Nuclear power and ghlobal warming

Good and Bad Choices for Energy Policy and the Environmental Movement 2009-2010

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By Morton S. Skorodin, M.D. Axis of Logic Exclusive

Axis of Logic

Tuesday, Nov 3, 2009

Two
energy/environment phenomena are being widely discussed currently.
These are global warming, and its mitigation, and the nuclear
resurgence – the worldwide push to supply power with nuclear power
plants. Careful study of these issues leads to the following
conclusions:

1. Global warming is real and is causing harm.
   
   
   
   
2. Global warming
   is mostly due to heat production by human industry since the 1800s,
   from nuclear power and fossil fuels, better termed hydrocarbons, –
   coal, oil, natural gas. Greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2
   play a minor role even though they are widely claimed the cause.
   
   
   
   
3. Both nuclear and hydrocarbon-based power must be eliminated to solve the global warming problem.
   
   
   
   
4. Nuclear power
   advocates have commandeered the global warming/greenhouse gas formula
   to promote nuclear power, based upon two errors: exaggerating the role
   of CO2 on the one hand and incorrectly claiming that nuclear power
   plants do not produce CO2 on the other hand.
   
   
   
   
5. Nuclear power
   can not be separated from nuclear weapons, which are essential to the
   consistent drive for American military dominationof the world. This is
   the reason for nuclear power. Nuclear power does not make sense as a
   safe, efficient, or economical way to provide energy.
   
   
   
   
6. Solar and
   solar-derived (wind, wave) sources of power do not add heat to the
   environment and can be used to supply virtually unlimited electrical
   energy without causing global warming. If done properly they will open
   up new vistas of human freedom and cultural development. They also
   produce much less CO2 than either nukes or hydrocarbons.

The rationale for these conclusions is given below.

Climate Science

We
begin with a fact on which almost all agree; that the Earth’s
near-surface temperature has risen approximately 0.7 degree Centigrade
since 1880.^[1] Much evidence has been presented that human health and society are being damaged as a result.^[2]

The
science of global warming and the logic behind it has been widely
publicized and understood both by proponents and detractors. It
essentially is this, with details omitted for the sake of clarity:

In
essence: energy comes in from the sun and, like an infrared heat lamp
it is radiated out from the Earth as infrared long-wave radiation. This
outward radiation is opposed by the greenhouse gases.

Since
the beginning of the industrial revolution, hydrocarbon fuels have been
burned in large quantities resulting in the release into the atmosphere
of more greenhouse gases than before, particularly CO2.

 Global
warming thus is thought to be harmful and due to the man-made addition
of greenhouse gases and will be amenable to reduction of greenhouse gas
emissions, particularly CO2. Public policy, both technical and
economic, research, and public discussion revolve around mitigation of
CO2.

A Different Climate Science

However,
on careful reflection, it can be seen that there is a step that has
been skipped; an unspoken omission that becomes an unconscious axiom
and leads us to ignore an entire line of inquiry. This step-skipping is
illogical.

That
is, that with the advent of the industrial revolution not only is CO2
generated by burning hydrocarbons, so is heat itself. Likewise with
nuclear power, heat is released upon the transmutation (changing into
other substances) of Uranium. In thinking about global climate change,
one must to calculate the heat added by nuclear reactors and
hydrocarbon fuels. Energy (in this case in the form of heat) can not be
destroyed, so says the first law of thermodynamics. Therefore, in
tallying the causes of global warming, this heat energy must be
included, be it large or small.

It
is argued though, that the amount of heat added by hydrocarbonand
nuclear fuels is not enough to account for global warming. However,
this must not be argued ahead of time (a priori), by which I mean:
First you estimate the heat addition since the advent of the industrial
revolution (e.g., 1880 – before which it was very small) then you
compare that with an estimate of total Earth warming from the same year
onward to determine whether it is enough.

These estimates have been made and with startling results.^{[3] [4]}

By expressing
the global warming in terms of energy, Nordell showed that the warming
corresponds to a tiny amount of energy compared to solar radiation,
specifically 62 hours (about 2½ days) of solar energy equivalent in the
120 years (about 44,000 days) from 1880-2000, or 0.005%. But even
though 62 hours is such a small amount in 120 years, Nordell asserts
that it is of the same order of magnitude as the total heat added by
human use of hydrocarbons/nukes and accounts for 74% of global warming.
He has a comprehensive and logical way of estimating both the total
amount of global warming and the quantity of heat produced by nuclear
and hydrocarbon use. Nickolaenko and Chaisson have presented similar
concepts.^{[5] [6]}

This has far-reaching implications – two schools of thought brought down by one idea.

Debunking Global Warming Denial

To begin- the easy one first:

Global
warming denial- personified by Senator J. Inhofe of Oklahoma, USA, who
had received, the last time I checked, $847,000 from oil corporations,
which have a stake in minimizing the importance of global warming since
the focus of their opponents has been to emphasize the greenhouse gas,
especially CO2, emission from hydrocarbons. This is not proof of
conscious wrongdoing as that would be an ad hominem argument ("argument
against the man") considered beyond the bounds of reason. However, to
ignore it entirely would be the opposite logical fallacy– letting him
slide without investigating this obvious conflict of interest.

How
was global warming denial brought down? By pointing out that some
global warming must occur with added heat –as noted above, energy can
never be destroyed. Some is dissipated through the Earth’s land, water
(including ice) and air. Some is radiated out, like turning up the
setting on a heat lamp, but not enough to eliminate all the extra heat.
The estimates cited above, and that have not been refuted by opposing
scholars, additionally demonstrate that it is a significant amount of
global warming.

To
go further, as stated by Georgescu-Roegen in 1975: “…solar energy, on
the other hand, has a unique and incommensurable advantage. The use of
any terrestrial energy produces some noxious pollution, which,
moreover, is irreducible and hence cumulative, be it in the form of
thermal pollution alone. By contrast, any use of solar energy is
pollution-free. For, whether this energy is used or not, it’s ultimate
fate is the same, namely, to become the dissipated heat that maintains
the thermodynamic equilibrium between the globe and outer space at a
propitious temperature.”^[7]

In
other words, solar energy is coming in; it is up to us to figure out
how to use it. Whether we use it or not, it will not add extra heat to
the Earth as will hydrocarbons and nukes. However, if we persist in
using heat-adding sources of energy, we will worsen global warming.

Debunking Greenhouse Gas Primacy

Secondly
– the global warming establishment. The administrative/scientific arm
is “official”. It is called IPCC, The Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change. It has the usual trappings: a multitude of reports,
both lengthy and repetitious, an army of bureaucrat-academics and
publicists with high-sounding titles. This is the publicity power
center and the source of public announcements of the policy noted
above: Public policy, both technical and economic, research, and public
discussion revolve around mitigation of CO2.

Perhaps
they are best personified by former U.S. Vice President Gore, more
recently, Nobelist Gore, for this work in his well-known film. Gore
skirts a few issues and did not bring up the ticklish subject of the
distribution of wealth and how that might affect both total CO2
production and CO2 production by and for the wealthy few, which would
include not only their lavish, really pharaonic, lifestyles, but also
the military use of hydrocarbons; much valuable information on this has
been rounded up by Barry Sanders.^[8] For
example, the U.S. Department of Defense is the largest consumer of
energy in the world, having used one quadrillion Btu (that’s a 1with 15
zeros) during fiscal 2006.

Despite
its establishment imprimatur, the IPCC and its enthronement are beset
by contradictions and difficulties, both scientific and political, in
addition to the two already discussed.

CO2
is relatively weak as a greenhouse gas. The strongest natural
greenhouse gas is water vapor. This has actually been known since 1861.^[9] There
is much more of it in the air than there is CO2 and it is intrinsically
more capable of holding in heat than CO2 is. However, water vapor
magnifies whatever effect CO2 has and increases in the atmosphere as
the temperature goes up. CO2 also rises in the atmosphere in response
to warming as well as being a cause.

CO2, if eliminated entirely would leave 88% of the greenhouse effect, according to Ramanathan and Coakley.^[10] Some estimates for the CO2 effect are smaller still, estimating that water vapor accounts for 95-98% of the greenhouse effect.^{[11] [12]}
So if greenhouse gases, as calculated by Nordell, account for less than
or equal to 26% of the greenhouse effect and CO2 only 12% of that, at
the most, the very most that CO2 abatement could do would be to reduce
global warming by 3%. Thus, it is hard to see how this would be a
significant effect. On the other hand, I have not proven that it is
insignificant. Heat, water vapor, and CO2 may form positive feedback
loops, each increasing the effects of the other two. At the same time
it is important to remember that water vapor is the important
atmospheric carrier of heat.

Note the superheated steam billowing from the twin towers - heat that will dissipate as hot water vapor in the atmosphere

Modeling
of the climate is even more complicated because of the effects of water
vapor as clouds, which may cause heating or cooling in various
situations.^[13]
There is also the problem of other greenhouse gases, such as methane,
which may be released from thawing permafrost. An exhaustive account is
beyond the goals of this paper.

And
we have IPCC’s further problems to examine. A stark fact to immediately
consider: A good example of “continuity of government” is that both the
Bush and Obama regimesmade it clear that they have no intention of
complying with the Kyoto agreement to reduce CO2 emissions to 1990
levels by 2012.^{[14] [15]}  Nor have they done anything substantive on fuel conservation through enforcing easily achievable high gas mileage for cars.

The
IPCC revises its climate model often and this should not be at all
startling given the way that science works in general and the
complexity and chaos of the climate in particular. Not surprisingly, no
predictive value has been shown for the models.

Nevertheless,
they and their allies get huffy if alternative theories to the
CO2/greenhouse theory, such as primary thermal production, as outlined
above, solar cycles, etc. are discussed.^{[16] [17]}
Their approach gives off an odor of “appeal to authority” the logical
fallacy called argumentum ad verecundiam by logicians. More reason to
examine them closely.

Besides
its vast establishment authority, the IPCC has strange and
not-so-strange bedfellows. Nuclear scientists are front and center
attacking alternative theories.As noted above, nuclear power is being
widely discussed in this season and we unfortunately appear to be at
the beginning of a planned nuclear resurgence. Global warming has been
worked nicely into the public relations campaign for nuclear power.

For
that to work at all, no quarter can be given to alternate theories such
as those discussed above. If primary heat production is the cause of
global warming, nukes are out, not just hydrocarbons.

They
have further problems. Their scientific edifice is based on two
“half-truths” or untruths. We have discussed the first already: the
rationale for greenhouse gas/CO2 hegemony is tenuous.

Here’s where they and their helpers tell a real whopper, in rationale No. 2: Nuclear power has zero carbon/CO2 emissions.^{[18] [19]}
It’s magnificent, breathtaking. “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep
saying it, and eventually they will believe it,” former German
Chancellor Adolf Hitler.

Nothing
has a zero CO2 footprint, even solar and solar-derived energy systems,
although these have very small ones, and smaller than those of nuclear
power plants. Here is the nuclear publicists’ kernel of truth: In the
near and medium term nuclear power has a smaller CO2 footprint than
hydrocarbons do with a wide range of estimates, from 8-50% of the
latter. The obligatory CO2 production occurs at a large number of
points along the nuclear reactor cycle(s), too many to comfortably read
in text. See Table for specifics on CO2 and CFCs (chlorofluorocarbons -
man made greenhouse gases) in the nuclear cycle.

There
is another subtlety that must be considered in evaluating the CO2
footprint- the efficiencies of nuclear power and hydrocarbon power.

What is “efficiency”?

When
we produce, purchase, or consume energy we care about electricity, not
energy in general. What we actually get is heat. The % of total heat
energy that we can turn into electricity is the efficiency. (This
doesnot apply to the internal combustion portion of our energy usage.)

For
nuclear power plants it is about 33%. That means that for every
kilowatt hour of electricity produced, there are two kilowatt hours
immediately wasted as heat. Hydrocarbon-based power plantsare more
efficient - 41-60%.^{[20] [21]}

These
facts bear upon our interpretation of the CO2 footprint. It needs to be
estimated not in thermal (same as total) kilowatt hours but in kilowatt
hours of electricity, that part of the energy produced that is actually
used.

Since nukes are less efficient, the advantage of a smaller CO2 footprint is proportionally reduced.

A
truly ugly aspect to ponder is the long-term CO2 footprint of nukes.
The sequelae of nuclear power and nuclear weapons (the two are
inseparable) are eternal. There is, I believe, no better way to put it.
It is difficult for the human mind to grasp long time periods. It
doesn’t matter if you tell me it is 100,000 years or 100,000,000. It is
forever. It will require continuous stewardship and security forever –
permanent labor peonage for our descendents. I find that profoundly
more disturbing than the accompanying obligatory CO2 production.

Nevertheless, the CO2 cost is infinite, since the job goes on forever.

The following table shows how nuclear power plants produce CO2 and use CFCs.

	Table
	Nuclear Power Plant/Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Greenhouse Gas Emissions
1	Mining (using diesel powered heavy machinery)
2	Transport to mill
3	Milling (rock crushed to powder, treated with sulphuric acid)
4	Depleted ore washed with lime (lime made by heating limestone with fossil fuels releasing CO2)
5	Resulting slurry pumped to tailing ponds
6	Tailing ponds maintained with diesel powered machinery
7	Uranium dissolved in kerosene to form Ammonium diuranate, or "yellowcake"
8	The yellowcake is roasted at 800°C, 1472 Deg F, in an oil-fired furnace called a calciner, converting it to 98% pure Uranium oxide
9	The Uranium oxide is packed into 44 gallon [UK] drums and transported to a shipping port; the drums are then shipped, often half way around the world
10	The Uranium oxide is dissolved in Hydrofluoric Acid and excess Fluorine gas to form Uranium hexafluoride gas
11	Uranium hexafluoride gas is then compressed and transported in cylinders to be enriched – centrifuges used require electricity, generally supplied by coal-powered plants in the U.S. Building the centrifuge cascades requires fossil fuels for mining and refining materials, transport and construction
12	Uranium hexafluoride gas is then transported to the fuel fabrication plant
13	The Uranium hexafluoride gas is converted to Uranium dioxide powder and pressed into pellets. They are then baked in an oil-fired furnace to form a ceramic material. The pellets are then loaded into the fuel rod - a tube made of a zirconium alloy. For every ton of Uranium in the fuel, up to 2 tons of Zirconium alloy are needed for the tubes.
14	Reactor construction requires large amounts of cement and steel, production of which releases a large amount of CO2
15	Uranium enrichment plants require CFCs for normal operation (cooling) of centrifuges
16	The reactor uses coal electricity in the US, as well as producing it.
17	Worker transport required to operate power plants
18	Recovered Plutonium and mixtures of Plutonium and Uranium oxides (MOX) are sent by road back to the fuel fabrication facility to be used in new fuel rods.
19	Plant decommissioning
20	Permanent security needs – by land, sea and air
21	In the paper “Nuclear Power : the energy balance" by J.W. Storm van Leeuwen and P. Smith (2005) the authors calculate that with high quality ores, the CO2 produced by the full nuclear life cycle is about one third to one half of an equivalent sized gas-fired power station. For low quality ores (less than 0.02% of U3O8 per tonne of ore), the CO2 produced by the full nuclear life cycle is EQUAL TO that produced by the equivalent gas-fired power station.

Nuclear Power, Nuclear Weapons, and Political Power

Through
the smoke and mirrors, we see the dance of the nukes vs. hydrocarbons,
but both Sen. Inhofe and Vice President Gore are nuclear proponents. In
Gore’s case it goes back to his daddy, who was well-connected to
hydrocarbon and nuclear capitalism.

Let’s
approach this another way, through the history of nuclear power.
Everything was humming along nicely until the Chernobyl and Three Mile
Island disasters and political defeats by popular movements in Oklahoma
and The Philippines. Nuclear power expansion was brought to a
standstill. Anti-nuclear power advocacy was unquestioned as a part of
the environmental movement and broader social movements.

However,
nuclear power is a non-negotiable requirement for America’s rulers.
Why? Because of the intimate union of nuclear weapons and nuclear
power. Military and political considerations dominate this decision,
rather than pure economics. The goal is and has been to promote,
develop and maintain American military hegemony, global "full spectrum
dominance", historically tied to nuclear weapons since the Manhattan
Project of the early 1940s. So it doesn’t matter that nuclear power
makes no sense from any other point of view: health, safety, potential
and actual disaster, economics. It is locked in.

A
strategy was developed. The first step was patience. Radical promotion
of nuclear power immediately after the problems mentioned above would
have been self-defeating.

Multi-pronged approach for 25-30 years:

Using
scientific public relations, find ways to sanitize nukes and ways to
keep bad news far from the public eye, muddy the waters on the
clear-cut and multi-generational proof of increased morbidity and
mortality from nukes, etc.^{[22] [23] [24] [25] [26]}

Don’t announce accidental releases of radioactive materials. ^[27] Humans
are not able to perceive radiation with our five senses. Thus there is
no way for the public to be aware of radiation poisoning, except if
informed or numerous people get and use radiation counters. By the same
token, the damage is silent and cumulative. For example, the fact that
the incubation period for cancer is anywhere from one (in the case of
childhood cancer) to 50 or more years after the initial insult makes it
easier to obscure the role of radiation and other environmental
initiators of cancer.

Thirty years
went by and the nuclear people are ready. They have mobilized some
strange bedfellows. Many environmentalists, including such luminaries
as James Lovelock, Stewart Brand, Jared Diamond, and George Monbiot,
have moved or been moved from anti-nuclear to pro-nuclear.The terms
“alternative” and “sustainable” are being used to describe nuclear
power.^{[28] [29]} The
rationale given by environmentalists is that global warming is an
impending civilization-ending cataclysm so that we have no other
choice; nukes are required as a temporary stop-gap measure.

Leftists and socialists have more or less joined in, embarrassingly buying the IPCC theories without a critical glance.^{[30] [31]}]
If anything they feel that IPCC is stodgy and “go slow” about their own
conclusions. They use that same “appeal to authority” fallacy; in this
case, the variant known as appeal to (elite) consensus. Look what
happened when “we” went by the word of that rustic slave-holder,
Aristotle, that the Sun goes around the Earth. It took Europeans 2000
years to get over that one.

Without saying
so or perhaps even being aware, they assume the science of global
warming and its interpretation by and reportage by IPCC is
non-ideological, is objective. This is quite a leap of faith and the
opposite of the critical approach recommended by socialist theory.^[32]

With regard to
nuclear power they may be against it in a perfunctory sense, for
example, giving a few spots on their websites and publications to
anti-nuclear views, without integrating the nuclear question into their
general approach.^33] It is the ghettoization of the anti-nuclear advocates and their point of view.^[34]
They miss something important and with political ramifications: Nuclear
weapons and nuclear power and political power can never be separated.

This latter
reality has foreign policy implications for all nations. There is a
worldwide push to sell and build nuclear power plants right now, a
state-backed money-maker for a few insiders. At the same time, there
has been in recent months an Obama-backed public relations campaign for
nuclear disarmament. It sounds good but is meaningless because nuclear
power and various nuclear and other weapons programs and radiation wars
will continue, even if large thermonuclear weapons are eliminated.

The
ramifications are there for leaders of all countries, who are aware of
the danger of getting into America’s gunsights, given the U.S.’
consistently bellicose behavior, even if American liberals are not.
They see that North Korea (DPRK) and Iran have countered America with
local military parity. For their countries’ survival they must get good
weapons and a nuclear start; with power plants, a toe in the door.
These arms races and related nuclear power races are lucrative for the
few.

Capitalism, Ecology, and CO2

There are also
socially destructive implications for a capitalist approach to CO2
abatement, for example, the capitalist-bureaucrat “cap and trade”
“industry”. This is open to all sorts of manipulation. A case in point:
nuclear people would like to see a carbon tax for the explicit purpose
of making nuclear power more economically competitive. 20In general,
this “industry” has all the charm, elegance and utility of a traveling
carnival. There is no evidence that it will reduce greenhouse gas
emissions or produce anything useful. Such an institution can be
counted upon to prolong its own existence and this in itself may
encourage it to be slow in greenhouse gas abatement.

CO2
sequestration technologic fixes are being promoted as part of this
green capitalism.At the same time not enough attention has been given
to the Earth’s carbon/CO2 cycle. The mass media discuss CO2 abatement
strictly in terms of hydrocarbon use. The total cycle and the CO2 sink
are rarely mentioned.

Much more CO2
is in the ocean and on land than in the air. The CO2 sink consists of
the ocean (about ¾) especially the ocean south of the Indian
subcontinent, and the land (about ¼). Through photosynthesis, the CO2
is utilized, turned into carbohydrate, e.g. cellulose, glucose. There
are also inorganic processes that incorporate CO2 into minerals. On
land the forests are most important.

The CO2 sink has degraded and is less able to incorporate CO2 than formerly.

In the ocean
due to factors such as these: radioactive contamination reducing living
populations, prior warming and acidification of the ocean rendering CO2
less soluble, and an ozone hole over the south ocean; the latter
thought to be due to CFC gases.^{[35] [36] [37]}

These CFCs are required coolants for a key part of the nuclear fuel cycle.

The rain
forests are a huge sink, but are being clear cut and burned at the rate
of tens of thousands of square miles per year. Fewer people are aware
of the northern (boreal) forest and its problems.Indigenous lands in
what is more often referred to as the Canadian Province of Alberta are
undergoing the largest engineering project in history ^{[38] [39]}
A huge forest has been and is being stripped off our Mother Earth, and
below the trees, gouging out the dirt itself in huge chunks visible
from outer space, to get the oil. It has been termed a gigantic slow
motion oil spill. The extraction itself is energy intensive and CO2
emitting. A further irony – there are plans to power this extraction
using nuclear energy, to reduce the CO2 footprint!^[40]

It is a double
whammy on the carbon/CO2 sink. Burning forests with their stored
carbohydrate releases CO2. Simultaneously, there is less live plant
life to incorporate CO2 through photosynthesis, at least temporarily.

North or south,
this is all for short-term profits for corporations with a global
reach. Where are the plans to mitigate this craziness?

Nuclear Dreams

We
will have better luckinvestigating the wet dreams of the nuclear
people. They have a desire to build Plutonium breeder reactors and
their associated reactor core reprocessing plants.^[41]
Current light water reactors cause fission (the energy-producing
reaction) of only 0.5% of the Uranium. The nuclear plants of which they
dream would raise that, ideally, up to 70% (the text does not
explicitly state whether or not it is Plutonium, Uranium, or a
mixture); 140 times greater energy yield. They project forward to 2050,
with nine billion people and each having an energy demand, on average,
150% of what we demand currently. They look to nuclear power to supply
over 50% of energy needs in 2050.^[19]

Think
of the other kind of power, and wealth, that this represents.This can
cloud many men’s minds, drive them to commit many crimes, and it has.
Fortunately, the scenario imagined above is strictly hallucinatory. But
let us imagine it taking place and the heat burden it would produce,
following Professor Nordell’s line of reasoning. It would be much worse
than current global warming trends.

False Choice

Today
the global public is faced with a false choice, profitable for a few
for a while, between nukes and hydrocarbons. The important, the “real”
distinction is no-added-heat (solar and solar-derived: wind, wave,
etc.) v added-heat (nukes and hydrocarbons).

In
addition to adding heat, nukes and hydrocarbons have several other
features in common. These materials and technologies lend themselves to
easy monopolization and require a hierarchical corporate structure with
an emphasis on security in order to carry out a complex series of
events to make that energy usable. Because of these features, they are
both labor and capital intensive.

On
the other hand the global public majority has no control over the
production and distribution of energy of this type. It is an enforced
scarcity.

They cause untold misery in terms of illness and early death.^[42] One
Alberta doctor noted a high number of cases of the usually rare cancer,
cholangiocarcinoma, likely due to the hydrocarbons and/or other
materials needed for hydrocarbon extraction, in the project discussed
above.

Solar and Solar-derived Energy

Solar
and solar-derived need not have any of the above-cited drawbacks. Until
very recently, we were told that solar wasn’t “ready”. Now we are told
that solar, wind, and wave are “not enough”. Really? It’s time to
splash our faces with cold water. Girls and boys, let us take off our
blinders. Father Sun sends us 122 Petawatts per year (equivalent to 122
million American-sized nuclear power plants). Our puny industries
produce only 0.005% as much. I think 6.7 billion people can figure out
how to optimally use this excessively generous gift, don’t you?

The
science and engineering of solar/solar derived systems have advanced
despite active hostility from the U.S. government, such that the price
of photovoltaics has collapsed one-thousand-fold in forty years, only
one of many examples. Very little government research money has gone,
over the decades, to solar/solar-derived compared to
nukes/hydrocarbons, the taxpayer subsidizing the energy corporations.^[43]

Nevertheless,
the energy capitalists have designs on solar and wind power also. They
envision centralized facilities and huge grids at taxpayer expense with
a hierarchical corporate structure.

But
we do not have to settle for that. Nowadays there are small solar,
small wind, and a wide variety of systems. There are also storage
systems for solar energy despite continuing assertions to the contrary.

Psychological, Social, Economic and Political Conclusions

The
type of technology we have determines much about our culture and even
our inner thoughts and feelings. Thus we should determine what type of
technology we develop based upon our understanding of our purpose and
need. Ideally, our needs should be filled with as a low a labor and
capital input as possible. If solar/wind are cheap and easy, which they
will be, why should we spend more time laboring in a labor-intensive,
dirty, dangerous industry and spend more time laboring to purchase (as
rate-payer &/or tax-payer) expensive capital equipment and supplies
that go up in radiation and smoke.

We can have a shorter work week and get on to further pressing problems.

We
have serious problems to solve. The excesses of the industrial/nuclear
era have resulted in, in many ways, degradation of our physical beings
and that of our Mother Earth. Untangling this will be a challenging
project for 21st Century humanity. See footnote 34 for just one example.

Although
many will agree on the utility of the approach I suggest here, it is
not compatible with a capitalist system or logic. Capitalism requires
that the labor of the many (the more, the better; and continually
increasing) becomes the wealth of the few – not compatible with low
labor and capital inputs. To make it happen will require tenacious
political struggle.

Finally,
for those unconvinced of the role of primary heat production in causing
global warming and agreeing with the IPCC assessment that greenhouse
gases are the most important factor, the solution proposed here is the
better one. It is shown here that for CO2 and other greenhouse gases,
nukes add a significant burden beyond that caused by hydrocarbons
alone, and in comparison with solar/solar-derived power. Thus
eliminating hydrocarbons and nukes will solve the problem more quickly
than only eliminating hydrocarbons.

 

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Morton
S. Skorodin, M.D. is a regular guest writer for Axis of Logic. He
offers a sound scientific perspective on a range of social and
environmental issues that confront all of humanity in the 21st century.
He lives in Oklahoma and he can be reached at mskorodin@gmail.com