Leaping UK carbon emissions deliver two red-hot lessons

[kristopher]

Leaping UK carbon emissions deliver two red-hot lessons
An 18m tonne rise in climate-warming gases is due to the nation's dreadfully draughty homes and fickleness of nuclear power: new boy Ed Davey must deal with both

... he must prevent his department's flagship "green deal" plan to boost the warmth of the nation's ageing and draughty homes from self-combusting in a blaze of apathy, as it is currently on course to do. Secondly, he must pour a little cold water on the UK establishment's burning love affair with nuclear power, to take better account of its unreliability.

The biggest single cause of the first rise in the nation's carbon footprint since 2003 was from the increased heating of homes during cold weather at the start and end of 2010. People faced a choice when winter's chill began to bite: they could turn up the heating, despite the soaring cost of energy, or tackle the draughts through which the heat escapes. The 12 million tonnes of carbon dioxide added to national emissions from home heating alone - two-thirds of the entire rise - shows the people of Britain overwhelmingly chose the former.

...

Virtually all of the rest of the leap in the UK's carbon emissions comes from technical problems forcing nuclear power stations to shut down. The biggest reactor in the country, Sizewell B, was offline for six months, meaning more coal and gas had to be burned to fill the electricity gap, pumping more climate-warming gases into the air. Other reactors had problems too in 2010 and more recently events as varied as a rogue school of jellyfish and winter tornadoes have closed atomic energy plants.

When a wind turbine explodes, as in a recent storm, a megwatt of power is lost. When a nuclear plant falls off the grid, 1000 megawatts is lost. The comparison puts the lie to the sceptics charge that wind power is "unreliable"....

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/damian-carrington-blog/2012/feb/07/carbon-emissions-uk-energy-nuclear?INTCMP=ILCNETTXT3487

[FBaggins]

1. So turning off a reactor causes increased carbon emissions...

...unless you turn it off for good. Then we we must reject any claim that emissions will rise as a result. We'll even try to deceive others into thinking they actually went down.

Quite a gig if you can get it.

The comparison puts the lie to the sceptics charge that wind power is "unreliable"....

Not really. It's obvious that both nuclear and wind/solar are "unreliable" when they break. The concern with excess penetration of wind/solar is that they're unreliable even when there's nothing wrong with them.

[backwoodsbob]

2. quite the problem isn't it

kris may have painted himself into a corner here

[XemaSab]

3. I'll pop the cork on the champagne

after I see it happen.

Kris is like the Agent Smith of arguing on the internet.

[backwoodsbob]

4. true

[kristopher]

10. No bob, Baggins' reasoning error isn't a corner for me.

There has never been a denial that shutting down nuclear power plants will result in some level of increase in carbon emissions.

Discussion related to that fact centers in two areas, neither of which is favorable for nuclear when properly analyzed.

First is the claim by the nuclear industry that nuclear has an advantage over renewable because renewable supposedly requires more fossil fuel back up power than nuclear. This is part of a larger argument by the nuclear industry that seeks to exaggerates the significance of the variable nature of wind power.

In fact, as we see with the OP, nuclear power is also intermittent, and the consequences of its intermittency are significant, both in the area of carbon emissions but also in costs for replacement power (being out of service for months and years at a time is not uncommon) and in terms of grid reliability since the unexpected loss of power from a nuclear plant is a far more significant event to the grid than foreseeable variations associated with wind and solar.

The second area of discussion is that renewable energy sources, when properly assembled work in much the same way as the present grid, but the emphasis on energy efficiency and distributed generation, combined with the fact that all of the alternative generation in the system is also renewable, means the problems that go with centralized nuclear are not present with distributed renewables.

Nuclear simply perpetuates the present system oriented around fossil fuels. This means that instances like Germany and Japan are cases where short term increases in carbon emissions are the price of removing the obstacle nuclear presents to moving forward with distributed generation.

See also:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/112715525

[DCKit]

5. Always an early (and reliable) responder to the energy threads, and a proponent of nukes.

But I've never seen you post anywhere else.

What conclusions do you expect the rest of to draw from this?

[FBaggins]

6. That you don't pay much attention?

Or are you saying that you watch all my posts?

What conclusions do you expect the rest of to draw from this?

[DCKit]

7. Just in that you show up on every Fukushima thread to tell us how bad it's not...

and that we need to increase our investment in nnewcuelur power here in the U.S..

Every time Fukushima escalates, your bar goes higher. Obviously, you're not living on the Left Coast, or you'd be shitting your NASA diaper and calling the David Vitter hotline for changies.

If you think posting one non-newquelar thread is going to save your ass, think again.

[NickB79]

8. Every time Fukushima escalates?

In the first month or so after the tsunami hit, there were multiple people both on DU and various alternative media websites and blogs stating:

-Millions of people were going to die
-Huge parts of Japan, if not the entire island, were going to be rendered uninhabitable
-A radioactive gas cloud was going to hit the West Coast of the US
-The reactors were going to either explode and dwarf Chernobyl or melt a hole into the earth's crust and kill all life on Earth
-The Pacific ocean was going to die
-We should stockpile milk and dried foods
-It would be impossible to re-activate cooling of the reactors

And I'm sure I missed quite a few other claims. Starting from that base, how exactly have things at Fukushima escalated? One year in, none of these things have come to pass. The radiation release hasn't been pretty, and it will still take years (decades?) and many billions of dollars to effectively seal off the reactors, but I have no idea why you think people on the West Coast should be crapping themselves. I have friends in Japan (one with a 1-yr old son) within a few hundred miles of the reactors that have remained calm about the situation.

[FBaggins]

9. Never posted to say "how bad it's not"

I posted to say how bad it is... and correct those who falsely claimed that it was 10-100 times worse.

and that we need to increase our investment in nnewcuelur power here in the U.S..

We do... and we are.

Every time Fukushima escalates

You're not seriously one of those who thinks it's still getting worse, are you? The corium is still molten and burning it's way down to the water table to explode?

Obviously, you're not living on the Left Coast

Well... I guess that answerd the last question.

If you think posting one non-newquelar thread is going to save your ass, think again.

If you think I waste half a second worrying about whether or not my posting preferences meet with some standard of yours... think again.

Actually... "again" may be generous.