Two quick examples: The fracking of gas wells in the last 6 years in the US has been so successful it has brought the price of natural gas down. The pollution of our water supplies from this relatively new and improved process is shocking and largely unopposed thanks to the lack of regulations during the Bush years. The BC gov’t is now allowing the same fracking that took place in the US with the same polluting effects on the local water supplies.

The second example is the use of coal for electricity, which, in the US, supplies 50% of the grid, while destroying water supplies. My sister-in-law in South Carolina and her husband now have arsenic poisoning from massive quantities of coal ash. Coal ash, now being dumped throughout the US, is an admitted source of arsenic that has largely been kept off our radar.

And now we have the resurgence of advocates of nuclear power.

Before we take on anymore heavily polluting forms of energy, it should be obvious to any intelligent individuals that we must deal with the messes we have already made. Any other approach is simply irresponsible, as the past has shown us.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/feb/05/sweden-nuclear-power

In my view, Sweden is model example of how to run a high-energy society with low environmental impact. Per capita, they use more energy than most people in Europe, yet their individual carbon emissions are 40% lower than the UK or Germany, and 70% lower than the US.

Energy use per capita:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_energy_consumption_per_capita

CO2 per capita:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions_per_capita

And they intend to go a lot lower. They aim to completely replace fossil fuel, and produce zero net emissions, by 2050.

Thank you for a very interesting and true article. I am a simple person and do not understand most of the the high brow stuff. I do understand however, that humans cannot continue using more than the world can provide (we can’t go and live on Mars). The biggest problem is the number of humans, taking all the space and there is no room for other creatures and therefore they become extinct. I remember being worried by an environmental campaigner with 6 children, and I thought that his descendants would do more damage than a wasteful family with 2 children.

Dave Wylie

Rex Weyler:

Most modest rural communities that don’t have imperial armies or world bank hitsquads attacking them live fairly simple and rich lives. But such lives are not likely easy. Living simply and richly almost always requires consistent, hands-on work. Those who want simple, rich lives forego “easy” living. I’ve been in Tibetan communities in the Himalayas, where people lived simple lives, worked hard, milked goats, made noodles, ate well, educated apparently happy kids, and lived low-stress lives. I’ve seen fishing communities in Canada and Mexico, farmers in Argentina and Catalan, people all over the world living simple, rich lives.

Left alone, in bountiful environments, simple people have a chance to create rich lives. Richness of life is about culture, teaching, celebrating, creating. Simple, rich communities work hard, share things, help neighbours, learn the cycles of nature that keep them alive, sing and dance. Modern people in high-speed western urban culture may think this sounds quaint, or wistful, or perhaps just no fun at all, but most humans for most of human history have probably lived fairly simple rich lives.

Historically, people who were satisfied with simple lives could live well from the fruits of nature. The civilizations bent on empire and wealth created chaos in their wake, while providing opulant pleasures for a privileged few.

High-tech, modern consumer society — which still only represents about 15% of humanity — operates on the premise of converting nature’s bounty into cash and then turning cash into something better than life with nature and hard work. Indeed, on occasion, for a few, wealth creates opportunitites for peace, leisure, memorable experiences, great theatre, music, plays, celebrations, but always at a cost, usually at the borders of the empire, consuming resources, enslaving the poor and dispossessed, leaving behind a trail of toxins and depleted resources.

The problem with modern industrial society for those who would be happy to live simply is that industrial society forecloses simple options by degrading the environment so severely that multitudes are driven from forests and rural environments into urban slums or refugee camps. I’ve seen this in Argentina, South Dakota, and Tibet, and it happens throughout the developing world. Simple communities are dispossessed of land and resources devoured for consumption by the citizens of industrial empires.

Simple, rich lives are not rare on earth, nor have they ever been. I imagine the people at Laussel and Altamira led fairly rich lives 20,000 years ago, also featuring steady work. I imagine many communities who made terracotta figurines and copper jewelry in the Taurus and Zagros mountains 12,000 years ago, led fairly rich lives.

Arne Naess’ vision of “simpler means, richer ends,” was not a fantasy, but rather a description of the rural life he witnessed in Norway. In my experience, hard-working rural communities all over the world can achieve such a balanced, rewarding life if the bounty of their environment is preserved.

rw.

The amount of sheer waste in North America is well beyond need or even pleasure – whatever stats you use about what works now and later. It is simply leakage, thoughtlessness, and waste.

Thoughtlessness – the desire not to have to think – comes from deep fatigue. It is not a luxury to be able to rely on the world in this wasteful manner – but rather a sign of deep depletion and fatigue. The inability to think and pay attention even at our own expense.

This reflects a lack of healthy intelligence with regards to our participation in nature, and our own sense of limits both materially and perhaps even psychologically. It lacks any personal awareness or recognition that we have an obligation to restrain and give back to the planet and others living on it.

Is an evolved and rich society one in which people show no regard for how their use affects the greater world? No understanding of their connection to something greater?

To my mind it shows a lack of basic attention skills. A lack of participation in the real world. I don’t mean this as a negative judgment – I think people exhaust themselves within this high energy system and then need to lean upon it uncritically.

Before people hope that our energy use can continue as normal, indefinitely into the future… perhaps increase… and about the massive energy that will go into whatever that expansion entails, we might do well to at least consider our own consumption first.

Is this even making our lives rich? Or are we burning ourselves out as we burn the world? Are we numbing our senses, our deeper intelligence, and consideration for others?

Scientifically we are so connected to the planet, I would argue that our own health and ability to pay attention has been radically compromised by our current dynamic of energy use.

As an example – traditionally when the sun goes down, our own system kicks in with chemicals to help us sleep deeply and heal. Electric light late at night blocks chemicals our body creates to fight cancer… one reason for a rise in certain cancers…

Simplicity might indeed help to show us what real wealth is. Help to illuminate health and basic patterns of giving, and taking.

Regarding uranium extraction from seawater, Japanese industry is actively pursuing this because they have no native supplies of ore. Here is a sample link of a trial system, I’m sure you can google more:
http://jolisfukyu.tokai-sc.jaea.go.jp/fukyu/mirai-en/2006/4_5.html

This suggests they can extract uranium from seawater at 25,000 yen per kg, which is about $127 per lb. The price for uranium ore did get close to this level in the last couple of years, though granted at the moment it is currently much cheaper to simply mine Uranium. It would still be economical to produce nuclear electricity at $127 per lb of Uranium. So whenever the peak of mined uranium is reached there is an almost boundless supply available from seawater.

A few studies from the 1970’s tried to prove that seawater extraction could never have a positive energy balance – but the method used by the Japanese involves a passive adsorbent which is anchored in an ocean current. The ocean current does all the work. (Strictly thermodynamically speaking it has a large energy input from the ocean current, but that is essentially free renewable energy.)

The point though is that the reason this is not being exploited more is because there is a huge reserve of easily extractable uranium in the ground. When the price of Uranium spiked due to resurgent interest a couple of years ago they promptly increased exploration and expanded the known reserve by an impressive 17% in just two years. The likelihood is that there is very much more uranium available before we even have to consider seawater extraction.

And of course the energy value of any Uranium that we do extract can be multiplied 60-fold if we start using breeder reactors. Again, this has not been commercialised on a large scale because it is not needed yet, but Mitsubishi Heavy Industries have plans to commercialise fast breeder reactors by 2050.

Regarding waste disposal, there is a fair amount of information regarding deep geological disposal available. In the UK the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management recommended geological disposal as the preferred solution. Here is a document that covers the risk profile:
http://www.nda.gov.uk/documents/loader.cfm?url=/commonspot/security/getfile.cfm&pageid=12038

This says that sites meeting the necessary hydrological profile are fairly common in the UK. As you will see from the graphs, the risk to individuals living close to the site is below the 1-in-a-million target for all time and substantially less than 1-in-a-trillion in the short term. (For comparison the risk from background radiation everywhere is at least 1-in-ten-thousand.) In my opinion, if sites meeting this specification are relatively common then the waste problem is technically solved. Done properly, it is essentially perfectly safe.

Sweden is implementing a deep geological solution like this. They plan to vitrify the waste, package it in steel and copper, embed it in bentonite clay and deposit it in a rock repository hundreds of metres below ground. The point of the bentonite clay makes the philosophy clear – water permeates saturated clay at a rate of about 1 metre per million years. Hence even when the engineered flask fails, water cannot physically carry any waste away before it has decayed to harmless levels.

In contrast the average US coal powerstation is killing people at a rate of about 15 deaths per TWh. The “waste” air pollution from coal kills 30,000 in the US each year. In comparison any nuclear waste solution would be less harmful than this – even dumping nuclear waste in an unprotected heap in the middle of the desert would probably cause fewer deaths.

Casting aspersions at the track record of the nuclear industry is a rather cheap shot. Nobody has ever been killed by a radiation accident at a civil nuclear powerstation in the UK or the US. Nobody has ever been killed by civil nuclear waste. As the risk profile shows, the proposed geological disposal system is several orders of magnitude safer than it really needs to be. It is absurdly over-engineered. Yet it is affordable and can easily be accommodated within the current price of grid electricity. Those who still insist that the problem is not solved are simply making political capital IMO.

I’m not suggesting that nuclear would provide the whole answer, but it is a substantial technological solution. You are probably familiar with the IEA’s projections:
(See the exec summary)
http://www.iea.org/Textbase/techno/etp/index.asp

They are proposing up to 32GW of new nuclear per year. This is challenging, but there is a lot more experience of building nuclear on that scale (e.g. in France) than there is of building the renewables that are also necessary. 50GW+ of wind per year is a pretty phenomenal aim.

Maybe it won’t happen. But what I am sure of is that if it does not happen then the gap will be filled by burning more fossil fuel.

Regarding low energy living – I think the historical precedents suggest that the first move should be to live nearer the equator. It is relatively easy to live sustainably in the tropics. It is hard in a mid-European/north american climate. Medieval society virtually deforested Europe before they discovered coal. I’m not saying you can’t be happy in a low-energy existence, but what I would say is that it is human nature to increase energy usage (as well as energy efficiency) where possible. That is one of the “basics of healthy survival”.

Rex Weyler:

Thanks Colin. This is an interesting discussion. I am not a-priori against any energy technology. Yes, there exists a lot of bias on all sides of this, and too few actually seeking the truth. All the more important to have these discussions. Yes the EROI data for nuclear is incomplete. You can see the carbon footprint data in the Jacobson study, referenced in the article. Where there is carbon footprint, there is energy use. The EROI perspective is one of the most important in assessing energy options. My reference to the nuclear industry’s “track” record” is the sad state of the waste disposal plans, the Yucca Mountain fiasco, the backlog of waste even in France’s recycling industry, the mysterious drums of waste that washed up in Somalia, and so forth. Until the industry can clean up this backlog, it appears foolhardy to push ahead and scale this up with more unproven technologies. In any case, thank you for your well referenced thoughts on this. I’ll review all of these references, and hope other readers will educate themselves. Our energy decisions will matter in the future, and these decisions should be based on solid evidence … and that even more elusive quality, wisdom.

Rex.

The problem of nuclear waste disposal is essentially solved, and the “problems” of subsidy and uranium supply are essentially non-problems.

Deep geological disposal is a perfectly adequate method of dealing with nuclear waste. The reasons for not implementing it sooner are more political than technical. It is safe enough. The proposal in the UK is for a design that ensures the risk to individuals is less than 1 in a million per year for all time. I believe the Yucca plan for the US is a little less stringent, but it at least ensures a risk lower than background radiation for all time.

Given that the most radioactive isotopes will decay the quickest, after 600 years or so (once the Caesium-137 and Strontium-90 have decayed) the waste is relatively safe to handle. My expectation is that future generations will probably re-excavate the site as a source of valuable minerals.

The quantities of waste are small – they don’t require us to use the earth as an “infinite sink for our garbage”. A lifetime’s supply of electricity produces a volume of high level waste about the size of a cigarette packet. This is much easier to manage than the thousands of tonnes of pollution caused by fossil fuel.

Regarding subsidy, nuclear power has received significant support in the past, but so has every other form of energy production. All forms of energy need subsidy. Nuclear power needs relatively little considering the amount of energy it produces.

See the numbers here: http://www.issues.org/22.3/realnumbers.html

You say that nothing can provide the ratio of energy output/input provided by fossil fuel. But as far as I am aware there are many options that provide 30:1 return or better. Nuclear power is just one of them. Hydro and wind are fine too.

See table 2:
http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf11.html

I profoundly disagree with your statement that human energy use has peaked. The solar energy resource is huge. Coverage of 1% of the world’s deserts could provide all our electricity. The uranium resource is fairly vast particularly if you consider extraction from seawater and breeder reactors; enough to last for millennia. Thorium is three times as abundant as Uranium and offers many advantages, including less waste. Finally, there is great hope for nuclear fusion which offers almost unlimited energy from hydrogen.

Given our history, it seems preposterous to state that humankind will never utilise more energy than it currently does. Increased energy efficiency should be promoted by all means, but this inevitably leads to greater energy use, not less.

The notion of low energy living can only be entertained now as a lifestyle choice because our high-energy infrastructure provides the security to permit such dreams. The reality of low-energy living outside of modern developed nations is one of abject poverty, from which all participants would be happy to escape.

Rex Weyler:

Colin: Thank you for your comments. I enjoy the discussion, and you make some good points. I question a few of your assumptions.

nuclear waste problem: As far as I know, this is not remotely ’solved.’ You’ll need to supply a reference. The problems are not just political, but technical, and as the plants come up for decommissioning, the volume of waste is enormous, not “small.” The “political” problems arise because no one wants these toxic dumps in their local environment. The nuclear industry track record is just not comforting. And if the problem was solved, why are they dumping unmarked drums off the coast of Somalia?

Energy return: No, there are not many sources with 30:1 net energy, only oil and some natural gas. Oil itself was once 100:1, now down to about 20:1 or less on average, new fields are more like 15:1, and the industry is now digging into the 4:1 and 3:1 tar sands in Canada. If there were lots of 30:1 net energy sources around, we’d be tapping them. Even wind and solar come in at less than 10:1. See Charles A. Hall on “Net Energy” and “EROI.” He provides a chart.

Energy Peak: You may be correct that we’ll find some way to use more energy, but I still doubt it. I believe the oil era was a one-off because of the high net energy and ease of retrieving 500-million years worth of stored energy. The best of that store is long gone. Net oil energy per capita peaked in 1979. All the other sources we now contemplate, including nuclear, are oil intensive. Our agriculture is oil intensive. It is a mistake to assume that just because humanity grew exponentially in the past we can project that growth into the future. Big mistake. There are no cases in nature of exponential growth continuing forever. None. Human enterprise has reached the scale of the planet. The big bonfire of the oil era is over, and we will be going down the back side of the energy throughput curve.

Let’s imagine decommissioning 400 nuclear plants and building 1400 more to achieve 25% of the current oil energy. What is the EROI, net energy return, on that plan? Can the industry tell us? When can we expect those 1400 new plants to come on line and produce net positive energy? 2030? 2050? by then, the oil production will likely be about 50% of what it is today, or less, and the EROI will have plummeted, so we would still be at less energy, and we’d have spent some $20 trillion building these monsters that will have to be decommissioned, and the uranium will be depleted down to the least viable ores. I have never seen a feasible plan or even a hint of a scheme for extracting uranium from the oceans. I don’t think this is a tenable nuclear plan that will allow us to bash forward, business as ususal. Someone, please, show me the business plan for this. Show me the numbers, so we can go out and sell this to an investor. I don’t believe a viable plan exists.

This is why I promote conservation and learning to live simpler lives. We cannot keep cranking human industry as if there are no limits.

Low energy living: This does not not have to be in poverty. There exist many examples in history, and today, of people living quite pleasant, productive lives with modest energy throughput. Billions of people are in poverty today because we’ve grown beyond the carrying capacity of the planet, which can no longer support us all, and the rich countries have plundered the poor for resources. As a species, we’re into about 30% overshoot already. So yes, much of the planet lives in absolute poverty. We’ve poisoned the seas, turned fertile land into desert, and destroyed half the world’s peak forests to achieve the wealthy consumer lifestyle for about 15% of humanity. How many planets do we need to do this for the other 85%. Do the math. Nuclear plants are not free energy. They are oil intensive, mining intensive, cement intensive, massive industrial projects. The notion that we’re going to replace the rich world’s energy with nuclear plants, and then build 6-times that capacity to convert the poor into wealthy consumers is delusional as far as I can see. You need to run the supply chain numbers on that and figure out where all the cement and steel and uranium is coming from.

No, I think this is a Faustian bargain. Low-energy living, relocalization, returning to basics of healthy survival, I believe, represents a much smarter path.

Yes, the poor of the world would be happy to improve their situation. One of the best ways is to get the rich off their backs, and give them back the resources we’ve plundered. Let them make the most of their remaining soils, fish, and forests, before it is ALL gone.

rw.

I live in a city on the northern Alberta/Saskatchewan border, Lloydminster, and the talk around town is all about bringing a nuclear reactor to our region. To add insult to injury, a bulk of the power produced would be slated to future tar sands projects in the area!!!

This area is notoriously conservative and is already supported by the oil industry, so I think the politicians probably think they will be able to railroad this right through, but believe me, I’ll have a printout of this article and lots of throat lozenges at the ready, for rebutting and shouting down any politician that thinks they are going to make this happen without a fight!!!

Anyone care to join me???

I can only come up with one answer: The people writing these articles are out of touch with reality.

That is to say that maybe, just maybe, the people planning China’s 100+ reactor fleet know a thing or two more about energy economics and uranium supply than bloggers. But it’s just a guess.

Rex Weyler:

Here’s another guess: The thugs in China are just as arrogant and stupid as the industrialists who destroyed half the forests on the planet, destroyed the fisheries, laced the seas with toxins and acid, lopped off the mountain tops to retrieve coal, built Bophal chemical plants and the Chernoble reactor, and are now heating the planet’s atmosphere. Just because someone has the power to do something doesn’t mean they’re smart or that their enterprise is going to benefit future humankind. China is draining and poisoning its rivers and turning farmland into desert, just like the many other areas of the world. The “100+ reactor fleet” in fifty years will be a 100+ decommissioning nightmare. Even by International Atomic Energy Association estimates, as explained in my original article, the uranium supplies won’t support a global fleet of nuclear plants that could make a significant contribution. And in the end, it is still all waste, including the plants themselves, to be disposed of. No, I don’t think the geniuses in China have a clue what they’re doing in any measure of long-term sustainable culture.

rw.

If it looks too good to be true, or that it will make things simple – it is too good to be true.

Whiteout would be a good, toxic metaphor… just cross your mistake out and reveal the flaw…

Cell phones and Ipods? … War in the Congo
Cosmetics to make perfect faces? … Massive water pollution and sex change in fish
Nuclear? … toxic garbage.
Electric cars? Dams that destroy farmland…

So, dusty way is best…

Sticking with simple, low energy solutions — instead of attempting to solve complex problems without detriment to ourselves — is the way. … Return to your landline, wait for a recycled cell…

See beauty for what it is… Use less energy, way less…
Ride a Clidesdale… or less awesome form of low energy transport…
Always look for chipped and imperfect – perfectly human ways…