Climate Discussion Group 2024, CDG2024
Discussion – Policy P4
October - November 2024
P4 Energy of all forms, including nuclear and SMRs, etc
Dec. 30, 2024
John Shanahan, USA
In January, 2010, John Shanahan began a project to engage energy, climate science and government policy experts for education of government leaders and the public. That main goal continues on the website: allaboutenergy.net. One project in 2024 was Climate Discussion Group 2024, CDG2024 hosted and moderated by Gerald Ratzer, Emeritus Professor of Computer Science at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
CDG2024 Home Page Box [2], Section [P4] discusses many energy forms for generating electricity and other uses.
CDG2024 hosted global discussions in October and November, 2024. In December the team processed all the information and wrote summary reports for Boxes [1], [2], [5] and [6].
We weren’t able to engage all the experts originally invited, especially in Section P4. For sake of future reference to CDG2024 documents, we have added some discussions marked by (*) using existing publications and posthumously (**). They did not actually happen in the last three months. But they are
imporant to develop a better overall picture.
Dec. 15, 2024
(*) Meredith Angwin USA
Dec. 15, 2024
(*) Robert Bryce USA
Dec. 15, 2024
(**) John Landis USA
Dec. 15, 2024
(*) Kenneth Kok USA
Dec. 15, 2024
(**) Daniel Meneley Canada
Daniel Meneley was an outstanding leader in the development of nuclear power in Canada. He contributed to student education about the importance of coal. John Shanahan gathered articels and videos from him from 2010 until his death in 2018.
Daniel A. Meneley Civil Engineer, BE, DIC, PhD (Imperial College, London),Experience: Argonne Lab., Fast reactor physics research and design, 9 years. Ontario Hydro, CANDU power plant design, analysis, safety, & waste management, 12 years. University of New Brunswick Professor of Nuclear Engineering, 7 years. AECL CANDU design management, 10 years.,Emeritus Chief Engineer, AECL. Member Professional Engineers of Ontario. Fellow, American Nuclear Society and Canadian Nuclear Society.
Dec. 15, 2024
(*) Wanda Munn USA
Dec. 15, 2024
(**) Donald Riley USA
Dec. 15, 2024
Member International Safety Advisory Group, IAEA, ‘85-’88. Chair, Defence Science Advisory Board, ‘97-’03.
Here are select publications and videos on nuclear power and coal.
Canadian nuclear poser plants use their own technology, CANDU (CANada Deuterium Uranium). It has two advantages over the more widely use Lightwater reactors developed initially in the USA:
1) Does not enriched uranium.
2) Does not need to turn the power off for refueling.
CANDU needs heavy water, a less abundant version of water with hydrogen-2 isotope, deuterium.
Lightwater reactors, LWR, use the more abundant variation of water with hydrogen-1.
The CANDU nuclear power plants have an excellent safety record.
December 30, 2024
(**) Theodore Rockwell
USA
Dec. 15, 2024
(*) Alan Waltar
USA Nov. 8, 2024
IAEA, Howard Cork Hayden, Patrick Moore, John Shanahan
Austria, Canada, USA
“As the world grapples with the escalating impacts of climate change, IAEA Director General Rafael Mariano Grossi will join global leaders and stakeholders at the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), or COP29, to highlight the vast potential of nuclear solutions for climate change mitigation, adaptation and monitoring.” [IAEA]
For over three decades scientists have demonstrated that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels does not cause catastrophic global warming. Therefore, nuclear power is not solving a real problem. It is a sales pitch that is a disgrace to professionals in nuclear power. Physicist Howard Cork Hayden and ecologist, Patrick Moore have ponted both of these facts out for years.
Still the leadership at the IAEA and other nuclear power institutions insist in claiming that nuclear power can solve man-made global warming/climate change problems. Many of these leaders have never worked in design, construction or operation of nuclear power. The misrepresentaions they make reflect badly on the good professional people in nuclear power.
“If nuclear power professionals aren’t qualified to recognize the importance of carbon dioxide as the
molecule of life, but rather claim it is a serious pollutant, how can they be trusted to design, construct and operate nuclear power plants safely?” [John Shanahan, civil engineer]
IAEA at COP29: Nuclear Solutions for Climate Change
Oct. 29, 2024
Ronald Stein
Oliver Hemmers
Steve Curtis USA
The poorest Americans are richer than 75 percent of humanity. About 4.56 billion people on this planet are living on less than $10 a day, and billions are living with little to no access to electricity.
Most people in the United States have access to electric power, which is required by water filtration, sanitation, airports, hospitals, medical equipment, appliances, electronics, communications systems, heating and ventilating, space programs, and militaries.
However, several billion people worldwide do not have access to the infrastructures enjoyed in wealthier developed countries, and most Americans find this hard to believe.
Yet, the solution is simple: Get the Government to quit “helping,” as it is the job of the American people and free enterprise to innovate products people like, not the Government. Again, the basic solution is anchored in the basic economic principle of free enterprise, unencumbered by Government “help.”
The most pronounced factor in poverty, or basic quality of life, is affordable electricity in our modern world. We
Feb. 27, 2023 Kelvin Kemm SouthAfrica
find it difficult to operate any of our machines without it. Yet 120 years ago, almost nobody had electricity. Such is the magic of modern innovation. Access, however, is not enough. Electricity must be dirt cheap or almost free. Don’t laugh. Thanks to free enterprise, we can now make all the long-distance phone calls we want for one low monthly cell phone fee.
The solution to affordable electricity is within the grasp of “we the people,” more than you think. Technology exists; now, all we need is political will. Two factors have accentuated the need for more clean electricity in the last few years: more concern about clean air and a massive increase in electricity demand projected to double or triple in the coming decades, driven by the sudden popularity of Artificial Intelligence, Data Centers, and EV charging.
See full article below.
Affordable electricity can resolve worldwide poverty
Electricity is the lifeblood of the country. If it stops flowing, the economy immediately starts to decay. The average citizen notices it immediately when the electricity stops flowing, because the kettle does not work and the lights go out. So there is an instant public reaction.
The public demands ‘a solution’.
So people look for a ‘quick-fix’.
Unfortunately, it is not so easy; it is far more difficult to generate electricity than people realise. Coal power stations are huge; you
December 30, 2024 6
can park a couple of Boeings inside one, easily.
The public wants a quick-fix to an electricity shortage so they jump at solutions such as solar panels and wind turbines. These renewable energy devices are not equal to a huge coal power station, not by any stretch of the imagination. There is also the added problem that solar is only available for part of the day, and not at all at night. Wind is only available when the wind blows, and you don’t know when that will be.
Imagine that you have just undergone open-heart surgery and you’re in the Intensive Care Unit, ask yourself; would I rather have the Intensive Care Unit attached to solar and wind power, or attached to coal or nuclear power?
If you are a miner working two or three kilometres underground in an inherently hot, dusty gold mine, that same question is most important too!
People these days are constantly coming up with all sorts of ideas for quick-fix energy, even though very many of the people concerned have no technology training. They say sea-wave energy; tidal energy; a wind energy device which works like a rotating washing line; use hydrogen; geothermal, as if all of these are ingenious new ideas. They are not; they are all very old ideas and were not adopted on a large scale for very good reasons.Mostly, they were not adopted because they cannot produce large compact power, and also because they are very unreliable.
Here we have so far considered only technological questions, and the results for the ‘renewables’ are not so good. But now, unfortunately for renewables, if you add in economic factors the renewables become worse.
If society wants a continuously-running lifeblood of electricity, then the electricity must still flow when the sun is not shining and when the wind drops. What this means is that when a solar and wind combination is used, there must always be a reliable continuous alternative supply on standby; such as coal and nuclear.
But if a coal power station is standing idle much of the day because
solar is being used and the wind is blowing, the staff at the coal station are still being paid. The costs at the coal station are still mounting. Those costs of idled coal plants must be added to the apparent costs of solar and wind, but that is generally not done. One has to ask: where do the costs of a coal-fired power station being kept in reserve in idle mode get added into the financial equation? There are definitely valuable applications for solar and wind, but driving an electric train across the vast and arid South African Karoo, or operating a gold mine are not for them. Wind turbines can be used for pumping water up into a dam. Solar can be used for an application which only needs power over lunchtime.
So people look for a ‘quick-fix’.
Unfortunately, it is not so easy; it is far more difficult to generate electricity than people realise. Coal power stations are huge; you can park a couple of Boeings inside one, easily.
The public wants a quick-fix to an electricity shortage so they jump at solutions such as solar panels and wind turbines. These renewable energy devices are not equal to a huge coal power station, not by any stretch of the imagination. There is also the added problem that solar is only available for part of the day, and not at all at night. Wind is only available when the wind blows, and you don’t know when that will be.
Imagine that you have just undergone open-heart surgery and you’re in the Intensive Care Unit, ask yourself; would I rather have the Intensive Care Unit attached to solar and wind power, or attached to coal or nuclear power?
If you are a miner working two or three kilometres underground in an inherently hot, dusty gold mine, that same question is most important too!
People these days are constantly coming up with all sorts of ideas for quick-fix energy, even though very many of the people concerned have no technology training. They say sea-wave energy; tidal energy; a wind energy device which works like a rotating
December 30, 2024
washing line; use hydrogen; geothermal, as if all of these are ingenious new ideas. They are not; they are all very old ideas and were not adopted on a large scale for very good reasons.Mostly, they were not adopted because they cannot produce large compact power, and also because they are very unreliable.
Here we have so far considered only technological questions, and the results for the ‘renewables’ are not so good. But now, unfortunately for renewables, if you add in economic factors the renewables become worse.
If society wants a continuously-running lifeblood of electricity, then the electricity must still flow when the sun is not shining and when the wind drops. What this means is that when a solar and wind combination is used, there must always be a reliable continuous alternative supply on standby; such as coal and nuclear.
But if a coal power station is standing idle much of the day because solar is being used and the wind is blowing, the staff at the coal station are still being paid. The costs at the coal station are still mounting. Those costs of idled coal plants must be added to the apparent costs of solar and wind, but that is generally not done. One has to ask: where do the costs of a coal-fired power station being kept in reserve in idle mode get added into the financial equation? There are definitely valuable applications for solar and wind, but driving an electric train across the vast and arid South African Karoo, or operating a gold mine are not for them. Wind turbines can be used for pumping water up into a dam. Solar can be used for an application which only needs power over lunchtime.
A reliable electricity supply for South Africa