Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Furthermore, to produce energy equivalent to that generated by a 1,000 megawatt
nuclear power plant would require, from biofuels, 2,500 square kilometres of good
farmland or, from solar energy, 150 square kilometres of photovoltaic cells. The US
would need to devote land the size of Texas if it met all its energy needs from wind
power. However, for Helen Caldicott (2006) and John Turner, from the US National
Renewable Energy Laboratory (McKenna, 2007), these arguments are fallacious and
misleading. Land used for turbines can still be used for grazing, and the amount
already paved over for roads and car parks in all major countries is immense and
growing. Biofuels are problematic too, as many crops take over land that could be
devoted to food production, although research on biomass thermal conversion
technologies which process agricultural wastes, fast-growing wood and biogenic
wastes has produced some very positive results. With carbon emissions increasing
steadily, attention has once more shifted to nuclear energy, although the costs and
time required for building new plants and bringing them fully on-stream mean that
more extensive nuclear energy generation is a solution for the 2020s, by which time
global climate change would have further worsened. There are other problems with
nuclear such as the environmental costs and impact of extracting uranium from the
world's dwindling supply. Large amounts of fossil fuels are often still required to
mine and refine the mineral, and the link between civil nuclear power and military
use is undeniable, as US critiques of the nuclear power programmes in Iran and
North Korea eloquently testify. Nuclear waste includes toxic contaminants that
cause leukaemia and other cancers and genetic disease. Caldicott questions both the
science and politics of nuclear energy and the implicit complacency in the expectation
that this technology is the 'magic bullet'. Changes will have to occur to the way we
think problems through, the way we apply reasoned and moral judgements that seek
alternative practical pathways, ways of living and being. Renewable energy, she
writes, 'is quick to build, abundant and cheap to harvest; it is safe, flexible, secure
and climate-friendly' (2006: 164); and, married to a lifestyle respectful of natural
resources, human and non-human others, renewable technology will help shape a
world that is sustainable and worth sustaining. This is undoubtedly the case, but
with the global population certain to increase by around two billion by 2050 and
with the global need to address the perennial poverty of global poverty energy,
demands are anticipated to increase by around 35 per cent by 2035 with China,
India and the Middle East counting for 60 per cent of the increase (IEA, 2012)
nuclear energy is back on the global agenda. The current energy mix is still dominated
by heavily subsidized fossil fuels - US$523 billion in 2011 or six times that of
subsidies to renewables - and nuclear is a generally accepted low carbon energy
source. Between 1978 and 1988, when France adopted its extensive nuclear power
programme, carbon emissions fell by an average of 3.7 per cent per annum. France
has one of the most carbon-efficient economies in the world. A 1GW nuclear power
station can produce up to ten times more power than a 1GW solar plant because
nuclear operates 24 hours a day. In addition, next generation nuclear technologies
such as thorium liquid salt reactors and integral fast reactors mean that smaller,
safer, plants could be built and operate, which would not go into meltdown as
happened in Fukushima in 2011. These new reactors could also consume existing
plutonium waste and the thorium approach, initially investigated in the US in the
1960s, is not particularly suitable for the construction of nuclear warheads -
the reason why the US abandoned the thorium projects at the time. However, the
