Climate, Apocalypse

Our planet has been warming up since the Industrial Revolution mainly due to the accumulation of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere, gases that result from the burning of fossil fuels that spur and sustain our economic development. This is a scientific fact that no one doubts. Paleoclimatologists place the current trend in a wider context by comparing past periods of Earth’s history where warming up had occurred due to natural processes. We also know of the Milankovitch 100,000-year cycles that determine the phasing of ice ages with interglacials. According to those cycles we ought to be entering into an ice age. Temperatures ought to be dropping and ice on the polar caps ought to be thickening. Ironically, our pumping of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere seems to compensate for all that.
Science can describe with relative accuracy the past and the processes by which we got where we are today. Logic, and some rather crude computer models that run on computers, predict that if we continue with business-as-usual many nasty things will happen to our environment. Indeed many of those things are happening already. Earth is sick; there can be no question about it. And, very probably - why almost certainly -it has been made sick because of human industrial activity.
Two questions follow:
Question 1: Can we do something about it?
Question 2: Providing we can what should we do?

The Kyoto Protocol, as well as the recent international discussion at Bali for the successor agreement, emphatically answer “Yes” to the first question and “Curb carbon emissions” to the second. There seems to be worldwide consensus on those answers and, with the exception of the US government and a handful of die-hard skeptics, the rest of the world seems willing to bite the bullet and proceed with a more responsible, equitable and collective stewardship of the planet, at a nominal cost. Sounds all right, doesn’t it?
Well it does and perhaps it is. However, I will examine the nature of the two questions posed in order to argue that the climate change debate is not really about climate science, or economics. Inexactness is in the method and nature of both, and one could argue ad nauseum about the merits of different approaches, analyses and the like. Evidently, the issue is not an academic one, although scientists are being involved in an unprecedented way and are being awarded not the Nobel Prize for Physics or Economics but the Nobel Prize for Peace, a distinction usually reserved for politicians or activists.
Additionally, I would argue that the debate is not even a political one. Of course, many heads of state would envy Al Gore and would like a piece of his action and fame. Climate change seems to galvanize electorates across the globe, even when no one really bothers to explain the details to them. But let us leave the cunning politicos aside, for their perfidiousness is well-documented. Even honest, well-wishing politicians fall back on inexact science in order to validate their decisions and by doing so fall into the abyss of folly. Their decisions usually evoke the insurance argument: i.e. curb emissions at a premium now in order to avoid dire consequences in the future. But the insurance argument is a weak one. Its weakness lies firstly in selecting and prioritizing future risks, and secondly in defining the premium. Climate change is not the only thing threatening future generations. If the world wants to buy insurance on its future safety then funds need to be established in order to deal with rogue asteroids, supervolcanic eruptions, supernova explosions in the vicinity of our solar system, pandemics, plume explosions, and – why not – invasion of Earth by an alien civilization. The list of possible threats can go almost forever. And how about that premium? How much does it cost? How can one be certain that forgoing A% of the world’s output is optimal and not A+B%, when the science of prediction is so inexact? If one is talking about the future of the planet shouldn’t one be generous with premiums? If the alternative is life on a scorched planet without wildlife, a barren rock in space, shouldn’t we consider eliminating greenhouse gases altogether as soon as possible? And if this sounds illogical, where is the logic in defining an optimal premium?

All in all, I will argue that the debate on climate change is principally and foremost an emotional one.

Both questions I asked above are scientifically unanswerable because they deal with certainties. The fact that many scientists have become evangelical in their predictions is unassailable evidence of emotionalism blurring their better judgment. Healthy skepticism has been replaced by much-applauded scientific fundamentalism, which is being rewarded the Nobel. There have been reports of “tears” during the Bali meeting. And the manner by which the meeting proceeded reminds one of an operetta. Why so much passion? The emotional charge that permeates all debates on climate needs to be analyzed by sociologists and psychologists. By being “alarmist” and “apocalyptic” cunning politicians join the chorus of scientists-turned-Bible-prophets in a replay of a very old story, namely the herding of the human flock under an ideological banner, this time the banner being “eco-friendly”. The threat is nature’s revenge on the sinful humankind. God has been replaced by mystical natural forces, by a cybernetic Gaia. Often, the high moral ground is being hijacked by atheists who re-discover faith dressed up as computer simulations of looming Apocalypse. The end is at hand ladies and gentlemen! Repent! Shut the factories down! Shun your riches! Be poor in body and mind! Love thy neighbor! And redemption will surely come!

There is obviously a positive side to all this that needs to be mentioned. Al Gore has been explicit about it too. I will rephrase it as the dawning of a new era in international politics where leaders adopt a common, environment-centered, agenda that, ultimately, can lead only to cooperation and peace. In a world that is about to fall apart there is no point fighting. Or isn’t there?
Well, you see, when the debate is so emotionally charged, when logic and the inexactness of scientific argument have been replaced by certainties, feelings can swing either way unpredictably. You could have Al Gore’s fantastic vision of world cooperation and mutual support but, alas, you could also have war and mutual annihilation. And this is precisely the danger that the world faces as we are being herded into taking decisions about the future, eluding ourselves that we are powerful enough to engineer climate by adopting an equitable sharing of greenhouse gas quotas.

Going Nuclear

Living under the specters of global warming, as well as economical and political instability, out planet is evermore hungry for energy. So let’s look at the options. Fossil fuels, a concentrated form of solar energy, come from plants which became fossilized over millions of years and formed oil, coal and gas. In the process, solar energy was concentrated. Burning coal produces twice the energy of burning wood. Oil and gas are about twice the energy density of coal. All fossil fuels, when burned, produce greenhouse gases. Moreover, recent estimations of oil reserves predict an oil crunch in 30 years, if current trends of consumption persist. The discovery of new oil fields will not save us from the inevitable crunch because increased consumption will outstrip any foreseeable new supply. Being addicted to oil means we go turkey in less than a generation, unless we kick the habit now.

Renewables, such as wind and sunlight, are on the other side of the scale, i.e. they are less energy dense than wood by a factor of 10 to 50. The amount of sunlight that falls on a square meter of earth is barely enough to power one 100watt light bulb. To implement solar energy power stations on an industrial scale requires huge amounts of land. Covering every rooftop with solar panels would probably get enough electricity for our indoor supply (approx. less than 10% of national total), and only during daytime. Storing solar energy in batteries so it can be used during nighttime creates the vexing problem of waste managing the highly toxic materials in batteries.

Wind farms do not fare any better. Covering hundreds of acres with 65-meter structures produces unpredictable electricity output that is difficult to integrate in the national grid. Wind not only comes and goes as it pleases, but is stronger on places that need massive investment to connect to the grid (mountains, islands), and mainly blows during seasons of low demand in electricity (autumn and spring). Biofuels, once heralded as the magic bullet to save the planet, has been called by Jean Ziegler, UN’s raporteur on food, “a crime against humanity”. Fermenting double digit percentage points of the world’s food output to produce ethanol has caused steep rises in food prices and consequently hunger, riots and deaths. To conclude, subsidizing so-called “green technologies” makes perfect media sense but very little economic sense.

Let’s now look at nuclear. The energy density for uranium compared to coal is 2 million! That means that one kilogram of uranium gives you 2 million times as much energy as a kilogram of coal. You can run Athens for a week with a lump of uranium you can hold in one hand. The comparison with coal plants is even more flabbergasting. To fuel a 1000 MW coal plant you need massive and endless trainloads of coal feeding it daily. To fuel a 1000 MW nuclear reactor you need an infinitesimal fraction of that input in the form of fuel rods that are mildly radioactive and can be handled with gloves. In their four-and-a-half years lifecycle these fuel rods produce zero carbon emissions. By comparison, the same coal plant over the same period will have spewed 3 million tons of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

Resistance to nuclear energy rests on three issues: danger of meltdown and/or explosion, security issues pertaining to theft of atom bomb materials by terrorist organizations and nuclear waste disposal. So could a nuclear reactor explode? What about Chernobyl? The danger for explosion, or meltdown, is directly related to the fraction of radioactive material that takes part in the nuclear reactions in the nuclear plant. There are two types of uranium, U-238 (with 238 neutrons) which makes 99.3 percent of the natural ore and U-235. The former sheds two protons every now and then over a 5 billion year period, and is less harmful than your TV set. The latter is the powerhouse. It can split and create massive amounts of energy. But U-235 constitutes only 0.7 percent of the natural ore. Being so sparse it cannot undergo a natural “chain reaction”. In order to obtain a larger fraction of U-235, natural core uranium is “enriched”. This is extremely difficult. You need a huge factory to do it and various techniques such as running the natural ore through magnetic fields and whipping it in centrifuges. There are different kinds of enrichment. To produce the nice calm chain reactions in a nuclear reactor you need to enrich U-235 from 0.7 to 3 percent. To enrich to bomb-grade material you have to enrich to 90 percent. This takes a lot of time and effort and specially designed reactors that have dual-use, civil and military. A strictly civil-use nuclear plant is inherently safe and cannot explode.Chernobyl did not explode. The cooling system failed and tore apart the reactor casing resulting in radioactive gases released in the atmosphere. It was because soviet-era reactors did not have the safety feature of reactor casing as western reactors did. Since those days, western reactors have become even safer, with automatic shut-off mechanisms for controlled nuclear reactions, should any accident occur. Earthquakes are not a problem for modern construction engineers who can build safe structures able to withstand the most violent tremors.

The fear of proliferation of nuclear fission by-products, such as plutonium, which could be stolen by terrorists and used in terrorist activities, prompted the Carter administration in 1976 to pass a bill forbidding nuclear fuel recycling. However, to build a bomb you need to enrich uranium at 90%, which is a very difficult process. That is why, for example, one should not worry too much that the Iranians will get to it quickly. The stuff enriched in a civil nuclear plant is not even good for a firecracker. As experience has shown, the bad guys got their nuclear technology from Pakistan and North Korea, not by stealing materials from western, or Soviet, civil nuclear plants.

As for waste, there is no such thing as “nuclear waste”. Nearly all the material in a spent fuel rod is recyclable or easily handled. Ninety-five percent of a spent fuel rod is harmless, natural, U-238 that can be put back to where it came from. The rest is fissionable U-235 (1%), various fission products that can be used in nuclear medicine (2%), a residue of “minor actinides” (2%) - that includes plutonium (1%) - that can also be recycled. The French have virtually complete recycling. All of France’s nuclear waste from 25 years of producing 75 percent of its electricity is stored beneath the floor of a room at Le Hague. The lifetime output of each French citizen would fit in a beer can.

Nuclear power could be humanity’s greatest hope for the future. Currently, to construct a nuclear plant costs 2,000 to 5,000 USD per KW/h. This means that a 1000 MW reactor would cost anything between 2 and 5 billion USD. If this sounds a lot, remember that the Greek government gave the banks a fat cheque of taxpayers’ money amounting to 35 billion USD. The same money could have bought us all the energy we need for the next century, save the environment, create jobs, rejuvenate the economy, and promote science and Greece’s geopolitical role in Eastern Mediterranean as a power of peace and prosperity. As for the fuel, uranium is ubiquitous and currently costs 59 USD per pound.

The Earth’s core is hot because of uranium’s natural nuclear decay. And because of the small percentage of U-235 in the natural ore, planet Earth is in no danger of exploding into space. We tap this nuclear energy with geothermal plants and call it “geothermal”. However, by simply taking the uranium ore out of the ground and placing it in a nuclear reactor we can multiply the energy efficiency of the same process by millions of times, providing massive amounts of electricity with zero greenhouse emissions. Investing in nuclear plants will not only solve our country’s energy problems and make us energy independent, but will also provide jobs for construction workers and highly skilled scientists and engineers. The majority of the Greek public is currently against nuclear power because they are either misinformed or plainly uninformed. And yet, while neighboring countries are set to construct nuclear plants within the next 20 years, Greece desperately needs visionary politicians to take up the nuclear agenda. The debate must open.

This article was commissioned for the Athens News, published Nov. 28th

The political anticlimax of climatic change

Our planet is warming up. Scientists agree that global average temperature is about 0.6oC higher than it was a century ago and that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide have risen by about 30 percent over the past 200 years, mostly because of the burning of fossil fuels. Although the causal link between the increase in greenhouse gases and global warming cannot be unequivocally established, there is widespread consensus amongst scientists that global warming is man-made. There are data that contradict this consensus; for example, satellite measurements of the upper atmosphere where temperatures have remained virtually unchanged and deep ocean temperature measurements which indicate that oceans are in fact cooling. Other factors may be attributing to global warming too, such as atmospheric soot, land-use change, and solar variations, as well as natural processes which we do not understand yet. Scientists, in trying to understand disparate data and thus explain global warming, build so-called models, which are mathematical simulations of measured facts and logical hypotheses. These models are run on powerful computers and their efficacy is tested by means of their predictability. Current climate models are quite sophisticated and most of them predict a rise in global temperatures of around 10C in the next 50 to 100 years.
It is important to understand that although few disagree that global warming is real, the interplay between anthropogenic climate forcings and natural processes is a difficult one to establish. Our planet is an extremely complex system of natural feedback systems in constant interplay and, therefore, in unremitting change. For example, the history of climate on Earth, as revealed by science, shows that 500 million years ago temperatures were 80C higher than today; and levels of carbon dioxide many times higher too. Antarctica glaciated around 30 million years ago, probably due to plate tectonics that caused a restriction in the flow of ocean currents. Temperatures started falling below today’s average around 3 million years ago and the world entered into alternating ice-age cycles, the last one ending 10,000 years ago. Since then we live in what has been called “the long summer”, and it is no coincidence that farming and civilization arose around the same time.

Faced with undoubted scientific facts as well as scientific uncertainties, pressured from environmental groups who see their day, overwhelmed by media hype that feeds upon the theme of climatic apocalypse, western political thinkers have devised policies to avert climate change. The main premise of such policies is to “fix” future climate by reducing the burning of fossil fuels today. The argument for such policies is economic; climate change according to certain economic analyses will be devastating and, therefore, action should be taken today to avert future consequences.

Both the premise and the argument are debatable. Earth’s climate is always changing and the world can only accept change, embrace it and prepare for it. “Fixing” is an engineering term that assumes a deterministic understanding of the system to be fixed; something which does not apply to Earth’s climate. We are simply too ignorant, and too arrogant, to want to fix Earth’s climate by twiddling concentrations of carbon dioxide over the ensuing decades. Suggestions for “positive Geo-engineering” (altering Earth’s climate towards a “preferred” state by disrupting natural processes) reflect the logical extend of such a misled, potentially dangerous, and much criticized, approach.

Although there is widespread scientific consensus on the anthropogenic causes of climate change, economic analyses on the future impact of climate change are very disparate. For example, the Stern Report to the UK government, which estimated the cost of carbon dioxide at 86$ per ton, has been challenged as too overblown; most economists estimate it between 2 and 12$. Other economists argue that funds spent to fix climate will be withheld from other, more crucial and more urgent causes such as world poverty, tropical diseases or the spread of AIDS.

Proposed climate policies are also under scrutiny. “Market-based” greenhouse gas reduction schemes, such as cap-and-trade, promote the development of a carbon cartel seeking to exploit the system to make profits. Political considerations affect carbon markets and carbon lobbyists are having a field day. The carbon markets can never be truly open, and therefore market forces will be perennially superseded by politics and political corruption. “Green tax” schemes, although more effective, will be extremely unpopular to enforce, not only in the US but also in the EU where petrol prices are already heavily taxed by governments. It is no coincidence that, despite big talk from European leaders, Kyoto targets have not been met by the majority of EU members. Everyone knows that reducing the burning of fossil fuels, or increasing fuel taxes, will adversely affect economic growth and jobs in developed countries, particularly in times of economic downturn and recession; it will also put in peril economic advancement of the energy-hungry developing world. It is a dismal sign of our media-weary times that not one western politician seems brave enough to contradict global groupthink.

And yet the world ought not to remain inactive. Dependence on fossil fuels is politically and economically precarious for the West, as the case of Iran, the deliria of Chavez and the conflict in Georgia amply demonstrate. Continuing global economic development and prosperity needs vast amounts of environmentally-benign energy that must be found and made available to all, without the threat of blackmail by cartels and dictators. The long-term solution will have to come from massive public and private investment in research on renewable forms of energy, such as wind and solar, as well as safer nuclear. Climate change is an unavoidable part of living on a planet with an atmosphere. Future generations will be better prepared to face it - and better off - if we, instead of alluding to ineffective policies, we tap humanity’s greatest asset: our inner world of ideas.

This article was commissioned for the Athens News