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Comment Nuclear power is not 'low carbon' (Score 1) 309

by mdsolar (#49019969) Attached to: The IPCC's Shifting Position On Nuclear Energy
"Claims that nuclear power is a 'low carbon' energy source fall apart under scrutiny, writes Keith Barnham. Far from coming in at six grams of CO2 per unit of electricity for Hinkley C, as the Climate Change Committee believes, the true figure is probably well above 50 grams - breaching the CCC's recommended limit for new sources of power generation beyond 2030." http://www.theecologist.org/Ne...

Submission + - McGill University faculty members call for divestment from fossil fuels (globalnews.ca)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: Over 200 Faculty members at McGill University are calling on the institution to divest its endowment fund of fossil fuel companies, “with an immediate focus on companies heavily involved in the Canadian oil sands.”

The McGill Faculty for Divestment sent a letter to the McGill University Board of Governors, calling on the Board to immediately dump fossil fuel companies from its portfolio, citing environmental and climate grounds.

“Reducing dependency on fossil fuels is an urgent matter,” said McGill medical anthropologist Dr. Margaret Lock, a signatory to the letter, Officer of the Order of Canada and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada.

Submission + - Sydney Uni to divest from fossil fuels, as global momentum builds (reneweconomy.com.au)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: The University of Sydney has revealed its plans to begin divesting from heavy-polluting and fossil fuel companies, in an effort to cut the carbon footprint of its investment portfolio by 20 per cent in three years.

The partial divestment plan, released by the University on Monday, brings it in line with a growing number of tertiary, religious and other organizations around the world that have divested over $50 billion in fossil fuel stocks for reasons both environmental and economic – that is, their business models are incompatible with the pledge by the world’s governments to tackle global warming.

Submission + - The New School Takes a Big Step Beyond Divesting Fossil Fuel Stock (nytimes.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: Many universities have decided to drop fossil fuel stocks from their investment portfolios, but the New School in New York City has decided to go a step further.

The eclectic, historically progressive school said it would not only divest itself of all fossil fuel investments in coming years, but officials say they also are reshaping the entire curriculum to focus more on climate change and sustainability.

The school, which has a strong emphasis on the field of design, sees opportunities in meeting the challenge of climate change and economic growth, said Joel Towers, executive dean of Parsons the New School of Design.

“What we’re trying to do here is to get students and faculty to think differently about climate change, and look at it as an opportunity to design the future differently,” he said.

Submission + - Why the nuclear industry targets renewables instead of gas (midwestenergynews.com) 3

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: Cheap natural gas has upended the nation’s energy landscape and made aging nuclear power plants increasingly uncompetitive.

Yet the nuclear industry, which generates almost a fifth of the nation’s energy, has declared war not on gas but on wind and solar, which represent about 4 and 0.2 percent of our energy mix, respectively.

Nuclear generators have successfully fought against renewable and energy efficiency standards on the state level, and lobbied against tax incentives for wind and solar on the federal level. They’re in the process of securing changes in regional capacity markets that would benefit nuclear and harm solar and wind.

And as states develop their Clean Power Plans to fulfill the federal mandate to reduce carbon emissions, nuclear is often pitted against renewables.

In deregulated states like Illinois, Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania, nuclear generators have found it increasingly difficult to sell their power at a profit on open markets, because of competition primarily from gas but also from wind.

Meanwhile, energy efficiency and distributed solar generation have reduced demand for electricity and are part of a fundamental shift which could significantly shrink the role of large, centralized power plants.

Submission + - Norway is the first country in the world to divest from fossil fuels (qz.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: Norway, the nation with the largest sovereign fund in the world, is withdrawing from its investments in fossil fuels. A number of universities, cities, and religious institutions have joined the so-called “divestment” movement, but Norway is the first nation to do so officially.

“It’s not the first time a country’s fund has sold off companies,” Jamie Henn, co-founder of the international climate-change advocacy group 350.org, told Quartz. “But it’s definitely the first time they’ve done so in the context of climate risk and environmental concerns.”

Norway is divesting from 32 coal companies, most of which are linked to either high carbon emissions or deforestation. It’s also pulling out of investments in tar sands and cement. Moral high ground aside, investing in these companies—like the fossil fuels they generate—may be unsustainable. While Norway can now boast that it has made a bold move toward a cleaner planet, it has in the process also shed assets that are inherently risky.

Submission + - False solution: Nuclear power is not 'low carbon' (theecologist.org)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: The UK government is committed to massively subsidising new nuclear reactors, based on the claim that they generate 'low carbon' electricity.

But what is the carbon footprint of nuclear power? I have trawled the literature and found that there is no scientific consensus on the lifetime carbon emissions of nuclear electricity.

Remarkably, half of the most rigorous published analyses have a carbon footprint for nuclear power above the limit recommended by the UK government's official climate change advisor, the Committee on Climate Change (CCC).

According to the CCC, if we are to avoid the worst effects of climate change, by 2030 all electricity should be generated with less than 50 grams of carbon dioxide emitted for each kilowatt-hour (50 gCO2/kWh).

Submission + - Clean Coal Power Plant Killed, Again (scientificamerican.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: The Department of Energy is terminating financing of the FutureGen 2.0 project, ending construction plans for one of the most expensive and high-profile carbon capture proposals in the world.

In a statement yesterday, FutureGen Alliance CEO Ken Humphreys said that DOE decided to suspend planned funds for the "clean" coal plant because there is not enough time to complete the project before a required deadline under the 2009 federal stimulus package. DOE had pledged $1 billion to complete the $1.65 billion initiative.

Submission + - E.P.A. Review of Keystone Pipeline Notes Potential Rise in Greenhouse Gases (nytimes.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: An Environmental Protection Agency review of the Keystone XL pipeline emphasized that the recent drop in global oil prices might mean that construction of the pipeline could spur increased development of the Canadian oil sands — and thus increase planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions.

That review might influence President Obama’s long-delayed verdict on the 1,179-mile pipeline, which could bring about 800,000 barrels of oil per day from Alberta to the Gulf Coast. Mr. Obama has said that an important element of his decision will be whether construction of the pipeline would contribute significantly to climate change.

“I think that in their careful way, they are pointing out that this does fail the president’s climate change test,” Tiernan Sittenfeld, a senior vice president at the League of Conservation Voters, said of the E.P.A. review. “We think these comments are a big deal and they make us more confident that the president is going to reject this dangerous pipeline.”

Submission + - U.N. Weather Agency Confirms 2014 as Hottest Year (nytimes.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: The World Meteorological Organization reported on Monday that 2014 was the hottest year in a historical record of global temperature dating from 1880. That finding confirms an announcement made last month by two American scientific agencies and one in Japan.

Submission + - Don't Drill Along the East Coast (nytimes.com)

Submitted by mdsolar
mdsolar writes: THE Obama administration’s whiplash decision last week to allow oil and gas companies to drill along a wide area of the Atlantic Coast is a big mistake.

The facts support a ban on offshore drilling not only in the wilds of Alaska — as the administration has announced — but also along our densely populated, economically vibrant and environmentally diverse Eastern Seaboard.

The BP Deepwater Horizon disaster should remind us that the benefits of drilling do not outweigh the threat to local economies, public health and the environment when an inevitable spill occurs. The spill, occurring off the Louisiana coast less than five years ago, devastated the Gulf of Mexico region — most likely costing over $100 billion in lost economic activity and restoration expenses, disrupting or destroying hundreds of thousands of jobs and causing long-term damage to 3,000 miles of fragile wetlands and beaches. Experts estimate that only 5 percent of the 4.2 million barrels of oil spilled in the gulf was removed during the cleanup; even today, oil from the spill is still appearing on the white sand beaches of the Florida Panhandle.

To allow drilling off the Atlantic Coast is to willfully forget Deepwater’s awful lesson even as the economic, environmental and public health consequences continue to reverberate in communities along the gulf. If a disaster of Deepwater’s scale occurred off the Chesapeake Bay, it would stretch from Richmond to Atlantic City, with states and communities with no say in drilling decisions bearing the consequences. The 50-mile buffer the administration has proposed would be irrelevant. And unlike the gulf, the Chesapeake is a tidal estuary, meaning that oil would remain in the environment for decades.

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