Selling nuclear based on low CO2 footprint (Harold Doiron)

February 7, 2017

By Harold Doiron, Retired Mechanical Engineer, US Space Program The following is from a conversation among scientists on three continents about fossil fuels and nuclear power.

Selling Nuclear Power Based on Arguments of Its Low CO2 Footprint The current estimate of world-wide coal reserves is the big driver in fossil fuel reserves.

Reserves are well-established in developed counties, but not undeveloped countries.

The EIA has a factor of 3 difference from low to high world-wide coal reserves values and we used the high value to compute a maximum of 600 ppm atmospheric CO2 concentration when all of the current EIA world-wide reserves of coal, oil and natural gas are recovered and burned.

Other research, notably by Electrical Engineering Professor David Rutledge of Cal Tech, points out that coal reserves in that EIA high estimate and similar IPCC high estimates, are in deeper narrow coal seams in coal mines that are being closed now in Europe, with less than 20% of their reserves ever being recovered. Rutledge claims that once a coal mine is closed, unlike an old oilfield, it is highly unlikely that it will ever be re-opened again.

We need to analyze EIA data for yearly growth in reserves to understand where/when we might be expect world-wide conventional fossil fuel reserves estimates to converge to a stable value.

I am more comfortable, at least for shorter term forecasts of GHG-driven GMST change and current policy decisions, in using supply-constrained GHG emission scenarios than the energy demand type emissions scenarios preferred by warmist climate scientists and the IPCC. The energy demand-driven scenarios don't even address the relationship between fossil fuels produced, fuel prices and the cost to produce yearly reserves consumed. If energy companies counted their proven reserves the way the IPCC seems to assume world-wide fossil fuel supplies are available, the Securities and Exchange Commission would put their CEO's in jail.

Our government should be consistent in the way it books fossil fuel reserves for all of its policy decisions.

When you use energy-supply constrained CO2 emission scenarios, and an observationbased determination of atm. GHG climate sensitivity, it is obvious we don't have an immediate climate problem requiring swift, corrective world-wide coordinated action to control CO2 emissions now. Such irrational decisions as the Obama Administration Page 1

made on unilateral CO2 emissions controls, I believe will be dismantled during the Trump Administration that is bringing more rational decision-makers into our government.

We need to focus climate research on getting rid of the unnecessary "official" uncertainty regarding the GHG climate threat, by outlawing un-validated climate simulation model output for use in public policy decision-making, and only trust validated observation-based models that are in compliance with The Scientific Method.

The need for nuclear power to make the US energy independent, that I think must be a national goal, should be justified on a competitive cost/Kwh basis and other strategic considerations. As fossil fuel reserves are consumed and prices of the depleting resource rise, nuclear should come into its own. But the American public needs to be educated on the safe and beneficial characteristics of new nuclear technology compared to "renewable" alternatives being pushed and subsidized in the marketplace now, that don't make good engineering sense. There will be new generations of Americans that need to be targeted for nuclear education for this coming market-driven transition away from fossil fuels.

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