John Shanahan's conclusions on CO2, climate change, fossil fuels, and nuclear power

A Different Perspective on Nuclear Power John Shanahan May 11, 2020 Bret Kugelmass and Michael Shellenberger are very intelligent people and good presenters to the public about nuclear power. They both claim that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is an existential threat.

Bret says there is a "climate change" problem that humanity must solve by removing one trillion tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Take away fossil fuels AND remove carbon dioxide from the air.

Michael claims he is making Environmental Progress while keeping a science advisor, James Hansen. He is working in lawsuits to claim that a few American youth have a right to a stable climate. Take away fossil fuels from the world. Let them all suffer.

History shows the incredible benefits of fossil fuels to improve economies and double lifespans. Michael and Bret's recommendations for fossil fuels and carbon dioxide make no sense to me.

When confronted with their views, I ask people to study these articles and prove scientifically what is wrong with their conclusions. I never get a good scientific answer.

These authors don't think that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is causing serious global warming, climate change. climate disruption or whatever John Holdren is going to call it next.

1) Gary Young, mechanical engineer in Fort Collins, Colorado.

2) Douglas Cotton, physicist in Australia 3) TRCS - NASA Apollo Mission retired scientists, engineers, medical doctors in Texas and around the USA. 4) Ed Berry, atmospheric physicist retired in Montana. See here, here and here.

5) William Happer, physicist, Princeton University 6) Richard Lindzen, climate scientist, MIT 7) Sebastian Luening, paleo-geologist, Fritz Vahrenholt, chemist, Ulrich Weber, geophysicst, Germany 1

8) Zbigniew Jaworowski, medical doctor, scientist, Poland 9) SEPP, USA 10) Gregory Wrightstone, geologist, USA 11) Euan Mearns, geologist, UK 12) Kelvin Kemm, nuclear physicist, South Africa 13) Patrick Moore, ecologist, Canada 14) Willie Soon, astrophysicist, USA 15) David Legates, climatology, USA 16) Judith Curry, geophysical scientist, USA 17) Roy Spencer, meteorologist, USA 18) Larry Bell, space architecture, USA After studying advanced nuclear power and carbon dioxide from fossil fuels since 1990 by hundreds of authors on all sides of the topics from around the world, here is what I think: 1) Fossil fuels made possible the greatest improvements in economy, standard of living and lifespan for billions of people. Their main problem is pollution, not odorless, colorless carbon dioxide. The world doesn't want or need the incredible air, water, and land pollution from fossil fuels like in China and India in the last forty years or in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada in the century before the 1960s. Countries can do like the United States is doing - use cleaner fuels and install air pollution control systems. In some regions, countries won't do that and will live with terrible pollution.

They should not be forced to switch to wind and solar like is happening in north America and Europe.

2) People like Michael Shellenberger, Bret Kugelmass, Steward Brand, James Hansen and many others demand stopping use of fossil fuels and the world going all nuclear in fifty years or so. Impossible and it is not going to happen. I'll spare the explanation here.

But it shows that these advocates have bad ideas that will never work. It is a fools errand to follow them.

3) Wade Allison has thoroughly documented the world's fear of radiation and nuclear power. You have documented how wonderful nuclear power is. Ludwig Feinendegen, Ed Calabrese, Jerry Cuttler, Howard Cork Hayden, James Muckerheide, Mohan Doss, 2

Kelvin Kemm, T.D. Luckey, Thormod Henriksen, Zbigniew Jaworowski, Myron Polycove, and Japanese researchers have demonstrated the faults and penalties of the Linear No-Threshold Hypothesis with Cumulative-Dose Corollary. Low dose radiation guidelines must be based on science.

4) John Holdren has dedicated his life to stopping fossil fuels and advanced nuclear power. You know all the others who support LNT. Include the Sierra Club, the Natural Resources Defense Council and the rest. If these people and organizations prevail, we lose the modern world.

5) The nuclear industry and professional organizations have focused on claiming nuclear can go a long way to solving the man-made climate change problem. They haven't moved one inch closer to solving nuclear's real problems. This is a life-or-death situation for nuclear.

6) Nuclear should not be given to countries with bad government, continuing conflicts, poor economies, poor education. That eliminates for the time being the whole world going nuclear in fifty years.

7) The design criteria have focused on protecting the world from radiation dangers of thee nuclear island in the power plants and from "nuclear waste." That is necessary. But there is little to no requirement to maintain electrical generating capability from fossil fuel and nuclear plants in times of terrorism and war. Electricity is the lifeblood of the modern world. We should develop the ability to continue delivering electricity in times of war. In WW II, most of the German power plants were destroyed.

8) We can't afford countries going their own way with nuclear power and failing. We must have global cooperation to prevent catastrophic failures.

9) We must have used fuel recycling, not put trillions of dollars of potential energy back in the ground.

10) France planned to have continuous use of nuclear power forever. The United States planned for one generation of nuclear power. We have to plan to have nuclear power forever.

I disagree with Michael Shellenberger that some people have a right to a stable climate at the expense of most of humanity. I disagree with Bret Kugelmass that we have to extract a trillion tons of carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere because of a man-made climate change crisis. I disagree that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels is causing catastrophic anthropogenic global warming and therefore we must stop use of fossil fuels. I think that nuclear advocates who demand stopping use of fossil fuels don't know the science they are talking about and therefore are not credible advocates for nuclear power.

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The nuclear industry, nuclear regulatory organizations and radiation safety guidelines must change if nuclear power intends to survive. We must be planning for nuclear forever, not for one generation. Nuclear can not be handing out "salvation" claiming we will save the world from man-made global warming. We can't. Ted Rockwell said in testimony to Congress, nuclear power is essential to deal with climate change from all causes.

These are thoughts from a civil engineer for what it is worth.

Some photos from the real world.

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It is a beautiful natural world with wonders for people with fossil fuels and nuclear power. Many more need good government, plentiful energy, and strong economies.

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