Renewables wreck the environment

So says Jesse Ausubel of Rockefeller University in New York, writing in the International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology. The paper appears to be an analysis of the amount of land required per Watt of energy produced.

Biomass energy is also horribly inefficient and destructive of nature. To power a large proportion of the USA, vast areas would need to be shaved or harvested annually. To obtain the same electricity from biomass as from a single nuclear power plant would require 2500 square kilometers of prime Iowa land. "Increased use of biomass fuel in any form is criminal," remarks Ausubel. "Humans must spare land for nature. Every automobile would require a pasture of 1-2 hectares."

Obvious to everyone except greens. 

Comments

[John Nicklin]

I think the greens are going to wake up soon, real soon. They have a tendancy to demand new sources of energy then denounce them as being unfriendly to the environment. Hydroelectric was good until we did lots of it, then it was mean to fish. Wind power, that's it, we need wind power. As soon as wind farms appeared, they were denounced as mean to birds and despoilers of the landscape. Solar, that's it. Except it requires massive amounts of conventional enegry to manufacture. Biofuels are now coming under their microscope.

They only want what they know cannot be produced.

They don't think, they just demand.

[Bishop Hill]

Where I live, we have a major nature reserve which is home to tens of thousands of geese. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has a visitor centre there. At the same time they're supporting the development of windfarms on the surrounding hills. They could well end up with egg on their faces if the geese start flying into them (and they fly up to the hills to feed pretty much every day).

[bgp]

Would those windmills be in association with Scottish & Southern? The RSPB sold its soul to S&SE when they setup the latter's supposedly green RSPB tariff (in reality, it is anything but green, like all other green tariffs). That left the RSPB in the contradictory position of objecting to everyone else's windmills, but supporting S&SE's. Moral credibility = 0.

On the original point, it's really simple. Internalise the external cost of carbon emissions (in a mechanism that takes account of risk and the balance between mitigation and adaptation), and then let's see what the market delivers. I doubt it will be either no renewables, or as much as politicians and most environmentalists think we need.

This, and most other debates, are tainted by people like Ausubel, who think they can work out incredibly complex systems to reveal the pefect answer for all of us. Let's not allow for the infinite variation of individual circumstances and preferences - we've got economists, environnmentalists and scientists who can work out the perfect, one-size-fits-all answer.

[Bishop Hill]

bgp

Your point about not trying to decide the answer for everyone is an important one. Ausubel is right that renewables will take up a lot of space, but it may be that they have a place to provide power for the rich to assuage their feelings of guilt. I'm happy to let the market decide.

On the subject of S&S, I think the RSPB are just speaking in favour of the local development rather than backing it per se.