Obama Calls For Nuclear Power

US president Barack Obama has announced federal funding to create create 2 new Nuclear Power Stations in America. The Decision is a landmark for Nuclear Power in the USA as it has been over 30 years since the last nuclear power stations were built.

The US has avoided Nuclear power since the 1979 accident at Three Mile Island, an accident that was caused by the partial core meltdown of one of the reactors at the site in Pennsylvania, which resulted in a release of radioactive gases into the atmosphere. The move ticks many of the boxes of Obama’s agenda, helping to reduce emissions and prevent climate change whilst ensuring a more secure energy future, as well as creating jobs.

According to BBC News just one nuclear plant will cut carbon pollution by 16 million tons each year when compared with a similar coal plant. It won’t persuade all the environmentalists, but it is an argument that does weigh heavily with some of them. Nuclear Power stations have much less emissions that conventional coal power stations, but can still lead to environmental damage when disposing of nuclear waste.

“To meet our growing energy needs and prevent the worst consequences of climate change, we’ll need to increase our supply of nuclear power. It’s that simple.” President Obama

There are currently 104 operating nuclear reactors across 31 states in the US, which provide about a fifth of the country’s electricity. Meanwhile, there are currently 56 new nuclear reactors being built around the world.

Economic Growth Vs Climate Change

One of the main arguments in politics about climate change is the potential cost of acting to prevent it. Changing the way we get our power, the way we travel and the way we build and manufacture things is far from cheap. Thanks to some of the richest people in the world trying to get richer at our expense, our economies are not exactly rolling in money right now.

For politicians, the appeal of spending billions on acting on climate change is not great at a time when most of their economies are still shrinking. This is perhaps the key subtext as to why the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference was a complete failure. Now the New Economics Foundation (Nef) has released a new report claiming that global economic growth “is not possible” if nations are to tackle climate change. The report also claims that only “unprecedented and probably impossible” carbon reductions would be needed to hold temperature rises below 2C.

“We urgently need to change our economy to live within its environmental budget. There is no global, environmental central bank to bail us out if we become ecologically bankrupt.”

As bleak as it sounds, it does not mean we are all doomed. It simply means that if we carry on as the way things are, we are doomed. This is a fact. Western economies are built on a lie, that you can consume the worlds recourse as much as you like for as long as you like. The blueprints of our economies are unsustainable: fact. Continuing to ignore this fact will be the end of us, but seems to be the number one priority for politicians and business leaders. Our economies simply cannot keep growing forever. We are trapped in a cycle of boom and bust and sooner or later the busts will become too big to fix.

The report concluded that for a economic growth rate of just 3%, the carbon emissions of the global economy would need to fall by 95% by 2050 from 2002 levels. This would require an average annual reduction of 6.5%. “Magic bullets – such as carbon capture and storage, nuclear or even geo-engineering – are potentially dangerous distractions from more human-scale solutions”

The only way to prevent dangerous climate change is to fix our broken economic system. We could have economic growth whilst preventing climate change, but with the current system we can have only neither. It may well be in most individuals personal interests to continue to ignore these facts but it is in humanities best interest that we go back to the drawing board and design a system that works for everybody and our planet.

“Meaningful Deal” Reached at Copenhagen…

The much hyped and talked about Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, hailed as the most important meeting on climate change to date, is drawing to a close. Much debate has occurred over what actions must be taken to prevent dangerous climate change to our environment, but most of the debate was about damage limitation to the economies of world leaders.

After months of discussion and the climax of the climate change talks in Copenhagen, US President Barack Obama proclaimed that a meaningful deal had been reached to the worlds press. Good news yes? Well it would be if it were true. Here is what was actually achieved in Copenhagen:

193 countries “recognize the scientific view that” they need to limit global temperatures rising no more than 2C (3.6F) above pre-industrial levels.

Thats about it… There is NO legally binding agreement to any country on any further actions on curbing emissions or contributions to climate change. The deal “promises” to deliver $30bn (£18.5bn) of aid for developing nations over the next three years, despite UN recommendations that rich countries provide $100 billion per year in aid to developing nations most vulnerable to climate change.

The implementation of the dubbed “Copenhagen Accord” will be reviewed 2015, about a year-and-a-half after the next scientific assessment of the global climate by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

So what does this mean for us and for climate change? Well quite frankly it means nothing. It is certainly as far from a “meaningful deal” as you could possibly get. After climate change has been so vigorously shoved into the limelight, it is likely to go quiet over the next few years, until we hear the updated statistics and forecasts from the IPCC in 4 years time. With the worlds economy in the state it is in right now, you can bet that we will see little if no effort by major polluters between now and 2015 of becoming greener, as in the eyes of world leaders and business CEO’s, the inconvenience of adapting to greener ways is far too costly to bother, when they will face no punishment for failing to act now.

I have said it many times, world leaders and big business leaders (who often arguably have more power) prioritize economies and making money over human lives and quality of life. As long as they do this taking action on climate change is too big a risk to take. When you reverse it and value the people of this world over businesses and money the way it should be, not taking action on climate change now is too big a risk to take. It’s a sad world we live in.

Climate Change Copenhagen – Can We Trust China?

Climate Change Copenhagen

Recent reports of China’s “commitment” to reducing its massive contribution to climate changing pollution by reducing carbon emissions has been welcomed by some as a heads up prior to the United Nations Conference focusing on climate change in Copenhagen during December 2009

‘Beijing said it would aim to reduce its “carbon intensity” by 40-45% by the year 2020, compared with 2005 levels.’

Can we trust China?

It is incredible how many people continue to believe in the lies and and are fooled by the deceptive games the Chinese regime continues to play with the world.

China is still a poor country (money-wise). But if there is no control of the pollution in China, their next generation will suffer not only poor health conditions but also a possible poorer economics too (think about the rising health care spending’s and less working population due to the poor health condition).

It has been widey reported that China has been building many coal fired power plants over the past few years. No details about the types of plants or their efficiency. New coal fired plants in the USA are higher efficiency plants than those built 40 years ago (and cost substantially more to build).

It is possible that China is “stacking the deck” by building many lower-technology lower-cost inefficient plants; this will make it relatively easy for them to substantially reduce emissions: replace these new but inefficient plants with newer plants that have higher efficiency.

Effects of Climate Change

It is good to see that the Chinese government finally realize pollution control is for the sake of its own destiny as well.  Let’s  just hope they have realistic and effective polices to back these goals up.  The effects of climate change are already being recorded in China with warnings that the Yangtze delta, China’s most populous river needs massive investment and careful planning to ease the impact of climate change, which is causing floods, droughts and storms to intensify, a new report (pdf) said today.

Climate Change: the Cause Behind the Cause

You have all heard about the threat of climate change by now. It’s constantly in the news and rightfully so, it is likely to be on of the biggest threats to just about everything over the coming century. Governments are now all fully aware of the causes of climate change and what must be done to prevent it. In a matter of weeks the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference (COP15) will host representatives of the worlds biggest polluters in a effort to reach a deal on taking actions on emissions over the next 50 years.

But what will be achieved? There are two sides to the conference. Developed Nations and Developing Nations. Developed Nations are those such as USA, Britain and rich western nations, that essentially became developed threw their mass consumption of fossil fuels over the past 2 centuries. Developing Nations are countries such as China and India and many other poorer nations that historically have emitted much less climate warming gasses emitted from burning fossil fuels. But these developing nations need to continue to use fossil fuels to power their economies to bring their people out of poverty. Whereas developed nations already have a much higher percentage of their population living a better quality of life.

Only a deal on a global scale will do, Developing countries like China and India are already fast becoming the worlds largest emitters of greenhouse gasses. But these countries argue that they are less historically responsible for climate change, having emitted less over time than developed countries such as the USA. As a result China and India will not sign a deal that prevents them from continuing to grow over the coming decades, claiming the USA and other developed countries should make up for their historical responsibility and face harsher restrictions. Naturally the USA will not sign any agreement that will damage themselves economically such as capping emissions from their businesses. Which brings us to what this conference will really be about: Money.

The problem with the political system is money. Money is power. Politicians will not make any decisions without putting their economy first. Over half the world still lives in poverty. Millions don’t even have food to eat or clean water to drink. Yet world leaders spent Trillions of Dollars, Pounds and Euro’s propping up failed businesses in fear their collapse would damage their economies, there for damaging their power. A tiny fraction of the money spent bailing out the banks could have ended world hunger. The grand sum could have ended poverty for Millions if not Billions of people. So we now live in a world where out banks, full of stuff that doesn’t really exist, are put before people. But not only people, the planet and everything on it.

The reason a deal (or at least a deal that actually meets the recommendations of climate scientists) is unlikely is simply because the decisions are up to politicians. Politicians who care only about how damaging a emissions cap may be to their economies. But if by some miracle a appropriate deal is achieved, money lost from damages economies will likely be recouped by increasing taxes, so it is us the people who really pay the price, at a time where we will be also be paying off the debt of the banking system that failed us. Which leads me on to the real cause of climate change.

Over-consumption is all around us and exists with nearly everything we do. Over-consumption is the simple fact that most of the worlds resources are finite. The fact of the matter is we consumer far more than we give back to the world. The society we live in is unsustainable, just like the banking system, when we carry on consuming more than is created. So that is essentially the biggest problem we face, so why aren’t politicians doing anything about it? Because it is consumption that is the fuel that drives their economies and gives them more power. When asked what the American people should do the day after the September 11th attacks, G.W Bush replied simply “Shop”.

99% of everything purchased in the United States is consumed or thrown away within 6 months. These things need resources to make, and massive amounts of power to manufacture, power that comes from fossil fuels that in turn further warm the climate.

The problem of Over-consumption is a problem that simply has to be solved, now or when its too late. A small step to reduce over-consumption could in reality eclipse any actions on reducing emissions that are likely to come out of the Copenhagen Climate Change Conference. But it wont happen. Why? Because Over-Consumption makes the resources we use in every day life finite. If its finite you can regulate the cost of it, simply supply and demand. If there is less of something and more people want/need it, it is worth more than if its plentiful.

This is why oil companies purposely do not dig for new oil until their reserve levels are very low, because they less they have available, the more its worth.

Unless there is a drastic change in politics over the next 5 years, I expect our environment and the people of this world will be prioritised below our economies. So long as that is the case its a very sad world we live in. One that might not be around much longer.

UK to Build 10 Nuclear Power Stations

The British government has approved 10 sites for new Nuclear Power Stations in an effort to secure future energy for the UK.

The UK has begun to rely more and more on foreign energy as their reserves of natural gas and coal diminish. The move is largely aimed at reducing emissions over the next few decades. The majority of the UK’s ageing nuclear infrastructure will have to be decommissioned by 2023, leading some experts to warn of the prospect of power shortages if new capacity is not added.

The 10 sites deemed suitable for future nuclear plants, many of which already have nuclear power facilities, are Bradwell in Essex, Braystones, Kirksanton and Sellafield in Cumbria, Hartlepool, Heysham in Lancashire, Hinkley Point in Somerset, Oldbury in Gloucestershire, Sizewell in Suffolk and Wylfa in North Wales.

Energy and Environment Secretary Ed Miliband claims:

The threat of climate change means we need to make a transition from a system that relies heavily on high-carbon fossil fuels, to a radically different system that includes nuclear, renewable and clean coal power. The current planning system is a barrier to this shift. It serves neither the interests of energy security, the interests of the low-carbon transition, nor the interests of people living in areas where infrastructure may be built, for the planning process to take years to come to a decision.