Energy in Transition, 1985-2010 Final Report of the Committee on Nuclear and Alternative Energy Systems (1980) / Chapter Skim
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Appendix A: Individual Statements by CONAES Members
Appendix A: Individual Statements by CONAES Members
Pages 613-642
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From page 613... ...
APPENDIX A Individual Statements by CONAES Members GENERAL COMMENTS KENNETH E BOULDING I am glad to accept the report as the product of 4 years of very hard work on an extremely intractable problem, in regard to which there are unusually wide but legitimate divergences of opinion.
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From page 614... ...
Two factors suggest that the GNP of the United States may have a much slower rate of growth in the future than it has had in the past few decades. One is that as technological development proceeds, those industries that are subject to productivity increase usually decline in relative importance as the economy moves into industries and occupations where the increase in productivity is very difficult, like education, the arts, medicine, and government.
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From page 615... ...
Professor Holdren's claim that the report underestimates the long-run hazards of nuclear power seems to me to have some weight and broadens still further the spectrum of uncertainty. It is also true, however, as Professor Cannon has suggested, that the report does not deal with the social and human costs of severe energy shortages, which could be very large.
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From page 616... ...
An extremely simple model would have come to much the same basic conclusion that the elaborate model came to, and it would be much more comprehensible to the ordinary reader. The conclusion, for instance, that a substantial rise in the real cost of energy could take place with only a relatively small impact on the GNP will surprise many readers, and it will not be clear to them how this emerges out of the elaborate model, simply because the elaborate model cannot be understood, even by the quite sophisticated reader, who has not actually participated in its construction.
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From page 617... ...
To face a winding down of the extraordinary explosion of economic development that followed the rise of science and the discovery of fossil fuels would require extraordinary courage and sense of community on the part of the human race, which we could develop perhaps only under conditions of high perception of extreme challenge. I hope this may never have to take place, but it seems to me we cannot rule it out of our scenarios altogether.
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From page 618... ...
In this context, nuclear power offers, at present, an excellent combination of economy, environmental blandness, and low health effects. It therefore deserves support for its properly regulated expansion.
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From page 619... ...
This judgment is that the obstacles to significant penetration of the energy mix by renewable energy sources in this period are more fundamental and less tractable than the obstacles in the way of expanded use of coal and nuclear fission. The obstacles for the renewables are technical and economic extensive penetration between 1990 and 2010 would require some technical breakthroughs yielding large cost reductions early in the period, or willingness to spend significantly more for renewable energy supplies than we have been spending for conventional ones.
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From page 620... ...
I-13 IOHN P HOLDREN It is misleading not to note that pure price increases were consciously used in the work of the Modeling Resource Group as a surrogate for the nearly infinite variety of combinations of increased prices and conservationinducing policies that might be used in real life in place of price alone.
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From page 621... ...
1-21 HARVEY BROOKS There is some indication that the potential for unconventional gas sources, such as Devonian shales, coal seams, and geopressured brines, may have been underestimated, especially in relation to prospects for ultimate decontrol of gas prices and proposed tax benefits for unconventional gas sources. Some recent estimates (such as those of the Electnc Power Research institute)
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From page 622... ...
No manufacturer could afford the high development costs to bring an interim nuclear reactor system to licensable status. If reprocessing is permitted, any advanced converter would have to compete with the fast breeder reactor.
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From page 623... ...
If the linear hypothesis about radiation damage is correct, the million-year burden of extra cancer deaths produced by these tailings, although undetectable against the background of cancers from other causes, could amount to a total that almost certainly would be deemed unacceptable if it had to be borne by the present-generation users of the electncity. This situation poses an ethical dilemma that is not made less troublesome by the possibility that other energy sources also produce health costs that are spread over millennia (e.g., toxic effects of trace metals mobilized by burning coal)
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From page 624... ...
1-46 BERNARD E SPINRAD This argument rests, in my opinion, on double counting of social costs. The massive controls and restrictions on nuclear power have forced internalization of not merely its own intrinsic social costs, but also the social costs that have been artificially loaded onto it by politicized opposition.
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From page 625... ...
Risks of crime . Risks of "normal" accidents All of these risks are major, and the rather low risks of properly controlled use of coal and the very low risks of properly controlled use of nuclear energy pale by comparison.
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From page 626... ...
1-53 JOHN P HOLDREN It is not enough to note that the use of more reasonable uncertainty bounds alone would make the expected number of fatalities from nuclear accidents larger by a factor of 10 or more than the median value stated in WASH-1400.
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From page 627... ...
1-59 JOHN P HOLDREN The situation is even more ambiguous than the text suggests because it is not actually possible to do what is implied by the words, "if one takes all health effects into account." Specifically, the statement that coal's health effects "appear to be a good deal greater" than nuclear's requires either that one ignore the million-year accumulation of excess cancer deaths plausibly attributable to uranium-mill tailings if the linear hypothesis is accepted (an excess that could amount to 30 400 deaths per GWe-year of electricity, according to the Academy's own recent report, Risks Associated with Nuclear Power: A Critical Review of the Literature, Committee on Science and Public Policy, Committee on Literature Survey of Risks Associated with Nuclear Power (Washington, D.C.: National Academy of Sciences, April 1979)
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From page 628... ...
; (3) refusal to take seriously the upper end of the range of responsible opinion on conceivable nuclear accident risk, while taking completely seriously the upper-limit estimates of excess deaths from air pollution.
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From page 629... ...
Over the last 100 years, population growth has been roughly equal in importance to increasing energy use per head in producing the growth of total U.S. energy demand.
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From page 630... ...
In my view it is the necessity of anticipating future prices that provides an important justification for mandatory standards. An equally important consideration is the effect of reduction in aggregate energy demand on world energy prices, which is also not taken into account in the calculations of the individual consumer.
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From page 631... ...
The most economical cogeneration installations, and hence those with the fastest potential market penetration, would probably be those using natural gas. From an import savings standpoint they would be most desirable in cases where they displace centrally generated electricity produced with residual oil or distillates.
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From page 632... ...
They will very probably require taxation on various forms of energy which will raise consumer prices substantially above the market prices, even taking into account the effect of OPEC actions. The political resistance to much more modest price increases that has frustrated the implementation of a national energy policy since 1974 is indicative of the practical difficulty of carrying out the policies necessary to achieve large reductions in the energy/GNP ratio.
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From page 633... ...
energy problem. CHAPTER 3 3- I HARVEY BROOKS There is some indication that the potential for unconventional gas sources, such as Devonian shales, coal seams, and geopressured brines, may have been underestimated, especially in relation to prospects for ultimate decontrol of gas prices and proposed tax benefits for unconventional gas sources.
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From page 634... ...
5-11 LUDWIG F LISCHER There is no mention in this paragraph or elsewhere in the summary recommendations of the Clinch River breeder reactor.
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From page 635... ...
No manufacturer could afford the high development costs to bring an interim nuclear reactor system to licensable status. If reprocessing is permitted, any advanced converter would have to compete with the fast breeder reactor.
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From page 636... ...
It has flexibility for accommodating a variety of nuclear fuel cycles and core designs that might come from the international Nuclear Fuel Cycle Evaluation (INFCE)
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From page 637... ...
. Had WASH-1400's central estimate for this dose-response relation corresponded to the central estimates of the BEIR or National Council on Radiation Protection studies, the actuarial risk from reactor accidents would have been 3-5 times higher from this change alone.
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From page 638... ...
CHAPTER 7 7-2 HARVEY BROOKS This statement seems unduly optimistic for fusion; with respect to solar energy probably only photochemical methods of solar fuel production and satellite solar power are less advanced than fusion. 7-3 HARVEY BROOKS It seems very unlikely to me that fusion reactors could be economically superior to solar photovoltaics as electricity generators by the date of 2020 at which fusion might first reach large-scale use.
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From page 639... ...
Worst-case calculations for large dams indicate that they can cause fatalities comparable to those resulting from "worst-case" nuclear accidents, and the number of immediate fatalities is probably greater in the case of dams. Furthermore, the possibility of learning from small accidents to increase safety is much less for dams than for nuclear reactors.
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From page 640... ...
9-21 JOHN P HOLDREN The situation is even more ambiguous than the text suggests because it is not actually possible to do what is implied by the words, "if one takes all health effects into account." Specifically, the statement that coal's health effects "appear to be a good deal greater" than nuclear's requires either that one ignore the million-year accumulation of excess cancer deaths plausibly attributable to uranium-mill tailings if the linear hypothesis is accepted (an excess that could amount to 30 400 deaths per GWe-year of electricity, according to the Academy's own recent report, Risks Associated with Nuclear Power A Critical Review of the Literature, Committee on
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From page 641... ...
Suppose this troublesome issue, which is completely unresolvable at present, is neglected. Suppose one also neglects genetic illness from nontailings routine emissions, for which there is an uncertainty range spanning at least a factor of 20 on the nuclear side (extending on the high end to consequences about equal to those of the excess cancers)
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From page 642... ...
The chapter holds out hope that oil production will be maintained approximately constant through 2010 in the United States and through 2050 worldwide. It relies primarily on USGS circular 725 for ultimate U.S.
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