NEI Nuclear Notes

One of the points that is made again and again about nuclear energy – on this blog, certainly, but really, in many places – is that if the world pulled away from nuclear energy, it would be very hard to achieve the carbon emission reduction goals that are wanted – needed – to stave off climate disaster. That’s not a slam at renewable energy, just a recognition of what’s currently possible and impossible, practical and not practical Still, the starkness of this article startling: A halving of a global nuclear power expansion after Japan's Fukushima disaster would increase global growth in carbon dioxide emissions by 30 percent through 2035, the IEA said on Wednesday. Although the International Energy Agency has a dog in the race, it’s not the one you think. It was created after the seventies oil crisis (If you’re of an age, you may remember lining up your car - on certain days of the week – to get your rationed gasoline) to act as a stopgap if the petroleum supply is ag...

Last month Leslie Berliant of Celsias asked Jan Willem Storm van Leeuwen if nuclear power is “free of greenhouse gas emissions.” For those who are unfamiliar with van Leeuwen, he and his colleague Philip Smith have been falsely claiming nuclear power’s lifecycle emissions will be higher than a fossil-fueled power station within several decades as high-quality uranium ore grades diminish. As I was reading the Celsias piece, the sentence below stopped me in my tracks: Today the world nuclear capacity is around 370 GW, providing 2.1% of the world energy supply (see Part A - PDF). 2.1%? It's common knowledge around here that the actual share is about 6 percent, so I checked the reference. What I found was stunning. In the debate about lifecycle emissions, the conclusions of both the antis and the pros depended mostly upon the assumptions of the analyses. But the error above wasn’t a matter of assumption, it was due to a complete lack of understanding of how certain energy statisti...

The International Energy Agency released its World Energy Outlook 2007 report last week (purchase required). According to the web page : The annual World Energy Outlook is the leading source for medium to long-term energy market projections and analysis and has achieved widespread international recognition. It is the flagship publication of the International Energy Agency. Last Friday I attended IEA’s Executive Director’s and Chief Economist’s presentation on the Outlook here in DC. Needless to say, their assessment of global energy to 2030 kept me tuned in as each point made was intriguing and sobering. Below are some highlights. The report analyzed three energy scenarios for the world’s demands: a reference, an alternative policy, and a 450 stabilization case. The reference scenario is what happens if the world continues down its current path of energy consumption without any “new energy-policy interventions.” By not changing our current trajectory, we can ex...