Guest Post by Michael Johnsen (a/k/a DJ Monet)
With all the talk of being “carbon neutral,” I'm often asked,
usually by friends strolling through my garden, how much carbon dioxide my plants
are absorbing, storing, and generally combating global warming. But the simple
question: “How much CO2 does my garden absorb?” is actually more complicated
than the typical sound bite can handle.
Different plants in different soils absorb CO2 at different rates. Even the same plants in the same soils will absorb at different rates depending on every factor that affects plants, from available water to disease. The impacts are real, however, and some scientists believe the effects of climate change are offset by the re-growth of the forests in the Eastern U.S. But before I even get into all that, let me back up and look at the big picture.
The overall CO2 level in the earth's atmosphere at the start of the Industrial Revolution was around 280 parts per million (ppm) and increased to about 379 ppm by 20051. That's most but not all the CO2 released from fossil fuels2; some is absorbed by the oceans (making them more acidic, but that’s for the aquaculture column) and the rest is absorbed by plants and soils (yes, there’s lots of carbon in soil- well, in good, organic-rich soil).
OK. So we've established that plants and soils - what our gardens are all comprised of (sans gnomes) - absorb some of this fossil-fuel CO2 we’re releasing. Plants use the carbon they pull from the atmosphere to build their cells and structure. Determining what plants absorb the most CO2 is a bit trickier and really depends on where your garden is. A tree’s dry-wood is widely accepted to be around 50% carbon, but newer research (not much has been done) shows that trees can differ, from about 50 percent for maples to over 55% in the very old heartwood of Sequoias3.
Yet another factor is how many different species of plants you grow in your garden.
Scientists at Brown University, in research plots on the steppes of Patagonia,
found that biodiversity makes a big difference in the amount of organic matter a
system produces. The scientists found that patches of
diverse planting produced more organic matter than patches of single species
even with equal rain, nitrogen and sunlight4.
And it's exactly the amount of organic matter or biomass produced that determines how "productive"
scientists consider whole ecosystems to be. While the amount of carbon differs between plant types, that biomass is made up of carbon. As you might guess, a tropical rain forest is gangbusters with a score of
2,200 grams per square meter per year5. A temperate evergreen forest clocks in at 1,600 and a temperate
deciduous forest at 1,2006. Thus a picture starts to emerge as to
the effects of different plant choices.
The next big question is: Where are you
PUTTING all of that biomass in your garden? Before overrunning your garden with a bunch of
kudzu, Norway Maples, and pokeweed, think about where it all ends up. Meaning, what do you do at the end of the season when you cut your garden back? Do
you compost those stems, branches, and weeds? Send it to a landfill or
incinerator?7. These options for disposal all release some (or most, in the
case of incineration) of that carbon back into the atmosphere, so letting it
grow and NOT cutting back keeps it out of the atmosphere. But compost is returned to your soil and because soils lock away
carbon - until the soils are disturbed - composting stores the carbon
long-term.
Bottom Line
So, to store lots of carbon in your garden and keep it there, grow big trees and lots of biomass with woody stems, make sure these plants live a
long time, and compost all your yard waste. Wood is the key, whether it's in canopy
trees, understory trees or shrubs. So, while your trees are slowing capturing the carbon you emitted 10 years ago flying to Las Vegas8, compost all your garden wastes on site or in your community to lock most of that
carbon up in the soil for long-term storage.
Part 2 will cover composting and soil CO2. Footnotes to Part 1 are below the fold.
My friend Michael Johnsen studied Natural Resource Management as an undergraduate before receiving an
M.S. in Environmental Policy and Science at Johns Hopkins. He's been an environmental professional for 20 years now, working in the private, public and non-profit sectors . He often ponders environmental issues while working in his garden. Susan
__________________________
1. Taken from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report (2007) available at http://www.ipcc.ch/ipccreports/ar4-syr.htm Last accessed 7/7/2008. The reports in the IPCC have probably undergone the most rigorous review of any natural science research ever done.
2. This increase is from burning fossil fuels: You can calculate the amount of CO2 formed by knowing the molecular weights of carbon and oxygen, then knowing how much carbon is released in the combustion of a gallon of oil or pound of coal. Oil and coal have set chemical structures with a known number of carbon molecules. Atmospheric CO2 concentration measurements coincide with the rise in fossil fuel use.
3. According to Lamlom and Savidge “Carbon Content Variation in Boles of Mature Sugar Maple and Giant Sequoia” published January 15, 2006 online in Tree Physiology available at http://heronpublishing.com/tree/summaries/volume26/a26-459.html, last accessed 7/11/08.
4. Brown University (2008, April 27). Biodiversity Is Crucial To Ecosystem Productivity. ScienceDaily. Retrieved July 7, 2008, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/04/080424112451.htm
5. All of the carbon in a rainforest system is aboveground...the soils are "poor."
4. If you check out R.H. Whittaker’s book
Communities and Ecosystems, Ed. 2, 1975, there is a real nice chart in there
that provides much more detail. Go ‘old skool’ and check it out in your local
library.
7.
Sending your yard waste to the incinerator adds additional CO2 to the system due
to the gas burned for transportation and firing the incinerator.
8. And you thought what happens in Vegas stayed in Vegas, didn’t you?
You're often asked by friends how much carbon your garden absorbs? Seriously?
The post is interesting, but I pretty much snorked coffee through my nose when I read that. Sorry.
Do you have any more beer? Where's the mosquito spray? What's THAT? Those are the type of questions I tend to get from friends strolling through my garden.
Posted by: MaryContrary | July 15, 2008 at 11:01 AM
Great, meaty post. Thank you so much for this information--can't wait to read Part 2.
Posted by: Blackswampgirl/Kim | July 15, 2008 at 11:04 AM
I see that eventually you never answered that question even in this blog post.
Next time if your friends ask that question, tell them 3.15 FetaTonnes. To make it more authentic, tell them the neighbors garden only absorbs 3.11 FetaTonnes because they have 419 less leaves.
I'm only joking :) Interesting blog post.
Posted by: AV | July 15, 2008 at 11:46 AM
This is GREAT info.
I look forward to further essays.
More! More!
Posted by: Jenn | July 15, 2008 at 01:09 PM
Simply put, grow a diverse range of plants, compost the excess on site, add to soil and you are doing your part on your piece of the earth to help. Bringing in additional organic matter for the soil can be even more helpful for the earth and your plants. This was a very good post!
About footnote #5. Rain forest, I presume. Never heard of a fairforest.
Posted by: Christopher C NC | July 15, 2008 at 01:38 PM
Christopher, it's nice to see someone closely reading those footnotes! Thanks and I corrected the typo. Susan
Posted by: susan harris | July 15, 2008 at 01:44 PM
That was fran-freaking-tastic!
But when WILL someone make garden gnomes that can sequester carbon? Maybe the question is, do we want more gnomes anyway? And, what would a carbon sequestering gnome look like (tall, obtrusive, would it breathe and make odd, possibly offending noises that may startle visitors?). "What's that?" "Oh, you're just hearing my gnome sequestering carbon--if you leave him alone, he'll leave you alone."
Posted by: Benjamin | July 15, 2008 at 02:14 PM
Great post! I'm so geeky, I ate it up and still want more. I can hardly wait for part 2.
LOL, Benjamin. I want a carbon sequestering gnome, especially one that provides live entertainment.
Posted by: Lisa Albert | July 15, 2008 at 03:59 PM
Thanks a bunch folks. I find the MSM does a real poor job passing the tremendous amount of research on to us lay folks. So it's nice to have a blog outlet to do so.
A few responses:
1) I'm glad you all have a good sense of humor. About my friend's asking about CO2-- it's either an indication of how boring my parties are, or, with a better spin- all my friends are just so way cool and eco-hip.
2) A FetaTonne is equal to a Greek salad's worth of lettuce and olives
3) If one could invent a CO2 sequestering gnome, what sound should it make? These are the deep questions I'm glad this post spawned.
4) I saw the fairforest and hoped that folks would either a) not read the footnotes (and miss out on a joke?) or b) just let it slide. Thanks for the correction.
5) How many people would fly to Vegas vs. taking a road trip?
6) Huge thanks to Susan for wrangling my twisted words into legible text.
-Mike
Posted by: DJ Monet | July 15, 2008 at 05:19 PM
Where can I get one of those carbon-sequestering gnomes?
Posted by: emily | July 15, 2008 at 07:29 PM
The UN IPCC models have consistently been incorrect in prediciting temperatures. The most spectaucular of these failures was when last year the models (seven) predicted warming and there was a .75 degree drop worldwide on an annual basis. Since fossil fuels produce only 4% of the wrold's CO2, 4% of the current 285 PPM is 11.4 PPM. This is 0.0000114 part of the atmosphere or 1/100,000th. This one one hundred thousanths cannot be calculated to warm the earth. The only suggestion it can is by the UN panel who's models have not been correct for the entire twenty years of their existance.
To suggest we should impose taxes and limitations on our economy based on models that have never been corect is foolhardy.
There is no science to human cause as demonstrated by the fact that more than one half of all scientists do not subscribe to it.
Another fact is that North America is a carbon dioxide sink with more CO2 absorbed in North America than is produced by nature as well as man. This is what Johnsen alludes to in his piece.
Posted by: Jon | July 16, 2008 at 06:20 AM
Readers will get caught up on Jon's contributions here at GardenRant by putting that name into our search engine in the lower right sidebar. He always finds us when we talk about global warming.
Posted by: susan harris | July 16, 2008 at 06:45 AM
I guess I should be honored to have Jon's response, but, Jon, if you could, please provide citations for your data (if you even bother to revisit). For example, last year's temperature "drop" was due to a weak La Nina (still in effect) but the global average temperature was still higher than the average. The IPCC models look at larger trends, not year-to-year specific predictions.
You claim on fossil fuel's contribution to CO2 emissions is absolutely bizzare. Where did that come from? The math simply doesn't add up to your claim.
Posted by: DJ Monet | July 16, 2008 at 07:54 AM
See- that's what's interesting about these characters that go around posting BS, particularly about global warming. They can never back it up and they never really follow up. I think these guys, and I've seen them all over the web in discussion groups, are actually paid to spread false rumors. Or they're just really active Flat Earther types.
Posted by: DJ Monet | July 16, 2008 at 01:36 PM
...and where, amongst all this rain forest techno-babble, is it ever cited that our Midwestern tall grass prairies sequester (and hold) far more carbon than some distant rain forest?
I know, I know ... prairies are not nearly as exotic sounding as some distant rain forest that almost none of us will ever visit. I want to see these "experts" with a political agenda begin to cite the fact that on a summer day in a prairie environment, the CO2 at ground level is ZERO.
Maybe our efforts would be better spent creating prairie plantings in the thousands of mown acres along our highways like they are doing in Iowa. It works … but it is not very sexy-sounding.
Posted by: IronBelly | July 17, 2008 at 07:08 AM
IronBelly-
Certainly a sound proposal to replant with prairie grasses. I know there's been a lot of research on prairies recently- more recently than Whitaker's productivity research in the early 70's but grasslands generally scored lower on his productivity scale.. But I don't think the "experts" have a political agenda for rainforests and against prairies. Care to expound?
Interestingly, it looks like C4 plans (grasses) fair less well against their C3 cousins (other types of plants) with higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. When CO2 levels drops millions of years ago, C4 plants rose and, perhaps, helped the development of mammals.
Posted by: DJ Monet | July 17, 2008 at 01:56 PM
I am happy to supply some references for those of you that want to learn.
DJ, here is some information on the IPCC's comments on La Nina
"Global Predictions
The quasi-regularity of some natural climate forcing mechanisms, combined with knowledge of human-made forcings, allows projection of near-term global temperature trends with reasonably high confidence. Prediction for a specific year is a bit hazardous, as evidenced by an incorrect prediction of record global warmth made by the British climate analysis group for 2007. Such speculations are useful, as they draw attention to the mechanisms, and allow testing of understanding. Presumably part of the basis for their prediction was an assumption of a continued warming contribution from the 2006 El Niño. However, evidence of El Niño warmth disappeared very early in 2007.
Solar irradiance will still be on or near its flat-bottomed minimum in 2008. Temperature tendency associated with the solar cycle, because of the Earth's thermal inertia, has its minimum delayed by almost a quarter cycle, i.e., about two years. Thus solar change should not contribute significantly to temperature change in 2008.
La Niña cooling in the second half of 2007 (Figure 2) is about as intense as the regional cooling associated with any La Niña of the past half century, as shown by comparison to Plate 9 in Hansen et al. (Hansen et al. 1999) and updates to Plate 9 on the GISS web site. Effect of the current La Niña on global surface temperature is likely to continue for at least the first several months of 2008. Based on sequences of Pacific Ocean surface temperature patterns in Plate 9, a next El Niño in 2009 or 2010 is perhaps the most likely timing. But whatever year it occurs, it is a pretty safe bet that the next El Niño will help carry global temperature to a significantly higher level.
Competing with the short-term solar and La Niña cooling effects is the long-term global warming effect of human-made GHGs. The latter includes the trend toward less Arctic sea ice that markedly increases high latitude Northern Hemisphere temperatures. Although sea ice cover fluctuates from year to year, the large recent loss of thick multi-year ice implies that this warming effect at high latitudes should persist.
Based on these considerations, it is unlikely that 2008 will be a year with truly exceptional global mean temperature. These considerations also suggest that, barring the unlikely event of a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature clearly exceeding that of 2005 can be expected within the next 2-3 years."
http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2007
As far as I know the necessary volcanic eruption did not occur.
As to my bizarre calculations:
The level of carbon dioxide today is 285 Parts Per Million (PPM) this expressed as a fraction is .000338 parts. It is an accepted fact that fossil fuels are responsible for 4% of this carbon dioxide. This would would be .04 times the 338 PPM or 11.4 parts per million due to "man". This is .0000114 parts or slightly over 1/100,000th of the atmosphere. This is indisputable and not argued by anyone. This small amount of "greenhouse gas" cannot raise the earth's temperature by more than a tenth of a thousanth of a degree in 100 years. The calculations are very straightforward. Each greenhouse gas is capable of slowing down reflected radiation (water vapor is 95% of greenhouse gas) from the earth in well defined bandwidths. There is not enough energy to warm the earth or atmosphere with this small amount.
To give the other side of the arguement. The human cause proponents develop models where they claim this small amount of human caused CO2 never gets absorbed as all other (97%) of carbon dioxide is by plant life on earth. This chemically identical CO2 somehow stays in the atmosphere and "forces" the level higher. It assumes some magic properties that only this man made CO2 has that keeps it forever in the air.
So the results of these seven models that predicted rising temperatures for 100 years is that according to NASA there was a record drop in temperature on an annual basis of .75 degrees. Not much except the global warming claimed a crisis over a one degree rise over the last 100 years. I hope this helps and if you have any other questions I would be happy to try and help.
Posted by: Jon | July 17, 2008 at 04:24 PM
Susan, I do read all the postings on Rant and do enjoy them. I have posted some comments unrelated to warming and I do enjoy many of the stories. I am an avid gardener that even composts, uses natural fertilizers on my lawn, recycles, drives a car with a certified "green" engine. I am a tree hugger. I do get upset when I see people mislead by failed theories. I get greatly upset when I see the damage that these incorrect theories have done by preventing our country from developing our resources and driving fuel costs so high that many people are in real trouble. To sit back and say you believe in these theories without really understanding them is foolish. You are an intelligent person and I am sure if you approached it with an open mind you could learn a lot.
In any event thank you for providing much interesting material and even for allowing me to post my views.
Posted by: Jon | July 17, 2008 at 04:34 PM
DJ, your childish and rude remarks were uncalled for. I am sure that you would not talk to me inperson like that. Watch your manners please.
Posted by: Jon | July 17, 2008 at 05:19 PM
I have to apologize I inadvertently used .000338 for the portion of CO2 to represent 285 PPM. This of course would make it .000285. Using the 4% which is the amount caused by humans (fossil fuel burning). This makes the amount in the air .0000114. Sorry, I know many of you must have been confused.
Posted by: Jon | July 18, 2008 at 03:47 AM
Jon-
The delay and obfuscate approach to climate change and mis-information is dangerous. Our inaction in reducing CO2 emissions means people lose their lives (http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects/index.html). Thus, if my approach is agressive or brash, I apologize, but it is only because I understand the gravity of the situation.
Since you are willing to quote the IPCC, you should use their numbers for CO2 concentrations:
From the IPCC 4th Assessment (main report, page 37)
Pre-Industrial: 280 ppm
2005: 379 ppm
So we have a 26% increase since the Industrial Revolution. 2 questions for you: 1) Where did this 26% increase come from if not from fossil fuel combustion, and 2)what's the fate of the trillions of tons of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion if not in the atmosphere? I've having a tough time with your 4% number.
Posted by: DJ Monet | July 18, 2008 at 05:06 AM
Actually the current guess is 385 according to the IPCC. the percentage that is human caused is 4% according to the IPCC. Please see the graphic at http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggccebro/chapter1.html
this shows a graphic from the IPCC on percentages of CO2 from natural and man made sources. One thing that you will not find from the IPCC is any calculation or test which indicates that this 1/100,000th part of carbon dioxide can raise the temperature of the earth. They claim to prove it with seven computer models. These models have never in the twenty years of existence have been accurate, not once. All seven predicited with full knowledge of La Nina and solar minimums that it was guaranteed to become warmer for the next several years and overall would continue to warm for the next 100. Instead as verified by NASA and every major source in the world the temperature annually dropped by the greatest recorded temperature drop in history. You say you know how serious it is. I say you are not aware of the evidence. We are asked to suffer greatly for a theory that has been proven false according to it's own information. The UN IPCC made these predictions based on their models. They made the guarantee based on these models. Their information states that temperatures have risen 1 degree in the last 100 years and this is a crisis. In actuality the temperature worldwide dropped .75 degrees a full 3/4 of the crisis causing rise causing 1 degree in their estimation. I don't know why anyone would subject themselves to the pain that we are being subjected to to reduce CO2 levels when it is entirely unecessary.
If you against overwhelming evidence still think that CO2 must be reduced than you should be in favor of nuclear power because it is the only way to drop CO2 emissions and greatly reduce the 1.1 billion tons of coal we burn each year. Let me suppose that you are against this and will tell me we need renewables. We spend 20 billion dollars a year on subsidies for renewabls and after 40 years of effort wind produces les than 0.1 % of our power. One nuclear power plant produces .19% of our power. The proof. We have 103 nuclear plants in the US. They supply 20% of our power. Divide 20% by 103 and you get .19%. 100 more nuclear plants will supply enough power to drop coal burning for power by 40% or approximately 500 billion tons of coal burning. This would cost 500 to 600 billion dollars of private funds. Spend $600 billion on wind and you get 1/3 the nameplate power as wind has capital costs three times that of nuclear per kw. The wind power is 25% efficient so the wind would produce this power 25% of the time. 75% of the time fossil fuel would have to be used (coal burning) Considering nuclear is 90% efficient this means the power from wind is going to be about 8% that of nuclear. In addition the wind power that is generated will cost five times more and no power grid can accept the fluctuating nature of wind power for more than 10% of its supply. The cost of nuclear is less than 2 cents per kwh to generate, the cost of wind generated power is 10 cents.
I am guessing (please excuse my jumping ahead) but I think that you are next going to tell me that you are afraid of nuclear. If this is the case I have to tell you that you have to live with one or the other of your fears; either the unreasonable one of human caused warming or the just as unreasonable one of nuclear power.
I somehow feel you will contest this with emotion rather than reason so all I ask is that you keep an open mind.
Posted by: Jon | July 18, 2008 at 09:17 AM
Jon- You're being selective with the numbers from EIA or something. From the graphic in the link- Vegetation and soils exchange CO2, currently in the system, with the atmosphere for a NET absorption of .6 billion metric tons (120.2-119.6=.6). Oceans are absorbing a net 1.6 metric tons (92.2-90.6=1.6). And recent research is concluding that the oceans are becoming more acidic with the additional CO2 absorbed, which is killing organisms with shells (like krill and corals). So fossil fuel use is RELEASING 7.2 billion metric tons. That's CO2 from under the ground, not in the system as it was pre industrial revolution.
This is the correct interpretation from the figure in the EIA website you mentioned.
Now, for your second major point-- you are comparing year to year averages rather than long term trends and then not even adding correctly. La nina made 2006 a cooler year than the previous years but it still came in above the average. And NOAA reports that Global land temps set a record in March of this year: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2008/20080417_marchstats.html
From their site: An analysis by NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center shows that the average temperature for March in the contiguous United States ranked near average for the past 113 years. It was the 63rd warmest March since record-keeping began in the United States in 1895.
The average global land temperature last month was the warmest on record and ocean surface temperatures were the 13th warmest. Combining the land and the ocean temperatures, the overall global temperature ranked the second warmest for the month of March. Global temperature averages have been recorded since 1880.
The complete analysis is available online.
--
O.k, and then we're on to Nuclear power. This 'solution' has many problems: a fundamental one being economics. No-one wants to buy them. In fact, Warren Buffet just turned down a nuke in Idaho because the economics don't work out. The industry estimates a new plant costing anywhere from $12-22 BILLION per reactor. So, to build your 100 plants- which wouldn't double nukes, but simply replace all the reactors that are now near or past their age limits, will cost $1-2 TRILLION. That's some coin, that comes from someone's hide. I'd rather than investment be in wind or solar panels. (for references and more info, check my post at Daily Kos http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/3/11/195837/029/378/474571 )
Then there is the little problem of national security (Al Q had plans targeting nuclear reactors and the security at the places suck) and the waste. Little problems.
I try to present the information logically. There is a reason that every major industry is concerned, all the scientist are concerned, and every agency in the government is concerned and taking on this challenge.
Posted by: DJ Monet | July 18, 2008 at 05:35 PM
I am not being "selective or something". Man made CO2 is 4% of the total according to the IPCC. The numbers are clear. 119 tonnes from land, 88 from the ocean and 6.6 from all fossil fuels. This is 4% of the total as shown by the IPCC chart. There is no other way to interpret it. This 1/100,000th of the atmosphere cannot be shown by any calculation to warm the earth, you either agree or will have to show me the calculation or test. You have to realize that 95% of greenhouse gasses are water vapor. Carbon dioxide is 4% of greenhouse gases. The total greenhouse gasses are only 4% of the atmosphere. We produce ten times as much CO2 from breathing as we do from burning fossil fuels. You mistakingly argue that fossil fuel burning has gone up, the earth warmed so fossil fuel is the cause.
You are quoting old data from NASA before the cool down which for one year recorded the greatest recprded temperature drop in history. This is the latest data. The March you refer to is March 2007. Please, you are not being honest.
We have had the greatest drop in temperature ever recorded for one year, verified by all four of the world's most respected sources.
UK’s Hadley Climate Research Unit Temperature anomaly (HadCRUT) Dr. Phil Jones
The NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies(GISS) Dr. James Hansen
University of Alabama, Huntsville (UAH) Dr. John Christy
Remote Sensing Systems of Santa Rosa, CA (RSS)
Source: Global ∆T °C
HadCRUT - 0.595
GISS - 0.750
UAH - 0.588
RSS - 0.629
Average: - 0.6405°C
http://wattsupwiththat.wordpress.com/2008/02/19/january-2008-4-sources-say-globally-cooler-in-the-past-12-months/
There are 34 licenses applied for to build nuclear power plants. It cost millions to simply apply. You obviously didn't investigate this or are trying to cover up the facts again.
Please referencing the daily kos, you have to be kidding. This is where you get your information. WOW, I didn't think anyone would admit to reading that hate-filled rancid website. PS, you should know that there is a 1/2 cent per kwh fee attached to user's bills each month to cover Yucca Mountain and dismantling of decommissioned nuclear plants. There is no such budgeting to disassemble wind farms which have 20 year life spans. Didin't you know this? Please you are going to have to do better than this. I am quoting the IPCC and NASA and you are quoting the dailykooks. Aren't you a little ashamed? New plants in the world that are being built today cost 5 to 6 billion. Why do expect that it will cost 12 to 22 billion. Dismantling nuclear plants is not very difficult and has been done many times and your figures once again are intentionally wrong.
Energy excise tax and fee collections in fiscal year 1999 were approximately $2.2 billion (Table 10). The collections were earmarked for a variety of energy-related trust funds. The largest share of energy excise tax collections ($1.4 billion) serves to fund a variety of programs that address environmental and safety problems associated with the production and distribution of petroleum and coal. In addition, approximately $642 million in user fees is collected annually from nuclear power producers to fund the development, acquisition, and operation of nuclear waste disposal facilities, (44) and $171 million is collected for the decontamination and decommissioning of uranium enrichment facilities.
Energy excise tax and fee collections in fiscal year 1999 were approximately $2.2 billion (Table 10). The collections were earmarked for a variety of energy-related trust funds. The largest share of energy excise tax collections ($1.4 billion) serves to fund a variety of programs that address environmental and safety problems associated with the production and distribution of petroleum and coal. In addition, approximately $642 million in user fees is collected annually from nuclear power producers to fund the development, acquisition, and operation of nuclear waste disposal facilities, (44) and $171 million is collected for the decontamination and decommissioning of uranium enrichment facilities.
http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/servicerpt/subsidy/excise.html
Maybe you should tell the Department of Energy that their figures are all wrong according to the dailykooks.
In order to blow up a nuclear plant it would take a nuclear attack. You assume that someone would use a nuclear bomb to blow one up when they could target New York, Washington DC, Chicago. Why? Sure nuclear plants have radioactive material but they would not add to the explosion of a nuclear bomb hitting them. You are not thinking clearly and logically.
Logically explain how 1/100,000 part of CO2 can warm the earth. Logically explain why you think storing nuclear wastes at 103 nuclear plants and hundreds more military installations under what you describe as security that sucks is better than storing it in the desert surrounded by military installations in secure containers inside a mountain facility that is eartquake and nuclear bomb proof and designed to last for 10,000 years. Why? I think your only real objection is that nuclear power works. The whole philosophy of seems to be to raise prices and block anything that helps. Increase taxes, build wind and solar that don't work and block any energy development or anything else that works. Why? What is the agenda? Make people suffer? Raise the energy costs higher? Weaken the economy more? Weaken our national defense? Why?
Posted by: dahun | July 18, 2008 at 07:58 PM
Wow! Daily Kos pushes you over the edge! Hah! What a hoot. I had pointed the reader to MY post at Daily Kos that had more information and the references for Warren Buffet passing on investing in nuclear power, as well as the references for the industry quoting $12-20 Billion for new reactors.
You say you are quoting the IPCC but you seem to be ignoring their warnings for reducing CO2 emissions and the changes that are being observed. So however you are twisting numbers around (because what you quite above is not to be found in the literature you cite) you are still only being selective in your analysis. IPCC EXPLICITLY stats that human induced CO2 emissions are the cause of warming.
The cite you point to (some dude's website - wattsupwiththat.worldpress.com) for a cooler January 2008 actually shows January 2008 to still be ABOVE the average temperature, but not by much. Look at the scale on the left of the top chart. January 2008 was .037 degrees C WARMER THAN AVERAGE. With the way you so artfully chose these stats, I must assume you know what you are doing and you're not that blind and stupid.
So are, like, way invested in nukes or what? You passionate in their defense. I just see the economics not working out for nukes. Yucca Mountain, which may never come on line because it leaks, can't hold all of the current radioactive waste in the US, let alone finding space for a new generation of power plants. We could reprocess the waste, but that's a major security risk to have lose Plutonium around.
But, again, your logic breaks down. If, in your world, global warming doesn't exist, why bother building nukes? The only reason they are even being considered is for possible CO2 reductions.
Posted by: DJ Monet | July 19, 2008 at 12:30 PM