Re: Nuclear Energy and global climate

As I recall, uranium reserves are limited, thereby also limiting the nuclear
energy option even if sufficient power plants existed. There are uranium
reserves of significance in southern Somalia, due for further exploration,
which the anti-UN/tribal fighting disrupted. Another option is, like France,
to invest considerable resources into breeder reactors. The U.S. Congress
turned this down some years ago. And fusion is years away from economic
viability, despite energy breakeven.

At 1kW/m^2 from the sun for about 20 % of the time (or a continuous average
of 200 W/m^2), 5 m^2 supplies the average US residence with electricity.
More is needed to power electric vehicles, and perhaps 15 m^2 per household
would suffice. The problem is as much energy storage as generation. Solar
thermal versus PV seems to me the way to go when storage is considered.

Unless ...

Physicist Tom Beardon in Huntsville, AL has published some chapters in a
recent book on the latest in optics (electromagnetics) that propose (and
claim experimental verification of) a new method of electric energy supply,
based on a generalization of EM theory. The generalization is to not apply
the Lorentz gage as such to make the propagation equations appear as in the
conventional theory. I haven't fully assimilated the physics yet (see
http://www.cheniere.org/images/Energy/ for an intro).

Beardon was recently the target of an attack in the editorial page of
Scientific American, though not by name (by patent number). Beardon is
claiming for his prototype device, based on readily available magnetics
components, a power gain of x 2 or 100 %. It would take some rather sloppy
experimental measurement to be off by such a wide tolerance.

Dennis Feucht

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kenneth Piers" <Pier@calvin.edu>
To: <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, June 29, 2004 7:46 AM
Subject: Nuclear Energy and global climate

> Friends: The International Atomic Energy Agency is pessimistic about the
> possibilities of installing nuclear energy facilities fast enough to
forestall
> global warming. This likely also means that we will be unable to look to
> nuclear energy to forestall a crisis in oil production.
>
> full story
>
http://www.energycentral.com/centers/news/daily/printer_friendly.cfm?aid=495
5512
> Nuclear Power `Can't Stop Climate Change'
> Jun 27 - Independent on Sunday, The Nuclear power cannot solve global
warming,
> the international body set up to promote atomic energy admits today.
> The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which exists to spread the
> peaceful use of the atom, reveals in a new report that it could not grow
fast
> enough over the next decades to slow climate change - even under the most
> favourable circumstances.
>
> The report - published to celebrate yesterday's 50th anniversary of
nuclear
> power - contradicts a recent surge of support for the atom as the answer
to
> global warming.
>
> That surge was provoked by an article in The Independent last month by
> Professor James Lovelock - the creator of the Gaia theory - who said that
only
> a massive expansion of nuclear power as the world's main energy source
could
> prevent climate change overwhelming the globe.
>
> Professor Lovelock, a long-time nuclear supporter, wrote: "Civilization is
in
> imminent danger and has to use nuclear - the one safe, available, energy
source
> - now or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet."
>
> His comments were backed by Sir Bernard Ingham, Lady Thatcher's former PR
> chief, and other commentators, but have now been rebutted by the most
> authoritative organization on the matter.
>
> Unlike fossil fuels, nuclear power emits no carbon dioxide, the main cause
of
> climate change. However, it has long been in decline in the face of rising
> public opposition and increasing reluctance of governments and utilities
to
> finance its enormous construction costs.
>
> No new atomic power station has been ordered in the US for a quarter of a
> century, and only one is being built in Western Europe - in Finland.
Meanwhile,
> Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands and Sweden have all pledged to phase out
> existing plants.
>
> The IAEA report considers two scenarios. In the first, nuclear energy
> continues to decline, with no new stations built beyond those already
planned.
> Its share of world electricity - and thus its relative contribution to
fighting
> global warming - drops from its current 16 per cent to 12 per cent by
2030.
>
> Surprisingly, it made an even smaller relative contribution to combating
> climate change under the IAEA's most favourable scenario, seeing nuclear
power
> grow by 70 per cent over the next 25 years. This is because the world
would
> have to be so prosperous to afford the expansions that traditional ways of
> generating electricity from fossil fuels would have grown even faster.
Climate
> change would doom the planet before nuclear power could save it.
>
> Alan McDonald, an IAEA nuclear energy analyst, told The Independent on
Sunday
> last night: "Saying that nuclear power can solve global warming by itself
is
> way over the top." But he added that closing existing nuclear power
stations
> would make tackling climate change harder.
>
> ken piers
>
>
> Ken Piers
>
> "Everything should be as simple as possible - but not simpler." A.
Einstein
>
Received on Fri Jul 2 14:59:08 2004