., Kreuter, U. P., Rowntree, J., Davies, C. A., R. Conser, M. Rasmussen, J. Hatfield, T. Wang, F. Wang, Byck, P. (2016). The role of ruminants in reducing agriculture's carbon footprint in North America. Journal of Soil and Water Conservation, 71(2), 156-164. doi:10.2489/jswc.71.2.156 http://www.jswconline.org/content/71/2/156.full.pdf+html

2) University of Georgia study finds 3 tons of carbon per acre per year (3 tC/ac/yr) drawdown following a conversion from row cropping to regenerative grazing.

Machmuller, M. B., Kramer, M. G., Cyle, T. K., Hill, N., Hancock, D., & Thompson, A. (2015). Emerging land use practices rapidly increase soil organic matter. Nature Communications, 6, 6995. doi:10.1038/ncomms7995 https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms7995

3) Michigan State University study finds 1.5 tons of carbon per acre per year (1.5 tC/ac/yr) drawdown via proper grazing methods, and shows in a lifecycle analysis that this more than compensates for a cow’s enteric emission of methane.

Stanley, P. L., Rowntree, J. E., Beede, D. K., DeLonge, M. S., & Hamm, M. W. (2018). Impacts of soil carbon sequestration on life cycle greenhouse gas emissions in Midwestern USA beef finishing systems. Agricultural Systems, 162, 249-258. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.agsy.2018.02.003

4) University of Oregon paper shows that the co-evolution of ungulates and grassland soils (mollisols) was essential for geologic cooling of the last 20 million years - which lead to the conditions suitable for human evolution - and can be an instrumental part of the necessary cooling in the future to mitigate and reverse global warming.

Retallack, G. (2013). Global Cooling by Grassland Soils of the Geological Past and Near Future (Vol. 41, pp. 69–86): Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-050212-124001

Also

Study: White Oak Pastures Beef Reduces Atmospheric Carbon

Third party sustainability science firm validates Southwest Georgia farm is storing more carbon in its soil than pasture-raised cows emit during their lifetimes.

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/study-white-oak-pastures-beef-reduces-atmospheric-carbon-300841416.html

Upside (Drawdown) - The Potential of Restorative Grazing to Mitigate Global Warming by Increasing Carbon Capture on Grasslands

The paper suggests that the global potential carbon drawdown may be quite larger than previously estimated, where restorative grazing had not been factored. It is suggested that 25 to 60 ton of carbon per hectare (t C/ha) may be sequestered on semi-arid grasslands and savannas, representing a transition from highly degraded to fully restored landscapes. The global potential is estimated to be in the range of 88 to 210 gigatons (Gt), with a CO2 equivalence of approximately 41 to 99 ppm, enough to significantly mitigate global warming. The introduction and first-part conclusions are provided herein. The full paper including citations is available at the bottom of this page and at the link below.

https://www.planet-tech.com/upsidedrawdown

scaddenp at 06:32 AM on 21 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

Markoh, first thing about biological systems and climate is that overall, lifeforms can adapt/evolve to a wide range of conditions. There is no "perfect" climate. What is problematic is rapid change - change that occurs faster than adaption can manage.

This applies especially to ocean acidification. Over long timescales (>10,000 years), ocean chemistry is roughly buffered by weathering. Some of the ocean chemistry detail in the "OA is not OK" series. For more about the ocean pH through time, see perhaps this paper.

What the geological record does tell us though is that past rapid ocean acidification events have indeed been a problem. See this recent review especially, chpt 4, "What the past can tell us".

One Planet Only Forever at 05:09 AM on 21 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

Markoh @87,

When I read eclectic's comment @85 I see a clear response to your question and some related additional information.

Maybe you could provide a detailed explanation of why you did not see it that way.

Markoh at 04:30 AM on 21 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

Eclectic @85 But you response skirts around the 1 and only qustion I asked. That is, why CO2 concentrations many times higher than today was not a problem to shellfish when all that limestone was being created!

Moderator Response:

[JH] Please cite a source or sources for your assertion. Thank you.

Jim Eager at 02:38 AM on 21 January 2020

Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate

"...you've got that back-to-front."

Indeed he does. The prediction that a warming climate would produce the kind of changes that we are seeing in Australia preceded this year’s events by several decades. Moreover, it’s not just this one year, Australia has been unusually hot and dry for the past several years.

But you can’t expect climate change deniers to even read…or listen...for comprehension, much less think it through logically.

Eclectic at 00:22 AM on 21 January 2020

Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate

Erm . . . Bozzza, you've got that back-to-front. Think about it.

They're not trying to predict climate change from one year's events.

bozzza at 23:59 PM on 20 January 2020

Australia's heat and bushfires are signs of fundamental shifts in its climate

You can't predict climate change from one years events: isn't that what we used to say to be fair?!?

bozzza at 23:56 PM on 20 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

Nice question Mark...

Eclectic at 21:55 PM on 20 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

Markoh @84 , read this thread's OP (both the basic and intermediate form) for some detailed information. You will also find much of interest in the subsequent comments.

The short answer is the combination of acidity & carbonate & bicarbonate balances, with the gradually-evolved capabilities of organisms to produce calcite and/or aragonite structures (bound in organic matrices that are properly suited to the conditions). The rapidity of change in modern ocean chemistry ~ is the big problem. The rapidity of change is outstripping the ability of organisms to evolve to meet the new circumstances. Some organisms do okay, some are adversely affected . . . and the whole ocean ecology worsens (in the "short term" of a few thousand years). It's not just the shell-forming creatures, but the huge pyramid of fish species etcetera resting on the calcium-users.

If you are thinking of purely relevance to humans, then the problem is that we have a huge population ~ and where many have a high proportion of marine diet for protein.

If I may quote from a NOAA fact sheet :-

"Ocean acidification is an often overlooked consequence of humankind's release of carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere from fossil fuel burning. Excess carbon dioxide enters the ocean and reacts with water to form carbonic acid, which decreases ocean pH ... and lowers carbonate ion concentrations. Organisms such as corals, clams, oysters, and some plankton use carbonate ions to create their shells and skeletons. Decreases in carbonate ion concentrations will make it difficult to form hard structures, particularly for juveniles. Ocean acidification may cause some organisms to die, reproduce less successfully, or leave an area. Other organisms such as seagrass and some plankton may do better in oceans affected by ocean acidification because they use carbon dioxide to photosynthesize, but do not require carbonate ions to survive. Ocean ecosystem diversity and ecosystem services may therefore change dramatically from ocean acidification."

[my bold]

The second problem : is that we don't yet have a firm idea of how bad it would all get, for humans as well as the ocean ecology. And as the saying goes ~ it would foolish to gamble big-time with Planet-A.

Markoh, I don't know whether you've see it, but there's an old movie "Soylent Green" [a mixture of very good and very "corny"] . . . classic Sci-Fi . . . set in the "near future" ~ grossly over-populated world, food shortages, major civil unrest, deteriorating farmlands (with armed guards). Suicide is almost a patriotic duty. In one of the final scenes, the hero learns a State Secret : the oceans are dying.

That concept was an over-dramatic fantasy, for a 1973 movie. But more worrying, today.

GwsB at 21:51 PM on 20 January 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020

nigelj, your answer was very helpful. 4600 joule heats one liter of water by one degree C. Hence 228 zetajoule heats the ocean with a volume of 1.35 zetaliter by 228/1.35/4600=0.04 degrees Celcius. Add 10% for the deep ocean (below 2000 meter), see p 139 in the Cheng et al (2020) paper, to obtain an average increase in the temperature of 0.044 degrees Celcius for the whole ocean. The CNN estimate of 0.075 degrees grossly over estimates of the effect of climate change.

Perhaps you can help me with another issue.

https://disc.gsfc.nasa.gov/datasets/IRISN4RAD_001/summary

shows the spectrum of the outgoing radiation on May 5, 1970 over the Sahara. The absorption due to CO2 is clearly documented. A more recent spectrum, say from 2019, might show in how far the situation has deteriorated over the last fifty years, and help convince skeptics that there is no saturation. Where can one obtain a plot with more recent data?

Markoh at 19:13 PM on 20 January 2020

Ocean acidification isn't serious

The prediction is that higher atmospheric CO2 will lead to increased ocean acidification from the CO2 forming carbonic acid. And that the higher acidification will interfere with molluscs and crustaceans being able to form hard shells. The shells are fundamentally calcium carbonate CaCO3.

The bit I don't get is that all the limestone deposits in the world which is calcium carbonate were produced when the atmospheric CO2 was many times higher than today. So how did all the shellfish create so much shells that it formed huge limestone deposits with the very high atmospheric CO2 back then??

Claire Cohen-Norris at 12:45 PM on 20 January 2020

I had an intense conversation at work today.

BobInNH. Yes.

Electrify everything and decarbonize the grid. And maximize efficiency. And revolutionize land use. And replace flight with high speed rail.

BobInNH...I am curious...how does my answer on this inform your takeaway from my blog post?

We have over 7B people on the planet. Somehow, we must move almost every one. Surely, we do not all have to see 100% eye to eye on planned pathways to start the journey?

We are running out of time. We need to find common ground and get going. Now.

michael sweet at 11:10 AM on 20 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Ritchieb1234,

I found this report from the Union of Concerned Scientists that estimates 27,000 deaths worldwide from radiation release at Chernobyl. About half are from UN reports and half are UOCS estimates using LRNT worldwide. It has technical parts that look OK to me but appear to be your specialty. What do you think of the UOCS estimates?

ubrew12 at 11:07 AM on 20 January 2020

2020 SkS Weekly Climate Change & Global Warming News Roundup #3

I wasn't able to follow the link to "Analysis confirms that climate change is making wildfires worse" by Donna Lu, Environment, New Scientists, Jan 14, 2020. I located it here.

Moderator Response:

[JH] The glitch has been corrected, Thanks for bringing it to our attention.

michael sweet at 11:01 AM on 20 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Nigelj,

If you refuse to accept consensus science on LRNT it reflects on your judgement not mine.

It is clear that you do not know the basic vocabulary of power systems. To simplify, electrofuels are methane (natural gas), gasoline and diesel fuel. The fossil fuel industry has built out storage for terrawatts of storage of all these materials. I have referred you to Connelly et al Smart Energy Europe many times but you have chosen not to read it. It costs out a system for All Power (not just electricity as nuclear supporters talk about) using electromethane (natural gas) for storage. It is a little (10%) more costly than BAU for power but has many benefits. Unfortunately, it is now paywalled. Ask your local librarian to get you a copy. You could read some of the papers that cited Smart Energy Europe and get all the information. The first paper, Energy Storage and Smart Energy Systems discusses cost of storage and is free.

I think that the primary reason countries are still building out fossil fuels is two fold.

Fossil fuel companies have a great deal of political power and use it to keep themselves in business.
Major power facilities like nuclear and coal power plants take 10-25 years to plan and build. Renewable energy has only been economic for the past 2-4 years. It takes years for old plans to be cancelled and new plans made.

There has never been a nuclear power plant world wide built without large government subsidies. Wind and solar are installed all the time now without subsidies. Renewable energy is at least 4 times cheaper than nuclear. If we go with the market there is only one choice. Nuclear is uneconomic.

michael sweet at 10:27 AM on 20 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

DougC,

This is the third time you have challenged Linear Response no Threshold (LRNT) in discussions with me here at SkS. The answer is the same as the past two times.

LRNT is accepted, consensus science. The data in support of LRNT is overwhelming. The National Academy of Science Beir VII expert consensus report was written in 2006 and only considered data after 1990. Nuclear industry claims that 1940's and 50's considerations were adopted are deliberate falsehoods. You and others who claim your self-education on the internet makes you smarter than the professionals at the National Academy of Science are just denying the science. I doubt many readers here at SkS will believe a self educated person over consensus science from the NAS.

I have extensive industrial experience working for years with large amounts of radiation. You are a self educated person on the Internet with no experience or training in radiation. Suggesting that I am "afraid of" radiation is ignorant and insulting. I oppose nuclear power because it cannot possibly significantly affect the response to AGW. Any money spent on nuclear power is wasted. In addition, nuclear supporters like you and Nigelj make repeated, false claims about renewable energy. These false claims make people think that the only solution we have might not work. Deniers like the two of you need to be told you are making false claims.

As usual, your numbers on deaths from Chernobyl are about two orders of magnitude off. The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that approximately 27,000 people will be killed by Chernobyl. (95% 12,000-57,000 deaths). About half of these deaths are from UN reports and half are estimates from worldwide radiation exposure. This does not count the deaths caused by the evacuations (which the Russian government deliberately did not count). You parroting the nuclear industry excuses for killing so many people prove that you do not care about how many people nuclear kills. In general, I do not discuss radiation safety or how many people the nuclear industry kills because you do not care how many people you kill so it is a waste of time.

I do not know any opponents of nuclear who argue too many people are killed or that radiation safety is a big issue (Abbott only mentions the waste disposal issue). You brought up these issues.

I personally always argue that nuclear is uneconomic and that the materials to build a significant amount of nuclear do not exist.

Reading a little further in your chosen nuclear plant I see that they require 5 tons of bomb grade uranium for startup. Since we require solutions that are implemented worldwide how do you plan to secure the 5 tons of bomb grade uranium per reactor in Iran, North Korea, Zimbabwe and Syria? With plans like this what could possibly go wrong??? (/sarc)

It is impossible to have a conversation with nuclear supporters like because you argue that black is white and up is down. Suggesting we should put our hopes on a reactor that has not yet been designed, uses "unobtainium" for many critical parts and uses 5 tons of bomb grade uranium for startup is insane.

Are you a sock puppet for Doug Cotton who was banned many years ago from SkS?

Moderator Response:

[DB] While not an obvious sock puppet of Doug Cotton, the user was indeed using multiple accounts here and has since lost commenting privileges.

scaddenp at 08:47 AM on 20 January 2020

How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires

There is quite a bit of disinformation floating around about Green Party and it's supposed influence on fuel-management policy. Factchecking for claim that green party suddenly changed policy to support backburning here after the fires (they didnt - they have statement supporting fuel reduction). It is also hard to see how Greens could actually influence policy when not in power anywhere. This newspaper article quotes NSW Department of Planning, Industry and Environments which states that there has been no reduction in burn-offs (target had been exceeded), but I cant find hard-data on area of controlled burns.

Also worth noting the misreporting about arson debunked here.

nigelj at 08:10 AM on 20 January 2020

How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires

alisonjane @16, this website focuses on the climate impacts on the bushfires in Australia because its a climate science website. I mean, who would have thought? :) The website has never said other factors aren't involved.

It does seem intuitively obvious at first glance that dead branches etc on the ground wouldn't help the situation, and might make it easier for fires to start and get going. However I'm 99% sure I heard the Fire Service say this wasn't a big factor in these fires. And fire spreads largely between the tree canopies which are quite close together.

Do you think you might give us some specific examples of those regulations please? Or a link that goes to the relevant page?

nigelj at 07:37 AM on 20 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Michael Sweet @132, regarding my scepticism about the LNT model, Doug C @134 has pretty much summed it up with plenty of links to technical discussion.

If liquid fuels storage is low cost, economic and works, why isnt more of this being built? Why are so many countries continuing to build fossil fuels generation?

I think you need to provide some information on costs of a solar and wind powered grid with liquid fuels storage, (and nothing else for the sake of simplicity) so that we can see what is really going on. I should not have to read thousands of pages to find this. You are familar with the material and are arguing the case, so you should post it.

In my last paragraph @130 I described how I think an electricity market should treat nuclear power and renewables. Any disagreement?

Doug_C at 06:51 AM on 20 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

michael sweet @131

I fully disagree with your entire position on nuclear power and the LNT which was the result of Cold War politics not sound science.

It Is Time to Move Beyond the Linear No-Threshold Theory for Low-Dose Radiation Protection

Considering the fact that we are all exposed to ionizing radiation and all life has been from the start of life almost 4 billion years ago on an Earth that had far higher levels of ionizing radiation, how likely is that ionizing radiation is a risk down to a zero dose rate.

The LNT model of risk from ionizing radiation was a response to the threat of nuclear proliferation and the radiophobia that has resulted has been used by a sector that presents an actualy existential threat to life itself on Earth while at the same time causing the early deaths of millions of people a year from air pollution alone before we look at all the other negative impacts of fossil fuels including the wars that are often rooted in the conflicts over fossil fuels. Donald Trump just stated it is an American goal to seize Syrian oil deposits, a war crime.

When we look at the worst scenario nuclear reactor accident with a reactor type that will never be built again as was a function of the lack of competence and respect for safety by the regime that built it, the direct impacts to people is still a tiny fraction of what we accept from fossil fuels daily.

They don't even know how many people died from the Chernobyl accident becaused the increased rates of cancer even under the LNT are so small in relation to the other background causes. The highest estimates are about 500 people. That is about 1/23rd of the deaths that are caused by fossil fuels generated air pollution daily.

Anti-nuclear activists like Helen Caldicott have made totally unsupported claims that close to 1 million deaths resulted from the Chernobyl accident, contradicting even their own ealier claims.

Nuclear opponents have a moral duty to get their facts straight

Arnie Gundersen was making almost the same claims about the Fukushima accident.

Nuclear Engineer Arnie Gundersen: Fukushima Meltdown Could Result in 1 Million Cases of Cancer

What exactly are you afraid of with nuclear power, it's clear that more than a few anti-nuclear activists are not basing their hysterical claims on science or reality itself.

Based on the massively exagerated claims by people who treat all ionizing radiation as an almost inevitable death sentence you'd think that people exposed to the most extreme human generated forms would all die very early deaths.

Let's start with Chernobyl and the several hundred emergency response personnel who were working next to an exposed nuclear core on fire

Health effects in those with acute radiation sickness from the Chernobyl accident.

Of those hundreds of personnel, 134 were diagnosed with ARS, should be and immediate death sentence based on the conventional "wisdom" that holds what an extreme threa to life all ionizing radiation is.

Of those 134 people, 29 died in the following months, mostly from the same kind of skin infections third degree burn victims would. In this case it was the beta burns from the intense radiation.

By 2001 a further 14 had died, does that sound like the death sentence that mainstream radiophobia would have us all treat any IR exposure as.

In a much less savory case who' ethics I'm not going to debate as I think what was done was deplorable, people diagnosed with terminal illnesses in the US were administered without their knowledge plutonium, the "most dangerous" substance on Earth going by the kind of treatment that you claim is based on sound science.

Some of them were misdiagnised and lived for decades with plutonium in their bodies.

Human Plutonium Injection Experiments

I don't work in the nuclear sector, I don't even have a degree, a serious disability has severely limited my life. I don't have children, I do have many nieces and nephews and the world we are leaving for them causes me anguish.

If I can figure out how broken the LNT model is and how totally irrational our entire approach to nuclear power is by book from libraries and online resources, then what does that say about the entire field of science that is still struggling to do anything about this nightmare we are all caught up in.

Some scientists like Fred Seitz, Fred Singer, Richard Lindzen and Tim Ball have and still, used their credientials and standing to totally distort the existential threat we all face from fossil fuels climate change. And yet they are still treated as part of this profession.

I have been taking verbal abuse from the people who they feed their intellectual fraud to online for years in a attempt to advocate for some form of sanity including from Tim Ball at WUWT because I dared to point out that his claims that water vapour were the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere was falacious as could be seen by the very title of his article. It there as a vapour not a gas and therefore isn't stable without the presense of another persisent gas namely carbon dioxide. His response and the many people who chimed in were abusive to say the least. But isn't that the point, to eliminate any opposition to your position no matter the cost to others.

Unlikely as I thought it to be, I find myself facing the same kind of treatment here.

I don't care for your baseless ad hominem against me because I simply want life not death to dominate our future.

As the subtext of your comment is that I and my views are simply not welcome here I won't frequent this site again and will treat it in the end like I do WUWT. As a meaningless spinning of wheels to comfort people as nothing real is done to save ourselves from an existential threat of our own making.

I'll go with the insights of some of the most brilliant scientists to have lived like Eugene Wigner and Alvin Weinberg who both held that nuclear power would be our salvation.

I simply have no time for people who are fomenting the same kind of intellectual fraud that has given us anti-vaxxers.

The Harmful and Fraudulent Basis for the LNT Assumption

At some point we are going to realize that views like yours are what is helping to kill us all, I just hope it's before it's to late to build the tens of thousands of nuclear reactors that we actually need to replace all fossil fuels.

nigelj at 05:52 AM on 20 January 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020

GwsB, The increase in ocean temperature of 0.075 degrees Celcius over the 1981-2010 average might be for the oceans as a whole including the deep oceans. The nasa giss graph of ocean temperatures below is for the surface 100 metres or so (I think) and it looks like about 0.5 degrees c for the same period.

data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs_v4/

GwsB at 04:32 AM on 20 January 2020

Skeptical Science New Research for Week #2, 2020

''Seqenenre at 1. Thank you for pointing out that the ocean temperature has only increased by 0.075 degrees Celcius over the 1981-2010 average. An increase of 0.075 over 25 years is quite small. It will take 25/0.075=333 years for the oceans to heat up by one degree. Hence w may depend on the oceans to cool us down over the next three centuries and we need not worry about rising sea levels, 0.7 meters over the next three centuries.

Either that or the value of 0.075 degrees in the CNN article is a mistake.
Is there anybody out there who can translated 225 zetajoules into degrees Celcius, so we can clear up this issue?''

This was posted at 00.57 AM on 18 January, 2020. Since then it has been deleted. Does Skeptical Science use censors? If so, who are they, and where does one apply to find out the reason for deleting the original post?

John Hartz at 02:26 AM on 20 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

The "wicked problem" re nuclear power has been, and continues to be, the disposal of the waste already generated by nuclear power plants (existing and decommissioned) throughout the world. A recent analysis of this issue in Germany begins with:

When it comes to the big questions plaguing the world's scientists, they don't get much larger than this.
Where do you safely bury more than 28,000 cubic meters — roughly six Big Ben clock towers — of deadly radioactive waste for the next million years?
This is the "wicked problem" facing Germany as it closes all of its nuclear power plants in the coming years, according to Professor Miranda Schreurs, part of the team searching for a storage site.
Experts are now hunting for somewhere to bury almost 2,000 containers of high-level radioactive waste. The site must be beyond rock-solid, with no groundwater or earthquakes that could cause a leakage.
The technological challenges — of transporting the lethal waste, finding a material to encase it, and even communicating its existence to future humans — are huge.
But the most pressing challenge today might simply be finding a community willing to have a nuclear dumping ground in their backyard.

Germany is closing all its nuclear power plants. Now it must find a place to bury the deadly waste for 1 million years by Sheena McKenzie, CNN, Nov 30, 2019

nigelj at 15:19 PM on 19 January 2020

How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires

Something related to the bushfires: 'Silent death': Australia's bushfires push countless species to extinction

Also apparently 80% of the Blue Mountain forests have been lost.

michael sweet at 14:40 PM on 19 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Nigelj,

You need to read your own citations.

Claiming that the US National Academy of Science is wrong and saying you will not provide any citations to support your claim is completely unscientific. Their review, published in 2006, is the most up to date consensus report on low level radiation. If you wish to substitute your personal opinion for the National Academy of Science scientific consensus you should stop posting here. This is a scientific site, citations are required.

I read the original paper for your pv magazine citation. I gave you a reference to the paper. They model only wind and solar power for electricity only in the USA. They do not model a renewable energy system that anyone would propose for the USA. They do not model All Power. Nuclear power is not modeled at all in the paper. At the end they speculate that adding nuclear might help but they provide no data or citations to support that wild claim. They do not model costs of their renewable system and they do not give nuclear costs either so speculating that nuclear would lower costs is completely unsupported. I quoted from a peer reviewed paper, you cited a popular magazine.

It is common for nuclear supporters to make up a fake renewable energy system that is very expensive. Then they claim, without data, that nuclear should be added since renewable is so expensive. Even if it were true that renewable was expensive that would not mean that nuclear is reasonable. As Abbott shows, it is impossible to build out more than a trivial amount of nuclear power.

You did not read your reference for nuclear cycling. The first paragraph stated that no reactors in the USA load follow because it is not economic. They say no reactors in the USA can load follow. They suggested that future reactors could be designed to very slowly load follow. It will never be economic. It will never be possible to load follow in real time. In France they shut down reactors on the weekend. For nuclear that is "load following". It is not economic.

Your claims that storage is too expensive is simply ignorant. You have not read the papers I cited that show a well designed renewable system can store all needed power using electrofuels in existing storage facilities. If replacement facilities need to be built it is over 1,000 times cheaper to build liquid electrofuel storage than to build out the pumped hydro you favor. (In any case it is impossible to build out major pumped hydro storage because the environmental damage is too great). Liquid electrofuels are stored in the same tanks that you see if you drive by any chemical storage facility worldwide. "Working prototypes" are everywhere and the costs are well known. Jacobson also documents storage for an all power system without electrofuels and the cost is reasonable. Jacobson details all storage down to the last battery and builds exactly zero pumped storage. Anyone who proposes using extensive pumped storage is trying to mislead you.

michael sweet at 13:43 PM on 19 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

DougC,

We have already covered all this material here at SkS. It took me a little while to find the old posts since you were posting off topic as usual. You are reposting your old posts with no new material which is a violation of the comments policy. You are wasting everyones time with your old, failed arguments.

nigelj at 13:41 PM on 19 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

michael sweet @128, sorry for being a bit off topic.

"The proponents of nuclear power ar RealClimate that you discuss reactor safety with do not count all nuclear related deaths. ...."

Ok. I don't take all that these guys say at face value. Believe me I check what they claim. But you seem a little bit over paranoid for some reason. However I respect your views and maybe you have your reasons.

"Linear response no threshold is accepted by every health agency in the world. "

Sometimes the consensus view is just wrong and the research on this issue is rather old and inadequate. I've had a read of studies, research papers, articles and opinions on both sides of the debate on low levels of radiation, including some of the research that was posted by Doug C on the Forest Fires thread. I'm not going to spend my day listing all this stuff in detail here. I'm just saying there appear to be valid criticisms of the LNT model and your mind appears very closed on it for some reason. I used to be very sceptical of nuclear power, just less so these days.

"Your claim: "If you inject some nuclear power into the mix you get clean energy and need much less storage" is in direct contradiction to peer reviewed papers."

What peer reviewed papers? I posted an article on it previously as below. Its clear an 80% solar and wind grid needs much less storage than a 100% grid. Orders of magnitude less. Nuclear power is one way of filling in the 20%. I have never said its the only way. Hydro would work in some places.

pv-magazine-usa.com/2018/03/01/12-hours-energy-storage-80-percent-wind-solar/

"As for ‘following all paths’ and pursuing a mix of renewables and nuclear, they do not mix well: because of their high capital costs, nuclear power plants are most economically viable when operated at full power the whole time, whereas the variability of renewables requires a flexible balancing power fleet....Please provide a citation to support this wild claim. In a renewable world peak power is required to support renewable wind and solar. Baseload like nuclear is not helpful and has little affect on storage. "

I already provided you a credible study with a link showing nuclear power can be ramped up and down to help renewables intermittency, on the forest fires thread. The article says it already does this in some places.

"Since nuclear is the most expensive power it would be much cheaper to build an excess of renewable energy or design better storage.

This is just an assertion and also assumes we can design better storage. Right now storage is very expensive. Makes nuclear power look attractive.

"The "Smart Energy" papers I have referenced repeatedly at SkS describe using electrofuels to power planes and ships. The electrofuels could be used in existing peaker plants to back up renewable energy if needed. No additional storage would be required. "

This is promising but its theoretical at this stage. Are there working prototypes and are the costs good?

Of course I'm not in a position to make decisions on who builds what power. I feel electricity markets should not discriminate between nuclear power and renewables. They should have equal subsidies (if any) and renewables should be required to have some storage. Then you get a level playing field between renewables and nuclear power, and the issue should sort itself out over time. The best overall system will get chosen and it could be renewables plus storage if storage prices drop.

I just want a clean grid, Im not too concerned what the power source is as such. :)

michael sweet at 12:16 PM on 19 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

DougC and Nigelj:

Here is another link to the NAS review that describes the consensus of science backing Linear Response No Threshold. Please read the background posted above before you make wild claims that have already been discussed at length. Please cite peer reviewed reviews that compare to the NAS review. An individual paper does not mean much compared to a comprehensive NAS review.

michael sweet at 12:11 PM on 19 January 2020

How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires

Nigelj:

I have responded to you here where it is on topic.

michael sweet at 12:10 PM on 19 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

Nigelj,

The proponents of nuclear power ar RealClimate that you discuss reactor safety with do not count all nuclear related deaths. For example, they say regulators were responsible for the deaths caused by required evacuations at Fukushima. When you do not count the people you kill it is easy to make it appear that your technology is safe.

Linear response no threshold is accepted by every health agency in the world. The US Nuclear Regulatory agency and FDA also accept LRNT. The nuclear industry propaganda that you spout here is not supported by science. As I posted upthread, the US National Academy of Science in its most recent report strongly supported LRNT. If you wish to contradict accepted, consensus science you must provide citations to support your wild claims.

Your claim: "If you inject some nuclear power into the mix you get clean energy and need much less storage" is in direct contradiction to peer reviewed papers.

Please provide a citation to support this wild claim. In a renewable world peak power is required to support renewable wind and solar. Baseload like nuclear is not helpful and has little affect on storage.

Since nuclear is the most expensive power it would be much cheaper to build an excess of renewable energy or design better storage. The "Smart Energy" papers I have referenced repeatedly at SkS describe using electrofuels to power planes and ships. The electrofuels could be used in existing peaker plants to back up renewable energy if needed. No additional storage would be required.

Doug_C at 11:53 AM on 19 January 2020

How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires

Sorry, I didn't see post #11 before making my last comment, I'll post in the relevant section in the future,

Doug_C at 11:51 AM on 19 January 2020

How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires

I have a lot of doubt about the Linear no-Threshold model of ionizing radiation risk, first off the biological response to ionizing radiation is not linear, it shows a definite threshold where the response is dose dependent.

Evidence for formation of DNA repair centers and dose-response nonlinearity in human cells

DNA is not a static target for all damage that accumulates and produces a linear risk of cancer depending on the amount of damage done to DNA strands. A single DNA molecule will experience between 1,000 and 1,000,000 strand breaks a day, most of them single strand breaks that are immediately repaired. Most of the double strand breaks will also be repaired with no errors that could potentially lead to cancer. Even misjoined DNA will not necessarily progress to cancer, that process is complex and still not fully understood.

The main causes of DNA damage are oxidation, that is normal cellular respiration without which we cannot live. Chemical exposure from the substances we introduce into our bodies mostly from food and drink. And brute physical damage from physical injury, if you hit your thumb with a hammer for instance, you are doing massive damage at the level of DNA.

We don't tell people to stop breathing, eating or drinking, we also don't tell people to not do anything that may cause physical trauma to tissue. We do however demand that there is no addition exposure to ionizing radiation when some research indicates that within a certain threshold it may reduce mortality not increase it.

Nuclear shipyard worker study (1980–1988): a large cohort exposed to low-dose-rate gamma radiation

When the US Navy received ancedotal reports in the 1970s that exposure to gamma radiation from activated steel by some of its workers was causing a higher incidence of leukemia it began a large scale study of tens of thousands of worker in three cohorts. The non-nuclear workers, the low dose workers and the high dose workers.

Those workers exposed to the highest rates of gamma radiation, but still within a safe threshold had the lowest mortality of all three cohorts.

And yet the demand from regulators is that nuclear power must not release almost any additional radiation into the environment while at the same time we are making the Earth uninhabital from fossil fuels.

Coal power puts out about 100 times the radiation as nuclear power, yet it is somehow exempt from these restrictions on ionizing radiation that are strictly enforced on nuclear power and used as a rationale to not build any new nuclear power plants. This situation create costs that makes nuclear power unable to compete with "cheap" fossil fuels that have externalized costs that are astronomical.

Coal Ash Is More Radioactive Than Nuclear Waste

The death toll globally mostly from the air pollution that comes from coal burning for power is in the millions of people.

Air pollution

As far as I'm concerned it's radiophobia that is behind this existential threat we face from fossil fuels as much as anything else.

michael sweet at 11:46 AM on 19 January 2020

How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires

DougC,

I have responded to your post here where it is on topic. Please try to post on related threads in the future.

michael sweet at 11:44 AM on 19 January 2020

Is Nuclear Energy the Answer?

DougC,

This is the correct place to put nuclear comments. You are currently off topic.

While you paint an amusing picture, the fact of the matter is that the reactors you reference have not been invented yet. Among many other problems, your reference points out that the materials needed for the containment structure and valves are unknown (he suggests using "unobtainium"). Sourcing the required tons of Li7 (a material proposed to be discarded as radioactive waste) would be impossible since Lithium will all be used in batteries by that time.

The most optimistic time lines for thorium breeder reactors like you support are that pilot plants might be built by 2050. The climate problem needs to be solved way before then. In the remote possibility that the pilot plants work it would be decades later before significant numbers of plants could be built.

Try again with a plan the does not first require the invention of the power source.

nigelj at 09:51 AM on 19 January 2020

How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires

ianw01 @7

"Is the "Climate Change Performance Index" implicitly and silently opposed to nuclear energy?'

Don't know for sure, but something might be going on. Nuclear power is a dirty word in many western countries. Its not liked by the general public because of safety problems and disasters like Chernobyl and Fukushima for understanable reasons. Policy makers pick up on this.

However the scare stories about nuclear radiation look exaggerated. I've read credible reports that nuclear power (including the nuclear accidents) kills and injures far fewer people per megawatt / hour than fossil fuels power, and moderately fewer than renewables. A surprising number of people fall off ladders erecting solar panels etcetera! Heres a relevant article:

www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928053-600-fossil-fuels-are-far-deadlier-than-nuclear-power/

Like others point out, there are questions about the validity of the linear no threshold model. Its complicated but the impression I get from looking at intelligent commentary and research on both sides of the issue is low dose radiation is likely zero or very low risk, not worth bothering about.

However nuclear power has some big problems. Waste disposal is still not sorted out on a durable long term basis and of course this feeds public scepticism. Its higher cost than wind power and coal power (refer Lazards analysis, free online). Its slow to build for various reasons and this is a big issue given the speed climate change is progressing.

However imho nuclear power has considerable merit, at least as "part of the mix".

Solar and wind power have intermittency issues, and as a stand alone solution require a lot of storage that is currently high cost. They currently typically rely instead on gas back up power which is not ideal. If you inject some nuclear power into the mix you get clean energy and need much less storage.

I think we need all the tools we can get and the grid can have a range of power sources. This article shows that nuclear power can also be used to counter renewable intermittency issues.

news.mit.edu/2018/flexible-nuclear-operation-can-help-add-more-wind-and-solar-to-the-grid-0425

Of course storage costs will drop and renewables may well win the day. But my point is there doesn't seem to be a robust case to deliberately exclude nuclear power.

Doug_C at 08:31 AM on 19 January 2020

How climate change influenced Australia's unprecedented fires

For anyone interested in what a viable nuclear reactor type on the scale necessary to fully replace fossil fuels would probably look like.

Why the molten salt fast reactor (MSFR) is the “best” Gen IV reactor

Also an interesting piece from Forbes on perhaps why nuclear power has found it so hard to compete with fossil fuels especially in America.

Why Renewables Advocates Protect Fossil Fuel Interests, Not The Climate

There's little doubt in my mind that large scale nuclear power is probably the last hope we have to mitigate this growing catastrophe cuased by virtually unregulated fossil fuels use that already kills millions of people each year from air pollution alone.

Advocates for nuclear power like Alvin Weinberg were deeply concerned about climate change long before it became a mainstream issue and Weinberg specifically designed a safe nuclear power reactor in the 1960s as his solution to this existential threat.

The Passion of Alvin Weinberg

Weinberg's mentor was Eugene Wigner, the physicist who did the groundbreaking research that gave us semi-conducting transistors that underlie most of modern technology, we wouldn't have PCs or the internet in the present form without his insights.

He was also the one who came up with the idea of molten salt nuclear reactors way back in the 1940s. A nuclear physics student of his I communicated with said that in 1960 Wigner was telling his students that thorium - burned in his molten salt reactors - would be the salvation of mankind.

From what I can see we definitely need that form of salvation and now.

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