gktoday current affairs pdf

gktoday
current affairs pdf Published this article : On the front page of the World Nuclear
Association website prominently rests a quote from what some consider the
worlds leading environmentalist and among the worlds top scientists Dr. James
Lovelock There is no sensible alternative to nuclear power if we are to sustain
civilization. - James Lovelock preeminent world leader in the development of
environmental consciousness At age eighty-six Dr. Lovelock has just published
his fourth book The Revenge of Gaia (Penguin Books 2006). Gaia is Dr. Lovelocks
belief that earth is a living evolving organism not just a hunk of rock we all
live upon. Through his book Lovelock refers to Gaia when he is discussing our
third planet from the sun. His latest book is a MUST read for anyone who is
following the renaissance in nuclear energy. Environmentalists wont read this
book. Perhaps their bosses will BAN them from reading this book. Those environmentalists
who carefully read Lovelocks latest book may very well become nuclear power
lobbyists if they would bathe shave and spiff up a bit. Chapter Five Sources of
Energy will instantly disintegrate every ridiculous argument propounded by the
naïve and antediluvian anti-nuclear movements across the world. Dr. Lovelocks
credentials and achievements are light years beyond those of any environmental
mouthpiece espousing the green movement. More so than anyone alive Lovelock is
first and foremost a giant of the earths environmentalist movement. Since 1974
Lovelock has been a Fellow of the Royal Society. Since 1994 he has been an
Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green College University of Oxford. New Scientist
described him as one of the great thinkers of our time. The London Observer has
called him one of the environmental movements most influential figures. In 2003
he was made Companion of Honour by Her Majesty the Queen. Prospect magazine
named Dr. Lovelock in September 2005 one of the worlds top 100 global public
intellectuals. How does Dr. Lovelock respond to the question of nuclear waste?
He writes I have offered in public to accept all the high-level waste produced
in a year from a nuclear power station for deposit on my small plot of land it
would occupy a space about a cubic metre in size and fit safely in a concrete
pit and I would use the heat from its decaying radioactive elements to heat my
home. It would be a waste not to use it. More important it would be no danger
to me my family or the wildlife. That should enlighten the yokels arguing
against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository. Chapter Five Sources of
Energy concisely and cogently answers every silly theory about renewable energy
sources hyped by the green movement. Lets take Biomass which makes sense to any
concerned citizen. Lovelock even agrees with the theory of Biomass writing Used
sensibly and on a modest scale burning wood or agricultural waste for heat or
energy is no threat to Gaia. Please note that he modified his statement with
sensibly and modest. In a nutshell he explains why Biomass will not become a
leading energy source Bio fuels are especially dangerous because it is too easy
to grow them as a replacement for fossil fuel they will then demand an area of
land or ocean far larger than Gaia can afford… We have already taken more than
half of the productive land to grow food for ourselves. How can we expect Gaia
to manage the Earth if we try to take the rest of the land for fuel production?
He added poignantly Just imagine that we tried to power our present
civilization on crops grown specifically for fuel such as coppice woodland
fields of oilseed rape and so on. These are the bio fuels the much-applauded
renewable energy source…We would need the land area of several Earths just to
grow the bio fuel. Wind power gets shellacked as well. For those
environmentalists such as Amory Lovins who believe Wind Farms are going to
become a significant energy source they are full of hot air. According to the
Royal Society of Engineers 2004 report onshore European wind energy is two and
a half times and offshore wind energy over three times more expensive per
kilowatt hour than gas or nuclear energy. Denmark which pioneered wind farms is
regretting the decision. Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries said
In green terms windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense… Many of
us thought wind was the 100-percent solution for the future but we were wrong.
In fact taking all energy needs into account it is only a 3 percent solution.
Lovelock writes To supply the UKs present electricity needs would require
276000 wind generators about three per square mile if national parks urban
suburban and industrial areas are excluded… at best energy is available from
wind turbines only 25 percent of the time. German environmentalists who have
recently led the charge for Wind Power should reconsider. Lovelock writes The
most recent report from Germany put wind energy as available only 16 percent of
the time. Surely solar power must be the answer right? Wrong! Lovelock writes
Solar cells are not yet suitable for supplying electricity directly to homes or
workplaces mostly because despite over thirty years of development they are
quite expensive to make. At the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales
there is an experimental house with a roof made almost entirely of silicon
photocells. In summer it provides about three kilowatts of electricity but the
cost of installation was comparable with the house itself and the expected life
of the cells is about ten years. Sunlight like wind is intermittent and would
without efficient storage be an inconvenient energy source at these latitudes.
Solar and wind power were just two of the many energy sources Lovelock sends to
the dumpster. Wave and tidal energy hydro-electricity hydrogen fusion energy
coal and oil and natural gas all suffer similar consequences under Dr.
Lovelocks scientific microscope. Geothermal gets a partial endorsement but
Lovelock writes Unfortunately there are few places where it is freely
available. Iceland is one of them and it draws a large part of its energy needs
from this source. How many of you know that while natural gas could cut carbon
dioxide emissions by half if used ubiquitously some of the natural gas leaks
into the air before it burnt? According to the Society of Chemical Industrys
report (2004) this amounts to about 2 to 4 percent of the gas used. Methane the
main constituent of natural gas is 24 times more potent a greenhouse gas than
carbon dioxide. Fusion sounded great in theory but when I discussed it with Dr.
Fred Begay at the Los Alamos National Laboratories this past November he told
me it may take fifty years to develop if it ever could be developed as an
energy source. Lovelock explains in his book why Fusion Energy would be
wonderful but he brought up the one point which stymies nuclear physicists (and
which environmentalists wont even talk about) … the nuclear fusion of hydrogen
yields millions of times more energy than its mere combustion but to start the
powerful reaction requires some means of heating the hydrogen to 150 million
degrees. How exactly go you go about heating something on earth up to 150
million degrees when the core of the sun has a temperature of a little more
than 100 million degrees? Again great theory and work is being done in this
arena to bring about a solution sometime this century but this technology
remains in an incubation stage. The most shocking and disturbing discussion
through Lovelocks book was the problem with carbon dioxide emissions. The
burning question these days is WHAT to do with nuclear waste. Lovelock believes
we should start worrying about what to do about carbon dioxide emissions waste
The worlds annual production of carbon dioxide is 27000 million tons. If this
much were frozen into solid carbon dioxide at -80 degrees Centigrade it would
make a mountain one mile high and twelve miles in circumference. To sequester
this much each year could not be achieved quickly – probably not sooner than
twenty years from now. He added If only had developed and installed the
equipment for removing carbon dioxide from power stations and industry fifty
years ago we would now face surmountable problems. Another problem with carbon
dioxide should give you nightmares or reach for a gas mask. Carbon dioxide
according to Dr. Lovelock has a complicated removal with an effective residence
time of between fifty and a hundred years. About half of the carbon dioxide we
have so far added to the air remains there. That means the carbon dioxide we
add to our existing air pollution will still be breathed by our children
grandchildren and their children. How is that for a legacy? James Lovelocks
Conclusion on Nuclear Energy How does James Lovelock feel about nuclear energy?
I believe nuclear power is the only source of energy that will satisfy our
demands and yet not be a hazard to Gaia and interfere with its capacity to
sustain a comfortable climate and atmospheric composition. This is mainly
because nuclear reactions are millions of times more energetic than chemical
reactions. The most energy available from a chemical reaction such as burning
carbon in oxygen is about nine kilowatt hours per kilogram. The nuclear fusion
of hydrogen atoms to form helium gives several million times as much and the
energy from splitting uranium is greater still. Through his book Lovelock
reminds us that nuclear power is the single answer for this century We need
emission-free energy sources immediately and there is no serious contender to
nuclear fission. Lovelock addresses Three Mile Island Chernobyl nuclear testing
in the 1960s and many other events over the past fifty years as nuclear energy
has developed. If you wondered about radiation and cancer Lovelock answers that
as well. You may leap up after reading those pages and start faxing them off to
every environmentalist group you can contact. It may be the most definitive
analysis of the disconnect the media and the greens have about nuclear energy
and its impact on our health that you have ever read. Lovelock concludes The persistent
distortion of the truth about the health risks of nuclear energy should make us
wonder if the other statements about nuclear energy are equally flawed. One
specific question that has puzzled me for a number of years was this How many
people die to produce each of our energy sources? The table below answered that
question. The comparative safety of the different energy sources comes from the
Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland in a 2001 report which Lovelock
reproduces on page 102 of his book. The Institute examined all of the worlds
large-scale energy sources and compared them against their safety records. The
numbers of deaths were expressed in terms of terrawatt year of energy made
between 1970 and 1992. A terrawatt year (TTY) is one million million watts of
electricity made and continuously used throughout a year. Fuel Fatalities Who
Deaths per TTY Coal 6400 Workers 342 Hydro 4000 Public 883 Natural Gas 1200
Workers and Public 85 Nuclear 31 Workers 8 Lovelock does not simply endorse
nuclear as an idle thought. He is passionate about nuclear energy as a
life-saving measure My strong pleas for nuclear energy come from a growing
sense that we have little time left in which to install a reliable and secure
supply of electricity…. The important and overriding consideration is time we
have nuclear power now and new nuclear building should be started immediately.
All of the alternatives including fusion energy require decades of development
before they can be employed on a scale that would significantly reduce
emissions. He concludes his masterpiece of Chapter Five of The Revenge of Gaia
by writing Meanwhile at the worlds climate centres the barometer continues to
fall and tell of the imminent danger of a climate storm whose severity the
Earth has not endured for fifty-five million years. But in the cities the party
goes on how much longer before reality enters our minds? gktoday
current affairs pdf
gktoday current affairs pdf