This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on April 24, 2008.
Our choice: delay the inevitable, or hasten it
Our lives are full of unstoppable cycles: the sweeping of a second hand on a clock, the rising and setting of the sun, the waxing and waning of the moon, the orbit of the earth around the sun. Of each of these we will all, hopefully, see many.
Some others, we could live an entire, full life, and never see - Halley's Comet comes every 75 or 76 years, and some born after its last visible visit in 1986 may not make it to the next, in 2061.
Other cycles are so vast that, practically speaking, they may as well happen only in theory. Our solar system, for example, rotates around our galactic core every 250 million years.
One cycle is of particular interest to us today. Our planet has a regular cycle of ice ages, one of which we are, scientifically speaking, still in the midst of. An ice age in underway as long as significant icing exists over land masses, such as we have in Greenland and Antarctica.
Within an ice age, we cycle still more finely between glacial and interglacial periods. Ice cores taken at Antarctica give evidence for at least the last four of these cycles, spaced roughly 100,000 years apart.
100,000 years may as well be 250 million for the average human, blessed with, perhaps 100 years of life. In our planet's past, though, the cycles have progressed naturally, without any outside influence (save the odd massive volcanic eruption or asteroid strike).
Presumably, the current cycle would continue undiminished and unhurriedly, but this time, the world has a new variable. Scientists, known much more for coming to contemplative conclusions than with wild leaps of faith, agree that the climate is warming quicker than it would naturally - the new variable, of course, is us.
The pictures of future shorelines, which you may have seen in An Inconvenient Truth, either the book or movie, are scary. Under another three feet of water, some South Pacific islands will disappear. Much of San Francisco Bay, submerged. New Orleans deluged by more water than any levee could handle. Florida, Boston, Washington DC, New York City, all in danger.
These things will happen eventually, no matter what we do. What we are doing is hastening the process. Occurring at nature's pace, we might be able to cope. If New Orleans was under water in 3000 years, we would surely have time to move things about. But if it happens in 300 years, or 100, or 10, then can we possibly move fast enough?
We don't know exactly how much we're hastening the inevitable, but what's clear is that we are hastening it. Some argue that the damage has already been done, and nothing we do can reverse it. Maybe. But, is it a chance we can take?
One challenge is convincing everyone, and I mean everyone, that there is a problem. If the United States and Europe stopped all greenhouse gas emissions, the problem would not go away. Emissions would continue from Asia and Africa.
But like trying to convince teenagers that they should begin saving for retirement, it is very hard to balance a far-off concern with immediate concerns. Even if we could prove that Manhattan will be under water 150 years hence unless we stop using cars today, would that cause anyone to bicycle to work tomorrow?
The naysayers will parrot that the warming trends we see are natural ones; that we will see disaster coming long before it gets here; and that we can plan to deal with the adverse effects in enough time to avoid dire consequences.
But the warming trends are far from natural - they are accelerated. We already have seen some effects - Katrina, the collapse of the Larsen B ice shelf, heat waves in Europe, disappearing islands in Kiribati. As for planning, government is loathe to request money from taxpayers to fund projects to staunch the effects of rising sea levels, and taxpayers are loathe to hand the money over.
Humans will adapt. Our ancestors withstood the last glacial period, and our progeny will withstand the next interglacial period. There will inevitably be costs, both in blood and treasure. But the costs to the future generations can be limited if we are willing to change our behaviors. I don't expect us to be totally selfless, but I do hope and expect that we won't continue to be totally selfish.
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Vermont's Energy Future is Nuclear
This column originally appeared in the Williston Observer on April 10, 2008.
Vermont's Energy Future is Nuclear
Recently, I've been shopping around for a new car. It's been five years since I've done serious research into cars, and I fully expected that I'd find many environmentally-friendly choices out there.
I was woefully wrong. Hybrid technology seems to be stuck in a rut. A typical example: for $5000, a Nissan hybrid will buy you an underwhelming two highway MPG. They can also be hard to find. Saturn touts its hybrid SUVs in TV ads, but the local dealer expected to get two - two! - this year.
Toyota has the best hybrid out there, the Prius, and my father owns one. He loves it, and when I brought up my search at a family gathering on Easter Day, he bragged about getting over 50 MPG on trips to and from Rutland. Talk then moved from hybrids on a winding path to nuclear power plants in France.
Surely you've had those family discussions where one topic leads to another, and to another, and you end up on a path littered with discarded tangential conversations. Our detritus included hybrids, batteries, electric cars, electric heat and hot water, windmills, and Vermont Yankee.
We were all for reducing our carbon footprints, and we all agreed that going all-electric was a means to that end. But where would all that extra electricity come from? Only from new power plants. But no one wanted plants that burn gas, oil, or (evilest of evils) coal. Sadly, alternatives are scarce.
Solar has great potential, but annually, Burlington only gets 49% sunshine. Solar works, but only when the sun shines. Another problem is efficiency - right now, the best we can get is 30% efficiency from solar cells, and usually far less.
Wind also has great potential, but building wind farms in Vermont is problematic at best. I think the sight of several dozen wind turbines on top of surrounding mountains would be in keeping with Vermont's image. Many don't share this view and blanch at the thought of giant rotors marring their vistas. Here, too, we're at the mercy of nature. No wind, no power.
Hydro is a great alternative, but in Vermont, we have nothing of the potential of, say, the Hoover or Grand Coulee dams. Instead, more dams are being torn down than are being built.
So, wind and solar are too dependent on nature and NIMBY; hydro seems like a non-starter; we want to avoid gas-, coal-, and oil-fired plants; others, like geothermal and biomass, can't come close to our needs; and while there is a lot of room for improvement in efficiency, the trend seems to be an increase in electricity usage, not a decrease.
The only current technology left is nuclear. Vermont Yankee currently generates 35% of Vermont's power needs. Talk of decommissioning the plant is, frankly, absurd. If we lost Yankee, our statewide carbon footprint would skyrocket.
What we, as a state and a nation, should so is build more nuclear plants. I know this opinion puts me at odds with many of my liberal friends, but it is the only thing that makes sense.
There are valid concerns about safety, but let's face it, Yankee has operated safely for 35 years. Despite my complaints about the lack of progress in other areas, nuclear power technology has advanced substantially since Yankee came on line.
The U.S. currently gets 20% of its power from nuclear. There's potential for a lot more. France has embraced nuclear in a big way, with 80% of its power coming from nuclear plants. In Japan, nuclear accounts for a third of that nation's needs.
No new plants have been brought on line in the U.S. in a dozen years. We need more plants, and using the lessons France and Japan have learned, we can build plants that are safe, recycle used nuclear fuel to reduce waste, and supply us with clean power to charge those electric cars and heat our water.
The holy grail of power generation is fusion. Scientists are working on that but power plants may be 20 years away, if not more. Until then, nuclear is our best overall option.
In my best-case scenario, we all use CFLs in every socket; we have 85% efficient solar panels coating our roofs; we erect single-home windmills in our back yards and wind farms on our mountain ranges; and state-of-the-art nuclear plants are there to back it all up.
Vermont's Energy Future is Nuclear
Recently, I've been shopping around for a new car. It's been five years since I've done serious research into cars, and I fully expected that I'd find many environmentally-friendly choices out there.
I was woefully wrong. Hybrid technology seems to be stuck in a rut. A typical example: for $5000, a Nissan hybrid will buy you an underwhelming two highway MPG. They can also be hard to find. Saturn touts its hybrid SUVs in TV ads, but the local dealer expected to get two - two! - this year.
Toyota has the best hybrid out there, the Prius, and my father owns one. He loves it, and when I brought up my search at a family gathering on Easter Day, he bragged about getting over 50 MPG on trips to and from Rutland. Talk then moved from hybrids on a winding path to nuclear power plants in France.
Surely you've had those family discussions where one topic leads to another, and to another, and you end up on a path littered with discarded tangential conversations. Our detritus included hybrids, batteries, electric cars, electric heat and hot water, windmills, and Vermont Yankee.
We were all for reducing our carbon footprints, and we all agreed that going all-electric was a means to that end. But where would all that extra electricity come from? Only from new power plants. But no one wanted plants that burn gas, oil, or (evilest of evils) coal. Sadly, alternatives are scarce.
Solar has great potential, but annually, Burlington only gets 49% sunshine. Solar works, but only when the sun shines. Another problem is efficiency - right now, the best we can get is 30% efficiency from solar cells, and usually far less.
Wind also has great potential, but building wind farms in Vermont is problematic at best. I think the sight of several dozen wind turbines on top of surrounding mountains would be in keeping with Vermont's image. Many don't share this view and blanch at the thought of giant rotors marring their vistas. Here, too, we're at the mercy of nature. No wind, no power.
Hydro is a great alternative, but in Vermont, we have nothing of the potential of, say, the Hoover or Grand Coulee dams. Instead, more dams are being torn down than are being built.
So, wind and solar are too dependent on nature and NIMBY; hydro seems like a non-starter; we want to avoid gas-, coal-, and oil-fired plants; others, like geothermal and biomass, can't come close to our needs; and while there is a lot of room for improvement in efficiency, the trend seems to be an increase in electricity usage, not a decrease.
The only current technology left is nuclear. Vermont Yankee currently generates 35% of Vermont's power needs. Talk of decommissioning the plant is, frankly, absurd. If we lost Yankee, our statewide carbon footprint would skyrocket.
What we, as a state and a nation, should so is build more nuclear plants. I know this opinion puts me at odds with many of my liberal friends, but it is the only thing that makes sense.
There are valid concerns about safety, but let's face it, Yankee has operated safely for 35 years. Despite my complaints about the lack of progress in other areas, nuclear power technology has advanced substantially since Yankee came on line.
The U.S. currently gets 20% of its power from nuclear. There's potential for a lot more. France has embraced nuclear in a big way, with 80% of its power coming from nuclear plants. In Japan, nuclear accounts for a third of that nation's needs.
No new plants have been brought on line in the U.S. in a dozen years. We need more plants, and using the lessons France and Japan have learned, we can build plants that are safe, recycle used nuclear fuel to reduce waste, and supply us with clean power to charge those electric cars and heat our water.
The holy grail of power generation is fusion. Scientists are working on that but power plants may be 20 years away, if not more. Until then, nuclear is our best overall option.
In my best-case scenario, we all use CFLs in every socket; we have 85% efficient solar panels coating our roofs; we erect single-home windmills in our back yards and wind farms on our mountain ranges; and state-of-the-art nuclear plants are there to back it all up.
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