Climate Progress

The answer is perhaps as high as a hundred billion dollars.

First some background. I testified in front of the Senate Environment and Public Works committee in July. In my testimony, “The High Cost of Nuclear Power,” I pointed out the obvious — that nuclear is a mature source of power that has benefited disproportionately from government support to date:

From 1948 to today, nuclear energy research and development exceeded $70 billion, whereas research and development for renewables was about $10 billion. From 2002 to 2007, fossil fuels received almost $14 billion in electricity-related tax subsides, whereas renewables received under $3 billion.

The Price-Anderson Nuclear Industries Indemnity Act caps the liability for claims arising from nuclear incidents. It reduces the insurance nuclear power plants need to buy and requires taxpayers to cover all claims in excess of the cap. The benefit of this indirect subsidy has been estimated at between $237 million and $3.5 billion a year, which suggests that it has been worth many billions of dollars to the industry. It could be argued that the value is considerably larger than that, since the industry might not have existed at all without it: “At the time of the Act’s passing, it was considered necessary as an incentive for the private production of nuclear power … because investors were unwilling to accept the then-unquantified risks of nuclear energy without some limitation on their liability.

One can make a case that such insurance was reasonable for a new, almost completely unknown technology in 1957. Extending it through 2025 is harder to justify. If investors aren’t willing to accept the risks of nuclear energy now, without taxpayers liable for any major catastrophe, perhaps the technology no longer deserves government support.

A certain senior member of the minority known for climate denial just submitted two (silly) written questions to me for the record on this:

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Baseload geothermal power gets all the attention because it has such enormous potential for delivering low-carbon 24/7 power (see “Hot rocks are a rockin’ hot climate solution“).

But geothermal heat pumps (GHPs) are every bit as deserving of attention because they are the most energy efficient form of heating and cooling a building over much of this country [click on figure to enlarge]. And if you power GHPs with a renewable source of electricity, they are probably the best way to eliminate the need for natural gas heating in the winter while at the same time slashing peak demand in the summer.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration released their “Survey of Geothermal Heat Pump Shipments, 2006” last month. It found “that manufacturers shipped 63,682 geothermal heat pumps (GHP) in 2006, a 33 percent increase over the 2005 total of 47,830.”

Here is some background on the technology.

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[This blog focuses on climate and energy issues from the perspective of science, solutions, and politics. Nothing will be more important to the future of climate and energy policy than the 2008 presidential election. And rhetorical strategy is one of my favorite subjects. So very occasionally I will focus more on rhetoric than the policy. I’ll keep the content below the jump. Nonetheless, this post does have direct relevance to the climate debate.]

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With the Olympics almost upon us, Science magazine has a cover story on “China’s Environmental Challenges” (subs. req’d). Since Science has been a leader in drawing attention to the threat posed to humanity by accelerating greenhouse gas emissions, you’d think that one of those challenges would be China’s newly achieved leadership in carbon dioxide emissions, how China can developesustainably, and what are the alternatives to their rapacious use of coal.

You would be wrong. Here are the four articles that comprise the magazine’s news focus on China’s environment:

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New nuclear power plants aren’t cheap. Neither is storing their waste. E&E News (subs. req’d) reports on at Yucca Mountain:

DOE has spent $13.5 billion since 1983, and figures to spend $54.8 billion on construction, operation and decommissioning of the repository; $19.5 billion for transporting the waste — including building the canisters for holding waste; and $8.4 billion for other program activities.

The report notes that the expenses were based on a repository opening date of 2017 — a best possible opening date that Sproat has already said is no longer possible due to budget constraints, which have pushed it to 2020. The lifecycle estimate also does not include the at least $11 billion in liability expenses DOE expects for breaking its contract with utilities to begin taking away the spent nuclear fuel in 1998.

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Sen. Obama responds to the shameless Republican mockery of energy efficiency.

It’s good to see a progressive presidential nominee stand up for the most important energy strategy we have.

You can’t criticize awarding the Olympic Games to China just because their rapacious coal-building policy has now made them the world’s largest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions (see “The immorality of China’s coal policy is breathtaking (literally).” By that standard, America should never have been awarded the games.

But awarding the games to a city that is one of the most polluted in the world — let alone in a country that has such a shameful record on human rights — is simply unconscionable. And quite unfair to the athletes. Consider this literally staggering story from the Newshour:

ADAM CRAIG, USA Cycling: I’ve never had any experience even remotely close to what I had in Beijing last fall.

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Last September, he was in the Chinese capital to compete in a series of pre-Olympic warm-up races.

ADAM CRAIG: It’s like — it’s a weird bronchial spasm thing that I was getting, that just like — whenever you tried to take enough breath to give your muscles that fuel of oxygen they need, your bronchioles just start spasming and you just like physically can’t do it.

And it’s like akin to drowning, or something, just not being able to take that full breath. And, you know, having your body really require that oxygen and not being able to get it is a pretty unique and pretty terrifying situation, I think.

[Kudos to the International Olympic Committee, its U.S. corporate sponsors — General Electric, Coca-Cola, Visa, McDonald’s, Kodak, and Johnson & Johnson — and the Chinese for turning outdoor endurance sports into torture — almost literally re-creating the experience of water boarding. I guess it is appropriate that President Bush is attending the games after all.]

BETTY ANN BOWSER: Just 30 minutes after the starting gun of the race, Craig had to quit, but he had lots of world-class company.

ADAM CRAIG: The current world champion and the current Olympic champion, Julien Absalon, same deal, about the same point in the race, 20 or 30 minutes in, actually was sick to his stomach, and threw up, and was hacking, and wheezing, and had to pull out.

And, yes, I think there were 46 starters and eight finishers. So that’s a pretty high attrition rate for a two-hour mountain bike race around a fairly easy course.

China’s much-vaunted air pollution index presents a bizarrely rosy picture of the dirty reality. As the Post noted:

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Green Car Congress reports:

US sales of light-duty vehicles continued their decline in July, dropping to a total 1.136 million units, a 13.2% reduction in volume compared to July 2007, according to Autodata….

The year-on-year decrease came, in general, out of the light-duty truck segment. Sales of cars in July 2008 slightly increased 0.3% on a volume basis (not on a day-sales rate) to 620,213 units, according to Autodata. Light truck sales, however, dropped 25.2% by volume from the year before to 515,963 units.

The car-truck ratio for the month was 55:45, the fifth consecutive month cars have held the majority of the new light vehicle market.

Sadly, Toyota really screwed up in its planning for hybrid production:

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Too funny.

The scary thing is that her proposal is very similar to the bipartisan Group-of-10 energy compromise.

Hunter Lovins is one of the country’s premier prophets of the prosperity we can achieve if we move quickly to establish a post-carbon economy. Vast new markets and investment opportunities are opening worldwide for clean technologies. “Those who recognize this opportunity will be the first to the future and the billionaires of tomorrow,” Hunter says.

The good news: The race already has begun. It’s producing some new billionaires and attracting some old ones.

The first recorded solar billionaire was identified by the Wall Street Journal in October 2006. He is Shi Zhengrong, founder of Suntech Power Holdings Company in China. Since then, at least two other solar entrepreneurs have joined the club: Frank Asbeck, who founded Germany’s Solar World, and Xiao Peng, head of LDK Solar in China.

Joining them are two American tycoons who have decided that while their past was in oil, their future — and America’s — will be found in renewable energy: Read the rest of this entry »