Some bullet points on "clean" energy

A look at some pesky numbers from Michael Shellenberger at Environmental Progress - these bullet-points are distilled from the graphs at the site:

• • USA has shut down nuclear plants prematurely because of lower natural gas costs - this has increased emissions of CO2 and air pollution
  • Overall energy costs have increased in the USA which correlate with lower nuclear energy mix
  • Germany has 6 times more carbon intensive energy than France
  • Germany shutdown nuclear energy and now is even more reliant on coal and fossil fuel
  • France uses 80% nuclear power for electricity
  • France has half the cost of electricity compared to Germany
  • The global decline in nuclear power (-7.5% of energy mix) has not been replaced by solar and wind (4.5%)
  • The global decline in nuclear (most of Japan nuclear shutdown, Germany shutdown, some early shutdowns in USA and Europe) has not been made up by the build in China and Asia and appears like future Europe and USA shutdowns (150 GW) will made up by new nuclear in China and India and Asia through 2030.

The only real option is nuclear and with technologies like LFTR, the waste only needs to be sequestered for around 300 years. The added plus is that the LFTR reactors can also burn conventional nuclear waste as fuel so the long term (30,000 year) storage problem is eliminated. The LFTR design is walk-away safe - accidents like Fukushima can not happen. They also operate at atmospheric pressure - there is no need for an expansive containment vessel and the associated equipment. Uranium (conventional reactors) is about as common (and expensive as Platinum. Thorium is one of the most common rare earths in the crust. Cheap as dirt.