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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Like --
A. If he/she keeps saying that a reactor is "spewing" out radioactivity.
B. Fukushima is a "nuclear accident" instead of a "tsunami accident" (since people are killed in disasters).
C. Keeps showing crying little kids being swept by Geiger counters.
D. Gives a pro-nuker a five second bite in a three minute nuclear report.
E. Has deep ominous music playing in the background while showing clips of nuke plants under dark cloudy skies.
F. Keeps filming huge looming cooling towers like they ARE the reactors.
Etc...
James Greenidge
Queens NY
Correction for "B" is:
B. Fukushima is a "nuclear disaster" instead of a "tsunami disaster" (since people are killed in disasters).
James Greenidge
Queens NY
* First, such polls are definitely not scientific, and so are likely to be innaccurate - as an example, you have NEI calling on members to vote, and no doubt you probably have anti-nuclear organizations call upon their supporters to vote, and so the results could just reflect what organizations noticed the poll, and which are best organized to get member response quickly to such things.
* Even if you had a formal, official "voted" during an election, the question of whether to shutdown an individual nuclear plant should not be up for majority opinion. The majority can vote on overall policy - I suppose if a majority of Americans wanted to shutdown all nuclear power plants, that would be a legitimate exercise of democracy, but when it comes to individual plants, it should be owners, and regulators (e.g. NRC) who decide on technical and legal grounds whether the plant qualifies to be licensed and operate, not MOB RULE.