Stop Buying Birthday and Christmas Presents for your Grandchildren

Ken Caldeira experiences "Macabre Indifference" when doing the rounds, lecturing to those interested in environmental issues.

We're prepared to continue sending 2 million people a year to early graves, alter atmospheric chemistry and acidify oceans, because it would reduce our standard of living by a tiny amount


Stop buying birthday and Christmas presents for your grandchildren and give them a better planet to live on instead ! 

Caldeira on Climate Science and Choices
To paraphrase: 
If you asked a room-full of people - If your present energy system did not dump waste into the atmosphere and the oceans and a cheaper energy system was available that did do that, would you choose to save a tiny amount of your income to adopt the new system? The result would be - "...almost nobody has ever come up and been willing to take that trade..."

Ask the question in reverse - meaning would most people give up a tiny amount of their income for an emissions-free, less polluting system? The result would be - "...they're reluctant to do that..." 

Caldeira on Climate Science and Choices (Pt. 2)
"...we can act ethically, when acting ethically is cheap, but when acting ethically is expensive, we tend to cut corners.

And so, having cheap, feasible, alternative energy technologies, that are environmentally benign, seems central..."

And this is what Ken Caldeira and James Hansen are prepared to go public about:
'To those Influencing Environmental Policy But Opposed to Nuclear Power'

Four Seasoned Nuclear Scientists Endorse Nuclear Energy Push by Four Climate Scientists.

What do they know? - Well, there's maybe 200 year's worth of experience and in-depth knowledge of nuclear power generation.

Maybe, just maybe - we, the general public, who don't give a you-know-what to where our energy comes from, as long as it's there 24/7, on demand, should pay due consideration to what they have to say and the energy security nuclear power gives us !

Pandora's Promise - Get anyone and everyone to see it!

"...the very things that were designed to blow up our cities are lighting our cities..."

Clip from Pandora's Promise

Electricity Generated from Fossil Fuels Kills Millions - Who Cares?

Macabre Indifference: Gruesome and horrifying lack of concern. 

Accurate, justified description of the vast majority of energy users. We really don't give a you-know-what where the energy comes from, as long as it's there 24/7, on demand.

So - will a peer-reviewed paper, claiming nuclear power has saved  1,840,000 deaths elicit more than a mass shrug of the shoulders and a concealed "So What"? I doubt it!

                                                  

Prevented mortality and greenhouse gas emissions from historical and projected nuclear power

"...Their numbers come from calculating how many people would have likely died due to air pollution over the years, but didn't, because electricity was created by non-air polluting nuclear power plants instead..."

"...Kharecha and Hansen argue that burning coal over the years that nuclear power has been used as a viable energy source, (since 1971) instead of building nuclear plants would have led to deaths from lung related ailments from both the mining of coal, and burning it to create electricity. They have then used the number of deaths in the past from such ailments to project numbers in the future. They say that if the world would convert to all nuclear power by the middle of this century, 420,000 to 7 million deaths could be prevented. The numbers vary so much because they would depend on which energy source nuclear power would replace. Their overall point is that nuclear energy is much safer than coal—when looking at raw death numbers—and therefore should be seen as a replacement source for electricity generation, rather than as menace that should be abolished..."

ONSHORE WIND POWER DELIVERED versus WIND INDUSTRY ASSERTIONS

Is energy from onshore wind competitive? The industry claims it is on the basis of 5 common assertions. If these assertions are wildly over-optimistic, to the point of misleading, then wind power fails, because offshore wind will never be able to compete. 

For a 26 month period (November 2008 to December 2010) daily wind generation was examined and collated into this report: ANALYSIS OF UK WIND POWER GENERATION

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Assertion No 1: “Wind turbines will generate on average 30% of their rated capacity over a year.”

Conclusion No 1: This assertion is 25% (a) over-optimistic.

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Assertion No 2: “The wind is always blowing somewhere.”

Conclusion No 2: On average, once every 3½ days, only negligible power was delivered from the available 1600 MW average capacity.

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Assertion No 3: “Periods of widespread low wind are infrequent.”

Conclusion No 3: On average, once every 6.38 days, for a period of 4.93 hours, only negligible power was delivered from the available 1600 MW average capacity.

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Assertion No 4: “The probability of very low wind output coinciding with peak electricity demand is slight.”

Conclusion No 4: At each of the four highest peak demands of 2010 wind output was low being respectively 4.72%, 5.51%, 2.59% and 2.51% of capacity at peak demand.

------/------

Assertion No 5: “Pumped storage hydro can fill the generation gap during prolonged low wind periods.”

Conclusion No 5: The entire pumped storage hydro capacity in the UK can provide up to 2788MW for only 5 hours then it drops to 1060MW, and finally runs out of water after 22 hours.

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Note (a) Quoting percentages, is beloved by wind power enthusiasts to make things look

               so much better (or worse)

Onshore wind power technology fails miserably on all 5 assertions, which underpin the claims of the industry and its supporters.

What is the point of building anymore onshore wind farms when such dismal levels of generation punctuate their actual performance so frequently? Nuclear power, the only other zero-emissions form of generation, cannot correct the problem, so it's left to carbon-emitting technologies to do so. 

Wind power is inextricably linked to the extra cost of duplicating its capacity with fossil-fuel burning technologies, to provide our electricity, when the wind doesn't blow. It's that simple!