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Reduce Carbon Emissions and Boost the Economy
Here's how. According to Yale's new interactive website, SeeForYourself, a national policy to cut CO2 by as much as 40 percent over the next 20 years could still result in increased economic growth. The study by Robert Repetto is a meta-analysis of 27 prior economic models and identifies seven key assumptions accounting for most of the differences in the model predictions.
The best part is SeeForYourself allows you to play forecaster and choose which assumptions you feel are most realistic. You can then view predictions based on your chosen assumptions. For instance, you get to rate assumptions such as: How likely is it that renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar energy, will be available at stable prices and will be able to compete with fossil fuels once fuel prices rise far enough? Or: How likely is it that climate change will result in economic damages to the United States if U.S. emissions are not reduced?
It's fun, informative, and designed to convince our more feebleminded policymakers how easy it is to do the right thing and prosper. Descriptions of the models can be found in Costs of Climate Protection: A Guide for the Perplexed, World Resources Institute.
Julia Whitty is Mother Jones' environmental correspondent, lecturer, and 2008 winner of the John Burroughs Medal Award. You can read from her new book, The Fragile Edge, and other writings, here.
I am not trying to win any arguments Scott. I am simply stating the facts. Nuclear power is on a roll. You can't stop it. We in France are selling nuclear power plants to China. (PARIS, Nov. 26 2007? Areva, the French nuclear power giant, signed the largest deal in the industry's history Monday, with China's leading nuclear power company.)China has the money. "The one who has the gold rules because they make the rules." I am sorry that your dollar is collapsing. You don't have the money, therefore, you do not have the power.
I am not trying to win any arguments Scott. I am simply stating the facts. Nuclear power is on a roll. You can't stop it. We in France are selling nuclear power plants to China. (PARIS, Nov. 26 2007? Areva, the French nuclear power giant, signed the largest deal in the industry's history Monday, with China's leading nuclear power company.)China has the money. "The one who has the gold rules because they make the rules." I am sorry that your dollar is collapsing. You don't have the money, therefore, you do not have the power.
reduce carbon emissions by going nuclear. You need to get our electricity from nuclear power plants like we do in France.
feeble minded or willfully ignorant...
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it."
- Upton Sinclair
Rochelle,
Aren't you even the least bit concerned about radioactive waste with half lives on the order of hundreds of millions of years?
Are you even the least bit concerned that NOT ONE GRAM of the waste already generated has been permanently disposed of?
Are you even the least bit concerned that 93% of the uranium we dig up becomes depleted uranium, also with a half life measured in hundreds of millions of years, and is not even considered for disposal but is instead made into armor piercing bullets?
Aren't you even the least bit concerned that for nuclear to make a real difference we need 25 times the current number of plants worldwide and that many of these will be in developing nations with unstable political systems?
Aren't you even the least bit concerned that nuclear power plants are prime terrorist targets and are usually inadequately protected?
Aren't you even the least bit concerned that these new nuclear power plants in unstable locations will give nuclear capability to many of these unstable developing nations?
I, for one, think these problems are show-stopping.
But, if that doesn't do it for you, how about considering the fact that nuclear power is the most expensive power source on the planet, costing more than wind, solar, tidal, and geothermal? The only reason power companies like nuclear is because the government typically pays for the cost of the plant and then gives it to the power company. Aren't externalized costs great?
Scott, as a Misanthropic individual you should realize that life has its risks. I rather take my chances with the atom than "Global Warming". In nuclear issues, there are differences of opinion. I am French, so I go with the French opinion, not the stupid opinion of the people who went into Iraq. You yanks just have no creditability. We in France are just more practical than you yanks. Admit it. When it comes to culture and enlightenment, we are so much better. You are just jealous.
Rochelle,
I love lots of things about France. Luckily, your attitude is not representative of most French people. If it were, I would have the same feelings about most French people that I have about most Americans.
To assume that because the president of the U.S. cannot pronounce the word nuclear means that no American could ever have any knowledge on the subject of nuclear power is a terrible fallacy on your part.
Global warming is indeed a terrible crisis that must be solved. However, nuclear power is simply not the answer. There are still way too many problems related to nuclear power.
Here is a very detailed post I wrote on the subject on my own blog. You would do well to read it, especially since the problems of France's nuclear program are well pointed out in the first link I cite.
http : // tinyurl.com / 2ls68u
No. France does not have the answer on nuclear power. France just has a lot of it and a lot of problems caused by it.
(Spam filter is causing problems due to the link. I'm going to put spaces between parts of it to get around it. Please paste the link without the spaces and read about the serious problems with nuclear power that even a lowly yank can see so clearly a superior French person can see it too ... if you're willing to look.)
They are just lies what they say about the downside of nuclear power. Nuclear power is the future. Don't be afraid Scott. It is coming. Your resistance is futile.
As Kazakhstan's Dzhakishev sees it, a widespread nuclear renaissance is not only inevitable but well underway. And he's probably right. Global warming is weighing heavily on the international conscience, and with it comes a newfound sense of urgency to dispense with coal and other carbon fuels. No alternative is more developed, economically viable, and emission-free than nuclear energy. Since world electricity use is expected to double in the next few decades, nearly every industrialized country is considering a fresh buildout of nuclear power. Worldwide, 34 new reactors are under construction, and 280 are being planned or proposed. China alone has broken ground on five reactors to feed that nation's insatiable need for power. That has raised questions about whether uranium producers can find enough of the element to fuel this long-term growth. In 2006 producers met only 62% of demand. (The rest was recycled from a diminishing supply of decommissioned warheads or taken from dwindling Cold War stockpiles.) The World Nuclear Association says uranium mining could need to increase by almost 300% in the next two decades.
Rochelle,
They are just lies what they say about the downside of nuclear power. Nuclear power is the future. Don't be afraid Scott. It is coming. Your resistance is futile.
That just might be the least persuasive argument I've ever read. I give you a link to a ton of information, including this one specifically about France and this is what you have to say about it?
www.yuccamountain.org/pdf-news/nuclear-revival-rek08.pdf
How about a link or two explaining the ways in which France safeguards it's nuclear waste? (It doesn't, but you should be trying to show me that it does.)
It is true that nuclear power is low on carbon emissions, requiring just the power to mine, transport, centrifuge, and otherwise the uranium, build the plant, dig the deep storage facility for the waste (something no one has done), decommission the plant at its end of life, etc.
However, it is far from economically viable. Nuclear power is many times the price not only of fossil fuels but of renewables as well. Add in all of the externalized costs when you do the calculation. These are the ones rarely mentioned. The costs of decommissioning the plant, storing the waste, adequately securing the plant, the waste, and the depleted uranium from terrorists, providing health care for the illnesses the mine workers must endure are all generally ignored.
Sorry. My first paragraph was intended to be in italics to emphasize that it was a quote from Rochelle.
Scott, read my post from Borot's country, Kazakhstan. You see, Scott, resistance is really futile. The world is passing you by with your out of date ideas. But it is not too late for you to get on board the wave of the future, which is French nuclear. We will not die from global cooling or warming, as long as we go the French way of nuclear. Viva la France!
Rochelle,
You won't win any arguments by repeating the same points over and over. Why not actually provide some information if you have any?
Thus far, you are failing the Turing Test
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
I am not trying to win any arguments Scott. I am simply stating the facts. Nuclear power is on a roll. You can't stop it. We in France are selling nuclear power plants to China. (PARIS, Nov. 26 2007 Areva, the French nuclear power giant, signed the largest deal in the industry's history Monday, with China's leading nuclear power company.)China has the money. "The one who has the gold rules because they make the rules." I am sorry that your dollar is collapsing. You don't have the money, therefore, you do not have the power.
Rochelle,
OK, then just assume you didn't. I don't know why I was working so hard to understand your point when you didn't have one. My mistake.