Several weeks ago Joshua Pearce at Clarion University in Pennsylvania released a study titled “ Thermodynamic limitations to nuclear energy deployment as a greenhouse gas mitigation technology .” In the study he stated... nuclear energy production would have to increase by 10.5% per year from 2010 to 2050 to both replace fossil-fuel-energy use and meet the future energy demands. This line, of course, made the headlines and has been picked up by several outlets and blogs . When looking into his calculations for this statement, he made one assumption error that overstated the above sentence by nearly a factor of three. Page 121, Section 4.1 of the study states: Richard Smalley pointed out that in 2004, the global economy consumed the equivalent of 220 million barrels of oil per day, which converted into electricity terms is the equivalent of 14.5 TeraWatts (TW), or 14,500,000 MegaWatts (MW) (2005). … With a nuclear plant having about 1000 MW (1 GW) of capacity, we would need 14,500...
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One of my podcasting colleagues - Cameron Reilly, the owner of The Podcast Network - recently interviewed the Wisconsin Secretary of State - Doug La Follette about his long time environmental activism.
You can find the show at
http://gdayworld.thepodcastnetwork.com/index.php?s=La+Follette
When you listen, pay attention to the discussion about power production - the nuclear topic never appeared. That might change during the promised next talk when La Follette returns from Thailand.