As I discussed in What will power your next car?, solar/PV energy represented a meager 0.081% of the energy produced in the US in 2007, barely more than the 0.066% it produced back in 2000. Renewables' share was 6.7%, less than the 8.3% of nuclear energy.
As I've said many times, one reason why renewables' share of energy is so low is that governments have until now been subsidizing fossil fuel by the billions. Let me quote President Obama on this:
"I am proud that the G-20 nations agreed to phase out $300 billion worth of fossil fuel subsidies. This will increase our energy security, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, combat the threat of climate change, and help create the new jobs and industries of the future." [White House Press Release, September 26, 2009]
Indeed, apart from the billions of dollars that fossil fuel has been receiving in direct subsidies, there is the additional cost of military protection of supply routes, the cost of the associated centralization of the economy, the harm to our health and to the environment, the cost of sending money abroad at the expense of domestic jobs and investment opportunities, etc.
In the same White House Press Release, Obama said:
"We also took unprecedented steps to secure loose nuclear materials; to stop the spread of nuclear weapons; and to seek a world without them. As the first U.S. president to ever chair a meeting of the United Nations Security Council, I was proud that the Council passed an historic and unanimous resolution embracing the comprehensive strategy I outlined this year in Prague."
"To prevent nuclear weapons from falling into the hands of terrorists, the Security Council endorsed our global effort to lock down all vulnerable material within four years. We reaffirmed the basic compact of the global nonproliferation regime: all nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy; nations with nuclear weapons have the responsibility to move toward disarmament; and nations without them have the responsibility to forsake them."
Where Obama said that all nations have the right to peaceful nuclear energy, he should have said that - in terms of subsidies - much of the same applies to nuclear energy. All too often, the cost of storing nuclear waste is hidden, while the high cost of nuclear energy is further hidden by leaders who seek to point nuclear weapons at other countries in an effort to make them scapegoats for the economic failure of their regimes.
Of course, apart from the high cost of nuclear energy, there are many safety and security aspects that make nuclear energy unacceptable. Putting nuclear power plants in the hands of volatile regimes puts all of us at risk.
All these issues are intertwined in many ways. What do the history books say that World War II was about? One big reason was oil. Germany wanted access to the oil resources in the Caucasus and beyond, while Japan sought access to the oil fields in Indonesia. Moving away from oil means one reason less for war and for nuclear weapons.
In other words, we should embrace renewable energy more decisively. Later this year in Copenhagen, we should reach a global agreement on this.
Related posts by Sam Carana:
A Global Treaty banning all Weapons of Mass Murder
What will power your next car?
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Comments: 19
Have you ever managed to find people happy to have nuclear waste buried in their backyards, or even transported through their city or State? I have not. Pro-nuclear people are pro as long as the waste is someone else's problem, in my experience.
It was a rumor for a long time. Still, for some reason trace elements of radiation kept showing up in the aquifer.
This has left the U.S. without a long-term storage facility for highly radioactive waste from nuclear power plants. The waste disposal problem has become worse since the federal government scrapped plans to open Yucca Mountain. Instead, radioactive fuel rods are now stored in large concrete and steel canisters on the grounds of nuclear plants around the country. However, such storage on the grounds of nuclear plants was only meant as a transitional situation, in preparation for the waste to be moved to a long-term storage facility.
Best news I've heard in a long, long time. Thanks for the update.
Ten Strikes Against Nuclear Power
This award will further boost Obama's leadership role in the work towards a nuclear-free world. It is also a welcome boost for the international climate talks. The award gives Obama further prestige, helping him to lead the world to an international agreement on dealing with global warming.
The award follows the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize being awarded to former Vice President Al Gore, who shared the prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change." [source].
The Norwegian Nobel Committee recognized Obama’s change of the US climate policy, saying that “thanks to Obama's initiative, the USA is now playing a more constructive role in meeting the great climatic challenges the world is confronting.”
Obama will travel to Oslo, Norway, to receive the award on December 10, a few days after the December 7 start of the UN climate conference in Copenhagen, which are scheduled to run to December 18 [source].
"I am both surprised and deeply humbled by the decision of the Nobel Committee. Let me be clear: I do not view it as a recognition of my own accomplishments, but rather as an affirmation of American leadership on behalf of aspirations held by people in all nations.
To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who've been honored by this prize -- men and women who've inspired me and inspired the entire world through their courageous pursuit of peace.
But I also know that this prize reflects the kind of world that those men and women, and all Americans, want to build -- a world that gives life to the promise of our founding documents. And I know that throughout history, the Nobel Peace Prize has not just been used to honor specific achievement; it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes. And that is why I will accept this award as a call to action -- a call for all nations to confront the common challenges of the 21st century." [source - see video].
A prepublication of the study Hidden Costs of Energy: Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production and Use by the National Research Council concludes that fossil fuel comes with huge hidden health costs. In 2005, the vehicle sector produced $56 billion in health and other non-climate-change damages. Harm inflicted by emissions of sulfur dioxide (SO2), oxides of nitrogen (NOx), and particulate matter (PM) from coal-fired power plants further cost the country $62 billion in 2005. Again, this estimate does not include climate-change damage caused by such emissions.
This $62 billion hidden cost of coal represented an average damage of 3.2 cents per kilowatt hour of electricity in 2005, a figure that rises in case of the most polluting plants to over 12 cents per kilowatt hour. If you compare this with the cost of renewables, GE has said for years that, with a cost of approximately 3.5 to 4 cents per kilowatt-hour and declining, wind is a low-cost renewable energy source that is less expensive than coal, oil, nuclear and most natural gas-fired generation. Furthermore, PV-panels can now be made for under $1/watt.
The announcement quotes an analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute that estimates that the implementation of smart grid technologies could reduce electricity use by more than 4 percent by 2030. That would mean a savings of $20.4 billion for businesses and consumers around the country, and $1.6 billion for Florida alone -- or $56 in utility savings for every man, woman and child in Florida.
The announcement further adds that the investments will "put us on a path to get 20 percent or more of our energy from renewable sources by 2020".
"It will make our grid more secure and more reliable, saving us some of the $150 billion we lose each year during power outages. It will allow us to more effectively transport renewable energy generated in remote places to large population centers, so that a wind farm in rural South Dakota can power homes in Chicago", Obama said.