NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/sci/environm/14073

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-30 | 2.9 KB

Xref: sparky sci.environment:14073 sci.energy:6510
Newsgroups: sci.environment,sci.energy
Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!darwin.sura.net!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!daffy!skool.ssec.wisc.edu!tobis
From: [e-mail] (Michael Tobis)
Subject: Re: Nuclear Power and Climate Change
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (The News)
Organization: U of Wisconsin CS Dept
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 19:57:49 GMT
Lines: 43

In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dean Alaska) writes:
|> In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Michael Tobis) writes:
|> >In article <[e-mail]>, [e-mail] (Dean Alaska) writes:
|> >
|> >I fail to see why efficiency improvements and shifts to non-fossil energy
|> >sources are mutually exclusive. Your slant seems to imply that it is
|> >necessary to choose one of these approaches, but the use of the words
|> >"quite independent" shows that this is not the case.
|> >
|> >The argument you make above seems empty to me. It's as if you were advocating
|> >against unleaded gasoline on the grounds that you could always use your
|> >bicycle. (note for the unsubtle: I advocate bicycles, but am glad of
|> >unleaded gas for use in those instances where the bicycle is inappropriate.)
|>
|> While it is not theoretically impossible to do both, they both cost
|> money and such money does not grow on trees.

Hmm, I thought the idea of an "investment" was a long term return for a short
term cost. It seems to have worked so far. Both new energy production and
new energy efficiency are investments in that sense. Both have large costs
in the immediate term but negative costs (i.e., benefits) in the long run.
Economics is NOT a zero-sum game. You are applying short term budgetary
thinking to long term policy questions where it doesn't really apply.

|>Further, you ignore
|> the part of the thread that discusses opportunity cost of
|> investing in nuclear power.  It is an inefficient use of money if
|> the goal is to lessen CO2 emissions.

Even in the rosiest of scenarios, power plants age and some of them must
be replaced. Assuming the storage problems of solar and wind energy
remain unsolved, would you replace a fossil fuel plant with another, or
with a nuclear plant? I believe this is a difficult issue, but it's obvious
that considering impact on CO2 alone (or acid rain alone) the choice
is clearly for nuclear power over fossil fuels, and no amount of
handwaving will change that.

Your argument that it is better to reduce consumption than to build
production is fine as far as it goes, but it doesn't go very far in arguing
against nuclear power once new production capacity becomes necessary.

mt