Rev 05 Jan 2012
Without now reducing natural and human greenhouse emissions Earth’s average temperature shall soon exceed a level that is capable of sustaining human races. Without political changes, the one hundred and sixty thousand year journey of modern man ends 2050-2099 Cristian Era (CE). Global warming is the world’s greatest growing security threat.
U.S., and several other important nations’ covert global warming energy policies and plans are to continue expansion of economic dependence upon hydrocarbon economies of coal, oil, and natural gas. There will be global economies collapse in anticipation of the social and economic impact of higher global warming temperatures. Continued expansion of the use of hydrocarbon energy leads to continued global temperature increase that exceeds a +5 oC rise above 1750 CE preindustrial temperatures.
To avoid ending the human races, the political economic priority at this time is to avoid hydrocarbon energy “infrastructure lock-in” and to reduce natural and human carbon emissions. Without energy changes soon, the point of no return is exceeded and the human races are destroyed 2050-2099 CE.
To aid in describing causes of the global warming crises, some additional technical and political rational for the end of life scenario is presented at BLOGGER website ‘Global Warming 2050-2099 “GLOBAL WARMING TO THE END.”’
"SAFE" GLOBAL WARMING?
Population size and gross domestic product (GDP) size drives human (anthropogenic) energy consumption and carbon dioxide levels. From human hydrocarbon energy use originates increased natural carbon dioxide and increased natural methane atmospheric levels. The 1750 CE Industrial Age start of global warming gases (GHGs) methane and carbon dioxide have accumulated within the atmosphere in massive amounts. By 1866, the combination of natural and human GHG accumulations influences global temperature increase produces a clear “thumbprint” of human impacts on climate change. Concentrations of atmospheric GHGs and their radiative forcing and other factors have continued to increase as a result of human activity. Scientists suggest that left unchecked, too soon Modern Global Warming accumulated warming forces will exceed natural carbon dioxide and methane heating effects produced by the 252.28 Ma Siberian Traps volcanic eruptions (Ma - megaannum is a unit of time equal to one million years).
There is NO SAFE greenhouse gases concentration stabilization level above 350 ppm carbon dioxide, much less above 450 ppm. Over the coming decades, the least-cost global warming option is to now lower Earth global warming by steadily transforming global human energy systems to lowered human GHG emissions, then lower to zero human GHG emissions. Difficult to reduce are Arctic Region natural methane/carbon levels that are ocean-current temperature dependent and land surface air temperature dependent. Arctic Region natural methane/carbon forms a reinforced positive feedback loop that is directly temperature related. Arctic Region GHGs are now increasingly critical in establishing global warming temperature increase.
It does appear that by quickly reducing human carbon emissions aided by nuclear power, humans might forestall a global warming temperate increase extreme.
2017 POINT OF NO RETURN
Paris based International Energy Agency’s (IEA) new “World Energy Outlook 2011” (WEO 2011) report states key issues to curbing global warming “infrastructure lock-in” of the “carbon budget.” Carbon budget refers to the contribution of various sources of carbon dioxide on the planet. Carbon budget has nothing to do with political agendas, climate change legislation, carbon controls, carbon storage, the economy, or geopolitical carbon footprint. Carbon budget is a physical event. Infrastructure coal plants and oil extraction methods in countries of China, India, Europe, Canada, the U.S., and other nations are rapidly being constructed right now. This infrastructure is going to last another 50 years plus, at least. Those nations and others are “locking-in the global carbon budget.”
There is a large time lag to rebuild a clean energy infrastructure that results in a Earth temperature responses to emitted GHGs. Once we edge near carbon dioxide level of 450 ppm it becomes imposable to turn off the global warming effects of the 1750 CE to date hydrocarbon energy used (coal, oil, natural gas) and natural methane/carbon dioxide release. The IEA found we are about five years away from building enough carbon-spewing infrastructures to lock-in a hydrocarbon infrastructure and make it extremely difficult — if not impossible — to avoid greatly exceeding 450-ppm carbon dioxide. The point of global warming no-return comes around 2017 CE.
END-PERMIAN MASS EXTINCTION
Tools for assessing the expected climate effects of actual levels of human-made and natural changes of atmospheric composition include (1) Earth's paleoclimate history, showing how climate responded in the past to changes of boundary conditions including atmospheric composition, (2) modern climate change, especially global satellite observations, coincident with rapidly changing human-made and natural climate forcings, and (3) climate models and theory, which aid interpretation of observations on all time-scales and are useful for projecting future climate/temperature under realistic most probable to 2099 CE human and natural temperature forcing scenarios.
Stresses of increased populations, increased hydrocarbon energy use, increased gross domestic product (GDP), and resulting increased global temperatures is evident. Human factors have not changed to accommodate necessary greenhouse gas reduction and resulting global warming temperature increase. Most probable projections over time include uncontrolled population growth, limited technology changes, limited changes to energy use, critical political decisions not made, limited funding for effective clean nuclear energy, and several proposed impossible legislated changes to fundamental laws of physics by untoward politicians and surrogates. Note that the worst case temperature forcing scenario is the most likely global warming scenario.
Atmospheric gas composition, physical properties, and quantities determine rate of Earth’s global warming properties. Within the End-Permian Mass Extinction Period, natural volcanic gases and natural ocean methane clathrates and carbon dioxide release dominate temperature change rates. However, within Modern Global Warming, human hydrocarbon economy energy use (coal, oil, natural gas) and responding natural ocean methane clathrates and carbon dioxide release dominate temperature change rates.
A major difference between Modern Global Warming temperature increase event and End-Permian Mass Extinction 252.28 Ma is that Modern Global Warming temperature increase during the beginning stages is about 10 times faster than the End-Permian Period and there are more than 9 billion people involved.
LACK OF GLOBAL WARMING PLANNING
Necessary planned successful responses to global warming temperature increase are essential, many, and varied and involve lives of more than 9 billion people. No national leader has established a viable national or multinational response plan to counter global warming temperature increase. No nation maintains a viable organization to respond to countering global warming temperature increase.
It is necessary to stop human greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Over time, by stopping human GHGs there occurs temperature stabilization (i.e., atmospheric GHGs concentrations match systems of natural methane/carbon dioxide feedback). There are only three anthropological avenues available that might alter the course global warming, environmental, and human events: ● Stop (extremely limit) using hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) ● Modify land, groundwater, and sea use practices ● Limit the size of the human population rate of growth. Additionally, implementation of some form of geoengineering is to be considered. Implementing stop (extremely limit) using hydrocarbon energy is the most feasible and timely action.
Europe-U.S. politicians are locked into funding “alternative fuels renewable energy” and eliminating nuclear energy. China-India governments are building hydrocarbon “infrastructure lock-in” with their greatly expand hydrocarbon based economies. To save the human races involves within decades the reduction of human carbon dioxide emissions to zero, which is a several trillion USD political change. Changing political dynamics poses the major obstacle to changing national hydrocarbon economies to that of hydrocarbon free economies.
Human and natural global warming greenhouse gas concentrations now exceed critical temperature stabilization “trip points.” Predictions of the loss of animal and plant diversity around the world are common under models of future climate change. However, a new study shows that because these climate models do not account for species competition and movement, they could grossly underestimate future extinctions.
Some resulting impacts are abrupt and irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the global warming temperature increase, climate change, human population impacts, energy use, and the most important natural methane clathrates venting.
U.S. GLOBAL WARMING POLITICS
In the selling out of human races, U.S. politicians (and other politicians) use anti-nuclear and “environmental” feelings to promote political and special interests rewards of many $10s of USD billions. Since the 1990s U.S. global warming planning has been rather straight forward. Anti-nuclear, “environmentalists,” and U.S. politicians appeared to be supporting stopping all nuclear energy development and favored development of socially acceptable energy forms corn-ethanol, solar, wind power, energy “efficiency,” and carbon cap and trade. The forms of “alternative renewable energy” are very limited in capability to produce significant quantities of clean energy and have not produced any reduction in GHGs or reduced global warming temperature increase. Note that the real UN and nations political agenda is to expand hydrocarbon energy use through “climate change” programs in order to feed government money to political supporters through promoting money transfers with carbon cap and trade. Resulting from self-interests controlling U.S. energy policies, the economic and social consequences are very grave.
U.S. news media, foreign governments, and college/university departments, and U.S. government agencies are controlled and corrupted by the Obama administration. Since late 1990s, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been undermined by the World Leaders resistant to transitioning from hydrocarbon energy to clean nuclear energy. The likable and good speaker President Obama’s unwillingness to be responsible for failed and misleading U.S. global warming energy policies has significantly contributed to the ultimate end of human races. With President Obama’s shifting the U.S. energy policies to a pro transfer of wealth proposal and promotion of multinational “alternative renewable energy,” the UNFCCC fifteenth meeting (COP-15) held in Copenhagen November 2010 was used as a turning point to favor pro hydrocarbon-economy industry supporters.
Regarding the failure of 2009 Copenhagen COP15 conference environmentalist wrote: "...In a single day, in a single space, a spectacle was played out in front of a disbelieving audience of people who have read and understood the stark warnings of humanity's greatest scientific minds. And what they witnessed was nothing less than the very worst instincts of our species articulated by the most powerful men who ever lived." We are now at the end of the last chance to appropriately respond to global temperature increase. Mass suicide 2050-2099 CE now faces Earth’s human races.
Science has provided the necessary information and advance warnings concerning global temperature increase. It is the political undermining of science that was the bases of too many political special interests derailing appropriate global warming responses. In order to remain on hydrocarbon economies, World Leaders from 1990s on have delayed recognition of global warming temperature increase.
SOME UNTOWARD POLITICAL RESPONSES TO GLOBAL WARMING
Understanding special interest maneuvering within the seventeen sessions of the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) talks, there must first be acceptance that the talks (and all further UN talks) will fail to reduce global warming temperature increase. We are in fact looking at the continued collapse of human races resulting from increased populations, excessive use of hydrocarbon fuel (coal, oil, and natural gas), accelerating increases of atmospheric natural methane, with exceptional high corruption within governments that promote subsidized “renewable energy,” “carbon-cap-and trade,” and wealth transfer diversion schemes to “poor” national leaders.
Germany and the U.S. politicians have paid anti-nuclear leaders to make “renewable energy” corruption profitable. The EU Commission chose to take an "agnostic" stance regarding faith-based anti-nuclear radical elements. The EU left it up to member states to decide the future of nuclear energy. Obviously the EU Leadership is leading from behind on a topic involving the lives of 9 billion people and trillions of USD.
Media global warming reporting and discussions might distract from politically crafted topics of the November 2012 elections. Therefore, Republicans and Democrats arrange for the media to forget about the global warming problems for which the Washington DC politicians are responsible. U.S. Republicans and Democrats ignore global warming because warming is a poorly recognized by the public.
UN Kyoto Protocol - Kyoto Protocol created carbon trading mechanisms such as the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme that saw a big business of political corruption applied to global warming. Politically connected hydrocarbon players saw their expanded role with every European carbon unit of European Union Emissions Trading Scheme “validated” by UNFCCC. In 2006, California's AB 32 (Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) created a similar to EU’s carbon cap and trade paper trading schema. Although greenhouse gas reductions are “mandated” by the California Legislature, effective greenhouse gas reductions are impossible to achieve lacking GHG reduction infrastructure and lacking global warming temperature reduction support.
President Obama’s global warming response is to turn California AB 32 mandates into a U.S. national program for political control of the U.S. energy sector by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Only two years ago the EU and UNFCCC carbon cap and trade scheme of global warming corruption was predicted to be the biggest legitimate commodity and industrial market in the world.
Since there is no political accountability for global warming funds spent, to date, the U.S. and EU’s energy and climate change 'package' remains a costly unjustified failure that promotes hydrocarbon carbon “infrastructure lock-in” and global warming temperature increase. Politics of the UN’s “climate change” talks is designed to continue increasing production of multinational hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) while passing on increased energy corruption costs with increasing survival risk to all human races. Under existing EU-US global warming policies/planing, there is an assured global mass human suicide caused by global warming temperature increase.
UN IPCC Reporting - If humans want to regulate Earth’s temperature, it is first necessary for humans to control ocean temperatures in order to regulate ocean methane clathrates release of methane. In the 1990s, there was UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “business as usual” scenario reporting. UN “businesses as usual” lost out to politicians promoting “alternative renewable energy” and the politics of not reporting powerful greenhouse gas methane.
To minimize the political importance of “climate change” and maximize funding of renewable alternative energy while promoting transfer of wealth to special interests though carbon trades, the funding of Copenhagen 2009 COP15 wealth transfers became “lets build lots of alternative renewable energy” that does not work.
IPCC First Assessment Report (FAR 1990) and Second Assessment Report (SAR 1995) reported methane activity. Later, as a cover and diversion to not properly representing the roll of global warming greenhouse gases, leading World Leaders published a new set of political scenarios in 2000 CE reports. IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (TAR 2001) and IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4 2007) hardly mention the powerful global warming methane gas. Within the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (AR3, 2001) and within the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4, 2007). ‘Special Report on Emissions Scenarios’ (SRES) scenarios became a diversion to reporting necessary global warming mitigation foundations. Since 2001 CE, the intended purpose of IPCC’s AR3, AR4, and proposed AR5 is to covertly continue World Leaders’ hydrocarbon economies of coal, oil, and natural gas by promoting "alternative renewable energy" and the dismantling clean nuclear energy. Implementing clean nuclear energy poses funding competition to not workable renewable alternative energy. Net political result is assured mass destruction of human races.
The 20-years and the failed seventeen talks held since the UNFCCC ‘Earth Summit of 1992’ are the most important negotiations ever undertaken in the history of humankind. Thanks to the abysmal and unforgivable failure of World’s Leadership, 17 rounds of UNFCCC "climate change" negotiations have failed to give full effect and deliver a fair, ambitious, and binding GLOBAL WARMING deal that stabilizes climate change.
If There Is No “Change” - Climate science is unequivocal that the opportunity to limit warming to safe levels will close in this very 2010-2020 CE decade.
We will get a very different climate change with an increase of 2 oC, which is what international organizations are setting as a goal. A +2 oC increase is too large and is actually a prescription for global disaster. Recognizing that politicians will exceed the +2 oC limit, scientist have identified requirements to make the exceeding the +2 oC limit a temporary event.
In fact, carbon-intensive infrastructure, including power stations, buildings, and factories, planned over the next five years will lock the world into a high-hydrocarbon emissions trajectory. If emissions do not plateau by 2020 and rapidly decline thereafter, temporally exceeding the 2 oC target will slip out of reach.
NUCLEAR ENERGY
Typically, more than 36 million kilowatt-hours of electricity are produced from one tonne of natural uranium. The production of this amount of electrical power from fossil fuels would require the burning of over 20,000 tonnes of black coal or 8.5 million cubic metres of natural methane gas. Clean energy alternatives to nuclear energy — such as renewable alternative energy sources, increased efficiency, and carbon sequestration — all have laws of physics limitations and cannot be counted upon to save human races. Therefore, nuclear energy is the only proven timely energy form that has the clean energy capacity to help correct destructive global warming temperature increase. There are 200 nuclear U.S. plants now supplying 20% of our power. Coal provides about half our power. So you need about 400 new nuclear plants to displace all U.S. coal power plants.
Stopping human greenhouse gas emissions over time produces Earth temperature-stabilization. Stabilization occurs when atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations match systems of natural methane/carbon dioxide feedback. There are only three anthropological (human) avenues available that might alter the course global warming, environmental, and human events: ● Stop using hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) ● Modify land, groundwater, and sea use practices to conserve resource usage ● Limit the size of the human population and rate of population growth. Of the anthropological changes considered, only stopping use of hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) implementation can reduce human and natural greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 CE.
Human energy consumption is the 61% major contributor of human greenhouse gases. Within energy consumption, 40% is electricity and heat generation, another 20% is transportation, and the remainder is heat and industry use. Other greenhouse gas factors (including increasing natural methane releases) contribute 39% of the GHGs. Deploying a large number of global nuclear reactors might produce necessary timely clean energy production required by 2020 CE.
Nuclear energy is low cost clean energy competition to political “green, alternative renewable energy.” Therefore, to maintain their political monopoly over energy sectors and ongoing global warming corruption, paid European-U.S. anti-nuclear and neo-communists over decades eliminated and delayed construction of national nuclear energy sectors. U.S. anti nuclear protesters seek anti nuclear jobs, leadership power, and acknowledgment while U.S. communism has grown to become the left Democrat political movement. For more than three decades, U.S. government anti nuclear political obstacles has resulted in the few newly constructed nuclear facilities. Existing U.S. nuclear energy sector provides about 20% of U.S. firm energy. President Obama controls the politics of the powerful U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) members’ costly regulations/rulings and the de-funded the Yucca Mountain nuclear geologic repository. Untoward U.S. politics resulted in increased energy costs and the protracted forced shutdown of the U.S. nuclear energy sector.
U.S. President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel elimination of national nuclear energies was to remove the nuclear energy competitor to their nation’s “green energy” alternative renewable energy and permit continued special interests hydrocarbon energy corruption. Without nuclear energy, global warming greenhouse gas emission-thresholds shall too soon greatly exceed livable temperatures.
Nuclear China - China can build Western-designed nuclear reactors in less than 4 years at less than 40% Western nuclear cost and less than 25% U.S. nuclear costs. Timeline is 50 months from first concrete to nuclear fuel loading, and then six months to electrical grid connection, with first-costs expected to reduce significantly for the following units. China wants to have 100 nuclear reactor units under construction and operating by 2020 CE.
The first four U.S. designed Westinghouse AP1000 reactors are built from modules fabricated adjacent to each site. Now, after securing U.S. AP1000 design drawings, China is to build AP1000 as a Chinese domestic CAP 1400 design with follow on CAP 1700 design. The technology for China’s CAP 1400 is based on the advanced Generation III+ AP1000 pressurised water reactor (producing a net 1154 MWe) that was introduced into China by Westinghouse Toshiba Group and multinational Shaw Group. President Obama’s nuclear technology transfers was a key part of the AP1000 deal with China. China soon will move beyond CAP 1400 MWe to develop a CAP 1700 MWe version of the technology while the U.S. is phasing out nuclear energy in favor of useless 1990s alternative renewable energy funding. U.S. nuclear technology has allowed China to acquire the key Generation III+ nuclear technologies necessary to build 3ed Generation reactors. Chinese target construction nuclear reactor cost is $1000/kW.
Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) - In the U.S., several fast-neutron reactors have been designed, and five of them have achieved operation. There has also been one U.S. Navy application of a liquid-metal reactor. The principal provision of the electricity-generating U.S. Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) advanced nuclear reactor is its inexhaustible, domestic, non-fossil, fuel supply. U.S. IFR provides revolutionary improvement in the all important areas of nuclear power fuel efficiency, safety, waste, and non-proliferation. In 2009, President Obama’s administration transferred U.S. IFR technology from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) nuclear reprocessing project to China, along with the Westinghouse AP1000 Generation III+ design and construction drawings.
DOE’s Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR) program combined with GE’s Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM) as the preferred reactor technology is to be used with the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program. In the decade from 1984 to 1994, scientists at Argonne National Laboratory developed advanced IFR technology that promised safe nuclear power unlimited by used nuclear fuel (UNF) supplies, with UNF waste product sharply reduced both in radioactive lifetime and amount.
As part of the ALMR program, a January 1994 review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published "Preapplication Safety Evaluation Report for the Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM) Liquid-Metal Reactor," concluded that “no obvious impediments to licensing the PRISM design had been identified.” However, by 1994, left Democrats had decided to shutdown U.S. nuclear energy and made the long-term U.S. energy-transformation commitment to the under performing "alternative renewable green energy" that left Democrats are still promoting. With GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy PRISM reactor less than five years from commercialization, the ALMR-PRISM/IFR program was terminated later in 1994 by the Clinton administration. Thus, in the 1990s left Democrats roundly rejects science because it contradicted basic social assumptions of the left socialist movement. The commitment to hydrocarbon energy was cast in 1994 for the 2050-2099 CE human races termination.
Fast breeder reactor technology, such as the shutdown U.S. IFR program, is very advanced nuclear technology. Virtually every major country with a nuclear power program: India, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea even, are aiming to transition to breeder reactors and a closed fuel cycle (i.e. no long-lived nuclear waste).
IFR offer the prospect of vastly more efficient use of uranium resources. IFR is one form of fast-reactor technology (metallic fuel with pyroprocessing), but there are others - inferior, according to the IFR scientists. Some 400 reactor-years experience has been gained in operating 20 Fast Neutron Reactors have already been operating, some since the 1950s, and some supplying electricity commercially. Generation IV reactor designs are largely Fast Neutron Reactors.
Currently, used nuclear fuel (UNF) is safely stored in pools of water or in dry casks at U.S. nuclear plant sites. However, 95% of the material in UNF is considered untapped energy that could still be used to generate electricity. PRISM provides a viable means of closing the nuclear fuel cycle by recycling components of UNF. The 1994 Clinton administration terminated ALMR-PRISM/IFR program that is intended to recycle UNF and reduce operating cost of nuclear electrical generation.
Some left Democrats tie the nuclear fuel cycle to the start of making material for nuclear weapons. This is not the case. UNF material reprocessing are many processes and materials removed from what is needed for nuclear weapons profanation. Case in point. Iran has announced they have produced their first nuclear fuel rod. However, Iran making weapons grade material is a very different process than the process and materials used for making a nuclear fuel rod used for electrical generation.
The important thing these days is to get the U.S. back into a leadership role in the development and management of nuclear power, recognizing that recycling in fast reactors is necessary if the long-lived waste is to be consumed, and if the full energy potential of the uranium fuel cycle is to be fully exploited.
Nuclear Reactor Costs - In 2009, the published cost for four AP1000 reactors (1000 MWe pressurized water reactor) under construction in China was a total of $8 billion. As more Chinese reactors are built, costs of follow on nuclear reactors is expected to be less. April 2008, U.S. Georgia Power Company reached a contract agreement for two AP1000 reactors to be built at Vogtle, GA, at an estimated final cost of $14 billion plus $3 billion for necessary transmission upgrades. Long-term costs of U.S. left Democrats’ anti-nuclear energy politics are huge (about 425% greater U.S. costs per constructed nuclear unit than that of Chinese costs).
American and German huge costs in the nuclear industry result from untoward political overhead, over regulation, state and federal labor laws, and litigation. In spite of the fact that America and other industrialized nations prosper with cheap energy, U.S. politicians refuse cheap clean nuclear energy to favor political special interest funding of expensive not working "alternative renewable energy." It is European-U.S. politicians who control developed nations’ energy costs and it is the politicians who are increasing rise of global warming temperature.
Prior to 2020 CE, if Europe and U.S. are to engage in saving human races, they are to now look to look to China for contracting construction of a very-large number of affordable AP1000, CAP 1400, and CAP 1700 Chinese nuclear reactors within Europe and U.S.A.
Used Nuclear Fuel (UNF) Management - After 12-24 months use in a reactor, nuclear fuel is removed because of the build up of fission products and elements that absorb neutrons that would otherwise take part in the nuclear reaction. Used nuclear fuel is stored and may ultimately be disposed. With large cost savings, UNF can also be reprocessed to separate the uranium and plutonium from the waste products so that the uranium and plutonium can be recycled to make new fuel (this is a reference to above DOE Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program).
When removed from a reactor, a fuel bundle will be emitting both radiation, principally from the fission fragments, and heat. Used nuclear fuel (UNF) is unloaded into a storage pond immediately adjacent to the reactor to allow the radiation levels to decrease. In the ponds the water shields the radiation and absorbs the heat.
Used fuel can be stored safely in these ponds for long periods. Fuel can also be dry stored in engineered facilities, cooled by air. However, both kinds of storage are intended only as an interim step before the used fuel is either reprocessed or sent to final disposal. The longer it is stored, the easier it is to handle, due to decay of radioactivity. Depending on policies in particular countries, some used fuel may be transferred to central storage facilities.
There are two alternatives for spent nuclear fuel:
➲ Reprocessing to recover the usable portion of it -- Reprocessing of spent fuel occurs at facilities in Europe, Japan and Russia with capacity over 5000 tonnes per year and cumulative civilian experience now at 90,000 tonnes over almost 40-years.
➲ Storage and final disposal without reprocessing -- The longer used fuel is in interim storage the easier it is to handle, due to the progressive diminution of radioactivity. There is also a reluctance to dispose of used fuel because it represents a significant energy resource which could be reprocessed at a later date to allow recycling of the uranium and plutonium. For more than 40-years there have been many studies to determine the optimum approach to the disposal of used nuclear fuel, as well as wastes from reprocessing. The waste forms envisaged for disposal are vitrified high-level wastes sealed into stainless steel canisters, or used fuel rods encapsulated in corrosion-resistant metals such as copper or stainless steel. Even after the vitrification process, nuclear material can be retrieved for further processing. The general consensus favours container placement into deep geological repositories, initially recoverable. Many geological formations such as granite, volcanic tuff, salt, or shale are suitable for geologic nuclear repositories.
Yucca Mountain - U.S. President George W. Bush gave the go-ahead for the Yucca Mountain geologic nuclear waste repository in 2002. Despite the 2002 Senate approval of the repository site, the future construction of a repository at Yucca Mountain was subjected to the vagaries of left Democrat untoward anti nuclear politics. However, Yucca Mountain geologic nuclear repository construction is now "shovel ready" to receive long-term storage of high level nuclear waste, but Yucca Mountain has been discontinued by the nuclear left Democrat political cabal.
The political cabal of President Obama, the left Democrat Senate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and National Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Jaczko on October 1, 2010 instructed NRC staff to stop work on completing the 2002 CE Congressional mandated Yucca Mountain application to the NRC. The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) estimates that about $9 billion has been spent on Yucca Mountain so far. A railway connection needs to be built. State politics and opposition-group litigation against Federal nuclear projects remains a concern for Yucca Mountain opening and for other Federal/state nuclear projects.
2008-2011 “Stimulus” - Left Democrats “stimulated” the economy with an expensive ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’ (ARRA 2009) that included over $90 billion in unproductive alternative renewable energy investments. Note that the Yucca Mountain project funding is paid for by nuclear utility companies and not the Federal government. It appears that most of ARRA stimulus funding was arranged to feed government funds to left Democrats supporters and voter districts with very little stimulus of U.S. capitalism.
GERMANY
Electricity prices paid by German households are to rise more than 20% by 2020 CE as Chancellor Angela Merkel pushes to remove her German nuclear energy. In June 2011, a nuclear exit by 2022 CE became German law. With the ‘Nuclear Exit Law’ (or Atomic-Exit Law), Chancellor Merkel and her SPD-Green Party put into place the ending all of Germany’s reliance on nuclear energy. German unworkable “renewables” would have to generate an incredible/impossible 42.4% of German’s electricity in 2020 to compensate for Green Party displaced nuclear energy. Germany's plan to shut all its nuclear power plants by 2022 CE will add up to 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually as the country turns to increasing fossil fuels used for its economy.
The real intent of Chancellor Angela Merkel push to shutdown her German nuclear energy is counter-productive to stopping global warming temperature increase. Chancellor Merkel is honoring promises to the socialist German Green Party to shut down German nuclear energy (no matter the costs) and remain dependent upon growing German’s union based hydrocarbon economy.
U.S.A.
There are no carbon dioxide emission estimates for the U.S. socialist/communist left Democrat’s phase-out of nuclear facilities. Nor are there hydrocarbon estimates for President Obama’s “national energy plan.” There are no estimates that identify President Obama’s long-term costs for his U.S. nuclear energy phase-out. The October 1, 2010 nuclear cabal’s closure of Yucca Mountain nuclear geologic repository has no long-term energy impact summary. There is no U.S. global warming response plan. There is no U.S. energy planning, only limited responses to energy crises.
A U.S. nuclear repository is necessary for America's nuclear fuel cycle and is an integral part of American energy needs, nuclear electrical generation, and national defense programs, which satisfies defense needs and also global greenhouse gas reductions goals. The current blocking of nuclear energy and political increased risk-to-nuclear-investment, with increased costs in U.S. nuclear power, prevents new nuclear reactor construction. Well into the 21st Century, lack of a Yucca Mountain Repository long-term storage development has profound implications for U.S. nuclear base-load electricity generation availability and a functioning U.S. nuclear fuel cycle.
A global ideological effort is at play to impose a radical climate social agenda on the developing world at the behest of left Democrat “green” environmentalist groups. Obama’s White House as stated in December 12, 2011, that "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [ARRA 2009] also included over $90 billion in clean energy investments." None of President Obama's planning or funding involves addressing global warming temperature increase. None of Obama’s invested alternative energy $90 billion has or will produce any reduction in greenhouse gases or reduction in global warming temperature or improve national security, health, or safety. President Obama and congressional Democrats/Republicans have engaged in a massive waste of green-energy funding that accomplish no benefits and is counter productive to reducing global warning temperature increase.
Reporting of Global Warming - All U.S. government departments are now under direct control of President Obama and department functions and reporting are influenced by those favored by left Democrats. U.S. government department reporting is politically manipulated and now is untrustworthy. U.S. universities and colleges who are subject to federal or state funding are therefore very subject to following the direction of special interests politics, even science reporting must adhere to prevailing political dogma. Because U.S. and European media reporting is now intertwined with politicians’ retention of power corruption, and nationalist agendas - major media and internet reporting also can no longer be trusted. U.S. global warming temperature recovery effort is in a spiral of assured human life destruction.
CANADA
December 2011, Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol to not be held accountable for global warming greenhouse gases resulting from access to Canadian Athabasca Oil Sands and Keystone XL synthetic crude oil pipeline project. The environmental and global warming issues of reducing oil sand to synthetic crude oil is not well understood by the public.
Long-term concerns about about Keystone XL pipeline siting or a leak in the pipeline are not real major environmental issues. Nor will stopping construction of the pipe line decrease the amount of oil used within the U.S. Nor does stopping Keystone XL project reduce oil consumed around the world. U.S. political opposition to the north-south Keystone XL access to Canadian Athabasca Oil Sands has more to do with international foreign exchange agreements keeping U.S. dependent upon importing Mid East foreign oil at around 20% of domestic use.
Resulting from OPEC's 1970s oil crisis was a U.S. commitment to purchase OPEC oil at increased prices. That is why the Obama administration is now committed to keeping the U.S. energy dependent upon foreign resources. Buying Canada’s Keystone XL oil and developing nuclear energy cuts into U.S.A. diplomatic Mid East oil purchase obligations. Reasons enough to reject Canada’s Keystone XL oil.
Once a footnote in the story of world oil production, Canada's oil sands are part of the solution to declining conventional oil reserves elsewhere in the world. Canada has over 170 billion barrels of oil recoverable with today's technology, making it second only to Saudi Arabia as an oil resource country. There are an estimated 2.5 trillion barrels of bitumen in the Canadian resources and it is possible to produce 2.5 million barrels of oil per day for over 200 years. That is more than enough to supply all of Canada's needs and make a significant contribution to America, China, and other oil importers for generations to come. Canadian oil sands will long outlast the survival of Earth’s humans.
The Keystone XL Pipeline System is a pipeline system to transport synthetic crude oil and diluted bitumen from the Athabasca Oil Sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada to multiple destinations in the United States. Synthetic crude is an intermediate product produced when an extra-heavy or unconventional oil source is upgraded into a transportable form. Synthetic crude is then shipped to U.S. and Canadain oil refineries where it is further upgraded into finished products. Alberta's tar sands are one of the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world. Production from them is expected to grow strongly, but could be limited by the amount of greenhouse gases emitted when using hydrocarbon heat extraction during synthetic crud extraction and bitumen processes.
Oil sands exploration incorporates both mining ("conventional" methods) and in-situ (“non-conventional”) production methods. Mining of the oil sands involves excavation of the bitumen-rich sand using open pit mining methods. This is the most efficient method (ie, least costly) of extraction when there are large deposits of bitumen with little overburden. In-situ methods involve processing the oil sand deposit so that the bitumen is removed while the sand remains in place. These methods are used for oil sands that are too deep to support surface mining operations to an economical degree. 80% of the resource in Northern Alberta lies deep below the surface.
Open pit strip mining remains the main extraction method, but two in situ techniques are likely to be used more in future: cyclic steam stimulation and steam-assisted gravity drainage. These methods inject steam into the formation to heat the bitumen, allowing it to flow and be pumped to the surface or extracted from Canadian Athabasca Oil Sands. The heating extraction process releases massive amounts of global warming gases.
Free of greenhouse gas nuclear power could make steam and electricity and use some of the electricity for high-temperature electrolysis for hydrogen production while extracting sand oil. One proposal from Energy Alberta suggested that a single Candu 6 reactor configured to produce 75% steam and 25% electricity would replace 6 million cubic metres (220 terajoule (TJ)) per day of natural gas and support production of 175-200,000 barrels per day of oil. It would also save the emission of 3.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. A 600 MWe capacity nuclear reactor could supply a processing plant producing 60,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil per day. Hence almost 20 such reactors would be needed to meet the production growth planned, when Canadian oil output from tar sands is forecast to reach three million barrels per day. Smaller reactors (perhaps even GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy PRISM reactors), with capacities of some 100 MWe, could be more suitable for individual projects, given the limitations of supplying steam over more than 25 km.
Problem with any proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the steam extraction process is that the process increases the oil cost per barrel. The selling of “alternative renewable energy” is the left Democrats’ stated U.S. national energy policy. Therefore, U.S. left Democrats, President Obama, anti-nuclear groups, and “environmentalist” oppose both completing the Keystone XL pipeline and also oppose using clean nuclear energy in the oil extraction process. With the left Democrats locked into conflicting unreasonable energy policies, there will be no timely U.S. political responses to U.S. need for energy self sufficiency or to curbing global warming temperature increase. Therefore, U.S. oil energy prices and global warming greenhouse gas emissions are to continue to increase.
LARGE SCALE DESALINATION
Resulting from increased populations and increased global temperature, there is now chronic groundwater over drafting occurring. Very large scale potable water desalination projects will be needed to meet the world’s future fresh water needs. Desalination is one of the few ways to "create" FRESH WATER.
How much energy does desalination require? The most efficient (reverse osmosis based) desalination plants consume about 5 kWh of energy per cubic metre of fresh water produced. Desalination efficiencies can be improved over time.
Large-scale desalination typically continuously uses extremely large amounts of energy as well as specialized, expensive infrastructure, making it very costly compared to the use of fresh water from conventional sources such as rivers or groundwater. The world's largest desalination plant that uses hydrocarbon energy is the Jebel Ali Desalination Plant (Phase 2) in the United Arab Emirates. A number of factors determine the capital and operating costs for desalination: capacity and type of facility, location, feed water, labor, energy, financing, and concentrate disposal. Desalination makes sense only if you are running out of water and after less expensive options are exhausted, including recycling water, fixing broken infrastructure, and implementing aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) water resources management.
There is certainly enough seawater, but how much energy does it take to convert seawater to potable water? The “low” water use scenario uses 34 GWe of electrical power worldwide, to provide 10% of the world’s water needs by desalination. For comparison, global electricity generation in 2005 averaged 2100 GWe constant generation. That is, with the “low” water use scenario the entire world population can have 10% of its water needs met by desalination with less than 2% of the world’s present day electrical energy. The “maximum” water use scenario requires over four times the world’s average electrical power generation (8400 GWe) generated in 2005, but this is an extreme upper bound.
Very large scale desalination is a viable way to extend fresh water resources if hydrocarbon energy is not used to power desalination facilities. Even the “low” water use scenario that uses 34 GWe of electrical power worldwide adds a intolerable amount of global warming gases to an already greenhouse gas saturated atmosphere. Future and current large scale desalination facilities need to be powered with clean nuclear powered electrical generation.
2012 GLOBAL WARMING POLITICAL RESPONSES
Without clean nuclear energy, global warming temperature increase is accelerating and shall cross +2 oC limit 2030-2040 CE.
Bottom Line - For the last two decades resulting from politicians’ clean energy goals and planning, there has been only massive increases in atmospheric global warming greenhouse gases. Soon, very soon, humans exceed a global warming point of no return. The rate of Modern Global Warming temperature increase is about 10 times faster than that experienced during 252.28 Ma End-Permian Mass Extinction. Unless nuclear ‘change’ happens very soon, the Modern Global Warming Mass Extinction commitment occurs and human races are extinguished 2050-2099 CE.
Science defines the global warming issues while it is up to the politicians to effectively respond to global warming temperature increase. There is little doubt that over the last two decades current European and U.S. politicians have destroyed possibilities to save human races from global warming temperature increase.
It is the responsibility of politicians to act upon the fact that we will get a very different climate change with an global warming increase when exceeding +2 oC limit. A +2 oC increase is too large and is actually a prescription for global disaster. Recognizing that politicians will exceed the limit, scientist have identified requirements to make exceeding +2 oC limit a temporary event. Solutions that prevent end of humans 2050-2099 CE are available, but must be acted upon quickly.
Deploying a large number of nuclear reactors might produce necessary timely clean energy production required by 2020 CE.
Rational scientific thinking is not part of the U.S. political decision process. To communicate with politicians about global warming you must first threaten them with loosing their jobs. You and your neighbor should ask your election campaigning politician what he/she is doing about saving the lives of everyone now under the age of 30 years.
Without now reducing natural and human greenhouse emissions Earth’s average temperature shall soon exceed a level that is capable of sustaining human races. Without political changes, the one hundred and sixty thousand year journey of modern man ends 2050-2099 Cristian Era (CE). Global warming is the world’s greatest growing security threat.
U.S., and several other important nations’ covert global warming energy policies and plans are to continue expansion of economic dependence upon hydrocarbon economies of coal, oil, and natural gas. There will be global economies collapse in anticipation of the social and economic impact of higher global warming temperatures. Continued expansion of the use of hydrocarbon energy leads to continued global temperature increase that exceeds a +5 oC rise above 1750 CE preindustrial temperatures.
To avoid ending the human races, the political economic priority at this time is to avoid hydrocarbon energy “infrastructure lock-in” and to reduce natural and human carbon emissions. Without energy changes soon, the point of no return is exceeded and the human races are destroyed 2050-2099 CE.
To aid in describing causes of the global warming crises, some additional technical and political rational for the end of life scenario is presented at BLOGGER website ‘Global Warming 2050-2099 “GLOBAL WARMING TO THE END.”’
"SAFE" GLOBAL WARMING?
Population size and gross domestic product (GDP) size drives human (anthropogenic) energy consumption and carbon dioxide levels. From human hydrocarbon energy use originates increased natural carbon dioxide and increased natural methane atmospheric levels. The 1750 CE Industrial Age start of global warming gases (GHGs) methane and carbon dioxide have accumulated within the atmosphere in massive amounts. By 1866, the combination of natural and human GHG accumulations influences global temperature increase produces a clear “thumbprint” of human impacts on climate change. Concentrations of atmospheric GHGs and their radiative forcing and other factors have continued to increase as a result of human activity. Scientists suggest that left unchecked, too soon Modern Global Warming accumulated warming forces will exceed natural carbon dioxide and methane heating effects produced by the 252.28 Ma Siberian Traps volcanic eruptions (Ma - megaannum is a unit of time equal to one million years).
There is NO SAFE greenhouse gases concentration stabilization level above 350 ppm carbon dioxide, much less above 450 ppm. Over the coming decades, the least-cost global warming option is to now lower Earth global warming by steadily transforming global human energy systems to lowered human GHG emissions, then lower to zero human GHG emissions. Difficult to reduce are Arctic Region natural methane/carbon levels that are ocean-current temperature dependent and land surface air temperature dependent. Arctic Region natural methane/carbon forms a reinforced positive feedback loop that is directly temperature related. Arctic Region GHGs are now increasingly critical in establishing global warming temperature increase.
It does appear that by quickly reducing human carbon emissions aided by nuclear power, humans might forestall a global warming temperate increase extreme.
2017 POINT OF NO RETURN
Paris based International Energy Agency’s (IEA) new “World Energy Outlook 2011” (WEO 2011) report states key issues to curbing global warming “infrastructure lock-in” of the “carbon budget.” Carbon budget refers to the contribution of various sources of carbon dioxide on the planet. Carbon budget has nothing to do with political agendas, climate change legislation, carbon controls, carbon storage, the economy, or geopolitical carbon footprint. Carbon budget is a physical event. Infrastructure coal plants and oil extraction methods in countries of China, India, Europe, Canada, the U.S., and other nations are rapidly being constructed right now. This infrastructure is going to last another 50 years plus, at least. Those nations and others are “locking-in the global carbon budget.”
There is a large time lag to rebuild a clean energy infrastructure that results in a Earth temperature responses to emitted GHGs. Once we edge near carbon dioxide level of 450 ppm it becomes imposable to turn off the global warming effects of the 1750 CE to date hydrocarbon energy used (coal, oil, natural gas) and natural methane/carbon dioxide release. The IEA found we are about five years away from building enough carbon-spewing infrastructures to lock-in a hydrocarbon infrastructure and make it extremely difficult — if not impossible — to avoid greatly exceeding 450-ppm carbon dioxide. The point of global warming no-return comes around 2017 CE.
END-PERMIAN MASS EXTINCTION
Tools for assessing the expected climate effects of actual levels of human-made and natural changes of atmospheric composition include (1) Earth's paleoclimate history, showing how climate responded in the past to changes of boundary conditions including atmospheric composition, (2) modern climate change, especially global satellite observations, coincident with rapidly changing human-made and natural climate forcings, and (3) climate models and theory, which aid interpretation of observations on all time-scales and are useful for projecting future climate/temperature under realistic most probable to 2099 CE human and natural temperature forcing scenarios.
Stresses of increased populations, increased hydrocarbon energy use, increased gross domestic product (GDP), and resulting increased global temperatures is evident. Human factors have not changed to accommodate necessary greenhouse gas reduction and resulting global warming temperature increase. Most probable projections over time include uncontrolled population growth, limited technology changes, limited changes to energy use, critical political decisions not made, limited funding for effective clean nuclear energy, and several proposed impossible legislated changes to fundamental laws of physics by untoward politicians and surrogates. Note that the worst case temperature forcing scenario is the most likely global warming scenario.
Atmospheric gas composition, physical properties, and quantities determine rate of Earth’s global warming properties. Within the End-Permian Mass Extinction Period, natural volcanic gases and natural ocean methane clathrates and carbon dioxide release dominate temperature change rates. However, within Modern Global Warming, human hydrocarbon economy energy use (coal, oil, natural gas) and responding natural ocean methane clathrates and carbon dioxide release dominate temperature change rates.
A major difference between Modern Global Warming temperature increase event and End-Permian Mass Extinction 252.28 Ma is that Modern Global Warming temperature increase during the beginning stages is about 10 times faster than the End-Permian Period and there are more than 9 billion people involved.
LACK OF GLOBAL WARMING PLANNING
Necessary planned successful responses to global warming temperature increase are essential, many, and varied and involve lives of more than 9 billion people. No national leader has established a viable national or multinational response plan to counter global warming temperature increase. No nation maintains a viable organization to respond to countering global warming temperature increase.
It is necessary to stop human greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Over time, by stopping human GHGs there occurs temperature stabilization (i.e., atmospheric GHGs concentrations match systems of natural methane/carbon dioxide feedback). There are only three anthropological avenues available that might alter the course global warming, environmental, and human events: ● Stop (extremely limit) using hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) ● Modify land, groundwater, and sea use practices ● Limit the size of the human population rate of growth. Additionally, implementation of some form of geoengineering is to be considered. Implementing stop (extremely limit) using hydrocarbon energy is the most feasible and timely action.
Europe-U.S. politicians are locked into funding “alternative fuels renewable energy” and eliminating nuclear energy. China-India governments are building hydrocarbon “infrastructure lock-in” with their greatly expand hydrocarbon based economies. To save the human races involves within decades the reduction of human carbon dioxide emissions to zero, which is a several trillion USD political change. Changing political dynamics poses the major obstacle to changing national hydrocarbon economies to that of hydrocarbon free economies.
Human and natural global warming greenhouse gas concentrations now exceed critical temperature stabilization “trip points.” Predictions of the loss of animal and plant diversity around the world are common under models of future climate change. However, a new study shows that because these climate models do not account for species competition and movement, they could grossly underestimate future extinctions.
Some resulting impacts are abrupt and irreversible, depending upon the rate and magnitude of the global warming temperature increase, climate change, human population impacts, energy use, and the most important natural methane clathrates venting.
U.S. GLOBAL WARMING POLITICS
In the selling out of human races, U.S. politicians (and other politicians) use anti-nuclear and “environmental” feelings to promote political and special interests rewards of many $10s of USD billions. Since the 1990s U.S. global warming planning has been rather straight forward. Anti-nuclear, “environmentalists,” and U.S. politicians appeared to be supporting stopping all nuclear energy development and favored development of socially acceptable energy forms corn-ethanol, solar, wind power, energy “efficiency,” and carbon cap and trade. The forms of “alternative renewable energy” are very limited in capability to produce significant quantities of clean energy and have not produced any reduction in GHGs or reduced global warming temperature increase. Note that the real UN and nations political agenda is to expand hydrocarbon energy use through “climate change” programs in order to feed government money to political supporters through promoting money transfers with carbon cap and trade. Resulting from self-interests controlling U.S. energy policies, the economic and social consequences are very grave.
U.S. news media, foreign governments, and college/university departments, and U.S. government agencies are controlled and corrupted by the Obama administration. Since late 1990s, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has been undermined by the World Leaders resistant to transitioning from hydrocarbon energy to clean nuclear energy. The likable and good speaker President Obama’s unwillingness to be responsible for failed and misleading U.S. global warming energy policies has significantly contributed to the ultimate end of human races. With President Obama’s shifting the U.S. energy policies to a pro transfer of wealth proposal and promotion of multinational “alternative renewable energy,” the UNFCCC fifteenth meeting (COP-15) held in Copenhagen November 2010 was used as a turning point to favor pro hydrocarbon-economy industry supporters.
Regarding the failure of 2009 Copenhagen COP15 conference environmentalist wrote: "...In a single day, in a single space, a spectacle was played out in front of a disbelieving audience of people who have read and understood the stark warnings of humanity's greatest scientific minds. And what they witnessed was nothing less than the very worst instincts of our species articulated by the most powerful men who ever lived." We are now at the end of the last chance to appropriately respond to global temperature increase. Mass suicide 2050-2099 CE now faces Earth’s human races.
Science has provided the necessary information and advance warnings concerning global temperature increase. It is the political undermining of science that was the bases of too many political special interests derailing appropriate global warming responses. In order to remain on hydrocarbon economies, World Leaders from 1990s on have delayed recognition of global warming temperature increase.
SOME UNTOWARD POLITICAL RESPONSES TO GLOBAL WARMING
Understanding special interest maneuvering within the seventeen sessions of the UN Conference of the Parties (COP) talks, there must first be acceptance that the talks (and all further UN talks) will fail to reduce global warming temperature increase. We are in fact looking at the continued collapse of human races resulting from increased populations, excessive use of hydrocarbon fuel (coal, oil, and natural gas), accelerating increases of atmospheric natural methane, with exceptional high corruption within governments that promote subsidized “renewable energy,” “carbon-cap-and trade,” and wealth transfer diversion schemes to “poor” national leaders.
Germany and the U.S. politicians have paid anti-nuclear leaders to make “renewable energy” corruption profitable. The EU Commission chose to take an "agnostic" stance regarding faith-based anti-nuclear radical elements. The EU left it up to member states to decide the future of nuclear energy. Obviously the EU Leadership is leading from behind on a topic involving the lives of 9 billion people and trillions of USD.
Media global warming reporting and discussions might distract from politically crafted topics of the November 2012 elections. Therefore, Republicans and Democrats arrange for the media to forget about the global warming problems for which the Washington DC politicians are responsible. U.S. Republicans and Democrats ignore global warming because warming is a poorly recognized by the public.
UN Kyoto Protocol - Kyoto Protocol created carbon trading mechanisms such as the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme that saw a big business of political corruption applied to global warming. Politically connected hydrocarbon players saw their expanded role with every European carbon unit of European Union Emissions Trading Scheme “validated” by UNFCCC. In 2006, California's AB 32 (Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006) created a similar to EU’s carbon cap and trade paper trading schema. Although greenhouse gas reductions are “mandated” by the California Legislature, effective greenhouse gas reductions are impossible to achieve lacking GHG reduction infrastructure and lacking global warming temperature reduction support.
President Obama’s global warming response is to turn California AB 32 mandates into a U.S. national program for political control of the U.S. energy sector by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Only two years ago the EU and UNFCCC carbon cap and trade scheme of global warming corruption was predicted to be the biggest legitimate commodity and industrial market in the world.
Since there is no political accountability for global warming funds spent, to date, the U.S. and EU’s energy and climate change 'package' remains a costly unjustified failure that promotes hydrocarbon carbon “infrastructure lock-in” and global warming temperature increase. Politics of the UN’s “climate change” talks is designed to continue increasing production of multinational hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) while passing on increased energy corruption costs with increasing survival risk to all human races. Under existing EU-US global warming policies/planing, there is an assured global mass human suicide caused by global warming temperature increase.
UN IPCC Reporting - If humans want to regulate Earth’s temperature, it is first necessary for humans to control ocean temperatures in order to regulate ocean methane clathrates release of methane. In the 1990s, there was UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) “business as usual” scenario reporting. UN “businesses as usual” lost out to politicians promoting “alternative renewable energy” and the politics of not reporting powerful greenhouse gas methane.
To minimize the political importance of “climate change” and maximize funding of renewable alternative energy while promoting transfer of wealth to special interests though carbon trades, the funding of Copenhagen 2009 COP15 wealth transfers became “lets build lots of alternative renewable energy” that does not work.
IPCC First Assessment Report (FAR 1990) and Second Assessment Report (SAR 1995) reported methane activity. Later, as a cover and diversion to not properly representing the roll of global warming greenhouse gases, leading World Leaders published a new set of political scenarios in 2000 CE reports. IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (TAR 2001) and IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report (AR4 2007) hardly mention the powerful global warming methane gas. Within the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (AR3, 2001) and within the Fourth Assessment Report (AR4, 2007). ‘Special Report on Emissions Scenarios’ (SRES) scenarios became a diversion to reporting necessary global warming mitigation foundations. Since 2001 CE, the intended purpose of IPCC’s AR3, AR4, and proposed AR5 is to covertly continue World Leaders’ hydrocarbon economies of coal, oil, and natural gas by promoting "alternative renewable energy" and the dismantling clean nuclear energy. Implementing clean nuclear energy poses funding competition to not workable renewable alternative energy. Net political result is assured mass destruction of human races.
The 20-years and the failed seventeen talks held since the UNFCCC ‘Earth Summit of 1992’ are the most important negotiations ever undertaken in the history of humankind. Thanks to the abysmal and unforgivable failure of World’s Leadership, 17 rounds of UNFCCC "climate change" negotiations have failed to give full effect and deliver a fair, ambitious, and binding GLOBAL WARMING deal that stabilizes climate change.
If There Is No “Change” - Climate science is unequivocal that the opportunity to limit warming to safe levels will close in this very 2010-2020 CE decade.
We will get a very different climate change with an increase of 2 oC, which is what international organizations are setting as a goal. A +2 oC increase is too large and is actually a prescription for global disaster. Recognizing that politicians will exceed the +2 oC limit, scientist have identified requirements to make the exceeding the +2 oC limit a temporary event.
In fact, carbon-intensive infrastructure, including power stations, buildings, and factories, planned over the next five years will lock the world into a high-hydrocarbon emissions trajectory. If emissions do not plateau by 2020 and rapidly decline thereafter, temporally exceeding the 2 oC target will slip out of reach.
NUCLEAR ENERGY
Typically, more than 36 million kilowatt-hours of electricity are produced from one tonne of natural uranium. The production of this amount of electrical power from fossil fuels would require the burning of over 20,000 tonnes of black coal or 8.5 million cubic metres of natural methane gas. Clean energy alternatives to nuclear energy — such as renewable alternative energy sources, increased efficiency, and carbon sequestration — all have laws of physics limitations and cannot be counted upon to save human races. Therefore, nuclear energy is the only proven timely energy form that has the clean energy capacity to help correct destructive global warming temperature increase. There are 200 nuclear U.S. plants now supplying 20% of our power. Coal provides about half our power. So you need about 400 new nuclear plants to displace all U.S. coal power plants.
Stopping human greenhouse gas emissions over time produces Earth temperature-stabilization. Stabilization occurs when atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations match systems of natural methane/carbon dioxide feedback. There are only three anthropological (human) avenues available that might alter the course global warming, environmental, and human events: ● Stop using hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) ● Modify land, groundwater, and sea use practices to conserve resource usage ● Limit the size of the human population and rate of population growth. Of the anthropological changes considered, only stopping use of hydrocarbon energy (coal, oil, natural gas) implementation can reduce human and natural greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 CE.
Human energy consumption is the 61% major contributor of human greenhouse gases. Within energy consumption, 40% is electricity and heat generation, another 20% is transportation, and the remainder is heat and industry use. Other greenhouse gas factors (including increasing natural methane releases) contribute 39% of the GHGs. Deploying a large number of global nuclear reactors might produce necessary timely clean energy production required by 2020 CE.
Nuclear energy is low cost clean energy competition to political “green, alternative renewable energy.” Therefore, to maintain their political monopoly over energy sectors and ongoing global warming corruption, paid European-U.S. anti-nuclear and neo-communists over decades eliminated and delayed construction of national nuclear energy sectors. U.S. anti nuclear protesters seek anti nuclear jobs, leadership power, and acknowledgment while U.S. communism has grown to become the left Democrat political movement. For more than three decades, U.S. government anti nuclear political obstacles has resulted in the few newly constructed nuclear facilities. Existing U.S. nuclear energy sector provides about 20% of U.S. firm energy. President Obama controls the politics of the powerful U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) members’ costly regulations/rulings and the de-funded the Yucca Mountain nuclear geologic repository. Untoward U.S. politics resulted in increased energy costs and the protracted forced shutdown of the U.S. nuclear energy sector.
U.S. President Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel elimination of national nuclear energies was to remove the nuclear energy competitor to their nation’s “green energy” alternative renewable energy and permit continued special interests hydrocarbon energy corruption. Without nuclear energy, global warming greenhouse gas emission-thresholds shall too soon greatly exceed livable temperatures.
Nuclear China - China can build Western-designed nuclear reactors in less than 4 years at less than 40% Western nuclear cost and less than 25% U.S. nuclear costs. Timeline is 50 months from first concrete to nuclear fuel loading, and then six months to electrical grid connection, with first-costs expected to reduce significantly for the following units. China wants to have 100 nuclear reactor units under construction and operating by 2020 CE.
The first four U.S. designed Westinghouse AP1000 reactors are built from modules fabricated adjacent to each site. Now, after securing U.S. AP1000 design drawings, China is to build AP1000 as a Chinese domestic CAP 1400 design with follow on CAP 1700 design. The technology for China’s CAP 1400 is based on the advanced Generation III+ AP1000 pressurised water reactor (producing a net 1154 MWe) that was introduced into China by Westinghouse Toshiba Group and multinational Shaw Group. President Obama’s nuclear technology transfers was a key part of the AP1000 deal with China. China soon will move beyond CAP 1400 MWe to develop a CAP 1700 MWe version of the technology while the U.S. is phasing out nuclear energy in favor of useless 1990s alternative renewable energy funding. U.S. nuclear technology has allowed China to acquire the key Generation III+ nuclear technologies necessary to build 3ed Generation reactors. Chinese target construction nuclear reactor cost is $1000/kW.
Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) - In the U.S., several fast-neutron reactors have been designed, and five of them have achieved operation. There has also been one U.S. Navy application of a liquid-metal reactor. The principal provision of the electricity-generating U.S. Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) advanced nuclear reactor is its inexhaustible, domestic, non-fossil, fuel supply. U.S. IFR provides revolutionary improvement in the all important areas of nuclear power fuel efficiency, safety, waste, and non-proliferation. In 2009, President Obama’s administration transferred U.S. IFR technology from U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) nuclear reprocessing project to China, along with the Westinghouse AP1000 Generation III+ design and construction drawings.
DOE’s Advanced Liquid Metal Reactor (ALMR) program combined with GE’s Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM) as the preferred reactor technology is to be used with the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program. In the decade from 1984 to 1994, scientists at Argonne National Laboratory developed advanced IFR technology that promised safe nuclear power unlimited by used nuclear fuel (UNF) supplies, with UNF waste product sharply reduced both in radioactive lifetime and amount.
As part of the ALMR program, a January 1994 review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) published "Preapplication Safety Evaluation Report for the Power Reactor Innovative Small Module (PRISM) Liquid-Metal Reactor," concluded that “no obvious impediments to licensing the PRISM design had been identified.” However, by 1994, left Democrats had decided to shutdown U.S. nuclear energy and made the long-term U.S. energy-transformation commitment to the under performing "alternative renewable green energy" that left Democrats are still promoting. With GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy PRISM reactor less than five years from commercialization, the ALMR-PRISM/IFR program was terminated later in 1994 by the Clinton administration. Thus, in the 1990s left Democrats roundly rejects science because it contradicted basic social assumptions of the left socialist movement. The commitment to hydrocarbon energy was cast in 1994 for the 2050-2099 CE human races termination.
Fast breeder reactor technology, such as the shutdown U.S. IFR program, is very advanced nuclear technology. Virtually every major country with a nuclear power program: India, China, Russia, Japan, South Korea even, are aiming to transition to breeder reactors and a closed fuel cycle (i.e. no long-lived nuclear waste).
IFR offer the prospect of vastly more efficient use of uranium resources. IFR is one form of fast-reactor technology (metallic fuel with pyroprocessing), but there are others - inferior, according to the IFR scientists. Some 400 reactor-years experience has been gained in operating 20 Fast Neutron Reactors have already been operating, some since the 1950s, and some supplying electricity commercially. Generation IV reactor designs are largely Fast Neutron Reactors.
Currently, used nuclear fuel (UNF) is safely stored in pools of water or in dry casks at U.S. nuclear plant sites. However, 95% of the material in UNF is considered untapped energy that could still be used to generate electricity. PRISM provides a viable means of closing the nuclear fuel cycle by recycling components of UNF. The 1994 Clinton administration terminated ALMR-PRISM/IFR program that is intended to recycle UNF and reduce operating cost of nuclear electrical generation.
Some left Democrats tie the nuclear fuel cycle to the start of making material for nuclear weapons. This is not the case. UNF material reprocessing are many processes and materials removed from what is needed for nuclear weapons profanation. Case in point. Iran has announced they have produced their first nuclear fuel rod. However, Iran making weapons grade material is a very different process than the process and materials used for making a nuclear fuel rod used for electrical generation.
The important thing these days is to get the U.S. back into a leadership role in the development and management of nuclear power, recognizing that recycling in fast reactors is necessary if the long-lived waste is to be consumed, and if the full energy potential of the uranium fuel cycle is to be fully exploited.
Nuclear Reactor Costs - In 2009, the published cost for four AP1000 reactors (1000 MWe pressurized water reactor) under construction in China was a total of $8 billion. As more Chinese reactors are built, costs of follow on nuclear reactors is expected to be less. April 2008, U.S. Georgia Power Company reached a contract agreement for two AP1000 reactors to be built at Vogtle, GA, at an estimated final cost of $14 billion plus $3 billion for necessary transmission upgrades. Long-term costs of U.S. left Democrats’ anti-nuclear energy politics are huge (about 425% greater U.S. costs per constructed nuclear unit than that of Chinese costs).
American and German huge costs in the nuclear industry result from untoward political overhead, over regulation, state and federal labor laws, and litigation. In spite of the fact that America and other industrialized nations prosper with cheap energy, U.S. politicians refuse cheap clean nuclear energy to favor political special interest funding of expensive not working "alternative renewable energy." It is European-U.S. politicians who control developed nations’ energy costs and it is the politicians who are increasing rise of global warming temperature.
Prior to 2020 CE, if Europe and U.S. are to engage in saving human races, they are to now look to look to China for contracting construction of a very-large number of affordable AP1000, CAP 1400, and CAP 1700 Chinese nuclear reactors within Europe and U.S.A.
Used Nuclear Fuel (UNF) Management - After 12-24 months use in a reactor, nuclear fuel is removed because of the build up of fission products and elements that absorb neutrons that would otherwise take part in the nuclear reaction. Used nuclear fuel is stored and may ultimately be disposed. With large cost savings, UNF can also be reprocessed to separate the uranium and plutonium from the waste products so that the uranium and plutonium can be recycled to make new fuel (this is a reference to above DOE Integral Fast Reactor (IFR) program).
When removed from a reactor, a fuel bundle will be emitting both radiation, principally from the fission fragments, and heat. Used nuclear fuel (UNF) is unloaded into a storage pond immediately adjacent to the reactor to allow the radiation levels to decrease. In the ponds the water shields the radiation and absorbs the heat.
Used fuel can be stored safely in these ponds for long periods. Fuel can also be dry stored in engineered facilities, cooled by air. However, both kinds of storage are intended only as an interim step before the used fuel is either reprocessed or sent to final disposal. The longer it is stored, the easier it is to handle, due to decay of radioactivity. Depending on policies in particular countries, some used fuel may be transferred to central storage facilities.
There are two alternatives for spent nuclear fuel:
➲ Reprocessing to recover the usable portion of it -- Reprocessing of spent fuel occurs at facilities in Europe, Japan and Russia with capacity over 5000 tonnes per year and cumulative civilian experience now at 90,000 tonnes over almost 40-years.
➲ Storage and final disposal without reprocessing -- The longer used fuel is in interim storage the easier it is to handle, due to the progressive diminution of radioactivity. There is also a reluctance to dispose of used fuel because it represents a significant energy resource which could be reprocessed at a later date to allow recycling of the uranium and plutonium. For more than 40-years there have been many studies to determine the optimum approach to the disposal of used nuclear fuel, as well as wastes from reprocessing. The waste forms envisaged for disposal are vitrified high-level wastes sealed into stainless steel canisters, or used fuel rods encapsulated in corrosion-resistant metals such as copper or stainless steel. Even after the vitrification process, nuclear material can be retrieved for further processing. The general consensus favours container placement into deep geological repositories, initially recoverable. Many geological formations such as granite, volcanic tuff, salt, or shale are suitable for geologic nuclear repositories.
Yucca Mountain - U.S. President George W. Bush gave the go-ahead for the Yucca Mountain geologic nuclear waste repository in 2002. Despite the 2002 Senate approval of the repository site, the future construction of a repository at Yucca Mountain was subjected to the vagaries of left Democrat untoward anti nuclear politics. However, Yucca Mountain geologic nuclear repository construction is now "shovel ready" to receive long-term storage of high level nuclear waste, but Yucca Mountain has been discontinued by the nuclear left Democrat political cabal.
The political cabal of President Obama, the left Democrat Senate, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and National Regulatory Commission (NRC) Chairman Jaczko on October 1, 2010 instructed NRC staff to stop work on completing the 2002 CE Congressional mandated Yucca Mountain application to the NRC. The Office of Civilian Radioactive Waste Management (OCRWM) estimates that about $9 billion has been spent on Yucca Mountain so far. A railway connection needs to be built. State politics and opposition-group litigation against Federal nuclear projects remains a concern for Yucca Mountain opening and for other Federal/state nuclear projects.
2008-2011 “Stimulus” - Left Democrats “stimulated” the economy with an expensive ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’ (ARRA 2009) that included over $90 billion in unproductive alternative renewable energy investments. Note that the Yucca Mountain project funding is paid for by nuclear utility companies and not the Federal government. It appears that most of ARRA stimulus funding was arranged to feed government funds to left Democrats supporters and voter districts with very little stimulus of U.S. capitalism.
GERMANY
Electricity prices paid by German households are to rise more than 20% by 2020 CE as Chancellor Angela Merkel pushes to remove her German nuclear energy. In June 2011, a nuclear exit by 2022 CE became German law. With the ‘Nuclear Exit Law’ (or Atomic-Exit Law), Chancellor Merkel and her SPD-Green Party put into place the ending all of Germany’s reliance on nuclear energy. German unworkable “renewables” would have to generate an incredible/impossible 42.4% of German’s electricity in 2020 to compensate for Green Party displaced nuclear energy. Germany's plan to shut all its nuclear power plants by 2022 CE will add up to 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually as the country turns to increasing fossil fuels used for its economy.
The real intent of Chancellor Angela Merkel push to shutdown her German nuclear energy is counter-productive to stopping global warming temperature increase. Chancellor Merkel is honoring promises to the socialist German Green Party to shut down German nuclear energy (no matter the costs) and remain dependent upon growing German’s union based hydrocarbon economy.
U.S.A.
There are no carbon dioxide emission estimates for the U.S. socialist/communist left Democrat’s phase-out of nuclear facilities. Nor are there hydrocarbon estimates for President Obama’s “national energy plan.” There are no estimates that identify President Obama’s long-term costs for his U.S. nuclear energy phase-out. The October 1, 2010 nuclear cabal’s closure of Yucca Mountain nuclear geologic repository has no long-term energy impact summary. There is no U.S. global warming response plan. There is no U.S. energy planning, only limited responses to energy crises.
A U.S. nuclear repository is necessary for America's nuclear fuel cycle and is an integral part of American energy needs, nuclear electrical generation, and national defense programs, which satisfies defense needs and also global greenhouse gas reductions goals. The current blocking of nuclear energy and political increased risk-to-nuclear-investment, with increased costs in U.S. nuclear power, prevents new nuclear reactor construction. Well into the 21st Century, lack of a Yucca Mountain Repository long-term storage development has profound implications for U.S. nuclear base-load electricity generation availability and a functioning U.S. nuclear fuel cycle.
A global ideological effort is at play to impose a radical climate social agenda on the developing world at the behest of left Democrat “green” environmentalist groups. Obama’s White House as stated in December 12, 2011, that "The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act [ARRA 2009] also included over $90 billion in clean energy investments." None of President Obama's planning or funding involves addressing global warming temperature increase. None of Obama’s invested alternative energy $90 billion has or will produce any reduction in greenhouse gases or reduction in global warming temperature or improve national security, health, or safety. President Obama and congressional Democrats/Republicans have engaged in a massive waste of green-energy funding that accomplish no benefits and is counter productive to reducing global warning temperature increase.
Reporting of Global Warming - All U.S. government departments are now under direct control of President Obama and department functions and reporting are influenced by those favored by left Democrats. U.S. government department reporting is politically manipulated and now is untrustworthy. U.S. universities and colleges who are subject to federal or state funding are therefore very subject to following the direction of special interests politics, even science reporting must adhere to prevailing political dogma. Because U.S. and European media reporting is now intertwined with politicians’ retention of power corruption, and nationalist agendas - major media and internet reporting also can no longer be trusted. U.S. global warming temperature recovery effort is in a spiral of assured human life destruction.
CANADA
December 2011, Canada withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol to not be held accountable for global warming greenhouse gases resulting from access to Canadian Athabasca Oil Sands and Keystone XL synthetic crude oil pipeline project. The environmental and global warming issues of reducing oil sand to synthetic crude oil is not well understood by the public.
Long-term concerns about about Keystone XL pipeline siting or a leak in the pipeline are not real major environmental issues. Nor will stopping construction of the pipe line decrease the amount of oil used within the U.S. Nor does stopping Keystone XL project reduce oil consumed around the world. U.S. political opposition to the north-south Keystone XL access to Canadian Athabasca Oil Sands has more to do with international foreign exchange agreements keeping U.S. dependent upon importing Mid East foreign oil at around 20% of domestic use.
Resulting from OPEC's 1970s oil crisis was a U.S. commitment to purchase OPEC oil at increased prices. That is why the Obama administration is now committed to keeping the U.S. energy dependent upon foreign resources. Buying Canada’s Keystone XL oil and developing nuclear energy cuts into U.S.A. diplomatic Mid East oil purchase obligations. Reasons enough to reject Canada’s Keystone XL oil.
Once a footnote in the story of world oil production, Canada's oil sands are part of the solution to declining conventional oil reserves elsewhere in the world. Canada has over 170 billion barrels of oil recoverable with today's technology, making it second only to Saudi Arabia as an oil resource country. There are an estimated 2.5 trillion barrels of bitumen in the Canadian resources and it is possible to produce 2.5 million barrels of oil per day for over 200 years. That is more than enough to supply all of Canada's needs and make a significant contribution to America, China, and other oil importers for generations to come. Canadian oil sands will long outlast the survival of Earth’s humans.
The Keystone XL Pipeline System is a pipeline system to transport synthetic crude oil and diluted bitumen from the Athabasca Oil Sands in northeastern Alberta, Canada to multiple destinations in the United States. Synthetic crude is an intermediate product produced when an extra-heavy or unconventional oil source is upgraded into a transportable form. Synthetic crude is then shipped to U.S. and Canadain oil refineries where it is further upgraded into finished products. Alberta's tar sands are one of the largest hydrocarbon deposits in the world. Production from them is expected to grow strongly, but could be limited by the amount of greenhouse gases emitted when using hydrocarbon heat extraction during synthetic crud extraction and bitumen processes.
Oil sands exploration incorporates both mining ("conventional" methods) and in-situ (“non-conventional”) production methods. Mining of the oil sands involves excavation of the bitumen-rich sand using open pit mining methods. This is the most efficient method (ie, least costly) of extraction when there are large deposits of bitumen with little overburden. In-situ methods involve processing the oil sand deposit so that the bitumen is removed while the sand remains in place. These methods are used for oil sands that are too deep to support surface mining operations to an economical degree. 80% of the resource in Northern Alberta lies deep below the surface.
Open pit strip mining remains the main extraction method, but two in situ techniques are likely to be used more in future: cyclic steam stimulation and steam-assisted gravity drainage. These methods inject steam into the formation to heat the bitumen, allowing it to flow and be pumped to the surface or extracted from Canadian Athabasca Oil Sands. The heating extraction process releases massive amounts of global warming gases.
Free of greenhouse gas nuclear power could make steam and electricity and use some of the electricity for high-temperature electrolysis for hydrogen production while extracting sand oil. One proposal from Energy Alberta suggested that a single Candu 6 reactor configured to produce 75% steam and 25% electricity would replace 6 million cubic metres (220 terajoule (TJ)) per day of natural gas and support production of 175-200,000 barrels per day of oil. It would also save the emission of 3.3 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year. A 600 MWe capacity nuclear reactor could supply a processing plant producing 60,000 barrels of synthetic crude oil per day. Hence almost 20 such reactors would be needed to meet the production growth planned, when Canadian oil output from tar sands is forecast to reach three million barrels per day. Smaller reactors (perhaps even GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy PRISM reactors), with capacities of some 100 MWe, could be more suitable for individual projects, given the limitations of supplying steam over more than 25 km.
Problem with any proposal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the steam extraction process is that the process increases the oil cost per barrel. The selling of “alternative renewable energy” is the left Democrats’ stated U.S. national energy policy. Therefore, U.S. left Democrats, President Obama, anti-nuclear groups, and “environmentalist” oppose both completing the Keystone XL pipeline and also oppose using clean nuclear energy in the oil extraction process. With the left Democrats locked into conflicting unreasonable energy policies, there will be no timely U.S. political responses to U.S. need for energy self sufficiency or to curbing global warming temperature increase. Therefore, U.S. oil energy prices and global warming greenhouse gas emissions are to continue to increase.
LARGE SCALE DESALINATION
Resulting from increased populations and increased global temperature, there is now chronic groundwater over drafting occurring. Very large scale potable water desalination projects will be needed to meet the world’s future fresh water needs. Desalination is one of the few ways to "create" FRESH WATER.
How much energy does desalination require? The most efficient (reverse osmosis based) desalination plants consume about 5 kWh of energy per cubic metre of fresh water produced. Desalination efficiencies can be improved over time.
Large-scale desalination typically continuously uses extremely large amounts of energy as well as specialized, expensive infrastructure, making it very costly compared to the use of fresh water from conventional sources such as rivers or groundwater. The world's largest desalination plant that uses hydrocarbon energy is the Jebel Ali Desalination Plant (Phase 2) in the United Arab Emirates. A number of factors determine the capital and operating costs for desalination: capacity and type of facility, location, feed water, labor, energy, financing, and concentrate disposal. Desalination makes sense only if you are running out of water and after less expensive options are exhausted, including recycling water, fixing broken infrastructure, and implementing aquifer storage and recovery (ASR) water resources management.
There is certainly enough seawater, but how much energy does it take to convert seawater to potable water? The “low” water use scenario uses 34 GWe of electrical power worldwide, to provide 10% of the world’s water needs by desalination. For comparison, global electricity generation in 2005 averaged 2100 GWe constant generation. That is, with the “low” water use scenario the entire world population can have 10% of its water needs met by desalination with less than 2% of the world’s present day electrical energy. The “maximum” water use scenario requires over four times the world’s average electrical power generation (8400 GWe) generated in 2005, but this is an extreme upper bound.
Very large scale desalination is a viable way to extend fresh water resources if hydrocarbon energy is not used to power desalination facilities. Even the “low” water use scenario that uses 34 GWe of electrical power worldwide adds a intolerable amount of global warming gases to an already greenhouse gas saturated atmosphere. Future and current large scale desalination facilities need to be powered with clean nuclear powered electrical generation.
2012 GLOBAL WARMING POLITICAL RESPONSES
Without clean nuclear energy, global warming temperature increase is accelerating and shall cross +2 oC limit 2030-2040 CE.
Bottom Line - For the last two decades resulting from politicians’ clean energy goals and planning, there has been only massive increases in atmospheric global warming greenhouse gases. Soon, very soon, humans exceed a global warming point of no return. The rate of Modern Global Warming temperature increase is about 10 times faster than that experienced during 252.28 Ma End-Permian Mass Extinction. Unless nuclear ‘change’ happens very soon, the Modern Global Warming Mass Extinction commitment occurs and human races are extinguished 2050-2099 CE.
Science defines the global warming issues while it is up to the politicians to effectively respond to global warming temperature increase. There is little doubt that over the last two decades current European and U.S. politicians have destroyed possibilities to save human races from global warming temperature increase.
It is the responsibility of politicians to act upon the fact that we will get a very different climate change with an global warming increase when exceeding +2 oC limit. A +2 oC increase is too large and is actually a prescription for global disaster. Recognizing that politicians will exceed the limit, scientist have identified requirements to make exceeding +2 oC limit a temporary event. Solutions that prevent end of humans 2050-2099 CE are available, but must be acted upon quickly.
Deploying a large number of nuclear reactors might produce necessary timely clean energy production required by 2020 CE.
Rational scientific thinking is not part of the U.S. political decision process. To communicate with politicians about global warming you must first threaten them with loosing their jobs. You and your neighbor should ask your election campaigning politician what he/she is doing about saving the lives of everyone now under the age of 30 years.
