Blog Archive for May, 2011
Nebraska’s nuclear past
The Hallam nuclear plant, in its heyday.
By now you’ve probably heard that Germany will be phasing out all nuclear power by 2022, largely out of safety concerns raised by the Fukushima disaster in Japan.
Within that context of renewed emphasis on nuclear safety, a story in Monday’s Lincoln Journal Star about an early experiment in nuclear power is all the more astounding.
The story is a look back at the Hallam nuclear plant, a short-lived attempt at a sodium-cooled reactor that is now entombed in concrete. The plant, which opened in 1962, seemed doomed from the beginning as the reactor’s containment vessel fell off of a truck and was stuck in a muddy cornfield for three weeks.
But the larger problem was the design itself – the plant was shut down after only two years because cracks had formed in the structure and were deemed to expensive to repair.
One of the engineers involved in the project described it as a good learning experience, although this type of reactor design has yet to see widespread use.
Liquid sodium is an attractive cooling option for engineers because it doesn’t corrode steel and doesn’t need to be pressurized. In addition to the Hallam plant, liquid sodium was used in the Fermi 1 plant in Michigan (shut down in 1975), and several early American and Soviet nuclear submarines.
The big problem, however, with using sodium as a coolant ought to be familiar to anyone who was paying attention in high school chemistry class – when it comes into contact with water, it explodes:
That could be a big problem if, say, the reactor is flooding by a tsunami or some such thing.
One of the engineers involved in the project told the Journal Star just how much things have changed.
“It was a lot of fun back in those days. It was just the guys and it was more of a relaxed atmosphere. Nowadays the regulatory atmosphere keeps things tight and close to the vest.”
Photo by Joan Blair via Creative Commons
What if everything ran on gas?
A brilliant commercial for the Nissan Leaf (h/t to David Roberts of Grist, via Twitter):
Water, water everywhere
Blue gold?
Journalist (and regular contributor to Midwest Energy News) Dan Haugen directed my attention to an interesting column by Eric Reguly in the Toronto Globe and Mail on water scarcity and industrial growth.
In a nutshell, while China and other Asian countries provide cheap labor, they’re limited by increasing demand on limited water resources.
Anyone who watches China closely cites water scarcity as the biggest threat to the country’s growth. In a recent presentation to clients, Michael Komesaroff of Urandaline Investments, an Australian consulting firm that specializes in capital-intensive industries, especially Chinese ones, called water “the one issue with the potential to stop China’s growth and rewrite the China Story.” Note the word “stop,” not “slow.”
As water becomes more scarce, Reguly argues, opportunities for industrial expansion will open up in countries like Canada. It’s already making things like incredibly water-intensive oil sands extraction practical in places where it otherwise may not.
Suncor, the oil sands giant, is one of the world’s most water-intensive companies, as measured by direct water withdrawal per $1 million in revenue. Teck Resources is another hog. But water scarcity isn’t an existential risk for companies here, although many are trying to reduce their water footprints. If the geological gods had plunked the oil sands in the western United States instead of Western Canada, they probably wouldn’t have been developed.
But you know who else has a lot of water? The upper Midwest. All the more reason, as Forbes writer Chris Turner pointed out last week, why cleantech manufacturing will be vital for the region’s economic future.
Photo by Lisa A. Lehmann via Creative Commons
Lookin’ for causality in all the wrong places
Watch out, Climate Change. Tamperin' with mailboxes is a federal o-ffense.
The basic fundamentals of climate change and weather really aren’t all that difficult to grasp. CO2 traps heat, more heat means the atmosphere holds more moisture, and more heat and moisture mean stronger, more intense storms.
So the fact that we’re seeing stronger and more intense storms ought not come as a tremendous surprise. Scientists have been warning us about this for years.
So why is this impact of climate change treated as such a great controversy?
Part of the problem – I think – is that the question is too often framed as whether climate change “caused” a particular weather event. A classic example of this comes from, of all places, the MIT Technology Review:
When you pose the question this way, the answer is always going to be “no one knows.” That creates a false perception that there is more uncertainty among scientists about climate’s role in weather than there actually may be. Scientists are constantly quoted in the media saying “there is no definitive connection between climate change and [insert whatever's going wall-to-wall on CNN right now].”
Climate change loads the dice, but it doesn’t roll them.
The climate in Minnesota means it’s more likely to snow here than in, say, Seattle, which is actually farther north. Does that mean Minnesota’s climate “causes” snowstorms? The question seems ridiculous when you put it that way.
When talking about tornadoes, it’s even more problematic because scientists don’t fully understand how tornadoes form as in the first place. Seemingly identical conditions can produce a tornado in one instance but not another. So to ask whether a particular tornado was “caused” because the temperature in the atmosphere is slightly higher than it was a few decades ago is even sillier.
That doesn’t mean we should avoid the topic altogether. Consider Joseph Romm’s position:
1. When discussing extreme weather and climate, tornadoes should not be conflated with the other extreme weather events for which the connection is considerably more straightforward and better documented, including deluges, droughts, and heat waves.
2. Just because the tornado-warming link is more tenuous doesn’t mean that the subject of global warming should be avoided entirely when talking about tornadoes.
So, if you’re a journalist, asking a scientist whether climate change “caused” something is simply a bad question. A better question might be, “how likely would this weather event have been if not for global warming?” Or, “as the atmosphere warms, will this sort of thing become more frequent?”
Those types of questions at least reflect an elementary understanding of climate and weather (which is really all I have, as I am not a scientist), and are likely to generate a more lucid response.
Photo by autowitch via Creative Commons
The Fukushima effect
Earlier this year, it looked like several Midwest states were going to pass key legislation opening the doors for new nuclear plant construction.
Then a nuclear plant in Japan exploded.
At the time, of course, it was unclear what the impact would be. The reality is, even before Fukushima, there really wasn’t a “nuclear renaissance,” despite a pervasive media narrative to the contrary. So, as we reported in March, the disaster wasn’t expected to have much of an impact. It’s tough for an industry to change course when it’s not really moving in the first place.
However, as legislative sessions wrap up, it appears the disaster contributed to the demise of nuclear legislation in at least three states.
In Minnesota, a bill to lift the state’s nuclear moratorium was initially considered almost certain to pass, but . But the St. Cloud Times reported earlier this month that the committee tasked with reconciling differences between House ans Senate versions of the bill hadn’t met for months. “With the timing, I think that’s on pause right now,” Senate Majority Leader Amy Koch told the Times.
In Iowa, a controversial bill that would have allowed MidAmerican Energy to recover nuclear plant development costs from ratepayers, even if a plant is never built. No action has been taken on the bill in either chamber since late April, and last week, state Rep. Jeff Kaufmann told the Muscatine Journal that the bill isn’t going to pass this session.
A similar bill in Missouri melted down (sorry) in the final days of the legislative session. The bill would have allowed utilities to charge ratepayers $45 million to obtain a site permit for what would have been the state’s second nuclear reactor (as in Iowa). The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that lawmakers declined to take action on the bill because they didn’t have time to read the final version.
One exception was Indiana‘s “clean energy standard” bill, which Gov. Mitch Daniels signed earlier this month. In addition to creating a voluntary goal for utilities to get 10 percent of their energy from “clean” sources, the bill contained a provision, similar to the Iowa and Missouri efforts, that would pass nuclear development costs on to ratepayers.
Photo by Thierry Ehrmann via Creative Commons
Live feed: Chicago EPA hearing
An all-day hearing is being held in Chicago today on proposed EPA rules governing mercury emissions from power plants. Follow the Twitter stream below:
Two miles or not two miles?
Untapped energy potential.
As I’ve mentioned before, one of the obstacles people have to thinking of cycling as viable transportation is that they tend to think in terms of modes rather than trips.
We too often break up the world into cyclists and drivers, without considering that most of us, at one time or another, are both. For most people, myself included, the bike can’t completely replace the car, at least not without major infrastructure changes.
But as I ride through the wide, quiet streets of my inner-ring suburb and see bike upon bike hanging in garages, I realize how much potential there is for people to ride instead of drive, even if it’s only a couple of times a week.
That’s where the 2 Mile Challenge comes in. It’s a fundraising and advocacy effort that aims to reduce the short trips that make up a significant chunk of our driving.
It works like this. You join a “team” on the website, and log your bike trips. The more trips your team takes, the more money one of three participating nonprofits will receive for your efforts.
While most people aren’t going to take on a daily commute or a six-bag grocery run on a bike, what about that Saturday trip to the library? Or the neighborhood yard-sale cruise? Or the trip to the hardware store for that one little washer you need to fix the kitchen faucet? Those little trips add up.
Taking on those short trips, especially where time is not a factor, has always struck me as a better gateway to cycling than the daily commute, where you have to worry about showing up on time and not looking like you’ve just spent the night outside. The key is getting people to start seeing bikes as transportation, not just recreation.
True, most people are only going to ride in summer. But that’s also when demand for gasoline (and, in turn, prices) is highest.
I don’t think it’s reasonable to expect that cycling alone is going to make a significant dent in our oil consumption. But it’s a piece of the puzzle — when people are able to take control of their energy use, it makes us more flexible in the face of market swings.
What’s the harm in that?
Photo by Gregory P. Smith via Creative Commons
Ethanol smackdown!
(not the actual debate participants)
Michael Caputo, a former colleague of mine over at Minnesota Public Radio, is hosting an online debate this week exploring the merits of ethanol subsidies.
The format begins with a position (“the state and federal government should continue subsidizing ethanol) , then has two experts argue either in favor or against it.
In favor of the subsidies, Chris Thorne of Growth Energy:
American motorists are a captive market – captive to oil. Your choice in motor fuel already made for you by the time you pull up to the pump: gasoline derived from oil, two-thirds of which is foreign.
As long as oil controls the market, then federal and state tax policy should support alternative fuels. And today, the only commercially-viable alternative to oil we have is domestic ethanol.
Opposed, energy analyst Rolf Westgard:
Thirty years of subsidies have not made food for fuel competitive or useful. World population increases by seventy million annually, but there is no increase in arable land. Now hundreds of millions of personal cars and trucks have a seat at the dinner table by consuming biofuels made from the fruit of the plant.
The discussion will continue throughout the week, which will open up plenty of opportunities to delve into other areas of a complex topic that has a big impact in our region. Anyone can participate, follow the link to join in.
Photo by Matt Hintsa via Creative Commons
EPA’s Lisa P. Jackson on The Daily Show
EPA administrator Lisa P. Jackson was on The Daily Show last night to talk about the politics surrounding her agency, at one point calling Washington D.C. a “fact-free zone” that is out of touch with Americans.
Some highlights:
On opposition to mercury regulations for power plants: “The only thing we hear is ‘it can’t be done,’ when everything we know and every model that we run shows that it absolutely can be done, and that it would actually create jobs. Someone has to build all those scrubbers and filters that deal with mercury.”
On being hauled before Congress: “I have testified more times in this Congress than any other cabinet member. I don’t mind going up there. … You should know that your Congress put more riders on the EPA than any other agency.”
On inside-the-Beltway politics: “I sometimes call it the ‘fact-free zone.’ Outside Washington, 95 percent of the American people … see one of the roles of government as protecting their air and water. … And yet time and time again, we’re having to go onto the Hill, oftentimes with people who privately tell me, ‘hey, I’m for the environment,’ and then they say ‘but…’ and the ‘but’ is a set of talking points from industry.”
The full interview is posted below in two parts (part 1 is what ran on the air):
Congress may push Obama for Keystone XL decision
Politico’s Morning Energy email today included a link to a draft legislation from the House Energy and Commerce committee to “direct the President to expedite the consideration and approval of the construction and operation of the Keystone XL oil pipeline.”
The “North American-Made Energy Security Act” contains a list of familiar arguments for the pipeline’s approval — energy security, job creation, etc. The lawmakers paint a picture of the pipeline enabling the U.S. to drastically turn away from “distant foreign sources” of oil.
Oddly, the bill is careful to note that approving the pipeline will “result in no significant change in total United States or global greenhouse gas emissions” — emissions that Republicans in Congress have repeatedly claimed we shouldn’t worry about anyway.
But the most interesting part of the bill is this:
The principal choice for Canadian oil exporters is between moving increasing crude oil volumes to the United States or Asia, led by China. Increased Canadian oil exports to China will result in increased United States crude oil imports from other foreign sources, especially the Middle East.
That’s fine and good, but the problem is that Keystone XL doesn’t prevent Canada from exporting oil to China. If anything, it makes it easier.
As we’ve noted before, the main reason Canadian oil producers want Keystone XL built is because current infrastructure confines exports to the Midwest, which is currently oversupplied, suppressing prices.
As David Livingston noted back in January, reaching the Gulf Coast not only opens up more U.S. markets for Canadian oil, it also opens up rapidly growing Asian markets (you may recall that a decommissioned pipeline parallel to the Panama Canal was recently reopened to run in reverse – from east to west).
So basically, Keystone XL doesn’t necessarily guarantee all that oil will flow to the U.S. The price of oil will be determined by the global market, and the oil will go to wherever demand is greatest, provided the infrastructure is in place to move it.
Photo by Ray Bodden via Creative Commons
