Apocalypse Maybe: Thoughts from MIT’s Kerry Emanuel

National Academy of Sciences member Kerry Emanuel of MIT felt compelled to explain his views on climate change, risk assessments and the debates rekindled by climate deniers and nuclear deniers following the publication of Michael Shellenberger's Apocalypse Never, which bore a review blurb from Emanuel.

Just as it is difficult to have a rational discussion about reducing Covid-19 risks for the broader community when some people are shouting about their right to not wear a mask, the climate debate has been greatly hampered by noisy extremists. Rather than finding any value in the debates about the uncertainties, debates about impacts, or debates about best solutions, Emanuel urges us to "step out of the fray" and take a hard look at the risks. It is worthwhile to invest in mitigating the risks to avert the worst case scenarios and improve on other metrics of health and happiness, just as rational people do with every other type of serious risk they are exposed to.

Read Kerry Emanuel's thought provoking statement published with a foreward by Editor, Bud Ward, at Yale Climate Connections: "Apocalypse Maybe," by Dr. Kerry Emanuel.

Published by Nucleation Capital in 100% Renewables, Anti-nuclear campaign, Brilliant thinkers, Climate change, LINKS, Scientific debate, US competitiveness

October 29, 2019

All Pathways to 1.5°C Limit Include Nuclear

Hoesung Lee, Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), delivered an address on the opening day of the International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power, held in Vienna in the second week of October. 2019. He will review the findings of the report released a year ago by the IPCC, which featured four model pathways for limiting global warming to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, the threshold at which most experts believe the worst impacts from climate change can still be avoided. All four model pathways included increases in nuclear power generation by 2050, ranging between 59% and 501%.

To support the low-carbon energy transformation needed to achieve climate change goals, the conference focused on opportunities and challenges for nuclear power development. To this end, organizers brought together representatives of low-carbon energy sectors, international organizations and national experts.

IAEA Acting Director General Cornel Feruta opened the conference. Other prominent speakers included Liu Zhenmin, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs at the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs; William D. Magwood, IV, Director-General of the NEA ; Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency; LI Yong, Director General of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization; and senior officials and scientists from 75 countries including Argentina, China, Egypt, France, India, Mongolia, Morocco, the Russian Federation and the United States of America.

“Nuclear power has long made a major contribution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions and currently produces one-third of the world’s low carbon electricity while also supporting sustainable development and fulfilling growing energy demands,” said IAEA Deputy Director General Mikhail Chudakov, Head of the Department of Nuclear Energy. “We are honoured that Dr. Hoesung Lee, one of the world’s leading scientific voices on climate change, is bringing his expertise to this first-of-a-kind conference.”

Read more at the International Atomic Energy Agency, "IPCC Head to Speak at International Conference on Climate Change and the Role of Nuclear Power," by Jeffrey Donovan, August 29, 2019.

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June 20, 2017

Fisticuffs Over the Route to a Clean-Energy Future

Democrats in the United States Senate and in the California Assembly have proposed legislation calling for a full transition to renewable energy. In doing so, they are relying on scholarly analysis by a prominent Stanford University professor, Mark Z. Jacobson, who published a paper in 2015 asserting that it would be feasible to power the American economy by midcentury almost entirely with energy from the wind, the sun and water, cheaper than fossil fuels. Then a group of 21 prominent scholars, including physicists and engineers, climate scientists and sociologists, dismantled the Jacobson paper and its conclusions bit by bit, in a long-awaited study published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences — the same journal in which Professor Jacobson’s manifesto appeared.

Read more of this analysis by Eduardo Porter at the New York Times: "Fisticuffs Over the Route to a Clean-Energy Future."

Published by Nucleation Capital in 100% Renewables, Anti-nuclear campaign, Carbon emissions, Climate change, Future of Energy, LINKS, Scientific debate, Zero emission energy

April 27, 2013

Nuclear power saves lives

Scientists working at NASA's Goddard Institute published a study that quantifies how many deaths that would have been caused by fossil fuels if burned for power, were avoided as a result of having had nuclear power displace the power from coal, oil or gas. The answer is 1.8 million and growing every year that the coal is not burned.

Drs. Pushker Kharecha and James Hansen published Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power in the journal Environmental Science and Technology with the striking figure of 1.8 million as the number of lives saved by replacing fossil fuel sources with nuclear. They also estimate the saving of up to 7 million lives in the next four decades, along with substantial reductions in carbon emissions, were nuclear power to replace fossil fuel usage on a large scale.

In addition the study finds that the proposed expansion of natural gas would not be as effective in saving lives and preventing carbon emissions. In general the paper provides optimistic reasons for the responsible and widespread use of nuclear technologies in the near future. It also drives home the point that nuclear energy has prevented many more deaths than what it has caused.

References:

ACS Publications"Prevented Mortality and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Historical and Projected Nuclear Power," by Pushker A. Kharech and James E. Hansen, on March 15, 2013, Environ. Sci. Technol. 2013, 47, 9, 4889–4895.

Scientific American, "Nuclear power may have saved 1.8 million lives otherwise lost to fossil fuels, may save up to 7 million more." by by Ashutosh Jogalekar on April 2, 2013.

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September 26, 2007

Scientists have urged exploration of carbon-fixing solutions for a long time

Back in 2007, scientists recognized that curtailing emissions from our use of energy was going to be very difficult, and they began to urge research into ways to "fix" carbon that could prevent the coming climate catastrophe. "We are taking the very strong line that we are not going to save the planet by the regular approaches like the Kyoto Protocol or renewable energy," Professor James Lovelock told BBC News.

Publishing their thoughts in the journal "Nature," London Science Museum head Chris Rapley and Gaia theorist James Lovelock discussed the concept of boosting ocean take-up of CO2 through the use of circulation pipes. "What we have to do is to look at it in a systems sense, or a Gaian sense, and see if it's curable by direct action."

Read this 2007 BBC News report: "Lovelock urges ocean climate fix."

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