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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I do hope that Forbes is right about Obama's position on nuclear issues. I am also cautiously optimistic in that area. Obama's got a first class brain, and if he's given enough information to judge an issue like nuclear power on the merits, he will--hopefully.
He isn't a Boomer who grew up during the years of atomic testing and missile crises and hopelessly conflates nuclear weapons with nuclear power, a major factor that made some of the Boomers rather anti-nuclear. So I think he's reachable for the purpose of turning his skeptical support into warm support for nuclear...if you give him the evidence and the facts to make such a choice.
On another note, my generation, we'll be on Obama's staff...you should reach out to us...because you'll find that though we're progressive and liberal, we're also willing to try new things, including those things rejected by our parents...like nuclear power, provided somebody makes a case to us. For example, engaging progressive bloggers and younger opinion leaders on nuclear issues might pay quite good dividends--especially about using nuclear power as an answer to climate change, and the like.