Lessons from a failed energy revolution : Renew Economy
By Ugo Bardi on 2 July 2014
(Image from global warming art). In this post, I argue that nuclear energy ceased to be a viable option in the world’s energy mix as the result of the disappearance of the subsidies it received in the form of plutonium purchases by the military. This event was accompanied by a demonization campaign that forever destroyed the reputation of nuclear energy as an environmentally benign technology. In this story, there are several points of contact with the present situation with renewables, targeted by a demonization campaign destined to prolong the agony of fossil fuels.
So far, no energy transition has been planned or managed in advance. Moving, for instance, from wood to coal or from coal to oil was the result of price mechanisms which made the transition convenient for everybody. There never was any need for governments to subsidize diesel locomotives to replace steam ones.
Today, we are going through a new energy transition, one that will take us from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The problem is that price mechanisms, alone, may not be sufficient to drive the transition fast enough. Hence, many governments have enacted rules and created incentives designed to favor renewable energy. These measures have been successful in promoting the growth or renewables, but, right now, the incentives are under attack everywhere in a situation of increasing competition for ever diminishing resources. So, the transition is at risk.
As it is often the case, the past can be a guide for the future and we can learn something by looking at a past case of a failed energy revolution: nuclear energy. This story is worth retelling today because of the many points which are starting to appear surprisingly similar to the present situation with renewables.
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The nuclear industry started, literally, with a bang; with the first nuclear bomb of Alamogordo in 1945. But nuclear reactors are older than that. The Alamogordo warhead used plutonium produced by the first nuclear reactor in history, the “Chicago Pile” which had started operating in 1942. It had been built exclusively to produce plutonium for military purposes, just as the other reactors of the same period. These early reactors generated a lot of waste heat and it was soon clear that this heat could be used to produce electric power. That was the origin of the concept of “atoms for peace“, popular in the 1950s.
In the mid 1950s, the first commercial reactors for the production of electric power appeared and, subsequently, nuclear energy production grew rapidly, to the point that it seemed possible to create an energy system based entirely on nuclear sources, at least for the production of electricity. It was a moment of great optimism and the age of electricity “too cheap to meter” really seemed to be around the corner.
Today, we are going through a new energy transition, one that will take us from fossil fuels to renewable energy. The problem is that price mechanisms, alone, may not be sufficient to drive the transition fast enough. Hence, many governments have enacted rules and created incentives designed to favor renewable energy. These measures have been successful in promoting the growth or renewables, but, right now, the incentives are under attack everywhere in a situation of increasing competition for ever diminishing resources. So, the transition is at risk.
As it is often the case, the past can be a guide for the future and we can learn something by looking at a past case of a failed energy revolution: nuclear energy. This story is worth retelling today because of the many points which are starting to appear surprisingly similar to the present situation with renewables.
_____________________________
The nuclear industry started, literally, with a bang; with the first nuclear bomb of Alamogordo in 1945. But nuclear reactors are older than that. The Alamogordo warhead used plutonium produced by the first nuclear reactor in history, the “Chicago Pile” which had started operating in 1942. It had been built exclusively to produce plutonium for military purposes, just as the other reactors of the same period. These early reactors generated a lot of waste heat and it was soon clear that this heat could be used to produce electric power. That was the origin of the concept of “atoms for peace“, popular in the 1950s.
In the mid 1950s, the first commercial reactors for the production of electric power appeared and, subsequently, nuclear energy production grew rapidly, to the point that it seemed possible to create an energy system based entirely on nuclear sources, at least for the production of electricity. It was a moment of great optimism and the age of electricity “too cheap to meter” really seemed to be around the corner.
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