Concerned About the Planetary Climate, the IEA Urges Rethinking Nuclear Phase Outs. [View all]

[NNadir]

PARIS (Reuters) - A steep decline in nuclear energy capacity will threaten climate goals and power supply security unless advanced economies find a way to extend the lifespan of their reactors, the International Energy Agency said.

Nuclear is currently the world’s second-largest source of low-carbon electricity, behind hydropower, and accounting for 10 percent of global electricity generation. But nuclear fleets in the United States and Europe are on average more than 35 years old and many of the world’s 452 reactors are set to close as cheap gas and tighter safety requirements make it uneconomical to operate them.

“Without policy changes, advanced economies could lose 25 percent of their nuclear capacity by 2025 and as much as two-thirds of it by 2040,” the IEA writes in its first major report about nuclear energy in two decades.

Over the past 20 years, wind and solar capacity has increased by 580 gigawatt GW in advanced economies. Despite that, however, IEA estimates that the 36 percent share of clean energy sources in global power supply in 2018 was the same as two decades ago because of the decline in nuclear.

IEA rings alarm bell on phasing out nuclear energy

The added bold is mine. I note that considering so called "renewable energy" in terms of peak power as opposed to energy is a commonly used Trump scale lie. "580 GW" of so called "renewable energy" operating at 30% capacity utilization is - fairly typical for so called "renewable energy - in terms of average continuous power represents about 175 GW of nuclear power, since nuclear power is capable of running at or near 100% capacity utilization. Moreover, nuclear power plants do not require redundant gas, oil or coal plants to cover them when they aren't operating.

We have, in this country, shit for brains people like President Obama's worst appointment, Gregory Jaczko, who wrote this piece of head up the ass bit of preciousness: I oversaw the U.S. nuclear power industry. Now I think it should be banned.

He declares, more than half a century into commercial nuclear operations, the experimental result being an extraordinarily low death toll, that "nuclear power is more dangerous than climate change." I note that this weak minded fool did not regulate the dangerous fossil fuel industry - which is allowed to dump it's wastes directly into the planetary atmosphere - which kills, along with biomass burning, 7 million people a year, but in his mind is not "too dangerous."

Here is the most recent full report from the Global Burden of Disease Report, a survey of all causes of death and disability from environmental and lifestyle risks: Global, regional, and national comparative risk assessment of 79 behavioural, environmental and occupational, and metabolic risks or clusters of risks, 1990–2015: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2015 (Lancet 2016; 388: 1659–724) One can easily locate in this open sourced document compiled by an international consortium of medical and scientific professionals how many people die from causes related to air pollution, particulates, ozone, etc.

Apparently in Jaczko's weak mind, destroying the planetary atmosphere is also not "too dangerous." His attitude, like that of most anti-nukes, is "who gives a rat's ass about future generations, it's their responsibility to do what we are incompetent to do ourselves, live without dangerous fossil fuels."

President Obama's best appointment in the field of energy and the environment was of course Nobel Laureate Steven Chu, who lead the charge to get nuclear reactor construction resumed in the United States.

Obviously Dr. Chu had a very different opinion than that asshole Dr. Jaczko.

It is not enough, by the way, to simply keep reactors built in the 20th century going. We need new reactors, reactors of different types, capable of high temperatures to remove carbon dioxide atmosphere. This is on the edge of technical feasibility.

We hit 415 ppm concentrations of the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide this year, this after "investing" trillions of dollars in last ten years alone for solar and wind. Things are not getting better; they're getting worse.

The annual increases in the dangerous fossil fuel waste carbon dioxide in the planetary atmosphere have now approached 2.4 ppm/year. So called "renewable energy" has not worked; is not working; and will not work.

History will not forgive us, nor should it.

I wish you a nice day.