WELCOME TO 2022
As 2022 begins, I’m feeling a sense
of pessimism with regards to where we are in the US and the world. We’re still dealing with major issues of the
pandemic, climate change, and politics.
I was hoping we would make some giant steps forward, but in reality, the
“powers that be”- big money, big tech, the fossil fuel, nuclear, military weapon
industries, and Wall Street continue to be the forces pushing our political
agendas and stalling the necessary moves I feel common sense deems necessary. Again, it is just a small handful of rich and
powerful people guarding their wealth and political philosophies. They have perfected their game plan, breeding
fear and hate with lies, misstatements, and news media corruption. Pretty disheartening; but, this stage of
human history will pass in time…probably not in my lifetime, and those deniers
will be deemed responsible
Climate change is now acknowledged
and remains the greatest challenge to the future of our current
civilization. No, we are not going to
destroy our planet and its environment.
As predicted over the years, the changes in climate, weather, fires,
hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, and other related alterations will continue to
become more extreme, regardless of what we do right now. Putting off serious changes will only
exasperate what happens in the future.
We will adapt and survive as a species, but the true cost in dollars,
human life and suffering on a global scale, and changes to the environment we so
depend on will be stunning and catastrophic.
Technology can only help us so much.
Once again, this handful of people will be remembered in history for
their blatant greed and ignorance creating a major shift in civilization in a
rather short time. What we are doing now…our policies and strategies are what
Ms. Thunberg says: "blah, blah, blah!" Shame!
So much for my philosophizing. A look at those issues that have been so deeply ingrained in my life's work continues to offer optimism as well as frustration. Renewables (solar, wind, oceans, geothermal) are making great strides despite all the obstacles that continued to be thrown in their paths. Private investment continues to drive development and deployment. Aside from the slow progress here in the US, huge changes are occurring all over the world. Australia, Singapore, Northern Europe, and even China, are realizing the future potentials and are stepping up production of renewable generation and coupled electricity storage. Batteries are the hot thing now, and that technology will continue to grow, and new efficient and affordable technologies will be developed. Green Hydrogen (again the ultimate storage solution) is being advanced all over the world. Coupled with PV and wind, the new technologies in hydrolysis and fuel cells are starting to make their way into our varied energy markets. There still seems to be a push for H2/fuel cell vehicles, which will play a major role in fixed base situations, and air, ship, and fleet applications. I don’t think H2 cars will be that important in the future. I still believed that renewable electricity generation splitting storable H2 from water, which will then be reconstituted back into electricity when the demand is there. So simple…happens all the time in nature. The technology is there. We just need to push the research, development, manufacture, demand, and political will for it to occur. New industry, jobs, sustainability, decentralized, low emissions and wastes…so many positives. Right now, it competes for fossil fuel dollars, and that industry continues to place obstacles wherever they can. In California, rooftop solar is so cheap that the utilities are fighting to make it more expensive by charging tariffs on its deployment. It is threatening their moneymaking model which has always been based on centralized big power plants and a giant grid to move that power around. That is all changing, especially with the impacts of climate change, not only here but in all the "grids" around the US. Who owns the grids? Private investors, utilities, and big business own them and run them for profit. So as the concept of small, local, decentralized mini-grids appears to make economic sense to consumers, big changes are in store. The new buzz phrase is "it's the grid, stupid!"
Now to Nuclear Power, which is
desperately trying to stay viable as a source of electricity for the
future. The huge public relations push
today is remarkable, filled with half-truths, misstatements, remarkable
omissions, and blatant lies that are unprecedented since the beginning of the
climate hoax campaign forty years ago.
The current huge reactor technology is dead…the new generation by the
French, China, Westinghouse in the US, and even the UK and Germany will never
be built or come online. The push now is
the "small modular reactors" (SMR) being touted by the industry as
being safer? cheaper? cleaner? necessary? All just PR green-wash. The bottom line is that the biggest issue
never really addressed is the creation high-level, long-lived, dangerous
wastes, to which there is NO solution other than somehow containing it
somewhere for tens of thousands of years.
The new SMRs, which currently only exist on paper (or a computer file!)
has never been demonstrated to work, and their specialized fuel would require a
whole new infrastructure, and would, in reality, generate more radioactive
waste issues than current reactors. The
costs…current and future dollars, impacts from malfunctions and accidents,
normal environmental contamination, and human health issues, are NOT being
addressed or even mentioned. The fact
that a nuclear reaction does not generate CO2 does not mean the huge
infrastructure is carbon-free. This is
just a push by a desperate industry to glean public dollars for their
enrichment. The size of these proposed
reactors ranges from 50-250MW and supposedly would fit into the microgrids that
will be built all over this country and the world. It will take years of testing, certification,
and construction before even the first few are installed. By contrast, Dutch Shell Oil, forced to move
towards renewables, is currently building a 200MW hydrogen electrolysis plant
in Rotterdam, which will be fueled by solar electricity from a 759MW offshore
wind farm. That is happening right
now! It's a shame that the US is again
behind the curve of real progress in renewable energy. The measly things we are doing could explode
into amazing new technologies and deployments creating so many clean,
sustainable jobs while dealing with the CO2 problem that the nuclear industry
is now so concerned with.
But wait, enter now the most amazing
solution to all our energy problems…unlimited energy from nuclear FUSION. Wow!
Billions of new dollars are now being pumped into companies that are
promising cheap, safe, clean unlimited electricity from the fusion hydrogen
atoms. Sound familiar? Fusion has been scientifically studied for
decades, with small progressive steps being made in technologically applying
physics to this awesome phenomenon. It
is the same technology that occurs in the core of the sun, and we want to
produce it here on earth in some kind of manmade structure. Aside from the huge dollar costs, the
radioactive wastes created by the neutrons released in the fusion process will
have to be contained and managed, and a whole new infrastructure will be needed
to create isolate the fuel of deuterium (from seawater) and lithium, which
already is in a global competition for batteries. Then there is the issue of how
and where a fusion reactor can/will be built.
The MAJOR scientific problem is HEAT!!!
A fusion reaction would release energy in the form of heat…Hundreds
of Millions of degrees! This heat supposedly
can be contained by a magnetic plasma.
The big question has always been and still remains…what to do with that
heat, once we get a continuous fusion reaction!!! Current nuclear fission plants can achieve many
thousands of degrees in an uncontrolled reaction. (Nuclear bombs, meltdowns at
Chernobyl and Fukushima) They are normally controlled to operate in the hundreds
of degrees, just like most steam-generated fossil fuel electricity plants. A big part of those structures is the cooling
towers, ocean outfall pipes, and other means of taking the generated waste heat
and disposing it into the environment.
How will hundreds of million degrees be released? The biggest challenge right now in the
research is how to contain that heat…what kinds of materials can we invent to
deal with that heat outside of the plasma, and how to transfer some of that
heat to a steam generator so we can spin a turbine and produce electricity at
33% efficiency! Talk about archaic
technology…it’s again, “like using a chainsaw to cut butter!” We already have a
fusion reactor, and it delivers its heat (sometimes too much!) to us from 93
million miles away. Go think, or not!
On a positive note, the Humboldt Bay
Nuclear Reactor is gone…decommissioned to the tune of well over one billion
dollars. The 6 casks containing the
high-level waste fuel remain on site, and as of now, will continue to be
monitored and guarded for the near future, at a cost of $10m? per year. Concern about the impact of climate change on
the storage site, as well as the life expectancy of the casks is the next issue
to be addressed. A lot hinges on the
wonderful work Jennifer Marlowe at HSU is doing, and what happens with PG&E
and their decommissioning of Diablo Canyon, as well as the decom work being
done at San Onofre. It is all so complex
and convoluted with technology, money, and politics, and it will never end!
My dismay continues at the current state
of our politics, our social fabric, and the strangling control of our economic
dollars. It has always been the case;
but with energy, it is our policy is rooted in the 1952 Paly Commission Report
on our energy future, when President Eisenhower decided to take the hard path
pushed by the fossil fuel industry and the nuclear bomb building industry,
pushing us down the path of the "peaceful atom." He rejected the softer path which was
supported by the recent development of the photovoltaic cell, and the other budding
non-carbon-based environmentally sustainable technologies which we're striving
for today. So much lost time! We will get through this. Let the sun shine and the wind blow!
Some interesting current reads…believe what
you want:
https://news.yahoo.com/us-affirms-interpretation-high-level-205011069.html?fr=sycsrp_catchall
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