Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist (41 page)

J.L.
“We are a rogue species and are about to pay the price.”

P.M.
“But what if Gaia’s strategy is to increase CO
₂
in the atmosphere, to make the world warmer and jump us out of this Ice Age period we have been in for the past 2.5 million years?

J.L.
“If we don’t act quickly we will be doomed to global heating.”

P.M.
“I think it is reasonable to assume we do not know the future of the global climate. How do we know an increase in CO
₂
emissions won’t be good for life and people? This requires a bit more study.”

J.L.
“Humans are the biggest threat to civilization, and they must stop CO
₂
emissions.”

You can’t sum up a day of discourse in a few words but the bottom line was that I now believed that nuclear energy was not something to be feared and Jim Lovelock still feared catastrophic climate change. So much for
my
powers of persuasion.

It seems a stretch to conclude that the human species is the only “rogue species” in all creation. It’s too much like the idea of original sin in fundamentalist religions. I’m even willing to accept original sin in the context that humans stoop to murder, sexual assault, and theft, but that is not the same as branding us a traitor to Gaia, to Mother Earth. If that were the case, then every farmer, miner, logger, fisher, and industrial worker would be an enemy of the planet. It makes for great media but we should remember the media are mainly about entertaining the masses and securing advertising revenue (or state revenue a in the case of state-financed media).

Climate scientists tend to insist that their computer models of the global climate reliably predict what the climate will be like in 50 or 100 years. We do not have a computer program that can look into the future with accuracy. There is actually no proof we are causing the observed changes in weather and climate we are observing. The climate has been changing from the beginning of the earth’s creation, billions of years before we were here. How presumptuous is it for us to think we are suddenly the main cause of climate change?

Energy Powers Everything

Energy underlies virtually every aspect of our lives and the lives of every other living thing. Motion requires energy, so without energy, time would stand still.

We get the energy from our food to walk, talk, and type. We are able to turn sugars, starch, fats, oils, and proteins into the energy that makes our bodies alive. All these sources of energy are produced by photosynthesis in plants. The animals we eat, in turn, ate those plants. Of course plants are the original “green.”

Energy is a vast and complex subject, partly because there are so many different types of energy and so many ways to harness them. For practical purposes energy can be divided into electrical energy and thermal energy (heat). To confuse matters, most of our electrical energy is produced using heat from burning fossil fuels and uranium. Then we often turn the electrical energy back into thermal energy to toast our bread or heat our homes. There is always a chain of energy events that leads from the original source to the end use.

While most people have access to sufficient thermal energy for cooking and heating (much of it in the form of wood), 1.5 billion people have no access to electricity.
[1]
There are 580 million people in India and 500 million in sub-Saharan Africa with no electric service. Interestingly, in China, where 56 percent of the population is poor, the vast majority of people have access to electricity. This suggests political will and organization are even more important than income in determining who gets to plug in and who doesn’t.

While it is possible to survive without electricity, it is not possible to achieve a high quality of life. Whether it is literacy, education, health care, public transit, industry, or entertainment, electricity forms the foundation of a civilized life. Of the 13 terawatts (one terawatt equals one trillion watts) of commercial energy used each year in the world, 86 percent is currently supplied by oil, coal, and natural gas.
[2]
Even if we include the noncommercial burning of wood, dung, and crop residues by two-fifths of the world’s people without access to commercial energy, fossil fuels supply about 80 percent of the total amount of global energy.
[3]

By 2050, many experts believe the world’s larger, more affluent population will demand 25 to 35 terawatts of commercial energy. The International Energy Agency predicts a 40 percent increase in demand by 2030. One reason for this is that China and India, with 40 percent of the world’s population, are only now entering the automobile and air conditioning era in a significant way, where commercial energy consumption increases rapidly.

Some argue we should simply reduce our energy use across the board, conserving our way to a significant reduction in fossil fuel use. The problem with this approach is so many people on the planet already live in total energy poverty. One-third of the world’s population lives without electricity or any other modern energy supplies. Another third has only limited access. Without electrical energy, life is difficult and often miserable. People naturally don’t want to remain energy poor. Even the slightest increase in energy use by the poorest two-thirds of humanity will overwhelm any conservation savings we can accomplish in the developed world. This is not to suggest conservation isn’t worthwhile. Wherever we can economically increase energy efficiency, in our vehicles, homes, and appliances, we should do so. But at some point you can’t diet your way out of starvation. Conservation cannot conserve what is not produced.

Others suggest replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources, such as hydroelectric, geothermal, wind, solar, and biomass. These are all viable, and in some cases limited, alternatives that have either been used for decades (such as hydroelectric energy) or are beginning to be adopted on a larger scale (such as geothermal energy and wind power). However, the challenge lies in getting these renewable sources to add up to enough energy to make a dent in global fossil fuel consumption—and doing so even as global energy use increases.

Simple arithmetic tells us that if we want to cut fossil fuel consumption in half we must at least triple the amount of energy derived from all non-fossil sources. If total energy consumption doubles or triples, we need to increase the non-fossil energy by six or eight times by the end of the century. Is this even possible? Yes, but only if we are willing to include every cost-effective non-fossil option available to us, especially nuclear energy.

Nuclear energy currently supplies nearly half of the world’s non-fossil commercial energy and, along with hydroelectric energy, represents the most feasible, lowest cost alternative to fossil fuels. Without nuclear energy, cutting our use of fossil fuels by half while doubling total energy consumption would require a 12-to 32-fold increase in energy from the remaining alternatives. Without nuclear energy, the job literally becomes impossible.

A single 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant can provide the equivalent electricity of 500 of the largest wind turbines at a lower cost. Moreover, the nuclear plant produces power continuously and is always able to meet the demand for electricity, unlike wind energy, which depends on weather that is intermittent and often unpredictable.

Yet many environmentalists have rejected nuclear energy entirely, recommending that instead of increasing its use we eliminate it completely. How did we get to the point where environmental groups reject the most cost-effective, feasible, and timely solutions to the very problems they are most concerned about?

Later in the chapter we will explore the arguments for and against nuclear energy in more detail. Suffice it to say for now that there are more than 400 commercial reactors operating in 36 countries and since the Chernobyl accident in 1986 there has not been a serious accident at any of them. Not one person has died from a radiation-related accident in any of the 104 reactors now operating in the U.S., yet nearly 40,000 people are killed in automobile accidents every year and there is no movement to ban cars.

Globally, of the 14 percent of commercial energy that comes from non-fossil sources, 6.7 percent is from hydroelectric, 6.6 percent is from nuclear, and about 0.8 percent is from biomass, geothermal
[4]
, wind, and solar combined. Unless there is an unforeseen breakthrough in energy technology, these are the choices we have to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. With global energy demand rising rapidly nothing short of an aggressive expansion of renewable and nuclear energy production can accomplish the task of reducing fossil fuel use.

Now let’s look at the energy policies of the majority of environmental groups today. While they claim to be in favor of renewable energy, they oppose building more hydroelectric dams and are even campaigning to tear down existing dams. Many environmental groups, Greenpeace included, are entirely opposed to nuclear energy, calling for a phase-out of existing capacity. If you add up the numbers above, you can see that the environmental movement opposes 95 percent of the non-fossil commercial energy currently produced and if it had its way it would reduce this source of commercial energy rather than increase it. They also oppose continued use of fossil fuel. This means they support only 0.8 percent of current global energy production. This is ridiculous in the extreme and yet the movement is very successful in achieving support for its agenda.

So on the one hand the movement demands reductions in fossil fuel consumption while on the other hand it presents the greatest obstacle to achieving that goal. Activists vigorously support the Kyoto Protocol on climate change yet they oppose or ignore the most effective technologies that would result in reduced greenhouse gas emissions. This is an entirely self-defeating approach.

Fortunately there is a sensible and practical pathway to reducing fossil fuel use while continuing to provide the energy that is necessary to support civilization. But there is no single technology that can accomplish this goal; we must be willing to use all the available, affordable, non-fossil energy sources. These include hydroelectric, biomass, both types of geothermal, nuclear and solar hot water heating. Although nuclear energy is nonrenewable, it must be included because the task simply can’t be accomplished with renewable energy alone. And while it is not renewable, nuclear energy is sustainable over the long term (thousands of years).

Thankfully I am no longer a lone wolf as an environmentalist who supports a combination of nuclear and renewable energy as the sensible solution to reducing fossil fuel consumption. In recent years a number of prominent environmental leaders have joined in the call to rethink the movement’s position on nuclear energy.

James Lovelock, lifelong independent scientist, has made the strongest statement. “Civilization is in imminent danger,” he warns, “and has to use nuclear—the one safe, available energy source—or suffer the pain soon to be inflicted by our outraged planet.”
[5]

While I may not be quite so strident as my friend James Lovelock, it is clear that whatever risk there is from increased CO
₂
levels in the atmosphere, it can be offset by an emphasis on nuclear energy.

Stewart Brand is the founder of the Whole Earth Catalogue, a mail order cornucopia that back-to-the-landers considered a bible in the 1960s and 70s. In the September 2004 edition of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s
Technology Review
, Brand wrote that nuclear energy’s problems can be overcome and:

The industry is mature, with a half-century of experience and ever improved engineering behind it. Problematic early reactors like the ones at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl can be supplanted by new, smaller-scale, meltdown-proof reactors like the ones that use the pebble-bed design. Nuclear power plants are very high yield, with low-cost fuel. Finally, they offer the best avenue to a “hydrogen economy,” combining high energy and high heat in one place for optimal hydrogen generation.
[6]

Hugh Montefiore, a former Anglican bishop, was a founder of Friends of the Earth UK in the 1970s and served as a director for decades. When he stated in 2004, “I have now come to the conclusion that the solution [to global warming] is to make more use of nuclear energy.”
[7]
he was forced to resign his post. Here is hard evidence of the extreme green movement’s intolerance of any divergent opinions on key environmental issues. Disagree with the dogma and you’re fired. There’s not much room for intelligent debate in that kind of atmosphere.