| ... |
... |
@@ -1,15
+1,0 @@ |
| 1 |
|
-Removing nuclear power doesn’t help the environment- it paves the way for coal and more damaging alternatives to become increasingly popular. Lynas 15. |
| 2 |
|
-Lynas, Mark. "Why a Green Future Needs Nuclear Power." An Ecomodernist Manifesto. RSS, 18 June 2015. Web. 08 Aug. 2016. British author, journalist and environmental activist who focuses on climate change. He is a contributor to New Statesman, The Ecologist, Granta and Geographical magazines, and The Guardian and The Observer newspapers in the UK, holds a degree in history and politics from the University of Edinburgh http://www.ecomodernism.org/readings/2015/6/17/why-a-green-future-needs-nuclear-power JZ |
| 3 |
|
-The success of the antinuclear movement in the 1970s guaranteed an increased use of coal for decades to come, as proposed nuclear plants across the western world were canceled and replaced by coal plants. There are countless stories with specific examples; one of my favorites is of the Austrian plant at Zwentendorf, a mid-size nuclear station. It was fully completed and then closed down in 1978 before it could generate a single watt after antinuclear activists narrowly won a nationwide referendum. Today, although Austria has 60 percent hydropower, it still burns coal and oil for a third of its electricity: had Zwentendorf and the other proposed nuclear plants been allowed to run by the nascent Greens, Austrians might have enjoyed carbon-neutral electricity for the past 35 years. The Zwentendorf story has an irresistible coda: in 2009 it was ‘converted’ into a solar power plant. At the opening ceremony, backed by enormous Greenpeace banners declaring ‘Energy Revolution – Climate Solution’ and featuring Hollywood celebrities like Andie MacDowell, 1,000 new solar photovoltaic panels were inaugurated, having been installed at a cost of 1.2 million euros. “From radioactive beams to sunbeams – a global symbol for environmentally friendly and sustainable energy for the requirements of the future,” said the website. A quick look at the numbers tells a different story, however: average output from the solar panels will be 20.5 kilowatts (enough to run 12 hairdryers, according to one wag) whereas the 692 megawatts it would have generated as a nuclear station would have lit up Vienna. One can chuckle at that kind of foolish hype, but less amusing is the history of Ireland’s proposed Carnshore reactors, which were canceled after protests, rallies, and concerts were organized by antinuclear groups in the mid-1970s. A large coal plant was built instead, at Moneypoint in County Clare. Moneypoint’s two chimneys, as well as being among Ireland’s tallest constructions, are now the largest single point source of CO2 emissions in the entire country. Some of Ireland’s electricity even comes from the only source worse than coal: peat. Peat is not only more CO2-intensive than coal, but is based on the shameful industrial strip-mining of large areas of fragile and biologically irreplaceable raised peat bog. In Spain nearly 40 nuclear plants were proposed in the 1970s, but a strong antinuclear movement succeeded in forcing a national moratorium in 1984 and only 10 were ever built. Spain today has 18 coal power plants, supplying a fifth of its power. In Australia, perhaps the most coal-dependent country in the world (despite its abundance of both solar potential and uranium deposits) nuclear power is technically illegal, thanks to a thriving antinuclear lobby and a senate vote in 1998. Australia’s per-capita carbon dioxide emissions as a result are about 18 tonnes (20 tons), higher even than America’s, with coal supplying 85 percent of domestic power. In some places, half-built nuclear plants were converted directly to coal: an example was the William H. Zimmer plant in Ohio, whose containment building was converted to house a coal boiler instead of a reactor following protests and cost overruns in 1984. As the nuclear historian Spencer Weart writes, “Ever since the price of oil spiked in the late 1970s, wherever people refused to build more reactors almost every new electrical plant had been a coal burner.” Each time this happened, determined antinuclear coalitions of thousands of environmentally concerned citizens melted away overnight once the embattled utility had agreed to change its proposed plant from nuclear to coal. Allens Creek, Texas; Bellefonte, Alabama; Cherokee, South Carolina; Erie, Ohio; Hartsville, Tennessee; Satsop, Washington… the full list of canceled US nuclear plants can be viewed on Wikipedia. At Shoreham in Long Island a nuclear plant was fully built, as at Zwentendorf in Austria, and then was immediately shut down due to enormous public opposition, much of it paid for and fanned by the efforts of diesel fuel delivery companies. Today it is a mausoleum – but had it been allowed to operate it would have helped make New York a carbon-neutral city for the last three decades. I calculate the total capacity of all the canceled nuclear plants to be about 140 gigawatts; roughly half the entire current installed coal capacity in the US. More than 1,000 nuclear plants were originally proposed; had they all been built, the US would now be running an entirely carbon-free electricity system. In the United States during the heyday of the antinuclear movement between 1972 and 1984, coal consumption by US utilities doubled from 351 million to 664 million tons. Although it is often claimed by greens that their antinuclear activities were less important than the 1970s oil shocks and economic slowdown in forcing the cancellation of planned nuclear plants, during the period 1972 to 1984 the US added 170 GW of fossil-fuelled capacity to its electricity grid, and consumed 74 percent more coal-fired electricity, hardly indicative of a major reversal in the growth of overall energy consumption. Certainly, the snowballing cost of nuclear plants was a major factor, but a significant proportion of those costs were being imposed by an ever-expanding nuclear regulatory burden which slowed or stopped development of new plants and spent fuel repositories – even more than environmental activism did. Nevertheless, constant objection by vocal antis generated increasing political risk and nuisance lawsuits and thus caused years of delays. That is not to say that the antinuclear activists liked coal. They said they wanted solar power, and the famous ‘nuclear power no thanks’ logo of course sported a smiling sun symbol. But just as they were spectacularly successful in stopping the growth of nuclear power, they were spectacularly unsuccessful in promoting the use of solar as an alternative. By 1984 the use of solar had risen from functionally zero to 0.002 percent of US electricity generation. The history of the antinuclear movement is therefore not lit by sunshine, but shrouded in coal smoke. |
| 4 |
|
-Prefer my evidence a) 40 years of empirics conclude on my side b) trends are the same across three continents c) author quals- Lynas has been an environmental activist for over 10 years who focuses on nuclear power studies |
| 5 |
|
-Australia empirically verifies coal tradeoff. |
| 6 |
|
-Ben Heard 12 Masters of Corporate Environmental Sustainability Management, Monash University, 2007, environmental activist, Director of ThinkClimate Consulting, “That day in December: the story of nuclear prohibition in Australia”, Decarbonise SA, 12 Sep 2012, BE |
| 7 |
|
-Since the prohibition of nuclear power, while nuclear build has taken off around the world, Australia has put into operation 2.5 GW more coal, is constructing another 3.2 GW, and has extended the life of the 1.6 GW of brown coal generation at Hazelwood in Victoria. We have put 4.6 GW of new gas into operation, with another 550 MW under construction. It appears our prohibition of nuclear in 1998 simply further reinforced our dependence on fossil fuels. This dependence has driven greenhouse emissions from electricity production 18 higher since 1998 (Australian Greenhouse Emissions Information System). |
| 8 |
|
-Fossil Fuel use enables 10 degree temperature rises, aff exacerbates this |
| 9 |
|
-Sir. John Houghton, 4/5/05, co-chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) , professor in atmospheric physics at the University of Oxford, former Chief Executive at the Met Office and founder of the Hadley Centre. Institue of Physics , Global warming, http://www.iop.org/EJ/article/0034-4885/68/6/R02/rpp5_6_R02.pdf?request-id=1c900945-f246-42ec-a806-e63190d24817, 1380 |
| 10 |
|
-7.6. Longer-term climate change From the beginning of the industrial revolution until 2000 the burning of fossil fuels released approximately 600 Gt of carbon in the form of CO2 into the atmosphere. Under the SRES A1B scenario (figure 18) a further 1500 Gt will be released by the year 2100. The reserves of fossil fuels in total are sufficient to enable their rate of use to continue to grow well beyond the year 2100. If that were to happen the global average temperaturewould continue to rise and could, in the 22nd century, reach very high levels, perhaps up to 10°C higher than today. |
| 11 |
|
- |
| 12 |
|
- The associated changes in climate would be correspondingly large and could well be irreversible 82. |
| 13 |
|
-Warming forms a high way to extinction, slaughtering billions through starvation, flooding and disease |
| 14 |
|
-Neo Hui Min, Straits Times Europe Bureau staff writer, April 7th 2007 “Billions face dire risk from global warming, says experts” http://www.wildsingapore.com/news/20070304/070406-14.htm#st |
| 15 |
|
-BRUSSELS - TOP climate scientists issued their bleakest assessment yet on global warming yesterday, with a warning that billions of people could go thirsty as water supplies dry up and millions more may starve as farmlands become deserts. Poor tropical countries that are least to blame for causing the problem will be worst hit, said the report. Small island states, Asia's big river deltas, the Arctic, and sub- Saharan Africa are also at risk. Global warming could also rapidly thaw Himalayan glaciers that feed rivers from India to China, and bring heat waves to Europe and North America. The dire warnings came from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The final text of a 21-page Summary for Policymakers was agreed on after an all-night session marked by serious disputes. Scientists from more than 100 countries made up the panel. Their report forms the second of a four-part climate assessment, with the final section to be released early next month in Bangkok. Its findings are approved unanimously by governments and will guide policy on issues such as extending the United Nation's Kyoto Protocol, the main plan for capping greenhouse gas emissions, beyond 2012. The grim 1,400-page report issued yesterday said change, widely blamed on human emissions of greenhouse gases, was already under way in nature. The IPCC noted that damage to the earth's weather systems was changing rainfall patterns, punching up the power of storms and boosting the risk of drought, flooding and stress on water supplies. Some scientists even called the degree-by-degree projection a 'highway to extinction'. Add 1 deg C to the earth's average temperatures and between 400 million and 1.7 billion more people cannot get enough water. Add another 1.8 deg C and as many as two billion people could be without water, and about 20 per cent to 30 per cent of the world's species face extinction. More people will also start dying because of malnutrition, disease, heat waves, floods and droughts. This could happen as early as 2050. 'Changes in climate are now affecting physical and biological systems on every continent,' said the report. University of Michigan ecologist Rosina Bierbaum, former head of the United States' IPCC delegation, said: 'It is clear that a number of species are going to be lost.' Mr Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the IPCC, said: 'It's the poorest of the poor in the world, and this includes poor people even in prosperous societies, who are going to be the worst hit. 'This does become a global responsibility in my view.' Still, some scientists accused governments of watering down the forecasts. They said China, Russia and Saudi Arabia had raised most objections overnight, seeking to tone down some findings. Other participants also said the US, which pulled out of the Kyoto Protocol in 2001 saying it was too costly, had toned down some passages. Dr Pramod Kumar Aggarwal, one of the authors of the report, told The Straits Times that temperature increases could lead to crop failure and rising prices, with dire consequences for the poor. 'In Asia, you are talking about millions or billions of people,' he said. |