McCain Tries to Classify Nuclear Power as Renewable Energy; Voted Down

Comment: The south has lots of other things to offer for alternative energy, The South has sun, wind off the coast and mountains!! The southern coast has lots of wind but most Senators from the south has their heads in the Nuke Cycle, where they monies may come from!! Nuke Power is old, dirty, not clean because begins with uranium mining and milling which is not clean, green or carbon free. No to Nuke Power, No to Uranium mining & milling anywhere in the world!!

If you’ve wondered how life would be different if John McCain had won the 2008 presidential election, here’s one example of McCain supporting a policy that Barack Obama opposes.

At the urging of President Obama, members of the U.S. Senate are trying to craft a plan that would require utility companies to generate 15% of their power from renewable energy sources by 2021.

During debate this week over what a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) would encompass, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) tried to push through an amendment that would classify nuclear power as a renewable energy. “Reduced greenhouse gas emissions, have cleaner sources of energy and diversity: I certainly think nuclear power meets all of those definitions,” McCain told his colleagues, who rejected his proposal.

McCain isn’t the only senator trying to find a place for nuclear power in the current energy debate.

Senator Bob Corker (R-TN) claims excluding carbon-free nuclear power from the renewable standard penalizes states in the Southeast that have invested heavily in nuclear power plants. Unlike the Midwest, which can turn to wind, or the Southwest, which has lots of sun, the South does not possess the same abundance of a natural renewable source of energy.

But it does have the highest density of nuclear plants of anywhere in the country.

-Noel Brinkerhoff

href="http://www.allgov.com/ViewNews/McCain_Tries_to_Classify_Nuclear_Power_as_Renewable_Energy__Voted_Down_90607

In Renewable Energy Legislation, Nuclear Power May Find Exemptions

Comment: Nuke cycle is not green or CO2e free, uranium mining and milling uses gas and coal!! No to Nukes, No to Uranium mining!

Posted on: Friday, 5 June 2009, 06:45 CDT

In a law that would mandate utility companies to generate a certain amount of electricity from renewable sources, U.S. legislators are trying to increase incentives for the use of nuclear power and energy efficiency.

Nuclear power, however, is not currently considered a renewable electricity source according to the terms laid out in the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee bill. If the bill becomes law, a predetermined percentage of every U.S. utility company’s total power output would have to be dedicated to renewable energy sources.

The Senate committee recently modified the bill to include an amendment authored by Alaskan Senator Lisa Murkowski. Under the modified legislation, any future increase in capacity at existing nuclear power plants or new nuclear power plants would be exempt from the bill’s green energy requirements.

By not including the expansion of output at nuclear power plants, the amendment would allow these power plants to increase energy production without being subject to mandatory increases in the amount of renewable power they generate.

A number of other nuclear power amendments were handily defeated by the committee, including one proposed by Republican Senator and former presidential candidate John McCain of Arizona. McCain's measure would have permitted nuclear power itself to fall under the category of renewable energy.

"Reduced greenhouse gas emissions, have cleaner sources of energy and diversity: I certainly think nuclear power meets all of those definitions," said a disappointed McCain. (Well, Mr. McCain, Nuke power has lots of gas emmissions, from the uranium mining and uranium milling uses coal, gas in trucks, moving the uranium, uranium will depleted in less than 50 years, Nuke is not green or clean!!!)

According to the guidelines laid out in the proposed bill, power plants would be gradually phased into the new renewable energy standards, starting with 3 percent of their output between 2011 and 2013 and rising to 15 percent between 2021 and 2039.

Experts say that utility companies would likely be able to hit roughly a quarter of the required new renewable energy targets simply through energy efficiency gains.

The Senate committee also rejected an amendment put forward by Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana. Landrieu’s proposal would have removed the cap limiting the extent to which the new renewability standards could be met through energy efficiency adjustments.

"We wanted to incentivize renewable power because it was seen as best way to clean our air and reduce our greenhouse emissions. It's become clear, however, we can do even better and more cheaply by improving efficiency in our existing generation," Landrieu said.

Other legislators argued, however, that the renewable energy targets dictated by the proposed bill were not stringent enough. The first draft of the bill proposed by Committee chairman Jeff Bingaman's would have mandated that energy producers obtain 20 percent of their power from renewable energy by 2021-2039.

"It seems to me we've come a long way in the wrong direction since November," said Democratic Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey.

Menendez is co-sponsor of another amendment that would require utilities to generate a whopping 25 percent of electricity from renewable sources by 2025. Supporters of this amendment say they plan to present their measure to the full Senate soon.

The renewable energy legislation is just one part of a multi-faceted energy package that is intended to tackle various issues in the field including building efficiency, expanding electricity transmission and domestic energy production. The Senate energy committee says it plans to vote on a final version of the legislation by the end of next week.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/1700922/in_renewable_energy_legislation_nuclear_power_may_find_exemptions/

Energy and Global Warming news for April 24, 25: The inevitable watering down of Waxman-Markey

Democrats May Ease Bill’s Emissions Rules

Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee are negotiating among themselves on whether to scale back legislation that would impose a mandatory limit on greenhouse gases, with some conservatives and moderates calling for electric utilities to be given free pollution allowances and for more modest cuts in the targets for reducing emissions….

The talks suggest that utilities that distribute electricity from coal-fired plants are making progress in their efforts to get free access to 40 percent of the emissions permits, underscoring the challenge lawmakers face in seeking strict limits on carbon dioxide and other contributors to warming….

The Waxman-Markey bill calls for cutting U.S. emissions to 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and to 83 percent below by 2050; the Boucher proposal would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 6 percent by 2020 while leaving the 2050 goal in place….

Daniel J. Weiss, a senior fellow at the liberal think tank Center for American Progress, said that senior Democrats are unlikely to adopt some of Boucher’s requests — such as lowering emissions targets — because they simply reflect the legislation that he and Dingell pushed unsuccessfully last year, but that they might accept his proposal on free allowances.

“The Boucher list seems to be a very thoughtful distillation of good ideas, old ideas and areas for discussion,” Weiss said, adding that awarding the allowances free could “soften the transition” to a low-carbon economy for consumers. “Boucher’s request means a deal is very possible.”

Talks intensify in search for committee win on emissions bill

House Democrats are working behind the scenes to build a winning coalition on a major energy and global warming bill, but it is unclear if they will be successful.

The closed-door negotiations involve leaders of the Energy and Commerce Committee and about a dozen of the panel’s moderate and conservative Democrats who are concerned that the draft legislation circulated earlier this month pushes too fast to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Reps. Rick Boucher of Virginia and Mike Doyle of Pennsylvania have the lead in the compromise talks with Chairman Henry Waxman of California. The moderates’ group also includes Reps. Charles Melancon of Louisiana and Charles Gonzalez of Texas.

“This is going to be a direct conversation that [Waxman] and I have,” Boucher said yesterday. “Undoubtedly, it’ll span a number of days now. And at the end of the process, I hope I’ll be able to support the bill. In its current form, I cannot.”

Boucher declined to release his four-page list of recommendations, though he and Doyle provided some details. For instance, they have endorsed the electric utility industry’s call to set aside 40 percent of the proposed cap-and-trade program’s allowances for free distribution to regulated local distribution companies (LDCs) within the electricity sector.

On emission limits, they want emission targets lower than those proposed by President Obama (14 percent below 2005 levels by 2020) and Waxman (20 percent). Doyle did not give a specific figure, but an early draft of recommended changes obtained by E&E suggests beginning with a 6 percent cut by 2020.

The moderate and conservative Democrats also support a less aggressive 15 percent nationwide renewable electricity standard for 2025, as compared with the 25 percent target Waxman and Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) have set for the same date.

“It’s recommendations to the chairman, and we expect over the weekend we’ll be negotiating,” Doyle said. “His staff and our staff will be working on it.”

Doyle explained that the proposed changes could help build industry support for the bill, as well as among Democrats outside the committee. “I want to make the bill as good as we can make it,” he said. “I don’t have any firm lines in the sand. These are things I think are important. If we’re able to get movement toward those areas, then we’ll have a good bill.”

Democrats who already have embraced the draft climate proposal said they welcomed the Boucher-led group’s suite of recommended changes. “We’re going to work very closely with him to resolve those issues,” said Markey, the chairman of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee.

“At least on the Democratic side, people are looking for a way to get to yes,” added Rep. Jay Inslee (D-Wash.).

Other liberal members of the Energy and Commerce Committee said they are willing to keep on supporting the climate legislation as the moderates press for their issues to be heard.

“Sure, you can devastate the bill, and I’d vote against it,” said Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.). “But I think the types of modifications that those folks sitting on the fence might be looking for might address a regional concern, a concern back home in their home state and home region.

Dingell predicts energy passage

Michigan Congressman John D. Dingell, the former chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee said that the Environmental Protection Agency’s decision to regulate carbon dioxide emissions as harmful pollutants Thursday would help push Congress to pass a meaningful energy reform bill.

‘I think the administration’s using that as a club or a whip or a goad to make the House and Senate act on this legislation,’ Dingell said.

Utilities press House panel for free allowances

Utility companies are pushing for 40% free allowances—a move that reveals power companies’ acceptance of the inevitability of a carbon market. Polluting will no longer be totally free, so the utilities are asking for it to be two-fifths free.

Power company executives amplified their call today for free emission credits to comply with a House climate bill, calling their proposal an “elegant solution” ensuring the public won’t face skyrocketing electric bills.

Representatives of the Edison Electric Institute, the American Public Power Association, the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners urged the House Energy and Commerce Committee to set aside 40 percent of the proposed cap-and-trade program’s allowances for free distribution to regulated local distribution companies (LDCs) within the electricity sector.


Stimulus restarts 5,000 projects, work on high-speed rail

California will use $5.2 billion from the federal stimulus law to restart 5,000 public-works projects that had been stalled by the state’s financial crisis.

Getting new life are projects that had stopped in December because of the state’s $42 billion budget deficit and credit crunch. They include wastewater treatment construction, engine retrofits, flood control and road construction.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) announced the projects’ rebirth yesterday at a Sam’s Club in Glendora, where Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and BP were unveiling a rooftop solar installation. “This is huge, this will protect jobs, this will create new jobs,” he said. “Every billion dollars we spend on infrastructure creates 18,000 to 25,000 new jobs.”

Calif. approves nation’s 1st low-carbon fuel rule

California air regulators on Thursday adopted a first-in-the-nation mandate requiring low-carbon fuels, part of the state’s wider effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The California Air Resources Board voted 9-1 to approve the standards, which are expected to create a new market for alternative fuels and could serve as a template for a national policy that has been advocated by President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress.


California Fuel Move Angers Ethanol Makers

Ethanol producers reacted with dismay to California’s approval of the nation’s first low-carbon fuel standard, which will require the state’s mix of fuels to be 10 percent lower in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.

‘The drive to force the market toward greater use of alternative fuels will be a boon to the state’s economy and public health — it reduces air pollution, creates new jobs and continues California’s leadership in the fight against global warming,’ said the California board’s chairman, Mary D. Nichols, in a statement.

See more here: “California may rule corn ethanol is not a globlal warming solution.”

A Setback in the ‘Nuclear Renaissance’

A Missouri utility said Thursday that it was suspending its efforts to build a new nuclear reactor, making its proposed plant, Callaway 2, the first of the ‘nuclear renaissance’ reactors to fall by the wayside.

The utility, AmerenUE, planned to build a reactor near Fulton, Mo., but first it was seeking changes in the Missouri law governing how new power plants are financed. In a letter on Thursday it asked the sponsors of a new law now moving through the state legislature to withdraw the measure, because in its current form it would not provide the ‘financial and regulatory certainty’ the company needed before construction could begin.

Britain Advances Carbon-Capture Plans

Steps to capture and bury greenhouse gas emissions—rather than release them into the atmosphere—appear to have taken an important step forward this week in Britain, where the government proposed making the construction of large new power plants contingent on fitting the technology.

The government also proposed creating clusters of utilities to facilitate the transport and collection of carbon dioxide for storage in depleted oil and gas fields in the North Sea as part of a process known as ‘carbon capture and sequestration,’ or CCS.


Guardian (UK)

Bolivia: water people of Andes face extinction

Its members belong to what is thought to be the oldest surviving culture in the Andes, a tribe that has survived for 4,000 years on the barren plains of the Bolivian interior. But the Uru Chipaya, who outlasted the Inca empire and survived the Spanish conquest, are warning that they now face extinction through climate change.

Compiled by Max Luken and Carlin Rosengarten

http://climateprogress.org/2009/04/25/energy-and-global-warming-news-for-april-24-25-the-inevitable-watering-down-of-waxman-markey/

POWER POLITICS: Duke Energy execs lose their cool under pressure from climate watchdogs

Comment: Watch Sunday!

If there was any doubt Duke Energy executives are feeling frustrated by the intensifying pressure they're facing from climate activists, that was dispelled by remarks company spokesman Tom Williams made earlier this month about Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Executive Director Stephen Smith.

"He's a lying son of a witch,(bleep the b word)" Williams told ClimateWire in a story about the political battle being fought in the South over a national standard mandating increased electricity production from renewable sources. Climate watchdogs including SACE are pressing for such a standard to force backward-looking Southern utilities to embrace renewable energy sources.

Williams was responding to a statement from Smith that "[m]ost of the utilities in the Southeast tend to only want to address climate change through nuclear power," which is not a renewable energy source because of the serious environmental problems associated with uranium mining, nuclear power plant emissions and radioactive waste disposal. His quote attacking Smith was pulled after a few hours, but SACE has posted a copy of the original story on its website, where Smith blogged about the incident:

Our nation can't achieve the energy solutions we need without debating issues rationally, and it is disappointing that a utility that millions in the Carolinas rely on for electricity has officially dispensed with civil discourse.

But just five days after Williams' attack on Smith was published in ClimateWire, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers spoke at a gathering in Charlotte, N.C. -- and as much as admitted that Smith was right. Noting that proposals to limit carbon emissions will make coal-fired power more expensive, Rogers said his company is concerned about keeping up with a growing demand for electricity, the Charlotte Observer reported:

"The only way we could do it is with nuclear," Rogers said at Monday's Charlotte Energy Summit. "The higher the price (for carbon) goes, the stronger the case for nuclear." (some old, same old from big corp, taxpayers pay for nuke plants and that is why they are stuck in the old mold!)

SACE challenges Duke Energy's claims that the only way the company can meet its customers' demand is through new nuclear plants and the new coal-fired plant it's building at its Cliffside facility west of Charlotte, N.C. Earlier this year, the group released a report showing that while renewable energy resources currently generate enough power to serve only about 5% of retail electric sales in the Southeast, the region could meet a national renewable energy standard of at least 15% by 2015, 20% by 2020, and 25% by 2025.

The pressure on Duke Energy to defend its dirty energy choices will intensify this Sunday, when the CBS News show "60 Minutes" will interview CEO Jim Rogers about his company's continuing reliance on coal-fired power plants. Also appearing in the segment will be NASA's leading climate scientist Jim Hansen, who has called for a moratorium on all new coal-fired power plants in order to prevent catastrophic climate disruption.

In a preview of the segment available on the show's website, correspondent Scott Pelley begins by noting that Duke's 20 coal-burning power plants emit 100 million tons of carbon dioxide pollution each year and says this "makes what comes out of Rogers' mouth so surprising":

[Rogers:] Our goal line is to substantially reduce our carbon footprint, to decarbonize our business, by 2050.

[Pelley:] Four decades? That's a long time.

[Rogers:] Well, it took 100 years to get to where we are. And we can't do this overnight.

The video cuts to Jim Hansen:

2050 is too late. We will have guaranteed disasters for our children, grandchildren and the unborn. ... We are going to have to phase out emissions from coal within the next 20 years if we hope to prevent climate disasters.

Cut back to Rogers, whose demeanor darkens:

I say Mr. Hansen, can't get done, won't get done. We've got to keep our economy going. We've got to make the transition, and I'm going to do everything I can with the greatest sense of urgency to make the transition. But to do what you ask me to do now is just not doable.

Once the darling of the media for his willingness to acknowledge the reality of global warming unlike some other energy company CEOs, Rogers has come under increasing scrutiny in light of Duke's decision to move ahead with building the massive Cliffside plant, which itself would release an estimated 6 million tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere each year.

One of the toughest interviews Rogers faced came last month with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, who discussed Duke Energy's opposition to the Obama administration's cap-and-trade plan for controlling carbon emissions because it wouldn't give free pollution permits to big emitters like Duke. Rogers seemed rattled by some of Maddow's hard questions, like this one:

[Maddow:] Is Duke Energy profitable?

[Rogers:] Yes, we are profitable.

[Maddow:] Then why is it that you wouldn't take the hit in terms of your profit -- even become an unprofitable company for a couple of years -- in order to make good on the fact that you've been getting all this pollution for free, and we've been paying for it with our health, and we've been paying for it in terms of our environmental degradation while you've been making profit off it. Isn't this just a way to redress what's been an economic wrong that's come out really well for you guys and really bad for us?

Rogers responded weakly, saying Duke Energy was a regulated utility whose prices were determined by state regulators. But it's hard to imagine a state utility commission rejecting a company's plan to not pass on to consumers the cost of transitioning to a low-carbon future.

Given the growing pressure Rogers is under, it will be interesting to see how he handles the scrutiny of "60 Minutes."



http://www.southernstudies.org/2009/04/power-politics-duke-energy-execs-lose-their-cool-under-pressure-from-climate-watchdogs.html

Energy Secretary Backs Clean Coal

Wednesday, April 15, 2009; Page A17

Energy Secretary Steven Chu, above, may not be taking up former vice president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Al Gore's call for young people to engage in civil disobedience to stop the construction of coal plants without the ability to store carbon -- but he is making it known that he believes in trying to make coal as clean as it can be.

In an interview yesterday with The Washington Post's Lois Romano, Chu noted that the United States has the most known coal reserves in the world and that more than half of domestic electricity is generated by coal.

"Even if the United States turns its back on coal, China and India will not, and so, given the state of affairs, I would prefer to say let's try to develop technologies that can get a large fraction of the carbon dioxide out of coal," said Chu, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist.

Activist: Claim of 'green' nuclear power is false

13 hours ago

By DAVE GRAMAssociated Press Writer

(AP:MONTPELIER, Vt.) An internationally known writer and anti-nuclear activist got a warm reception from Vermont lawmakers as she heaped criticism on the Vermont Yankee nuclear plant and the atomic power industry.

But one thing Dr. Helen Caldicott didn't get during a visit to the Statehouse was the meeting she was hoping for with Gov. Jim Douglas.

"He needs to be educated," she said.In Thursday's morning talk to the House and Senate Natural Resources and Energy Committee, Caldicott, an Australian-born pediatrician, took aim at several aspects of nuclear power, including claims that it helps to minimize greenhouse gas emissions.

She spoke of the ill health effects of radiation and long-lasting nature of radioactive materials that are byproducts of nuclear power.

And she sharply criticized Vermont Yankee and the nuclear industry for promoting themselves as "green" alternatives to energy sources that use fossil fuels and are heavy emitters of carbon dioxide, a gas blamed for global climate change.

"A nuclear power plant doesn't stand alone. It has to be fueled," Caldicott said in an interview after her legislative testimony.

"And there's a huge industrial infrastructure behind a nuclear power plant.

"She pointed to a section of her 2006 book, "Nuclear Power Is Not The Answer," which takes aim at a nuclear fuel processing plant in Paducah, Ky., that processes uranium fuel for the U.S. nuclear industry.

She said the Paducah plant, owned by United States Enrichment Corp., uses power equivalent to that produced by two 1,000-megawatt, coal-fired power plants.

She said it also uses CFC 114 _ a gas used widely in refrigeration until it was banned under an international treaty in 1989 over concerns it was damaging the earth's ozone layer.

Caldicott said the nuclear processing industry was "grandfathered" under that treaty, meaning not subject to the ban, and wrote that the gas "leaks unabated from the hundreds of miles of cooling pipes used in the uranium enrichment operation at Paducah, Kentucky, and its sister facility in Ohio."

Jeremy Derryberry, spokesman for U.S. Enrichment Corp., said in an e-mail Thursday that the firm "has a very aggressive program to prevent and stop leaks of the coolant.

"He said the leakage rate has been reduced steadily this decade and is within Environmental Protection Agency limits.

He added that the company will be phasing out its Paducah plant in the next several years in favor of a new facility in Ohio that will use 95 percent less electricity.

Caldicott and the hosts of her Vermont tour, wind and solar energy entrepreneurs Jan and David Blittersdorf, expressed annoyance that they weren't able to get her a meeting with Douglas.

The governor, who has been generally supportive of Vermont Yankee, said at a news conference Thursday that he had been invited to Caldicott's talk to lawmakers but was unable to attend.

Caldicott said that was not the full extent of the contact. "He's not telling the truth," she said.

A Burlington public relations firm working with the Blittersdorfs released an April 3 e-mail to the governor's office suggesting he attend either of two Montpelier appearances by Caldicott.

It also said, "David and Jan Blittersdorf would like to invite Governor Douglas for a private meeting with her in the afternoon, at the Inn at Montpelier, for tea or any time at his convenience.

"Douglas' deputy chief of staff, Dennise Casey, called the assertion that the governor wasn't being truthful a "ridiculous accusation."

Carbon footprint of the Olympic Dam uranium mine expansion

Comment: This thing is ugly!!! Why anyone would want to destroy their home for this? Maybe Greed!! Look at the water pools!

My home state of South Australia is host to the single largest known deposit of uranium in the world (by some estimates, up to 40% of the verified global reserves, although uranium is still poorly explored worldwide).

The mine that was first established over 30 years ago to exploit this resource (as well as copper [majority of production], gold and silver), Olympic Dam, is run by BHP Billiton, following their acquisition of Western Mining Corporation Resources in 2005. In that year, production was about 220,000 tonnes of copper and 4,600 tonnes of uranium oxide.

Late in 2008, despite some criticism, Premier Mike Rann gave the a $7 billon mine expansion. The eventual production of the enlarged mine — perhaps the largest ever man-made hole in the ground — is anticipated to be 730,000 tonnes copper, 19,000 tonnes of uranium oxide and 25 tonnes of gold per year.

Critics have pointed out that the carbon footprint [e.g., diesel from vehicles and mining equipment] and electricity needs [possibly via gas-fired power plants] of this expanded enterprise would be massive — by some estimates almost 700 MW of extra electrical power demand.

Greens SA MLC (State Senate), Mark Parnell, an active sustainability crusader here in this state whom I respect greatly, was quoted as saying: “Our state risks being left with a huge carbon black hole as we become the greenhouse dump for one of the world’s richest companies“.

Here I do a rough, back-of-the-envelope calculation, to test Mark’s ‘carbon black hole’ assertion with respect to the uranium extraction. My carbon footprint calculations are based on the careful figures derived for the highly detailed report by Bilek, Hardy, Lenzen and Day: Life-Cycle Energy Balance and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Nuclear Energy in Australia (2006) [henceforth BHLD]. If in doubt, check the figures in that document yourself — its authors include three of Australia’s top life cycle analysts from the University of Sydney, who were commissioned by the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet.

I should note that a formal environmental impact statement for the Olympic Dam expansion, which will take into account many factors including water use and localised impacts, is due to be delivered in May 2009.

The current production of uranium oxide is about 4,600 tonnes, composed of a mixture of fertile 238U (99.29%) and fissile 235U (0.71%). Light water reactors (LWR) require enrichment of uranium oxide to 3 to 5% 235U, and once operational for a few years and running at a 90% capacity factor, need about 29 tonnes of enriched U per year per gigawatt of electricity (1 GWe) generated by nuclear power plants (BHLD, pg 79). It works out that in 2005, Olympic Dam produced enough fuel for roughly 22 GWe of generation capacity using today’s reactor designs (PWR/BWR), or 192,200 GW hours per year (GWh/yr). By comparison, the expanded Olympic Dam, with its anticipated output of 19,000 tonnes of U, would yield about 94 GWe of average power supply, or 794,000 GWh/yr.

Once the full nuclear life-cycle emissions for LWR are accounted for (includes: mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication, reactor construction and operation, decommissioning and storage of spent fuel), the greenhouse gas intensity of the power generated is 60 kg CO2-e per MWhe (BHLD, pg 172), which is 60 tonnes per GWh [for fast spectrum reactors like the IFR, it would be substantially lower, since we skip the mining, milling and storage steps]. Thus in 2005 the emissions equivalent for Olympic Dam uranium mining was ~11.5 million tonnes (Mt) of CO2-e. The expanded mine will be 48 Mt — that is, an additional 36.5 Mt of CO2-e will be released into the atmosphere each year as a result of the Olympic Dam expansion.

Okay, let’s put that figure in two different perspectives.

In 2005, South Australia’s total emissions were 28 Mt CO2-e. Let’s say that, despite our best efforts, our emissions continue to grow, such that in 12 years time they are 30% higher than in 2005, at 36 Mt CO2-e. The lifetime emissions that result from the mine expansion will be about the same as the total emissions of South Australia. Sounds bad, eh? Well, not to the atmosphere, which is a global commons.

Let’s say that uranium wasn’t available, and those French and Chinese (etc.) nuclear power plants were shut down and replaced with fossil fuel plants. Here is the comparison for the 2005 and 2020 (expanded mine) output based on three alternative power generation methods that yield the same total GWh/yr:

Black coal (supercritical): 2005 = 181 Mt CO2-e and 2020 = 747 Mt CO2-e
Brown coal (new subcritical): 2005 = 226 Mt CO2-e and 2020 = 933 Mt CO2-e
Natural gas (combined cycle): 2005 = 111 Mt CO2-e and 2020 = 458 Mt CO2-e

So, under the best-case gas alternative, we get an additional 410 Mt CO2-e dumped into the atmosphere each year if the Olympic Dam output was cancelled. With brown coal, the stuff we find powering Victoria’s Latrobe Valley (and feeding SA via the interconnector), we get an extra 885 Mt CO2-e. That’s a whopping 37% more than the estimated 530 Mt CO2-e we might expect Australia to be emitting from ALL emissions sources in 2020, assuming we manage to meet the 5% reduction target of the CPRS.

Or looking at it another way, the Olympic Dam expansion will ‘offset’ South Australia’s total carbon emissions by around 13 to 26 times.

For a counter analysis on expanding our coal production see here: Save a bit here, ship a whole lot there.
So, to conclude, I agree with Mark Parnell that “Our state risks being left with a huge carbon black hole“. But not, as he imagines, if the Olympic Dam development goes ahead. No, that massive black hole (at least when expressed in terms of global climate change mitigation) will result from us NOT expanding the mine. Such is the huge energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) of uranium, even when used in today’s ‘inefficient’ once-through thermal reactors. In a future dominated by fast spectrum reactors with a closed fuel cycle, which use vastly more of uranium’s energy content, the above EROEI and emissions equivalence figures just get ridiculous.

Let’s get sensible about nuclear power and carbon emissions, shall we?

Update:Other estimates of life-cycle emissions from world’s best practice are considerably lower than the 60 tonnes CO2-e per GWhe cited in the BHLD study above. For instance, there is this low-end estimate of is 3.3 tonnes CO2-e per GWhe given here:

There is world-wide concern over the prospect of Global Warming primarily caused by the emission of Carbon Dioxide gas (CO2) from the burning of fossil fuels.

Although the processes of running a Nuclear Power plant generates no CO2, some CO2 emissions arise from the construction of the plant, the mining of the Uranium, the enrichment of the Uranium, its conversion into Nuclear Fuel, its final disposal and the final plant decommissioning.

The amount of CO2 generated by these secondary processes primarily depends on the method used to enrich the Uranium (the gaseous diffusion enrichment process uses about 50 times more electricity than the gaseous centrifuge method) and the source of electricity used for the enrichment process. It has been the subject of some controversy. To estimate the total CO2 emissions from Nuclear Power we take the work of the Swedish Energy Utility, Vattenfall, which produces electricity via Nuclear, Hydro, Coal, Gas, Solar Cell, Peat and Wind energy sources and has produced credited Environment Product Declarations for all these processes.

Vattenfall finds that averaged over the entire lifecycle of their Nuclear Plant including Uranium mining, milling, enrichment, plant construction, operating, decommissioning and waste disposal, the total amount CO2 emitted per KW-Hr of electricity produced is 3.3 grams per KW-Hr of produced power.

Vattenfall measures its CO2 output from Natural Gas to be 400 grams per KW-Hr and from coal to be 700 grams per KW-Hr. Thus nuclear power generated by Vattenfall, which may constitute World’s best practice, emits less than one hundredth the CO2 of Fossil-Fuel based generation. In fact Vattenfall finds its Nuclear Plants to emit less CO2 than any of its other energy production mechanisms including Hydro, Wind, Solar and Biomass although all of these processes emit much less than fossil fuel generation of electricity.