Gary Snyder: James Lovelock's arguments for nuclear power 'demented'

Nuclear power is too risky

Posted by Kit Stolz (Guest Contributor) at 4:13 PM on 23 May 2007

Read more about: energy | nuclear power | climate

This past weekend the Ojai Poetry Festival featured the great American poet Gary Snyder, who read to a large crowd of listeners mostly from work written this century, especially his 2004 book of haibun called Danger on Peaks. (Haibun, we learned, is a mix of prose and haiku: Japanese professor Nobuyaki Yuasa has described it as having a relationship "like that between the moon and the earth: each makes the other more beautiful.")

Snyder read poems linking the destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan in March 2001 by the Taliban to the destruction of the Twin Towers, among others, as well as an indelible new poem called "No Shadow." He concluded with his classic "For All," the conclusion to which was recited by all the poets and the crowd.

He then went away from poetry for one moment to warn of a recent trend toward nuclear energy.

"Some people who should know better," he said, mentioning Stewart Brand, were calling for the construction of new nuclear power plants to hold down carbon emissions. Snyder objected vociferously, arguing that climate change would not destroy life on earth, though it might make things difficult for humans for a few hundred years. He specifically went after famous British scientist James Lovelock, the man who first formulated the concept of Gaia, for saying nuclear waste is overly feared as a pollutant.

To dramatize the point, in his recent book The Revenge of Gaia Lovelock has personally agreed to dispose of a nuclear power plant's waste:

I have offered in public to accept all of the high-level waste produced in a year from a nuclear power station for deposit on my small plot of land; it would occupy a space about a cubic metre in size and fit safely into a concrete pit, and I would use the heat from its decaying radioactive elements to heat my home. It would be a waste not to use it. More important, it would be no danger to me, my family, or the wildlife.

Snyder argued to the contrary that nuclear waste remains a serious threat, and further, that any move toward nuclear energy and the large-scale enrichment of uranium would surely increase the risk of the spread of nuclear weapons. He bluntly called Lovelock's plea for more nukes "demented," and warned the crowd:

Keep your eyes peeled for trick arguments trying to lead us back to nuclear power.

Just this week on these pages, Joseph Romm brought up an argument against nuclear power I hadn't heard before, that rising temperatures and diminishing supplies of water for cooling will make it more dangerous and less practical than in the past. Perhaps so. I am no expert, but Lovelock makes a strong case. For those interested in hearing more "trick arguments" from one of the leading scientists of our time, read on ... and I for one will be interested to hear from those able to put them to rest.

First and foremost, Lovelock makes an argument from risk, saying that if we allow CO2 to reach 500 ppm, temperatures will soar six to eight degrees, likely leading to the melting of Greenland and other ice sheets, drowning coastal cities around the world, forcing forests far northward, leading to major droughts and countless other disasters.
Carbon dioxide waste is invisible but so deadly that if its emissions go unchecked it will kill nearly everyone. The nuclear waste buried in pits and the production sites is no threat to Gaia and dangerous only to those foolish enough to expose themselves to its radiation.
Lovelock claims that nuclear waste is less destructive than development.
One of the striking things about places heavily contaminated by radioactive nuclides is the richness of their wildlife. This is true of the land around Chernobyl, the bomb test sites of the Pacific, and areas near the United States' Savannah River nuclear weapons plant of the Second World War. Wild plants and animals do not perceive radiation as dangerous, and any slight reduction it causes in their lifespans is far less a hazard than is the presence of people and their pets. It is easy to forget that we are now so numerous, almost anything extra we do in the way of farming, forest and home building is harmful to wildlife and Gaia.
Lovelock adds that the acid rain caused by sulfur emissions is better than the alternative, even if it means haze and pollution.
... this haze is reflecting sunlight back to space and keeps those of us beneath it several degrees cooler than we might otherwise be. In some senses the acid rain is a partial cure for global warming. Just imagine how much worse the intense heat of summer in 2003 would have been without it, and how much worse it will be when this European [sulfur emission reducing] legislation starts to work.

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For story: Gary Snyder: James Lovelock's arguments for nuclear power 'demented'
12 Comments | Post a Comment

hmph

Color me not impressed.

Snyder objected vociferously, arguing that climate change would not destroy life on earth, though it might make things difficult for humans for a few hundred years.

I'm no nuke fan, but I have to point out that nuclear waste isn't going to destroy life on earth either. It will just make things... difficult. (What a great choice of words, too, from a poet who obviously has all kinds of insight into the highly-interconnected nonlinear feedback mechanisms of climate, weather, and agricultural systems.)

For that matter, nukes probably won't destroy global technological civilization either, while global warming surely could. If the choice was between nukes and global warming, only a fool would choose global warming, since it is both a larger-scale of danger and represents more unknowns. Fortunately, the choice is not that simple.

by GreenEngineer at 4:56 PM on 23 May 2007

Autogenocide - good for Gaia

He has it about right. But so bitter. He knows we do not have time for nuclear everything.

And a sulfur haze requires adding more long-life CO2 from fossil fuels.

by sunflower at 5:02 PM on 23 May 2007

French Nuclear Waste Program

http://www.ocrwm.doe.gov/factsheets/doeymp0411.shtml

Why is such a big deal?

France gets 80 percent of electricity from nuclear.

If we go plug-in electric, like the Chevy Volt, or all fuel cell, like the Chevy Sequel, we can get heat, light, transportation and more all from nukes at almost no cost to our society.

What is more, if high density France can bury a few pounds of nuclear waste in its back yard, then America's enourmous empty Southwest could handle it easily.

Possibly the best Alternative Energy blog I read: New Energy and Fuel

by jabailo at 5:13 PM on 23 May 2007

Hey, you left out point 4 . . .

. . . which quite naturally follows point, um, 2, as it turns out.

It is easy to forget that we are now so numerous, almost anything extra we do in the way of farming, forest and home building is harmful to wildlife and Gaia.

However, by cranking up nuclear fuel extraction, processing, distribution, use, and, most importantly, by following Lovelock's innovative answer to the nuclear waste disposal problem by burying some of it in everyone's front yard, we can put an end to the exponential human population growth, turning asphalt jungles into natural petting zoos for the few remaining adults and their mutated children to enjoy (when their chemo treatments aren't making them too weak to venture outside).

And hang on kids, cuz the good news does not stop there. Oh, no! This is also the way to end the costly and increasingly unpopular War Without End(TM) on terror, too. Now, instead of arming the hell out of the world so that said world can trade weapons for terrorists' cash on the black market, leading to the boring, daily reports of "insurgent," "civilian," and "military" body counts that cut into more important news about American Idol(TM), terrorists can become part of the solution--part of the Gaia Groove(TM), if you will, by recycling! (And what could be more All American, yet progressive and green than recycling a steadily increasing stream of concentrated toxic material we prefer not to think of as waste?)

That's right! We'll have those sleeper cells up all night, acting as Mother Nature's Little Helpers(TM), as they gather radioactive waste and repackage it as dirty bombs in the summer, while they help their kids through college in the winter be renting them out as service workers with the hot new idea for keeping driveways and walkways ice free in the winter. (Bad news for poor Rudolph, though, for he will be among the first, though few, wildlife casualties when he is forced out of a job because his nose won't be the thing that glows to guide Santa on his much more manageable rounds--thus leaving him with no money to buy an airline ticket and matching carbon offsets to vacation in one of those dreamy, radioactive wildlife sanctuaries that Lovelock cannot freely explore, but so admires.)

Now, I know, you're probably thinking, but wait, if we are gonna have a nuclear induced die-off, aren't we gonna miss out on that cool new way of combating global warming promised in Lovelock's point number 3? With so many fewer people, how are we ever going to afford enough nukes to generate a substantial global dimming effect? Not to worry! Although, in the long run scientists may be needed to come up with new and creative ways of screwing up the atmosphere, in the short term there will be more than enough cremations and funeral pires to make up for the difference--to say nothing of adding several new and interesting colors to those few remaining sunsets that symbols the end of days for so many would-be bunny killers, seal slaughterers, and wildflower murderers.

So, what are you waiting for? Sign up for Jolly Jimmy's Nuclear Winter Wonderland Dream Package today and enjoy that warm glow and room to grow that you've been craving!

Celebrity voice impersonated. Not available in stores. Some restrictions apply. Use only as directed. Terrorists not included. Funerals and cancer treatments optional and become the responsibility of randomly chosen victims. See web site for details. Investors should read prospectus carefully. Odds of winning determined by number of surviving participants. Quantities limited . . . by design.

by Rune at 6:01 PM on 23 May 2007

Kosher solution to nuclear waste?

Check this out. Apparently an Israeli company has figured out a way to turn nuclear waste into harmless glass by annihilating it with plasma. At about 1/10th the cost of burying it and instant neutralization of radiation, it sounds too good to be true.

Cheers, Gary Gifford

by Gary Gifford at 6:08 PM on 23 May 2007

It's not true.

Unless they mean the radiation is instantly neutralized by putting ~5,000 kg/m^2 of glass in its way; that works. Or that much water; in water's case, 5,000 kg/m^2 translates easily into 5 m thickness.

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes

by GRLCowan at 9:35 PM on 23 May 2007

No it's not

Apparently an Israeli company has figured out a way to turn nuclear waste into harmless glass by annihilating it with plasma.

And if you read further you would see that it's low level radiation medical waste.

Stop perpetuating the myth.

Reprocessing does nothing meaningful to reduce high level waste.

Yucca Mountain fills up by temperature.
Not volume.

And low level waste is basically meaningless when it comes to temperature.

by GreyFlcn at 10:13 PM on 23 May 2007
[ Parent ]

nukes and haibun

It should be fairly clear, from this posting and thread and from other stuff up in Gristmill, that the conversation on nuclear energy is not yet going very smoothly. So much prejudice, so much mistrust, so much curious physics is flying about, that I wonder why anybody bothers to read anybody else on the subject.

And Gary Snyder is no better, really. It is quite unclear what the value is of his comments, on Lovelock and nukes, at that arch-Californian event.

However, Snyder is to be congratulated for experimenting in haibun, which is indeed a fascinating genre, perhaps best known from the travel journals of Basho. But Japanese culture is just about the most willfully obscurantist and auto-ethno-centric culture in the world ("You cannot hope to understand our art, if you are not one of us!"), so there is no way really for us non-Japanese to know if a haiku is better all by itself, or when packed in a prose context, itself not always very coherent, and full of allusions and connotations that no one who is not Japanese could ever appreciate.

In the West, the mixture of prose and poetry has been tried numerous times, though it has never become a genre in itself. A great classic example is Dante's "La Vita Nuova," about his love for a girl, and his interpretation of that love. Lots of Western writers have done lots of kinds of mixing; but there are not as well books of rules, and traditions, regarding how it should be done, and what it means. Thank God!

And God bless Gary Snyder, for paying attention to that truly great humanitarian crime, or, if you will, sin, the destruction by the Taliban of the monumental monolithic cliff-side-niche figures of the Buddha, at Bamiyan, in north-central Afghanistan.

It is the Taliban, and their fellow-travelers, who have induced many of us to believe that Islam is not truly considered a world religion, rather it is a world spite. Those statues were standing there for very many centuries: Suddenly, were Muslims in danger of being converted to Buddhism?; Suddenly, were Muslims in danger of being seduced by figurative art?; Suddenly, were Muslims in danger of becoming fascinated by pre-Islamic civilizations? No, not at all. So then what? Was it not that the Taliban knew that the destruction of those monuments would offend us Westerners, and they knew that they had a hope of bringing all the Muslim world to support them by alleging these vague and questionable Muslim causes?

I have not read yet what Gary Snyder wrote, relating the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas to the destruction of the Twin Towers here in my hometown on 9/11. But the connexion is very clear to me.

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

by caniscandida at 12:12 AM on 24 May 2007

Why anybody bothers to read

I can't claim ever to have changed my mind on the matter, but there are those who have.

In that other, very long thread I thought it would not go unnoticed -- by lurkers -- that the question I asked three times was evaded. ("Just off the top of your head, estimate how much oil ..." The USA used to burn a lot of oil for electricity production.)

--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes

by GRLCowan at 2:20 PM on 24 May 2007
[ Parent ]

a different kind of nuke

It has been a while since I read it, but I can recommend John McPhee's book "The Curve of Binding Energy" where he discusses questions about nuclear energy with Theodore B. Taylor, a nuclear scientist who is not at all pleased with how nuke energy has been handled by the government.
As I remember, he suggests we go to smaller, local plants (for which there are numerous safe designs) to limit the cost of transporting this energy across vast expanses of expensive power lines. And he does address waste storage issues.
Nuclear energy does not have to be a monolithic embodiment of evil; that's already taken by Bush.

by sandwalk at 10:03 AM on 25 May 2007

thanks...

...for the recommendation. That books sounds like a must-read for me.

by Kit Stolz at 11:26 AM on 25 May 2007

on Snyder

wfairbrother@virtualitch.com

And I think Gary Snyder's point should be taken as it is: he's a poet - what exactly is a poet?... Poetry, according to Giambattista Vico, is the rudiments of human intelligence - I might go so large as to say that without poetry, no evolution in human thought... and I know, I know - we've got our Billy Collins and Koosiers and so forth - and they certainly aren't progressing human thought - but one could argue that Snyder did -

And you're all welcome to pick up a pen tonight, and start writing poetry... but I do believe in the sanctity of the poet... even when turned on a thimble like Pound -

Without poets no nation would exist...

Since Snyder has never shown any evil intent, as far as I've been witness to, he's worth a listen - maybe his notion is fucked-up, innocent, or somehow wrong-headed - but it's worth being listened to because of what he is - a great poet...

And it all comes at us by way of Language... so why not the magicians who've mastered language?

by wfairbroither at 2:39 PM on 26 May 2007

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