Bad News:

“Global emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning jumped by the largest amount on record last year, upending the notion that the brief decline during the recession might persist through the recovery….Emissions rose 5.9 percent in 2010, according to an analysis released Sunday by the Global Carbon Project, an international collaboration of scientists tracking the numbers. Scientists with the group said the increase, a half-billion extra tons of carbon pumped into the air, was almost certainly the largest absolute jump in any year since the Industrial Revolution, and the largest percentage increase since 2003.”

There was some hope before that one of the few positive side effects of the global recession would be a trend of less of these pollutants. But our continuing fossil-fuel-based energy choices – coal, natural gas, etc – pumped a half-billion extra tons of carbon into our skies in 2010. This is not the path for sustainable development or clean energy implementation—achieving those goals requires a substantial increase in clean, reliable, low-carbon nuclear energy.

Laura Clise, Director, Sustainable Development and Continuous Improvement, AREVA

I recently attended and presented at the first annual Electric Utility Industry Sustainable Supply Chain Alliance (Alliance) Sustainability Forum. The forum brought together Alliance member utilities and their suppliers to promote and further sustainability throughout the electric utility value chain. Sustainable business activities balance economic value with environmental and social responsibility. These initiatives have become increasingly important strategic drivers for companies across all industries, supporting innovation, business development, environmental stewardship, and cross-sector and diverse stakeholder collaboration. Over the past few years, supply chain sustainability has increased in importance, as shown by the Walmart Sustainability Index, the Electronics Industry Citizenship Coalition, and the Automotive Industry Action Group.
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There’s a new name championing the cause for climate change solutions, aptly named: The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions. At first glance, such a promissory name could easily be dismissed as audacious brand marketing, but the “C2ES” (as they call themselves) is the fresh face and successor of the highly respected Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

As a new member of the C2ES Business Environmental Leadership council, AREVA continues its partnership with C2ES in its mission to address climate change and deliver innovative clean energy solutions. As C2ES states on its website,

“Now more than ever, we need committed voices with the expertise to cut through complexity and craft innovative solutions; the independence to separate fact from fiction; and the credibility to work with all sides to build common ground.”

We wholeheartedly agree, and welcome The Center for Climate and Energy Solutions’ ongoing, experienced advocacy and leadership.

During the World Energy Council, Jacques Besnainou, CEO of AREVA North America, spoke with Llewellyn King about Safety Lessons from Fukushima, Used Fuel Recycling in the U.S., AREVA’s activities in North America, and the Energy Future. His comments are posted to “The White House Chronicle” blog, along with Barry Worthington of the United States Energy Association, Karl Rose of the World Energy Council, and Joan Macnaughton from Alstom.

The full video is below; Mr. Besnainou’s comments run from 18:59 – 26:32.

New global research from Pricewaterhouse Coopers on greenhouse gas emissions reveals an alarming increase of these pollutants. In his BBC editorial regarding this study, Richard Black details that “as the world in general started to emerge from its economic woes, the carbon numbers rose faster than the financial ones. Economic activity expanded by 5.1%. CO2 output by 5.8%.”

Black says the percentage increases are “a logical extension of the twin-track approach that governments in general have had; we want to curb emissions, but we also want to grow.”

These significant jumps clearly describe the real-world environmental impact of fossil fuel sources ramping up to meet increasing demand, while thousands of megawatts of clean energy nuclear power is hobbled by misdirected, ill-informed activism. We’re running back to the future of increasing greenhouse gases by the de facto replacement of nuclear with fossil fuels.

The challenge is in his question: “What has to be done now to ensure emissions fall fast enough that the target of constraining the rise in global average temperatures below 2C from pre-industrial times can be met?” The daunting answer is a global 4.8% per year drop in carbon intensity between now and 2050. Black notes, ”That’s a rate that has hardly ever been achieved, except in the context of the collapse of communism or a major war.”

So what to do?

Black includes another successful example in the first of his three concluding recommendations: “Rapid and widespread adoption of nuclear power (France decarbonised at 4.2% per year during the 1980s through this approach)”

We’ve succeeded before; we can achieve this decrease again. Along with rapid implementation of renewables and energy efficiency, nuclear energy is part of the solution to a robust, low-carbon energy future.

The PwC analysis is here.

As we have noted before, we think there are important lessons to be learned from Germany’s efforts to phase out nuclear power. In the end, less nuclear seems to irrevocably lead to simply this: burning more fossil fuel, generating more carbon emissions and less energy independence.

The latest writer to notice this posted an article at The New Republic, “How Germany Phased Out Nuclear Power, Only to be Mugged By Reality.”

“Yet in bowing to the country’s strong anti-nuclear movement, Germany appears to have suddenly gone off track: Within the last year the country has gone from a net exporter of energy to a net importer, and the carbon intensity of the energy it purchases has risen as well. Now, with its energy politics in turmoil, Germany is serving as a very different sort of model for environmentalists: how not to go green.”

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The world hit a milestone as expected this week, with global celebrations highlighting the birth of the symbolic 7 Billionth baby born….

Countries around the world marked the world’s population reaching 7 billion Monday with lavish ceremonies for newborn infants symbolizing the milestone and warnings that there may be too many humans for the planet’s resources….While demographers are unsure exactly when the world’s population will reach the 7 billion mark, the U.N. is using Monday to symbolically mark the day. A string of festivities are being held worldwide, with a series of symbolic 7-billionth babies being born.

Dr. Eric Tayag of the Philippines’ Department of Health said later that the birth came with a warning. “Seven billion is a number we should think about deeply,” he said.

We agree. Seven billion people — not to mention the projected growth rates from here — is a sobering statistic. As many commentators are pointing out, this accelerating population brings up important and pressing global health, housing, education, food and environmental questions.

But we also know undergirding and influencing all of these issues are the immediate questions of energy and sustainability.

Our global future requires a considered and balanced approach combining expanded renewable and nuclear energy solutions to provide and maintain steady, reliable, low-carbon power. This need is clear. How we accomplish it requires creative cooperation still hobbled by polarizing activism.

We must focus on these larger and harder questions together. We now have seven billion reasons to do so, and counting.

We love the web debate going on at the Bloomberg Businessweek’s “The Debate Room” between Scott Peterson at NEI and Jim Riccio of Green Peace USA on nuclear power. Definitely go and add your voice into the mix in the comments….

The California Council on Science and Technology recently studied the capacity of nuclear energy as a solution for California’s needs for electricity by the year 2050.

Here is the full report, but we wanted to highlight some snippets. It highlights the challenge faced by California for it’s 2050 energy needs:

The main focus of the organization’s analysis is on the CCST Realistic Model, which assumes that total electricity demand in California in the year 2050 amounts to 510 terawatt-hours per year…

We specifically like that they see — as we deeply believe — that nuclear power is the ideal compliment to (rather than competitor) to renewable energy solutions.

“Nuclear power is a strong contender for zero-emissions energy because it can provide constant, or ‘baseload,’ power that can complement renewable energy sources such as solar and wind. While clean, many renewable energy sources produce power intermittently: if there’s no sunlight and no wind, there’s no power. However, a constant base output of nuclear power could make it much easier to deal with the highly variable power levels from renewables,” points out chairman Burton Richter. California’s law requires at least 33% of electricity generation be provided with renewable energy.

It’s a detailed and serious paper. It points out many of the challenges (many of them political) as well as the opportunities.

The paper points out that “expansion of nuclear power in California requires growth in public acceptance, which has been eroded by the Fukushima incidents. The question is will relatively low energy costs, nearly zero greenhouse gas emissions, and the need for energy reliability change this position over time?”

Read the entire paper here, and would love to hear in the comments any thoughts you have….

The American Economic Review just published an economic study, titled “Environmental Accounting for Pollution in the United States Economy,” which seeks to quantify the true total cost of various U.S. energy sources.

The authors track the major air pollutants from various U.S. sources, and estimate the actual cost for each to American society.

A key finding is their statement that “solid waste combustion, sewage treatment, stone quarrying, marinas, and oil and coal-fired power plants have air pollution damages larger than their value …”

And specifically,

“The largest industrial contributor to external costs is coal-fired electric generation, whose damages range from 0.8 to 5.6 times value added …”

Read more on this study comparing the true total costs of fossil fuels here, and here.