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The Pro-Nuclear Environmentalist

The Pro-Nuclear Environmentalist. The Journey & The Destination. Ben Heard Founding Director – ThinkClimate Consulting Founder- Decarbonise SA June 2012. Where I came from. Where I am coming from now . The climate crisis is very, very bad. Very, very urgent

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The Pro-Nuclear Environmentalist

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  1. The Pro-Nuclear Environmentalist The Journey & The Destination Ben Heard Founding Director – ThinkClimate Consulting Founder- Decarbonise SA June 2012

  2. Where I came from...

  3. Where I am coming from now • The climate crisis is very, very bad. Very, very urgent • Temperature must be permitted to rise no more than 1.5°C • Atmospheric CO2 needs to be returned to 350ppm, less than current levels • The global energy supply must be completely decarbonised • Coal must be eliminated from the global energy supply post-haste New Artic sea ice minimum. Sept 2011 World Primary Energy Consumption by source 2009 (Source: IEA 2009 Report)

  4. What about the non-nuclear solutions? 1. Energy Efficiency 2. Wind 3. Solar • Supportive, but risky to rely on high levels of implementation • Long-term impact is wealth generation, not emission reduction (Jervons Paradox) • SA has 1,150 MW installed • Emissions from electricity 1990/2006/2011 (Mt CO2-e): 6.5/10/8 • No fossil closure, more peaking gas • An inadequate solution on its own to replace fossil 4. Enhanced Geothermal (HDR) • Cost, area and resource requirements, storage limitations, back-up requirements are too great for major, rapid roll out • An inadequate solution on its own to replace fossil in the necessary timeframe • Progressing, but slowly. Hard, expensive, distant, immature • An inadequate solution on its own to replace fossil in the necessary timeframe • Any honest strategy to tackle climate change will be one of “energy efficiency, plus renewables, plus...” otherwise we cannot meet the challenge in the necessary time frame

  5. So why not nuclear? • It’s dangerous • Operations • Waste • It leads to proliferation • It produces too much GHG across the lifecycle • Uranium mining is really horrible • It’s too expensive • It takes too long • Environmentalists say no

  6. 1 (a). Nuclear power operation: a constant risk with catastrophic consequences

  7. Safety Record of Nuclear Power Plants: Global Summary of severe* accidents in energy chains for electricity 1969-2000 Data from Paul ScherrerInstitut, in OECD 2010. * severe = more than 5 fatalities Nuclear power is exceptionally safe and only getting safer

  8. 1 (b). Nuclear Waste is deadly, long lived and impossible to manage

  9. The problem is too big • The non-nuclear solutions have serious limitations • My previous objections to nuclear energy were either unfounded, or are manageable and comparatively acceptable (to me) • The health and environmental benefits of nuclear energy compared to coal are significant • Conclusion: An open and honest examination of nuclear power as a means to tackle climate change must be permitted to take place in Australia

  10. South Australia’s Base Load Generation Stock 2011

  11. Incremental, Small Modular

  12. So what now? What’s missing? People

  13. Sustainable Energy Choices: The Case for Nuclear in 2 ½ minutes

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