Buying Time: Rapid Impact Rules by Industry Changers

Absolutely, I want to know your deepest critical thoughts on this proposal after you have read all comments which I consider seriously valuable amendments post Obama announcement on coal. I very much appreciate your well crafted critiques. Thank you... please read below if you have not already. N.B. from PJ (author) - Ultimately there is not sufficiently complete data available to determine full life cycle ghg emissions generated from nuclear energy power plants and all associated activities. A complex calculator needs to be created and all nuc plants and historic nuc plant activities/events need to be factored in. Search for such a tool has resulted in no finding. .. .. Captd's original comment in this space: Solar (of all flavors) can save mankind from itself The MAJOR Leaders of the World must accept the fact that unless we all work together we will continue to spiral toward chaos preceded by ever expanding conflicts, because of Earth's dwindling resources and our ever increasing population.

Agreed! Green/renewable energy sectors have made great progress post 311 and it is time to give them room to grow rapidly.

Great observation. My choice of words perhaps derived from years of watching the system get so out of hand and desiring realistic solutions be implemented asap. Thank You. As time approaches for finalizing this, I will keep your ideas in mind. I do appreciate positive approaches.

Since this proposal was written and after edit options were shut off, President Obama has announced what amounts to a call for divestment from coal. So, with that in mind, I would amend this proposal to concentrate on nuclear energy plant decommissioning, halting the process of licensing new nuclear reactors (until and unless waste and facility/infrastructure issues are dealt with sufficiently to prevent, 100%, health risks associated with current day nuclear power plants), and clean up and oversight issues.

To strengthen the argument for decommissioning nuclear power for carbon reduction purposes, I will need to calculate all activities related to the full cycle of nuclear power production, direct and indirect. I have, and am, searching for research which accounts for all activities and which is not biased for or against nuclear. I'm thinking that quest is an impossible one. Every pro nuclear citation says nuclear energy does not produce significant carbon output - but - that is false because they do not account for all related activities. Every no-nuclear citation is incomplete and sometimes loaded with jargon. To correctly calculate carbon output of nuclear power plants, as stated in the proposal, a large DB project is required to find the truth. Perhaps, that will be the final outcome of this proposal.

one of two articles at this site: (snip) Putney Energy Committee http://www.pec.putney.net/issue_detail.php?ID=15 Challenge anyone who thinks that Nuclear Power is green! Nuclear Power is not green, despite what the nuclear industry wants you to think. It is the opposite of carbon neutral! Every stage of nuclear power production relies on fossil fuel. Energy is used in every step and beyond; from mining, transport of raw material, enrichment, processing, manufacture of fuel rods, more transport, and finally with the use of nuclear fuel to produce energy - all based on fossil fuel. We are not even talking about other costs, such as security, and spent fuel pools, storage, waste transport and entombment. Nuclear power has more than just a little greenhouse gas attached to it, when mining uranium ore, refining and enriching fuel, building the plant, and operating it are included. A big 1,250 megawatt plant produces the equivalent of 250,000 tons of carbon dioxide a year during its life. Nuclear plants cause warming of the rivers they are situated next to because there is an incredible amount of heat that must be discharged into the air and water. This causes fish die offs and species decline. Nuke Plants also use incredible amounts of water from rivers (just to keep from overheating), Billions of fish and fish eggs perish every year by getting sucked up into the cooling system, or by being exposed to higher than normal temperatures. Again Nuclear power is not green and not renewable, it is powered with a limited amount of uranium, a mined material that is not overly abundant on the planet, which needs to be imported to the US. Nuclear Power is Not Green or Clean or Carbon Neutral The nuclear industry is now trying to change negative public perceptionsof nuclear power by promoting itself as the solution to global climate change. A recent column by Theodore J. Iltis proclaimed "Keep America green:Go nuclear" (WSJ 3/20/05). Iltis says that environmentalists who are concerned about the increase in greenhouse-gas emissions from the burning of fossil fuels should embrace nuclear power because it does not produce carbon dioxide and thus does not contribute to global climate change. This commonly held view, endlessly repeated by proponents of nuclear power ignores the fact that without uranium there is no nuclear power. The mining, milling and enrichment of uranium into nuclear fuel are extremely energy-intensive and result in the emission of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels. The most intense mining and milling activity in the United States has been concentrated on the lands of Navajo and Pueblo Indians in the Grants Uranium Belt of northwest New Mexico. Before uranium can be used in nuclear power plants it must under go a process of enrichment. Uranium enrichment plants are the largest industrial plants in the world and consume enormous amounts of electricity. Far from being "clean", each 1000 megawatt-electric nuclear plant requires the equivalent of a 45 megawatt-electric coal plant--which annually burns 135,000 tons of coal--to supply its enrichment needs alone. The enrichment plant at Paducah, Kentucky, requires the electrical output of two 1000-megawatt coal-fired plants, which emit large quantities of carbon dioxide, the gas responsible for fifty percent of global warming. During its operation the enrichment plant at Piketon, Ohio consumed 10 percent of Ohio's electricity,more than the entire city of Cleveland. Proponents of nuclear power likewise ignore the substantial emissions of radioactive radon gas and other radioactive elements from the mining and milling of uranium ore in underground and open pit mines. The Navajo and Pueblo Indians, along with several thousand white miners were never told of the dangers from exposure to radon gas when they first entered those underground mines in Arizona and New Mexico in the 1950s. At least450 former uranium miners have already died of lung cancer, five times the national average. For those communities living next to uranium mines there is the additional problem of exposures from radioactive tailings, the waste that remains after the uranium has been extracted from the ore and processed into yellow cake. The thorium in the tailings piles has a radioactive half-life of 80,000 years. In other words, while nuclear power plants will produce power for only about 40 years, the effects of mill tailings will remain for thousands of future generations. There are over 200 million tons of these tailings in large piles around uranium mines and mills and they are emitting radioactive elements into the air and water. Communities near these tailings piles report a high rate of miscarriages, cleft palates and other birth defects, bone, reproductive, and gastric cancers as related health effects of uranium mining and exposure to contaminated air and water. And what about nuclear waste disposal? A typical nuclear reactor will generate 20 to 30 tons of high-level nuclear waste annually. There is no known way to safely dispose of this waste, which remains dangerously radioactive for a quarter of a million years. Iltis says the Yucca Mountain site in Nevada is an excellent choice for storage. The Western Shoshone Indians strongly disagree. They claim the land on which the federal government tested its atomic weapons and now plans to store 77,000 tons of military and power plant waste still belongs to them under the Ruby Valley Treaty of 1863 . The federal government has tried to force the Western Shoshone to accept payment for the land and thus forfeit their claim to it. The tribe sued the federal government in March 2005, alleging the Yucca Mountain project would violate the treaty. To date, no Western Shoshone members have accepted payment for their land. The failure of nuclear proponents to address the disproportionate impact of nuclear activities on Native American populations has its origins in an environmental racism which justifies exposing certain groups to hazardous environmental conditions in the name of national security, economic progress or to avoid the perils of global climate change. Nuclear power is not green.It is not clean. And it is a continuation of the environmentally racistpolicies of the nuclear industry. Al Gedicks is a professor of sociology at the University of Wisconsin-LaCrosse and the author of Resource Rebels: Native Challenges to Mining and Oil Corporations.(snip)

Add to references: Huffington Post San Onofre Shutdown Causes Concern About Greenhouse Gas Emissions 07/11/2013 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/11/san-onofre-nuclear-power-plant-shutdown_n_3579265.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003 (snip) SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — The first legislative hearing on the permanent closure of the San Onofre nuclear power plant focused on the shutdown's impact on California's greenhouse gas emissions, leaving discussion on how the plant will be safely decommissioned for future meetings. Energy officials told lawmakers Wednesday that studies are underway to determine how much generation capacity is needed in Southern California to replace the plant's output, and which sources would be the best options. An official with Southern California Edison, which owns San Onofre, said the utility's greenhouse emissions rose last year after the plant shut down due to safety and equipment issues. Southern California Edison is a unit of Edison International. In 2012, 30 percent of the utility's electricity came from carbon-free resources, said David Mead, senior vice president for transmission and distribution planning. That's down from 2011, when San Onofre was still running and 50 percent of the utility's electricity came from carbon-free nuclear, hydroelectric and renewable sources, Mead said. The utility has increased its use of natural gas and other fuels to replace the plant's power generation, Mead said. Lawmakers expressed concerns about the long-term effects of replacing nuclear power with sources like coal or natural gas. Utility officials said they were working to meet renewable energy benchmarks and increase efficiency at other plant, but they acknowledged that the plant's absence will be felt as California attempts to meet its emission goals. (snip)

add to "related/similar proposals" section Law for utility companies to include environment cost in energy price https://www.climatecolab.org/web/guest/plans/-/plans/contestId/10/planId/1301860

July 13 2013 People power: Сhina shelves plans for $6bn nuclear plant after wave of protest http://www.rt.com/news/china-protest-nuclear-plant-058/

Incorporate a security component add to references (snip) France 24 international News Greenpeace activists storm French nuclear plant www.france24.com/en/20130715-greenpeace-activists-storm-french-nuclear-plant Dozens of Greenpeace activists entered an EDF nuclear power plant in Tricastin, southern France early on Monday morning, demanding the government shut it down, the environmental campaign group said. The environmentalists unfurled banners reading “Tricastin is a nuclear accident” and “François Hollande – disaster president”.(snip)

We found that this proposal lacks details on how the electric grid can continue to provide reliable power if coal and nuclear plants are continuosly taken offline. We encourage you to keep working to develop this proposal, and to enter it again next year. Thanks for engaging with the Climate CoLab!