Here's Hansen writing about IPCC censorship of climate change warming and forcing last year. And, since the UN is a government, even though it has no First Amendment, that is censorship in the narrow, proper sense.
In parts of the piece, about halfway down, comes the more problematic part.
First, I had this in my "restacking" comments.
Comments are interesting. I’m not deadset against nuclear power, but I’m more skepticaal than many of the commenters, including Hansen. I’m skeptical of nuclear power being as green as claimed (though it’s certainly better than gas, let alone coal). Also, having grown up in Gallup, New Mexico, and being old enough to remember the collapse of the tailings pond dam at the Church Rock mine, I still look carefully at safety issues on uranium mining and processing as well as nuclear plants. I don’t know if most commenters here do that or not.
As for more modern reactors? Especially the touted thorium ones? If state-capitalist China actually out commercial reactors, or even conclusively demonstrates that its just-launched experimental reactor can scale up, we can talk.
We'll go from there.
Hansen's first comment, the halfway down, starting with a 1990s starting point on this by him:
Almost unlimited subsidy of renewable energies was adopted in many U.S. states and some other nations via “Renewable Portfolio Standards,” requiring utilities to obtain a growing fraction of their energy from renewable energies. This approach, as contrasted with “Clean Energy Portfolio Standards,” spurred the development of natural gas as the complement to intermittent renewable energy, and, as a consequence, expansion of fracking, pipelines, and methane leakage. Nuclear power, given the costs of the fuel and materials to build a power plant, has potential to be the least expensive among the firm, dispatchable, energy sources, but attainment of its potential, as with other sources, requires extensive R&D and experience. Thus, it is ironic that the COP now suddenly asks for nuclear energy output to be tripled
Well, to be cynical more than skeptical, but, at bottom line, "on the one hand, I have shit, on the other, I have potential."
Second, per later comments, yes, some of the Gang Green enviros may have been partially "captured" by the natural gas portion of fossil fuels. Sierra certainly was. But, I don't really listen to anybody to the "right" of Center for Biological Diversity, while noting I don't know its stance on nukes.
Third, "intermittent renewable energy"? Maybe not in the 1990s, but there IS today this thing called "battery storage." Also, Hansen should know that in places like Denmark and Norway, the entire country has, for brief periods of time in the last couple of years, "metered backward" because 100 percent of electricity was coming from renewables and overflowing.
Now, let's jump earlier in that same paragraph:
[F]ailure to support development of nuclear power as a carbon-free source of energy was widespread.
Uhh, totally not true, as far as lifecycle emissions, James.
This ignores, per this piece of mine, with the aid of Counterpunch, carbon costs of uranium mining, uranium refining, long-term waste storage, and the high carbon costs of concrete containment domes.
Here's your graphic detail:
Per Counterpunch, those estimates come from a professor at Stanford, not exactly a bastion of leftism as a university. Mark Jacobson's whole piece is here, with link to PowerPoint slides that are basis of a book by him being here. Now, per Hansen's rightful bashing of the IPCC on other grounds, the fact that Jacobson references IPCC estimates, even though the numbers are from his own work, may be used to take him down.
I wouldn't do that unless one's on very solid ground. Beyond that, per notes 18 and 19 on his Wiki page, he has responded to critics.
But, let's say Jacobson is off by a factor of three. Nuclear is still no better than wave or tidal, then. (In case you're wondering, not just because of the massive concrete for a dam, but because of backed-up decaying plant life in the lake behind a dam and other things, yes, hydro is not all that green.)
Beyond that, per Counterpunch, with the global warming portion of climate change, in many places, summertime cooling water for nuclear plants will become less and less available, not just because of potential lack of water, but warming of shallow water in already-warm locations.
Anyway, now, back to Hansen.
His piece doesn't at all discuss safety issues.
I am NOT primarily talking "Iranian terrarists stealing uranium from a nuclear plant," let alone plutonium from a breeder reactor.
Rather, I am in part talking long-term waste storage, since we have no Yucca Mountain, and unlike France, have not bribed some rural ghetto part of Merikkka to take the waste, and unlike China or Russia, are not authoritarian countries who can force decisions on where nuclear waste is buried.
Second, there's mine safety issues.
As I note in that piece, I grew up where the "other" 1979 nuclear safety incident happened.
Gallup, New Mexico, just east of Church Rock, where the dam for a tailings pond broke and dumped radioactive water in the Puerco River, and nobody told rural Navajos, or the city of Gallup, right away.
I also know from that area about the exploitative treatment, especially in early years, of Navajo and Pueblo miners. And, while not a conspiracy theorist in general, per Karen Silkwood, Kerr-McGee was ultimate owner of that Church Rock mine.
Today, in places like Congo, uranium miners are exploited as bad or worse.
And, on the environmental side, things aren't better today. Modern injection-extraction uranium mining? It's as nasty, or potentially so, as fracking on steroids. It's also highly water-intensive.
Finally, on uranium, given how low-grade much of current commercially mined ore already is, on the economic side, there's the issue of scalability.
Thorium-fuel reactors? Yes, per one commenter, the US once had an experimental thorium reactor. Or two; a late 1960s one at Oak Ridge, then a bigger 1970s one at Shippingport. There's others that have been built occasionally in other countries. China just started one. If it's all it's cracked up to be, why aren't there more? Well, per Wiki's piece, thorium reactors have disadvantages as well as advantages. It says China plans to have commercial thorium reactors by 2030. We'll see. It's a country with a state capitalism economy and authoritarian government, and with limited oil and natural gas reserves. If thorium was the bee's knees, don't you think China would be further down this road? On the other hand, China gets only 5 percent of its electric power from nukes today, versus nearly 20 percent in the US.
To put it bluntly? The Shippingport experimental thorium reactor was 50 years ago. If thorium is so damned good, why hasn't some country in the world started a commercial thorium reactor by now? And, no, here in the US it wasn't entirely killed off by chasing uranium breeder reactors,
And, while we're here, contra this Reuters piece, no, nuclear fusion is not just around the corner.
And while we're really really here?
Ahh, this guy Brent James, apparently trying to play gotcha with this comment, as part of a semi-conspiratorial take on the rise of renewables.
The correct answer is the one I’ve given — both wind and solar themselves have become more efficient, as has battery storage. HOW MUCH more efficient, I don’t know. More efficient? Yes. And, with costs continuing to drop.
I don’t need to be a registered and licensed utility electric engineer to know that. And, if renewables don’t integrate into the grid perfectly, even if not as badly as he insinuates? The fault, dear Brutus, may be in part with the grid, not renewables being tied into it.
As for the oilfield loving renewables? Even in Texas, there's a push to decarbonize, plus, as the western and more remote part of the Permian becomes ground zero for new fracking, it's a helluva lot easier to drop a few solar panels in the field rather than trying to tie into the existing grid.
As for another comment of his? I did give him an AI summary off Duck Duck Go's search.
"Renewable electricity storage batteries are improving significantly, with battery storage costs declining by 93% from 2010 to 2024, driven by technological advancements and increased manufacturing. Additionally, the adoption of lithium-ion batteries, particularly lithium iron phosphate (LFP) chemistries, has surged, enhancing efficiency and lifespan, making them more effective for energy storage applications."
He never responded. And, after I edited and updated my first response to him to note that? He blocked me.
Finally, let me get back to the semi-conspiratorial ideas about Gang Green environmental groups, fossil fuels, renewables and nuclear power, that certainly seem to be held in some degree by Hansen himself, not just this Brent James.
As noted above, I'm well aware of Sierra, and to some degree, other Gang Greens pushing the narrative of natural gas as "clean." I'm also aware that money was behind that, and primarily to be anti-coal. See this piece from Time.
Gang Greens bit on that before renewables really started surging. Gas was better than coal, and nuclear power was back-shelved anyway. Post-2003, and "mushroom clouds" in Iraq, and the disintegration of the old USSR, nuclear proliferation worried had proliferated. Not building nuke plants was one way of lessening that.
Otherwise, even years after 2003, the natural gas segment of the fossil fuels world was just pushing gas, period, as far as I see it. It wasn't pushing renewables behind that, nor was it pushing against nuclear behind that. If anything, it might already then thought it had more to fear from renewables.
As for Hansen's belief? And James' even more? Per this site, yeah, we seem in the land of the conspiracy theory. And, contra it, Jacobson did NOT "lose" his lawsuit. See his Wiki page.
Otherwise, that site (top hit on Duck Duck Go when I asked if natural gas companies were trying to kill nukes through Sierra et al) has no links to its "originating members." Web searches of half a dozen at random left me less than impressed.
One of them, somewhat more impressive on background, Ripudaman Malhotra, thinks that fusion, if not just around the corner, is closer than it's been before. I don't believe it's that much closer, and with Commonwealth CFS, note its CEO's ties to Trump. Follow the money.
Another piece by that guy ignores non-chemical "battery" storage of surplus renewable electricity, such as water systems. In another piece, on nuclear waste, he doesn't scale up the amount of waste that will be produced with a massive nuclear power expansion. Also, contra his implication otherwise, France still has nuclear waste even after reprocessing. (Sigh) See Wiki, which also breaks down waste by radioactivity level and lifespan, and rather than using cute descriptors like:
The total volume of all the spent fuel is 22,000 cubic meters, which would fill one football field (100 yards by 55 yds) to a depth of 13 feet!
Gets straight to cubic meters.
And, in reality, France alone has almost 4,000 cubic meters of high-radioactivity, long-life waste, which could eventually hit 25,000 cubic meters.
That said, this guy does NOT tout thorium.
One more issue. Union of Concerned Scientists, touted by many of the pro-nuke groups and individuals, per this piece, DOES worry about nuclear waste. It also notes many of today's currently operating nuke plants are marginally profitable to unprofitable. So, a massive nuclear expansion would do what to electric bills? This has LONG been a problem in the industry, and largely ignored by nuke pushers.
And, that said, speaking of UCS, I suggest Hansen, and people uncritically agreeing with him, I suggest they read Andrew Cockburn, and via him, Edwin Lyman of UCS. Lyman talks about continual weakening (not just by Trump) of US reactor safety standards and more. That includes the abandonment of requirements for concrete containment domes. That and other relaxed standards SHOULD BE scary as hell.
Finally, I don't know about UCS, but none of the other people, including Malhotra, talk about mine worker safety, only power plant and waste safety.
Finally, and yes, while not operating 24/7, wind is as efficient as nukes in producing electricity.
And, I've wasted enough time.
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