“As I did so,” he relates, “I began to discover that most of what I had believed about atomic energy was inaccurate. I had thought that nuclear waste was an insoluble problem, that using civilian reactors raised the risks of nuclear war, and that radiation from accidents such as Chernobyl had killed tens of thousands or even millions of people. As I looked more closely at the scientific data, however, I found out that most, if not all, of the anti-nuclear ideas I had grown up with were either myths or misconceptions. In fact, here was a reliable power source with virtually unlimited fuel, which could power entire countries while producing no CO2 at all during its operation. I found myself in the difficult position of coming to believe that my children’s future was threatened not just by the big fossil-fuel companies but also by professional anti-nuclear Green groups, many of which were staffed by my friends.”

Source:
Nuclear 2.0: Why a Green Future Needs Nuclear Power
Mark Lynas (Cambridge, UK: UIT Cambridge Ltd., April 2014)

The gist of his argument is that there just isn’t time to deploy enough wind and solar, and other forms of renewable energy. This becomes less and less of a foregone conclusion, but I don’t think it can yet be discounted.

MikeN

Earth heats up, oceans and surface CO2 sinks begin to become less efficient and even shift to sources (including emission of CH4). Permafrost melt, Amazon drought, wildfires, warming oceans etc. Google for details.

BBD, could you explain this carbon cycle feedback?

We have already seen a large scale shift from coal to natural gas over price, causing global CO2 emissions to stay flat for a few years.

Prolly just a blip. Emissions are on the up again. And at some point, carbon cycle feedbacks will begin to kick in, if they haven’t already started to.

But yes, as you know, I think the ‘cheap renewables’ meme is misleading. It is to take the cheapest element of the system (solar modules; turbines) and misrepresent it as the total system cost. But of course the total system cost will be vastly greater as it includes all the really expensive stuff like grid interconnections, major increases in long-distance transmission capacity within grids and significant utility-scale storage build-out. I’m pretty sure this will eventually come back and bite people in the arse.

That said, given the effectively open-ended costs of unabated emissions, low-carbon energy is pretty much by definition ‘cheaper’ than FFs, albeit in the longer-term. But that’s the price argument about eg. W&S that I’d stick to: renewables vs. the true externalised costs of FFs.

https://www.ft.com/content/a5c7c658-a6bb-11e7-ab55-27219df83c97

Yes, this is a big hole in arguments made by global warmers, with the exception of BBD here and a few others. If renewable energy is going to cheaper in the near to intermediate term, then emissions will drop on their own. Countries aren’t going to spend more money on fossil fuels just because some oil companies bribe them. We have already seen a large scale shift from coal to natural gas over price, causing global CO2 emissions to stay flat for a few years.
If solar is cheaper, then emissions drops are coming on their own, and will accelerate.

Jeff Harvey, why didn’t you file an amicus brief, and are you planning to do so in the future, given that scientists have not done so?