If you’re up for a green-on-green battle, there’s nothing like a discussion of nuclear power to get the juices flowing. While most U.S. environmental activists still oppose expanding nuclear operations on the grounds of safety, radioactive waste disposal, and economics, there’s a cohort of climate hawks that favors not only keeping the nation’s 93 existing nukes operating, but also building new ones to help reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the fossil fuels that still dominate the energy system. As Nathanael Johnson at Grist wrote last month:
Decades after the previous generation of greens protested to close nuclear reactors, a new generation is beginning to advocate to save those same plants. These activists regard nuclear power — which provides more than half of the country’s clean energy — as a vital asset in the fight against climate change.
Most of America’s nuclear reactors were built in the 1980s and their 40-year licenses are nearing expiration. Now, policymakers are wrestling with whether to begin the arduous license renewal process, or simply shut plants down. Leaders in New York recently made the latter choice, decommissioning the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant. But in other cases, pro-nuclear activists have turned the tide.
Since 2013, a dozen U.S. power reactors have switched off over financial competitiveness worries resulting from a deluge of cheap natural gas and renewable energy. Flat demand for electricity has also been a factor. The Department of Energy is doing its part to keep some of those aged nukes in operation with a $6 billion lifeline from the Civil Nuclear Credit Program. Funding for that comes from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
And while the battle to keep old nukes generating emissions-free electricity long past their original expiration dates goes on, we’re on the cusp of seeing construction of some advanced nukes with advocates who claim they will be safer, smaller, cheaper, and quicker to build. Sounds good. So good that the federally owned Tennessee Valley Authority, the largest public utility in the nation, plans to spend $200 million on the design and licensing of one of these new nukes based on GE Hitachi’s 300-megawatt BWRX-300 light-water small modular reactor (SMR).
A lot of hope is being placed on SMR technologies, but they are yet to be proved commercially. There’s no question that the technology works, but can it overcome the problems of old nukes, and will it work economically? After all, promises of inexpensive nuclear power date back nearly 70 years to when Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Lewis Strauss said it would be “too cheap to meter.” It’s hardly turned out that way.
Take, for instance, the four AP1000 Westinghouse 1,250-megawatt reactors that were once promoted as the leading edge of what would be a torrent of new nuclear power plants in the United States. In 2010, construction of two of those reactors began in South Carolina. With an originally estimated cost of $14 billion, they were slated to switch on in 2016. But in 2017, they were shuttered half-completed after the owners had blown through $10 billion. South Carolina utility customers will be paying for this fiasco for years to come even though these reactors never generated a nanowatt of electricity.
The other two reactors are being built in Georgia and will be owned by Georgia Power, which already operates two reactors at the same Vogtle site in Waynesboro. When the concrete foundations were poured in 2009, total cost was estimated at $14 billion. One reactor was scheduled to come online in 2016, the other a year later. Just a few months ago, after a series of delays caused by poor construction, time spent redoing substandard work, extended testing and inspections, and the bankruptcy of Westinghouse, the owners announced that the first of the two would be switched on in June this year. But last week, they said that this won’t happen until 2023—six years behind schedule, with costs having swollen to $30 billion. Every month’s delay costs another $90 million in capital costs.
Who pays for that is in dispute. Ratepayers or stockholders? A report from the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis, a nonprofit that promotes a sustainable energy economy, says that electricity customers could be on the hook for billions of dollars in the years to come. Even before either reactor is switched on, Georgia Power’s customers are already paying a surcharge for them. James Bruggers writes:
Georgia Power was warned in 2008 that using an unproven reactor design would likely cause overruns and delays, said David Schlissel, the report’s author and the institute’s director of resource planning and analysis. “However, the company challenged and the commission disregarded these warnings,” said Schlissel, a lawyer who has been a frequent expert witness in legal proceedings.
Elsewhere, there’s also a debate among environmental advocates over nuclear power. Germany is shutting down the few reactors that remain online this year, a decision made after the meltdown of the Fukushima reactors in Japan in 2012. Critics argue that this means burning more fossil fuel, particularly natural gas, and that means it will be harder for the nation to reach its greenhouse gas emissions-cutting goals. In 2021, Germany got 27% of its gas from Russia. On the other hand, President Emmanuel Macron of France—a county that now operates 56 aging reactors generating just over 70% of the nation’s electricity—recently proposed to build 14 new-generation reactors by 2050.
Germany opposed and France supported nukes being sustainable investments under the EU Taxonomy Regulation, “a classification system establishing a list of environmentally sustainable economic activities.” It’s essentially a green investment guidebook. The European Commission’s scientific expert group, the Platform on Sustainable Finance, also opposed this. But the commission disagreed, and now gas and nukes count as green.
Meanwhile, Japan’s prime minister has talked about turning its nuclear power fleet back on after having shut it down a decade ago. At the time, nukes provided about 30% of Japan’s electricity. The few reactors that have been switched on again now provide just 6.2%. The majority of Japanese continue to believe that nuclear power is dangerous. For now, Japan fills the gap by being the nation with second-highest imports of liquified natural gas after China, and the third-largest importer of coal, after China and India.
Those two nations continue to build nuclear power stations. Over the next 15 years, China plans to add 150 reactors to its existing fleet of 54. India has approved the addition of 10 new reactors to the 22 it already operates.
Whatever one’s views on nuclear power, it’s clear it will be a significant factor in the global energy mix for decades to come despite its problematic economics and continued concerns about waste and safety. The United States currently operates more nuclear power reactors than any other nation. What portion of its future electricity will come from nuclear power is anybody’s guess.
WEEKLY ECO-VIDEO
SHORT TAKES
In its annual Global Methane Tracker update released Wednesday, the International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that global methane emissions from the energy sector are 70% greater than the sum of estimates made by national governments. It was the first time the IEA has included coal in its tracking. Coal turned out to be the largest single source of such emissions, but just barely, with 42 million metric ton (Mt), followed by 41 Mt from oil and 39 Mt natural gas. The top three methane emitters, the report stated, are China with 28 Mt, followed by Russia at 18 Mt, and the United States at 17 Mt.
Methane is 86 times more potent at warming than carbon dioxide, but it lasts only 12 or so years in the atmosphere while CO2 lasts centuries. The energy sector emits about 40% of total methane emissions resulting from human activity. Only agriculture emits more. Of the total emissions, about 4 Mt come from equipment leaks at the wellhead or in pipelines. According to the tracking update, if that leakage could be captured, it would have meant an added 180 billion cubic meters of natural gas available for us, close to all the gas used in the European power sector. Burning that gas emits about half the greenhouse gas emissions that burning coal does.
The IEA says that some nations are doing a good job of getting methane emissions under control. If the rest of the world matched Norway’s emissions intensity, the report states, “global methane emissions from oil and gas operations would fall by more than 90%.” At the COP26 Glasgow climate summit last year, more than 100 nations pledged to cut emissions of methane 30% by 2030 over 2020 levels. But China, Russia, India, and Australia didn’t join them.
According to the IEA’s chief energy economist Tim Gould, “If by the end of this decade we can bring down man-made methane emissions by 30% from where they are today, the impact on the temperature rise in mid-century is the same as switching all the cars, trucks, planes and ships of the world over to zero emissions technologies.”
Sami Grover sees some reason for optimism about expanded coverage of the climate crisis because Big Media is hiring more reporters to write about it. He quotes prominent climate expert Amy Westervelt, whose current work includes co-hosting the Hot Take podcast:
“In the past few months, The New York Times has pulled in writers from its Culture and Technology desks to climate, and announced this past week that reporter Somini Sengupta will be taking over their Climate Fwd newsletter. Somini brings a climate justice approach to all of her stories, so we're excited to see what she does with the newsletter. And then The Washington Post blew everyone away this week with an announcement that it plans to add 20 new positions to its climate desk.”
And last week, the Associated Press
announced plans to hire 20 journalists around the planet who will spotlight the "profound and varied impacts of climate change on society in areas such as food, agriculture, migration, housing and urban planning, disaster response, the economy, and culture."
Sounds impressive. But we’ve seen something like this before in 1990, when after the 20th anniversary of Earth Day and congressional testimony about climate change, scores of U.S. newspapers hired more environment reporters and devoted whole sections, or at least whole pages, each week to environmental news. (Full disclosure: I got a supervisory editor’s job at the Los Angeles Times as a result.) But interest waned and the financial death spiral of the industry soon eliminated all that.
Grover notes: “Of course, quantity doesn’t equal quality. And from an excessive focus on lifestyle environmentalism and carbon footprints to an unforgivable tendency to overlook climate injustices and disparities, there are plenty of ways that mainstream media climate coverage has messed up over the years. That’s why I’m profoundly grateful not just for the climate journalists and writers who are finally getting hired in decent numbers, but for the folks who are scrutinizing how that work is being done.”
A study released Wednesday by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) found that around half of the content from purveyors of climate science denial gets no warning labels or fact checking from Facebook moderators. Last May, Facebook vowed to attach “informational labels” to posts about the climate crisis and direct users to the social media platform’s “Climate Science Information Center.”
In November, the CCDH published its Toxic Ten report, identifying just 10 publishers with articles that make up 69% of Facebook interactions with climate denial articles. Breitbart, the Federalist Papers, Daily Wire, and Russian state media were among the 10. What the researchers found was that 50.5% of the 184 most popular posts associated with articles promoting climate science denial carried no information label. Among them: A Breitbart article claiming global warming is not real and a “hoax”; a Washington Times article claiming that “COVID-19 and climate change are being used to steal our liberties”; a NewsBusters article referring to “alarmist climate propaganda”; a Daily Wire article claiming “the Left Is Spreading Global Warming Alarmism”; and a Breitbart article branding a leading climate scientist a “climate alarmist.” Of the other 49.5%, all had a label linking them to the climate science resource center, but just one was a fact check of bad information contained in the post.
Said CCDH’s Chief Executive Imran Ahmed, “By failing to do even the bare minimum to address the spread of climate denial information, Meta is exacerbating the climate crisis. Climate change denial—designed to fracture our resolve and impede meaningful action to mitigate climate change—flows unabated on Facebook and Instagram.” A spokesperson for Facebook claimed the CCDH report only covers the rollout of the warning system and not how effective it is now.
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren has pledged to initiate action against Facebook if it fails to do a better job at dealing with climate lies.
Every six or seven years, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) publishes three lengthy reports on the climate crisis. The latest is the Sixth Assessment. The first of its three working groups presented their report last August. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said it meant “code red for humanity.” Working Group II will release its report Feb. 28. The focus will be how the crisis affects people and the planet now, what to expect down the road, and how to adapt.
IPCC Co-chair Debra Roberts, a South African environmental scientist, told the Associated Press, “We’re concerned that the physical climate around us is changing. But for most people in their day-to-day lives ... they want to know: so what? What does it mean for their lives, their aspirations, their jobs, their families, the places where they live.”
“We have to be also a little bit careful how we communicate the results of our science, tipping points and whether we talk about the collapsing of the biosphere and the disappearance of mankind,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization. “We have to be careful with that, not to cause too much fear among the young people. That fear should be targeted towards decision-makers.”
Mark Watts, the executive director of the C40 group, a network of around 100 major cities cooperating on climate, pointed out that while various changes are being felt around the planet, it’s not the same everywhere. "In the global south, there really aren't any city climate program funds at the moment. Of those that exist, almost none of them are about adaptation. They're all trying to get poor countries that have relatively low emissions, to reduce their emissions further, not about adapting to the impacts that they're already feeling."
You can view the upcoming press conference on the report here.
ECOPINION
Extreme Drought Is Crashing Food Production Whether Russia Invades or Not, by Mark Hertzgaard. “In a world increasingly feeling the effects of climate change, the media must examine the role climate can play in igniting and inflaming conflicts. [On Feb. 11], as speculation that Russia was preparing to invade Ukraine mounted, ABC News reported that ‘the specter of a military confrontation’ was ‘pumping fresh life into the debate over whether president Joe Biden’s climate agenda is brushing up against difficult geopolitical realities.’ The story, which was produced by the network’s newly formed climate unit and ABC’s investigative team, was perhaps the first in the US media to examine the climate angle of the Ukraine conflict. It should not be the last. Even as newsrooms provide steady updates on the most immediate elements concerning Ukraine, from military maneuvers to diplomatic negotiations, they must help audiences understand the Ukraine conflict in its broader context.”
Ikea’s Race for the Last of Europe’s Old-Growth Forest, by Alexander Sammon. The furniture giant is hungry for Romania’s famed trees. Little stands in its way. “In an accident of geography and history, Romania is home to one of the largest and most important old-growth forests left in the world. Its Carpathian mountain chain, which wraps like a seat belt across the country’s middle and upper shoulder, hosts at least half of Europe’s remaining old growth outside Scandinavia and around 70 percent of the continent’s virgin forest. It’s been referred to as the Amazon of Europe, a comparison apt and ominous in equal measure, because of the speed at which it, like the Amazon itself, is disappearing ... Since roughly the date of Romania’s accession to the EU, between half and two-thirds of the country’s virgin forest has been lost.”
Revisiting California's natural gas hookup subsidies, by Clifford Rechtschaffen and Simi Rose George. “Relative to other sectors, little progress has been made in reducing building sector emissions. For instance, while emissions from electricity generation in California have dropped by an estimated 28% since 2014, emissions from gas use in the residential sector have increased by almost 18% during that period. For California to successfully decarbonize its economy, it is important to revisit existing policies that may be misaligned with its current climate policies. As part of the California Public Utilities Commission's (CPUC) efforts to identify policy changes needed to advance building decarbonization, we are taking a fresh look at our gas line extension policies.”
What’s the Progressive Answer to High Gas Prices? by Lee Harris. The energy transition is already here, but so are midterm-killing gas increases. “Climate hawks are winning the war and losing the battle. “With gas prices hitting $3.50 a gallon nationally and the threat of war in Europe driving fuel costs higher, right-wing lawmakers are scrupulously on message: Blame inflation and effete environmentalism. Democrats, on the other hand, are scrambling for a story. As the electoral threat sinks in, proposals abound. Tax fossil fuels less; tax fossil fuel producers more; limit crude exports; invest in clean energy to compete with China; improve supply chains; break up monopolies. Yet both progressives and moderates conceded in interviews that the short term may be a wash. [...] Several vulnerable Democrats are currently proposing one response to relieve public frustration: Suspend the federal gas tax.”
How Privatization Fuels Catastrophic Climate Change, by Donald Cohen and Allen Mikaelian. Privatization deals in the realm of climate, handing over decision-making from the public to private profiteers. That’s an untenable situation. “When it comes to the threat of climate change, public control over policy making is critical. Private forces guided by profit-motive, like fossil fuel companies, may seek to enrich shareholders at the risk of causing catastrophic environmental impacts. As such, privatization deals in the realm of climate hand over decision-making from the public, which stands to face the consequences of these impacts, to the profiteers who benefit from them. That’s an untenable situation if we hope to build an environmentally sustainable future where everyone is afforded the right to a healthy planet.”
ECO-TWEET
OTHER THINGS TO READ
Let’s Honor Hazel Johnson’s Environmental Justice Legacy During Black History Month, by Cheryl Johnson. “Hazel Johnson was not only my mother, she was the mother of the environmental justice movement. Hazel started organizing in our neighborhood, Altgeld Gardens, on the far southside of Chicago in the late 1970s. At the time, Altgeld residents and other Black, Brown and working class neighborhoods across the country were bearing the burden of toxic pollution and industrial dumping. But such terms as environmental justice and environmental racism were not commonplace back then like they are today. My mom dedicated her life to changing that. She fought for justice in Chicago and raised national awareness about the connections between socioeconomic, public health, and environmental inequities in low-income and communities of color—what we now call environmental racism.”
A vision for more sustainable farmlands, by Theo Whitcomb. “Central California can’t continue to farm at its current industrial scale. As land is fallowed, what could take its place? From above, California’s San Joaquin Valley spills out of the Sierra Nevada in a checkerboard of earth-toned farmland. It’s some of the most valuable land in the world; every year, the agribusiness industry here produces billions of dollars’ worth of milk, vegetables and nuts. But the scale, and the industrial intensity, of agriculture require an enormous amount of groundwater to be pulled out of aquifers deep belowground — more than the industry can afford to pump, according to hydrologic modeling. According to projections from the Public Policy Institute of California, between 535,000 and 750,000 acres — around 15% of the valley’s irrigated farmland — will need to be taken out of irrigated production in order to meet the requirements of the state’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act.”
It Might Be Time to Take Methane Removal Seriously, by Gregory Barber. An alarming spike in the second-most-damaging greenhouse gas is giving wind to a once fringe idea: Take it out of the air. Methane is a quixotic warming agent. Unlike carbon dioxide, which persists in the atmosphere for thousands of years, natural forces remove it within roughly a decade, mostly when it reacts with other molecules in the air. But for the brief time methane mixes aloft, it punches far above its weight, producing 80 times the warming effect of carbon dioxide over 20 years. By some estimates, it has been responsible for a third of anthropogenic warming so far, despite receiving far less attention. It is also notoriously difficult to track where the gas comes from.
Unequal Impact: Putting Justice at the Heart of the Climate Fight, by Jeremy Deaton. Beverly Wright, a leading voice on environmental justice and an adviser to the Biden White House, talks with Yale Environment 360 about why some climate policies do more harm than good for communities of color and why disaster relief remains insufficient or out of reach for so many.
e360: What would you like to see the Biden administration do differently on environmental justice?
Wright: Any project that moves forward should be inclusive of three things: It will not harm communities. It will not contribute to the climate crisis. And it will not perpetuate racially disproportionate burdens of pollution. Any program that we bring in to solve the problem must have these three principles embedded in it so we don’t make the same mistakes.
Is Earth Smart? by Adam Frank, Sara Walker, and David Grinspoon. We came up with a way to measure the intelligence of entire planets. Things aren’t looking great for ours. “Let’s start by defining planetary intelligence in terms of cognition, the capacity to know something about what’s happening and act on that knowledge. Because science has already shown that certain living systems respond collectively to their environment, we consider planetary intelligence to be life’s collective response to changes in the state of the entire planet. We’re not interested in just any kind of response. What matters is when collective smarts are put to work toward life’s most essential collective purpose: survival. As we conceive of it, planetary intelligence is measured by the capacity of life on a planet to sustain itself in perpetuity.”
ECOBITS