I’d like to make a few points based on my knowledge as someone who studies climate science issues as a hobby. I’m a member of the volunteer team at SkepticalScience (an anti-climate-misinformation site).
[edits/additions in square brackets; original version contained mistakes]
First, humanity needs to reduce carbon emissions all the way to zero or below, because natural removal of CO2 from the climate system is extraordinarily slow. 50% is too much; 25% is too much. Zero. Popularly-considered strategies for mitigating global warming won’t achieve that. Optimistic IPCC scenarios like like RCP 2.6 assume technology will also be widely deployed to remove CO2 from the air. Things like tree planting that increase biomass can slow down the increase of CO2 but can’t stop it even briefly; other ideas for carbon sequestration are not economical [AFAIK] and it’s irresponsible to simply assume an economical technology for this will be invented. Therefore, we need to switch to 100% clean energy, and do so as soon as possible.
In my opinion the best thing the EA community can do (under the importance-tractability-neglectedness framework) is to study and support nuclear energy in some affordable way. In the past, the push for climate change mitigation has come from traditional environmentalists, who have fought against nuclear power since at least the early 1980s [probably more like 1960s] and mostly haven’t reconsidered. This is evident from the many campaigns for “renewable energy” rather than “clean” or even “sustainable” energy. EA can fill a gap here. My favorite thing is to ask people to support new, inexpensive Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) designs. But probably the cheapest thing we can do is a web site. I think there is a real need for a web site about nuclear facts (or clean energy facts generally), something that debunks myths like SkepticalScience does for climate science, and also provides information that isn’t adequately available on the web right now, about such topics as the risks of radiation, the types and quantities of nuclear waste, and the ways nuclear regulations have improved safety (albeit increasing costs). And, of course, it would go into some detail about MSRs and other affordable next-generation reactor designs. As EAs are not funded by the nuclear industry, they could be a credible independent voice.
Solar power makes great sense in a lot of tropical places, but in northern climates like Canada it doesn’t, as peak energy use happens in the wintertime when the sun is very weak. AFAICT this makes solar in Canada into a nuisance, a potential roadblock as we get close to 100% clean energy (why would we deploy more clean energy if existing solar power makes it redundant for half of each year?). Without nuclear power, our main source of energy [in such climates] would probably have to be wind, and I’m very concerned that the cost of relying mostly on wind power would be prohibitive, especially in a free-market system. I don’t know the exact numbers, but once we exceed something like 25%-30% average wind power, instantaneous wind power will often exceed 100% of demand, after which wind turbines are likely to become less and less economical. (Epistemic status: educated guess [but after I posted this someone pointed me to a presentation by an expert, which says solar value starts to decline well before 25-30% penetration])
[Meanwhile, right now nuclear advocates often rely on bare assertions, some of which are wrong. Without credible-but-readable sources—plain language explanations that cite textbooks, scientific literature and government reports—it’s hard to convince intellectuals and reasonable skeptics to change their mind. Anti-nukes can simply assert that claims that make nuclear power look not-scary are nuclear-industry propaganda. Note that nuclear power relies on public opinion much more than renewables currently do—company are free to design and build new wind turbines, but nuclear power is, of necessity, highly regulated and its continued existence relies on political will, which in turn flows from popular opinion. Witness the blanket shutdown of all nuclear power in Germany based on the effects of a tsunami on Fukushima, Japan. Hence the motivation for an educational site.]
By contrast, it seems clear to me that mass-produced MSRs can [theoretically] be cheaper than today’s CCGTs (natural gas plants). I’ve been following MSRs with great interest and I’ve published an article about it on medium, although it remains unlisted because I’m still uncertain about a couple of points in the article and I’d love to get a nuclear expert to review it.
Second, it is a common misconception that we could have 4°C of global warming by 2100; climate scientists generally don’t think so [except in the RCP 8.5 (business as usual) scenario which by now is more of a “look at the train wreck we’re avoiding!” than a plausible outcome]. Often this misconception arises because there are two measurements of the warming effect of CO2, and the most commonly reported measure is ECS (equilibrium climate sensitivity) which predicts the amount of warming caused by doubling CO2 levels and then waiting for the climate system to adjust. The best estimate of ECS is 3°C (2.0-4.5°C, 90% confidence interval according to the IPCC) and it will take at least 200 years after CO2 doubles to even approach that amount of warming. If the ECS is higher than 3°C I would expect it to take even longer to approach equilibrium, but I’m rather uncertain about that.
To estimate the warming we expect by 2100, look at the TCR (Transient Climate Response) instead. The TCR is highly likely to be in the range 1.0-2.5°C. Keep in mind, however, that only 2⁄3 of greenhouse warming comes from CO2 according to the AGGI; 1⁄6 comes from methane and the final 1⁄6 from all other human-added greenhouse gases combined. The most common estimate of TCR is 1.7°C or 1.8°C and a first-order estimate based on observed warming so far is about 1.5°C. So if CO2 doubles (to 560 ppm), I’d expect about 2.5[±1.1]°C of global warming based on a TCR of 1.75, assuming CO2′s fraction of all GHGs increases slightly by then. [side note: I would be surprised if CO2 more than doubles—I think we’ll get almost 100% clean energy by 2100; OTOH predicting the future isn’t really my forte.]
Third, Having said that, the land will warm a lot faster than the oceans. Climate models on average predict 55% more warming on land than sea [related paper]. [Observations so far suggest that the transient difference could be] greater. Therefore, although 4°C of “global” warming by 2100 is highly unlikely, 4°C of land warming by 2100 is a distinct possibility (though I estimate a probability below 50%.)
I guessed on Metaculus that global warming by 2100 would be [1.7 to 2.6°C] (despite the Paris agreement), but on land [it’s likely to reach 3°C (and as climate change is non-uniform, some populated locations could exceed 3°C even if the land average is less than 3. I should add that the land-sea ratio is thought to be lower in the tropics, albeit higher in the subtropics. And my prediction was somewhat optimistic—I assumed that eventually society would build nuclear plants at scale; or that at least some cheap CCS tech would be discovered.)]
Fourth, having lived in the northern Philippines, I think the impact of the warming itself is underappreciated. I lived in a very humid town (more humid and hotter than Hawaii) where the temperature exceeded 30°C in the shade most days. The hottest day of the year was about 37°C in the shade at noon, coldest would have been around 18°C at 6AM.
Maybe it’s just that I lived in Canada too long, but humans are humans—we are naturally uncomfortable if our core temperature exceeds 37°C and I became uncomfortable whenever I went outside or left the sanctuary of the Air Conditioner. So for the sake of Filipinos and the other 3+ billion people living in tropical latitudes, I think we should be very concerned about the effect of just the warming itself on humanity’s quality of life.
If we get 4°C of [land] warming vs preindustrial, that implies average daily highs of about 33-34°C in my town, which I would describe as virtually unbearable at 75% humidity. Consider also that if the Philippines becomes more prosperous, they will respond to the high temperatures by extensive use of air conditioning, which is energy intensive. If we don’t stop using fossil fuels soon, air conditioning itself can become a significant contributor to further global warming.
Energy for Humanity is a great underfunded pro-nuclear NGO working in the EU. Clean Air Task Force and Third Way are also great.
I also think the current emphasis on solar and wind in some places could be a barrier to sensible low carbon policies in the long-term, especially as they don’t go very well with nuclear. It also doesn’t make a great deal of sense to combine intermittent renewables with nuclear, as France bizarrely recently considered doing, since it just makes nuclear run below capacity when the sun is shining, which doesn’t make economic sense.
It also doesn’t make a great deal of sense to combine intermittent renewables with nuclear
Although you’re right, it appears the renewables juggernaut is unstoppable, and mass production for affordable reactors will require about 15 years to spin up, during which time renewables will be the only game in town. For that reason, MSR vendors want to use huge silos of solar salt to store energy when renewables are going strong, which they can discharge when the renewables start losing power. In this way the nuclear reactor can usually go at full power, albeit at the cost of extra turbines and solar salt (so named because it was pioneered by concentrated solar power technology).
There’s also the Breakthrough Institute and Environmental Progress in the US. Plus the broader “Ecomodernist” movement: http://www.ecomodernism.org/
So for the sake of Filipinos and the other 3+ billion people living in tropical latitudes, I think we should be very concerned about the effect of just the warming itself on humanity’s quality of life.
...
Consider also that if the Philippines becomes more prosperous, they will respond to the high temperatures by extensive use of air conditioning, which is energy intensive. If we don’t stop using fossil fuels soon, air conditioning itself can become a significant contributor to further global warming.
I’d like to second this point, as someone who comes from a prosperous rainforest nation (Singapore) with an average of 85% humidity and ~30°C weather. Not only does quality of life go down, but carbon footprint will increase—with AC bills, need for cold refrigeration (especially in transportation), preferencing private cars/taxis over public transport and walking. Singapore has made large infrastructural investments to have thousands of kilometers of covered walkways and air-conditioned public transit to combat this but most cities in these regions don’t have the governance capacity or capital for such investments.
I agree with you and bdixon that emission reduction should be a serious priority for EA, and also that we shouldn’t minimize its direct effects on human beings. The WHO estimates that between 2030 and 2050 deaths from climate change will reach 250,000 per year. Right now, its likely over 200,000 per year. These deaths don’t come simply from heat stress, but also from diseases moving into higher latitudes, droughts, water stress, etc. My understanding is that this estimate does not include the impacts of war and conflict, which are also increasing as a result of climate change.
I disagree, however, that nuclear power presents a viable solution. I am in favor of nuclear power as a technocratic policy prescription, and I would be happy to see more of the world’s power become nuclear. But it’s not politically viable, and that’s what matters.
Nuclear energy is unpopular. A 2011 Ipsos poll (admittedly conducted in the wake of Fukushima) found that only 38% of the population in 24 countries supported getting some power from nuclear. In the US, support for nuclear power is declining, and it no longer has majority support with the public, according to Gallup polls. These numbers can and do shift over time, but getting the public on board with nuclear is a long-term, challenging task. If you agree that massive emissions reductions in the next decade will save many lives and reduce our risk of triggering nasty feedback loops, like a collapse in land-ice, nuclear is not the way to go.
This dovetails with the larger question of tractability. In technological terms, climate change is a solvable problem. There are two reasons to think we might not solve it before triggering mass migration, economic collapse, world war, and nuclear/biological war. 1) The political system has consistently failed to take even modest action. 2) We are running out of time, and the solutions we will need to take only get more drastic the longer we wait.
I would say the question at least warrants thorough research from the community (I’m unaware if this has already been done) - on whether public opinion can change through education, on promising countries/regions with higher rates of public support (no history of nuclear disaster) that are equipped to implement it safely. This may not be a globally scalable solution, but if even a few players adopt nuclear it could draw more investment/improve the technology and potentially make it more feasible for others.
For example, in Pennsylvania 40% of all energy and 93% of carbon-free energy comes from nuclear, but only 1 in 10 know that nuclear energy is carbon-free with certainty. It seems to me that public education could potentially be effective, especially because there appears to be conservative support for nuclear.
If research on that front yielded results, that would certainly be valuable.
But compare that task to the work that climate advocates have been doing for decades. Educating away people’s political convictions has seen very limited success when it comes to convincing them that radical action on climate is needed. A similar effort on nuclear power might take decades more (which we don’t have; as we know, there’s a ticking clock).
The conservative-support argument is interesting, but IMO also flawed. Andrew Sullivan, influential conservative writer/intellectual, called for something like this when he proposed a ‘nuclear Green New Deal.’ In the United States, it’s a non-starter. The politicians and voters who are interested in big, sweeping transformations of the economy are disproportionately concentrated on the political left. So is the most die-hard anti-nuclear opposition.
And this presents a coalition-building challenge. The American GOP is unwilling to take action on climate, and are heavily influenced by money from coal, oil, and gas interests. GOP politicians have, so far, refused to take even modest action, and appear to be comfortable making decisions on issues like climate or healthcare policy that are out of line with the public opinion polling, even with their own voter-base.
In the current American political landscape, bipartisan action, especially when it comes to a Green New Deal, or a ‘nuclear new deal,’ is currently nonviable. The last ten years of GOP opposition to the ACA, which was a small-c conservative proposal originally floated by the GOP (and tested by Mitt Romney), speaks to the lack of bipartisan options. So American action must come through the Democratic party, and leaning heavily on new nuclear power currently reduces the chance of that happening.
The international situation isn’t much better. The conservative CDU/CSU is Germany has vowed to transition off nuclear power entirely. There’s also the added problem that many countries are heavily dissuaded by the international community from acquiring and enriching nuclear material.
Educating away people’s political convictions has seen very limited success when it comes to convincing them that radical action on climate is needed.
I would point out that this has been largely liberals trying to convince conservatives about climate science; cross-tribe communication is pretty difficult. Indeed, I wonder if support for nuclear among conservatives stems as much from opposing the “liberal media”’s scare mongering than anything else. There’s been some success, at least on the left, from efforts to get the word out about “the” 97% consensus among climate scientists. Educating people on the left seems like an easier problem—there are die-hard anti-nukes who can’t be convinced, but they’re a small minority.
AFAIK no one has seriously attempted the educational resource I propose, so before saying it can’t work I think it’s worth trying. We do have some stuff like Gordon McDowell’s videos that basically targets maven personalities like myself, but I found that it still doesn’t provide all the information I need to get a complete mental model for nuclear power. An educational site is not enough by itself to change public opinion, but it could at least be valuable to maven-type people who want to change minds about nuclear power but don’t have good sources of information that they can link to and learn from.
Public opinion is a very hard nut to crack, but what about the media? I would guess that influencers like Jon Oliver probably got some of their information from SkepticalScience, so I think public education may be able to percolate to the people by first percolating up to the media.
I am very much aware. That’s what I think we should take steps to address. Providing educational resources isn’t enough by itself, but it’s a necessary step.
Someone pointed me to this video by Jesse Jenkins at MIT who models the cost of electricity systems in the context of a goal to reach zero carbon emissions. The video shows how nuclear would play an important role even if a nuclear plant costs 6 times as much to build as a natural gas plant. When I saw this video I thought “wait, if new renewables eventually lose so much value that expensive nuclear plants start looking attractive, just how the heck could we convince every country in the world to replace all their fossil fuels?” Since we know how to make nuclear cheaper, the obvious answer is, let’s do that.
I’d like to make a few points based on my knowledge as someone who studies climate science issues as a hobby. I’m a member of the volunteer team at SkepticalScience (an anti-climate-misinformation site).
[edits/additions in square brackets; original version contained mistakes]
First, humanity needs to reduce carbon emissions all the way to zero or below, because natural removal of CO2 from the climate system is extraordinarily slow. 50% is too much; 25% is too much. Zero. Popularly-considered strategies for mitigating global warming won’t achieve that. Optimistic IPCC scenarios like like RCP 2.6 assume technology will also be widely deployed to remove CO2 from the air. Things like tree planting that increase biomass can slow down the increase of CO2 but can’t stop it even briefly; other ideas for carbon sequestration are not economical [AFAIK] and it’s irresponsible to simply assume an economical technology for this will be invented. Therefore, we need to switch to 100% clean energy, and do so as soon as possible.
In my opinion the best thing the EA community can do (under the importance-tractability-neglectedness framework) is to study and support nuclear energy in some affordable way. In the past, the push for climate change mitigation has come from traditional environmentalists, who have fought against nuclear power since at least the early 1980s [probably more like 1960s] and mostly haven’t reconsidered. This is evident from the many campaigns for “renewable energy” rather than “clean” or even “sustainable” energy. EA can fill a gap here. My favorite thing is to ask people to support new, inexpensive Molten Salt Reactor (MSR) designs. But probably the cheapest thing we can do is a web site. I think there is a real need for a web site about nuclear facts (or clean energy facts generally), something that debunks myths like SkepticalScience does for climate science, and also provides information that isn’t adequately available on the web right now, about such topics as the risks of radiation, the types and quantities of nuclear waste, and the ways nuclear regulations have improved safety (albeit increasing costs). And, of course, it would go into some detail about MSRs and other affordable next-generation reactor designs. As EAs are not funded by the nuclear industry, they could be a credible independent voice.
Solar power makes great sense in a lot of tropical places, but in northern climates like Canada it doesn’t, as peak energy use happens in the wintertime when the sun is very weak. AFAICT this makes solar in Canada into a nuisance, a potential roadblock as we get close to 100% clean energy (why would we deploy more clean energy if existing solar power makes it redundant for half of each year?). Without nuclear power, our main source of energy [in such climates] would probably have to be wind, and I’m very concerned that the cost of relying mostly on wind power would be prohibitive, especially in a free-market system. I don’t know the exact numbers, but once we exceed something like 25%-30% average wind power, instantaneous wind power will often exceed 100% of demand, after which wind turbines are likely to become less and less economical. (Epistemic status: educated guess [but after I posted this someone pointed me to a presentation by an expert, which says solar value starts to decline well before 25-30% penetration])
[Meanwhile, right now nuclear advocates often rely on bare assertions, some of which are wrong. Without credible-but-readable sources—plain language explanations that cite textbooks, scientific literature and government reports—it’s hard to convince intellectuals and reasonable skeptics to change their mind. Anti-nukes can simply assert that claims that make nuclear power look not-scary are nuclear-industry propaganda. Note that nuclear power relies on public opinion much more than renewables currently do—company are free to design and build new wind turbines, but nuclear power is, of necessity, highly regulated and its continued existence relies on political will, which in turn flows from popular opinion. Witness the blanket shutdown of all nuclear power in Germany based on the effects of a tsunami on Fukushima, Japan. Hence the motivation for an educational site.]
By contrast, it seems clear to me that mass-produced MSRs can [theoretically] be cheaper than today’s CCGTs (natural gas plants). I’ve been following MSRs with great interest and I’ve published an article about it on medium, although it remains unlisted because I’m still uncertain about a couple of points in the article and I’d love to get a nuclear expert to review it.
Second, it is a common misconception that we could have 4°C of global warming by 2100; climate scientists generally don’t think so [except in the RCP 8.5 (business as usual) scenario which by now is more of a “look at the train wreck we’re avoiding!” than a plausible outcome]. Often this misconception arises because there are two measurements of the warming effect of CO2, and the most commonly reported measure is ECS (equilibrium climate sensitivity) which predicts the amount of warming caused by doubling CO2 levels and then waiting for the climate system to adjust. The best estimate of ECS is 3°C (2.0-4.5°C, 90% confidence interval according to the IPCC) and it will take at least 200 years after CO2 doubles to even approach that amount of warming. If the ECS is higher than 3°C I would expect it to take even longer to approach equilibrium, but I’m rather uncertain about that.
To estimate the warming we expect by 2100, look at the TCR (Transient Climate Response) instead. The TCR is highly likely to be in the range 1.0-2.5°C. Keep in mind, however, that only 2⁄3 of greenhouse warming comes from CO2 according to the AGGI; 1⁄6 comes from methane and the final 1⁄6 from all other human-added greenhouse gases combined. The most common estimate of TCR is 1.7°C or 1.8°C and a first-order estimate based on observed warming so far is about 1.5°C. So if CO2 doubles (to 560 ppm), I’d expect about 2.5[±1.1]°C of global warming based on a TCR of 1.75, assuming CO2′s fraction of all GHGs increases slightly by then. [side note: I would be surprised if CO2 more than doubles—I think we’ll get almost 100% clean energy by 2100; OTOH predicting the future isn’t really my forte.]
Third, Having said that, the land will warm a lot faster than the oceans. Climate models on average predict 55% more warming on land than sea [related paper]. [Observations so far suggest that the transient difference could be] greater. Therefore, although 4°C of “global” warming by 2100 is highly unlikely, 4°C of land warming by 2100 is a distinct possibility (though I estimate a probability below 50%.)
I guessed on Metaculus that global warming by 2100 would be [1.7 to 2.6°C] (despite the Paris agreement), but on land [it’s likely to reach 3°C (and as climate change is non-uniform, some populated locations could exceed 3°C even if the land average is less than 3. I should add that the land-sea ratio is thought to be lower in the tropics, albeit higher in the subtropics. And my prediction was somewhat optimistic—I assumed that eventually society would build nuclear plants at scale; or that at least some cheap CCS tech would be discovered.)]
Fourth, having lived in the northern Philippines, I think the impact of the warming itself is underappreciated. I lived in a very humid town (more humid and hotter than Hawaii) where the temperature exceeded 30°C in the shade most days. The hottest day of the year was about 37°C in the shade at noon, coldest would have been around 18°C at 6AM.
Maybe it’s just that I lived in Canada too long, but humans are humans—we are naturally uncomfortable if our core temperature exceeds 37°C and I became uncomfortable whenever I went outside or left the sanctuary of the Air Conditioner. So for the sake of Filipinos and the other 3+ billion people living in tropical latitudes, I think we should be very concerned about the effect of just the warming itself on humanity’s quality of life.
If we get 4°C of [land] warming vs preindustrial, that implies average daily highs of about 33-34°C in my town, which I would describe as virtually unbearable at 75% humidity. Consider also that if the Philippines becomes more prosperous, they will respond to the high temperatures by extensive use of air conditioning, which is energy intensive. If we don’t stop using fossil fuels soon, air conditioning itself can become a significant contributor to further global warming.
Energy for Humanity is a great underfunded pro-nuclear NGO working in the EU. Clean Air Task Force and Third Way are also great.
I also think the current emphasis on solar and wind in some places could be a barrier to sensible low carbon policies in the long-term, especially as they don’t go very well with nuclear. It also doesn’t make a great deal of sense to combine intermittent renewables with nuclear, as France bizarrely recently considered doing, since it just makes nuclear run below capacity when the sun is shining, which doesn’t make economic sense.
Although you’re right, it appears the renewables juggernaut is unstoppable, and mass production for affordable reactors will require about 15 years to spin up, during which time renewables will be the only game in town. For that reason, MSR vendors want to use huge silos of solar salt to store energy when renewables are going strong, which they can discharge when the renewables start losing power. In this way the nuclear reactor can usually go at full power, albeit at the cost of extra turbines and solar salt (so named because it was pioneered by concentrated solar power technology).
There’s also the Breakthrough Institute and Environmental Progress in the US. Plus the broader “Ecomodernist” movement: http://www.ecomodernism.org/
...
I’d like to second this point, as someone who comes from a prosperous rainforest nation (Singapore) with an average of 85% humidity and ~30°C weather. Not only does quality of life go down, but carbon footprint will increase—with AC bills, need for cold refrigeration (especially in transportation), preferencing private cars/taxis over public transport and walking. Singapore has made large infrastructural investments to have thousands of kilometers of covered walkways and air-conditioned public transit to combat this but most cities in these regions don’t have the governance capacity or capital for such investments.
I agree with you and bdixon that emission reduction should be a serious priority for EA, and also that we shouldn’t minimize its direct effects on human beings. The WHO estimates that between 2030 and 2050 deaths from climate change will reach 250,000 per year. Right now, its likely over 200,000 per year. These deaths don’t come simply from heat stress, but also from diseases moving into higher latitudes, droughts, water stress, etc. My understanding is that this estimate does not include the impacts of war and conflict, which are also increasing as a result of climate change.
I disagree, however, that nuclear power presents a viable solution. I am in favor of nuclear power as a technocratic policy prescription, and I would be happy to see more of the world’s power become nuclear. But it’s not politically viable, and that’s what matters.
Nuclear energy is unpopular. A 2011 Ipsos poll (admittedly conducted in the wake of Fukushima) found that only 38% of the population in 24 countries supported getting some power from nuclear. In the US, support for nuclear power is declining, and it no longer has majority support with the public, according to Gallup polls. These numbers can and do shift over time, but getting the public on board with nuclear is a long-term, challenging task. If you agree that massive emissions reductions in the next decade will save many lives and reduce our risk of triggering nasty feedback loops, like a collapse in land-ice, nuclear is not the way to go.
This dovetails with the larger question of tractability. In technological terms, climate change is a solvable problem. There are two reasons to think we might not solve it before triggering mass migration, economic collapse, world war, and nuclear/biological war. 1) The political system has consistently failed to take even modest action. 2) We are running out of time, and the solutions we will need to take only get more drastic the longer we wait.
I would say the question at least warrants thorough research from the community (I’m unaware if this has already been done) - on whether public opinion can change through education, on promising countries/regions with higher rates of public support (no history of nuclear disaster) that are equipped to implement it safely. This may not be a globally scalable solution, but if even a few players adopt nuclear it could draw more investment/improve the technology and potentially make it more feasible for others.
For example, in Pennsylvania 40% of all energy and 93% of carbon-free energy comes from nuclear, but only 1 in 10 know that nuclear energy is carbon-free with certainty. It seems to me that public education could potentially be effective, especially because there appears to be conservative support for nuclear.
If research on that front yielded results, that would certainly be valuable.
But compare that task to the work that climate advocates have been doing for decades. Educating away people’s political convictions has seen very limited success when it comes to convincing them that radical action on climate is needed. A similar effort on nuclear power might take decades more (which we don’t have; as we know, there’s a ticking clock).
The conservative-support argument is interesting, but IMO also flawed. Andrew Sullivan, influential conservative writer/intellectual, called for something like this when he proposed a ‘nuclear Green New Deal.’ In the United States, it’s a non-starter. The politicians and voters who are interested in big, sweeping transformations of the economy are disproportionately concentrated on the political left. So is the most die-hard anti-nuclear opposition.
And this presents a coalition-building challenge. The American GOP is unwilling to take action on climate, and are heavily influenced by money from coal, oil, and gas interests. GOP politicians have, so far, refused to take even modest action, and appear to be comfortable making decisions on issues like climate or healthcare policy that are out of line with the public opinion polling, even with their own voter-base.
In the current American political landscape, bipartisan action, especially when it comes to a Green New Deal, or a ‘nuclear new deal,’ is currently nonviable. The last ten years of GOP opposition to the ACA, which was a small-c conservative proposal originally floated by the GOP (and tested by Mitt Romney), speaks to the lack of bipartisan options. So American action must come through the Democratic party, and leaning heavily on new nuclear power currently reduces the chance of that happening.
The international situation isn’t much better. The conservative CDU/CSU is Germany has vowed to transition off nuclear power entirely. There’s also the added problem that many countries are heavily dissuaded by the international community from acquiring and enriching nuclear material.
I would point out that this has been largely liberals trying to convince conservatives about climate science; cross-tribe communication is pretty difficult. Indeed, I wonder if support for nuclear among conservatives stems as much from opposing the “liberal media”’s scare mongering than anything else. There’s been some success, at least on the left, from efforts to get the word out about “the” 97% consensus among climate scientists. Educating people on the left seems like an easier problem—there are die-hard anti-nukes who can’t be convinced, but they’re a small minority.
AFAIK no one has seriously attempted the educational resource I propose, so before saying it can’t work I think it’s worth trying. We do have some stuff like Gordon McDowell’s videos that basically targets maven personalities like myself, but I found that it still doesn’t provide all the information I need to get a complete mental model for nuclear power. An educational site is not enough by itself to change public opinion, but it could at least be valuable to maven-type people who want to change minds about nuclear power but don’t have good sources of information that they can link to and learn from.
Public opinion is a very hard nut to crack, but what about the media? I would guess that influencers like Jon Oliver probably got some of their information from SkepticalScience, so I think public education may be able to percolate to the people by first percolating up to the media.
I am very much aware. That’s what I think we should take steps to address. Providing educational resources isn’t enough by itself, but it’s a necessary step.
Someone pointed me to this video by Jesse Jenkins at MIT who models the cost of electricity systems in the context of a goal to reach zero carbon emissions. The video shows how nuclear would play an important role even if a nuclear plant costs 6 times as much to build as a natural gas plant. When I saw this video I thought “wait, if new renewables eventually lose so much value that expensive nuclear plants start looking attractive, just how the heck could we convince every country in the world to replace all their fossil fuels?” Since we know how to make nuclear cheaper, the obvious answer is, let’s do that.