Terry Tamminen: Nuclear energy and China's development

China got troubles

Posted by David Roberts at 11:06 AM on 14 Jan 2007

DR: Bush's token response to global warming is to argue for clean coal and nuclear power. To the extent he's involved in any international discussion, it's the Pacific pact, a trade deal with these emerging markets for old coal and nuclear technology.

TT: Bush jumps in a long list of presidents of both parties who have not been able to deal with the [nuclear] waste issue in any meaningful fashion. And talk about a subsidized industry! Once upon a time we thought it would be too cheap to meter, and now we understand that it's an enormous cost.

Yes, look, we may not be able to stop China from going down that path. When Arnold was there last November, the number one thing they wanted to talk about was retrofit technology for diesel buses, sewage treatment (two-thirds of their sewage gets dumped into their receiving waters untreated), ways of sequestering carbon -- they're very interested in those kinds of technologies, and buying them from California companies. They tell us they're spending millions and millions of dollars on health care and loss of productivity. It's hurting them.

Interview with Terry Tamminen

Abridged version

1. Democratic Congress and Republican sincerity
2. Prop 87, AB32, and RGGI (oh my!)
3. Green progress and state climate plans
4. Hydrogen, batteries, and electric cars
5. Ethanol
6. Iraq and energy security
7. Nuclear energy and China's development
8. Leading by example
9. Public transit
10. Legal strategies to address climate change

Lives Per Gallon, by Terry Tamminen.

DR: Social unrest as well.

TT: So you can't necessarily stop them. And they were kind of like drug addicts, saying "help us, help us. Let's invent the future together. We've got this gun pointed to our head and we're going to pull the trigger. It's a thousand megawatts of coal-fired power plants a week -- we want to stop doing that. We want to figure out how to clean that up. We want you to help us, but we're going to keep doing it in the meantime." We know they're building up a couple of nuclear power plants in addition to what they already have.

They're not stupid. One thing we've seen the Chinese do is reverse engineer a lot of products -- rip them off. They look at our experience and say, you guys figured out how to retrofit diesel trucks and busses, or move to natural gas and other cleaner fuels, or move to IGCC technology, cleaner coal. Let's leapfrog what you guys have done, at least, if not move to solar and other renewables. They're doing as well.

The same is true with other kinds of technologies, like nuclear -- they say, "we've seen the mistakes you guys have made and what it's really costing you figuring out how to deal with all that waste material. Maybe that's not the best thing for our people either." The thing about a nuclear plant, especially in a place like China, it has to be built near a source of water to cool it -- a river or a coastal zone -- and then you've got to send the electrons somewhere they can be used.

China's problem is all these people leaving rural areas and coming into the city in search of work. They're trying to keep them in those rural areas -- not necessarily on the farm, but by decentralizing a lot of the factories and a lot of the job centers, including high-tech centers. A lot of our credit card processing is done in South Dakota, not because that's the most efficient place for it to be but because it's cheaper there, and you can use electrons to do the same thing you used to need to do on a 3x5 card in your office in L.A. or Seattle. The same thing with the Chinese: they want to try to keep a lot of these people in decent, sustainable jobs in the communities they're in, and the only way they can do that is to run electricity into these places.

If they build a central station powerplant, they've got to also build the transmission infrastructure to move the power from point A to point B -- as opposed to biomass conversion, or solar on roofs. That's why they've hired Bill McDonough, who's literally building seven cities from the ground up, a million people a city, to demonstrate how to make these them completely self-sustaining. Is that going to be a panacea for 3 billion people overnight? No. But it shows that the leadership is thinking about more than just asking George Bush for a handout on a nuclear power plant.

For story: Terry Tamminen: Nuclear energy and China's development
11 Comments | Post a Comment

nuclear power plants and water use

It is refreshing to read something about nuclear power, China and water use. Up until now, I've been thinking that the Chinese are just going to be conned into nuclear power by greedy uranium and nuclear technology corporations. Now I see that there's a chance that they might wake up to this. I can't help noticing that wherever "first and second world countries" have had experience of nuclear power - people don't want it. The environmental and health hazards, the risks of accident, terrorism and weapons proliferation, and the intractible waste problem - the corporations would like us to just shut up about these, and export it all to the "third world".
When it comes to water use - this is a critcial problem for today. As the world faces shortage of fresh water, the last thing we need is the pollution of aquifers by nuclear wastes, and the huge use of water by nuclear reactors, and their polluting output of hot water into rivers and coastal seas. Christina Macpherson www.antinuclearaustralia.com

by ChristinaMac at 6:13 PM on 14 Jan 2007

China Nukes

Pres. Reagan tried to give China a free reactor (Satsop) when WWPPSS went bankrupt building five plants. China refused because "the benefits were not commensurate with the risks". They then accepted my bid for a 50 ton pressure vessel (a nuclear core fire extinguisher) @ 5 cents on the dollar.

by sunflower at 8:45 PM on 14 Jan 2007

Nuclear is better than coal

The reality is that China will be building dirty coal plants until the rest of the world (US included, of course) figures out how to price GHG releases so that conservation and other alternatives appear much cheaper than coal, and even when that occurs alternatives will be implemented slowly. For the time being, fission reactors are the best alternative to coal, and they are MUCH more environmentally friendly.

We should of course be trying to help China with alternatives, but meanwhile expect them to build many more nukes.

by TokyoTom at 10:47 PM on 14 Jan 2007

No Diplomats There...

Someone should tell Terry T. that the internet is a global forum, which means when he says the Chinese are like "drug addicts" ripping everyone off, eventually, his words get back to his hosts. Of course, these days, the slang term for American in most languages means "arrogant one who knows all the answers".

The sad part is that he is supposed to be one of the good guys!!! Sigh.

He should be clearer that the Chinese government is not trying to keep people on farms, but is trying to build new cities around the country to balance the population distribution. The expectancy is that rougly 600 million people will move from rural to urban life in the fairly near term. It's a lot of folks anyway you look at it.

If Terry T. and the other Marie Antoinettes in American politics had pushed for the Kyoto treaty, the US (and other developed countries) would be sharing technology for free (no one would need to "rip" anyone off) in order to promote sustainable development and save the whole world.

But since the implications of the word "developing" don't really sink in (lack of money, lack of infrastructure, lack of sufficient expertise), the best answer that people seem to be able to give is that old "what, they have no bread, we're certainly not going to share our cake".

Social unrest? Wait until the first hundred million refugees begin to mass at the American border. (grin)

patrick

by bookerly at 12:15 AM on 15 Jan 2007

A Little Note from Africa

just to say that down here in S Africa the govt and various other people are throwing a stupendous amount of public cash at developing a small Pebble-Bed Modular Reactor. The whole business plan is premised on selling the things all over the world. They have yet to build one, though.

China, rather quietly, already has a working prototype... Mini-nukes for the masses, anyone?

Cheers

Whiskerfish

by Whiskerfish at 12:24 AM on 15 Jan 2007

"Mini-nukes for the masses"

Just goes to show, sci-fi writers do not anticipate certain developments.

E.g., in "Star Trek: Original Series," there was an impressive ship-wide computer, but its capabilities were limited. In "ST: Next Generation," the computer was indeed more prominent; but search engines had not been thought up yet, and Data always had to do all that file-reviewing work.

In "Blade Runner," a little old Cambodian woman who sells vegetables from a stand in downtown LA happens to have with her a snazzy little computer with a versatile imaging capability, including a remarkable magnifying feature. That turns out to be quite credible, nowadays, though the dirigible advertising screens and the replicants are still beyond our ken.

And so, in this vein, personal nuclear devices are indeed a fascinating development. It certainly suggests some interesting new story lines related to global security. The noble defenders of our security, of course, are the feckless lot who seem taken aback by the observation that Muslims know how to use the internet. Mein Gott!, the top-of-the-line, cracker-jack security folks here in NYC never could identify the nature or source of last week's city-wide foul smell.

Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.

by caniscandida at 4:44 AM on 15 Jan 2007

Sorry - small, not personally portable

The PMBR is designed to be able to be carried around on the back of a truck to where it'll be installed and used...

Whiskerfish

by Whiskerfish at 5:14 AM on 15 Jan 2007

Type Pebble Bed Reactor...

...into Wikipedia.

Their schpiel, on a rapid skim-read, seems quite good.

Whiskerfish

by Whiskerfish at 5:17 AM on 15 Jan 2007

Have you been reading the news?

They're not stupid. One thing we've seen the Chinese do is reverse engineer a lot of products -- rip them off....
The same is true with other kinds of technologies, like nuclear

Actually, US-based Westinghouse Corporation has just won the large order of next gen nuclear power plants in China. They beat out main rivals, the French. One of the big issues was that China paid for not just construction of the power plants but for technology transfer and the right to build them themselves in the future. This was a main sticking point for the French, by the way, who hoped to not have to compete against China in their own technology for plants elsewhere in the world.

It's interesting to note that France runs approximately 80% of the electrical grid on nuclear power also using American pressurized water reactor technology from Westinghouse. Like China, they paid a premium not just for the plants but the technology and right to build them themselves.

It's also interesting to note that the three wealthiest countries without natural energy resources of their own (Japan, France, and South Korea) are all highly reliant on nuclear power. None have had accidents. And they've each been models of limiting greenhouse gas emissions while still remaining industrialized.

Meanwhile, Germany's prime minister Merkel has threatened to end the country's moratorium on nuclear power after Mr. Putin whimsically shut off the gas supply to Europe for the second time.

by OhmExcited at 9:30 AM on 15 Jan 2007

Better

TT sounds better in this segment.

But this annoying habit of obvious mistakes persists.

"The thing about a nuclear plant, especially in a place like China, it has to be built near a source of water to cool it -- a river or a coastal zone -- and then you've got to send the electrons somewhere they can be used."

Most population and manufacturing is located near coasts or rivers. He could have pointed out this: "Making offshore wind/wave power and river current power (not dams) very good alternatives". Instead he leaves that open, making an opportunity for nuclear advocates.

I guess this is the best we can hope for? Lester Brown does not have this problem, for instance.

Ask TT about the Venice Ca zero emmision city initiative. A small project yes, but how would he do it?

I would use ocean water cooling to substitute for electric air conditioning to conserve kwh. Solar on roofs, biogas in solid oxide fuel cell/turbines for backup power, and offshore wind/wave power platforms for baseload power. With algae growing solar collectors to sequester cO2 from the biogas fuel cells and produce biodiesel and cellulose to use in the fuewl cells as well.

As well as a city fleet vehicle deal for plugin serial hybrids that companies could also buy into. Including maybe a plugin serial hybrid vehicle leasing program for residents?

Detail a comprehensive plan and let us critique it Terry. Thanks. (Sorry I'm so critical,it's the harsh reality of blogland, thanks for your efforts!)

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 9:42 AM on 15 Jan 2007

Should read

"With algae growing solar collectors to sequester cO2 from the biogas fuel cells and produce biodiesel (for the serial plugin hybrids)and cellulose to use in the fuel cells as well."

Also Terry: What do you think of this environmentalist compromise with nuclear power?

http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2006/10/biofuel...

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 9:53 AM on 15 Jan 2007

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