Figure 1
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1) During the 1920s high resolution spectrometers were used to examine light received from the sun, stars and ionized gases here on Earth.
2) It was found that for each gas there are characteristic photon frequencies at which the gas does not transmit electromagnetic radiation. In effect, in certain frequency bands, the gas molecules reflect incident electromagmetic radiation back toward the radiation source. If such reflection occurs at thermal infrared frequencies the result with solar illumination is warming due to the "greenhouse effect".
3) During the early 1960s the then new giant steerable radio telescope at Jodrell bank in the UK was pointed at the planet Venus. On the basis of radio telescope data UK astrophysicists concluded that the surface of Venus is very hot (> 600 degrees K) due to the "greenhouse effect" caused by CO2 in the atmosphere of Venus.
4) During the mid 1960s both the USA and USSR sent space probes to Venus, without considering the UK data. The early probes stopped working soon after penetrating the Venus atmosphere due to the probe electronics being fried.
5) By 1968 it was widely known that Venus had a CO2 atmosphere with a greenhouse effect sufficient to cause the Venus surface absolute temperature to more than double.
6) In January 1970 a small book was published that summarized the results of accurate Earth atmospheric CO2 concentration measurements made at Mona Loa, Hawaii during the period 1957 to 1969. As shown in Figure 1, the measurements indicated that the average atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising every year.
Figure 1
7) In 1970 I had recent experience with relevant gas issues and it was immediately obvious to me that this ongoing rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration would, within a few human generations, become a major obstacle to continuing human existence on planet Earth.
8) The right hand side of Figure 1 shows that in spite of contrary political claims, mankind has done nothing in recent years to effectively slow the rate of increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration.
9) For centuries prior to the industrial revolution the atmospheric CO2 concentration was stable at about 275 ppm. During the 1950s the atmospheric CO2 concentration was about 315 ppm. Presently the atmospheric CO2 concentration is about 425 ppm and is rising at about 2.5 ppm per year. The recent data trend indicates that the atmospheric CO2 concentration will reach 550 ppm by 2070, twice its stable historic value.
10) Interpreting this data is simple. When Earth's population was about 1 billion people natural processes could permanently remove CO2 from the atmosphere faster than mankind produced it by combustion of fossil fuels (then primarily coal). However, today, as Earth's human population exceeds 8 billion, mankind produces CO2 much faster than natural processes can permanently remove it.
11) At this point I should point out that almost all government and fossil fuel industry claims with respect to projected CO2 emission reductions are misleading NONSENSE. The only data that counts are actual atmospheric CO2 concentration measurements. Reducing the measured atmospheric CO2 concentration requires a sustained 10X to 20X reduction in the rate of fossil CO2 emission.
12) Building more fossil fuel infrastructure will not prevent further CO2 emissions nor will storing compressed CO2 underground. The fundamental problem is that CO2 is a very low energy state chemical compound, meaning that to change CO2 into any stable form that is suitable for permanent carbon storage requires additional energy.
13) Solving the atmospheric CO2 concentration problem requires complete halting of fossil fuel extraction. Parties who are unwilling to face this reality are simply burying their heads in the sand. Moreover, it is not sufficient to simply displace our own use of fossil fuels. We will not achieve atmospheric CO2 concentration reduction and hence climate mitigation unless we also stop fossil fuel extraction by less afluent parties in foreign lands. In this matter we must develop cost effective technologies for sustained complete fossil fuel displacement both at home and abroad. To plan for less is to plan to fail.
14) The main means by which nature removes CO2 from the atmosphere and ocean is photosynthesis. However, trees provide no permanent CO2 sequestration because when they decay they release their accumulated carbon back into the atmosphere.
15) In terms of long term natural CO2 removal the processes that matter are bio-matter growth that is then trapped in lake and swamp bottoms and shell forming ocean plankton. The trapped biomatter eventually anaerobically decays into fossil fuels. After death Plankton shells sink to the bottom of the ocean forming sea bottom dust that eventually consolidates into carbonate rock. The problem with these processes is that they rely on limited sunlight to provide the intermediate energy required for reforming CO2.
16) Today most of the CO2 produced by combustion of fossil fuels is either stored in the atmosphere, which raises the atmospheric CO2 concentration or is dissolved in the ocean, which lowers the ocean pH. Both of these effects have serious adverse life altering consequences.
17) Natural CO2 removal is photosynthesis limited and will take many centuries.
18) There is another important CO2 effect that has received little explicit public recognition. When CO2 is added to the atmosphere over dry land the land surface temperature almost immediately rises to make the IR power emission balance the solar power absorption. Hence there is little heat absorption by the land.
19) However, when CO2 is added to the atmosphere over ocean water there is little immediate water temperature rise but there is ongoing heat absorption by the water equal to the difference between the solar power flux and the IR power flux. This heat absorption melts floating ice and leads to gradual ocean warming that in turn raises the wet bulb temperature and enables major ocean storms.
20) In 1972 one of the Apollo 17 astronauts took a famous visible light photograph of planet Earth from deep space. The scientific significance of this photograph was not fully appreciated until about 25 years later. I show this photograph as Figure 2.
Figure 2 - EARTH AS VIEWED FROM OUTER SPACE VIA REFLECTED SOLAR ILLUMINATION:
Earth From Space Apollo 17 Dec. 1972
21) Examine Figure 2 and try to remember the pattern of white. Notice that in the equatorial region there is relatiely little white whereas closer to the south pole the white is very dense. The brilliant white is sunlight reflected from ice crystals, mostly in clouds.
22) Knowledgeable people in the USA became concerned about the possible implications of the rising atmospheric CO2 concentration. In the mid 1970s the USA used several low orbit satellites to make basic thermal infrared spectra of planet Earth. I use the word basic because thermal infrared spectrometers require cryogenic cooling and in a primitive satellite environment the cryogenic liquid, usually helium or nitrogen, quickly boiled away. Hence these observations were limited to low Earth orbits.
23) Using the measured emitted thermal IR spectrum, in 1979 the US Academy of Sciences reported to then US president Jimmy Carter that doubling of Earth's atmospheric CO2 concentration from its historic value of 275 ppm to 550 ppm would by itself cause an average temperature increase over dry land of about 5 degrees F (3 degrees C).
24) By 1980 early thermal neutron nuclear power reactors had been proven and around the world about 400 such power reactors were built.
25) Circa 1985 the fossil fuel industry realized that nuclear power was an existential threat to fossil fuel energy market share and attempted to make nuclear power economically unviable by lobbying governments in both Canada and the USA. This lobby took the form of public scare tactics, unreasonable regulation of nuclear power and funding of political parties that promoted use of fossil fuels in preference to nuclear power.
26) During the 1990s the USA adopted a pro-fossil fuel policy, in which parties who challenged that policy with contrary facts had their employment terminated. One of the worst offenders was Bill Clinton, who changed clean air laws and who terminated the highly successful US fast breeder reactor development program. Similar politics occurred in France. Today the main beneficiaries of that US development program are Russia, China and to a lesser extent, India.
27) The scientists at US NASA were not deterred by the foolish and misguided US federal government policy. In November 1996 they sent a unique spacecraft toward Mars. This spacecraft, known as the Mars Global Surveyor, had on board its own continuously operating cryogenic refrigeration system that allowed it to precisely record thermal infra red spectra. In my view the most important spectrum that it recorded was from planet Earth, not Mars. This spectrum is shown in Figure 3.
Figure 3
28) Please take a moment to study Figure 3. The horizontal axis, labelled Wavenumber, is the infrared frequency divided by the speed of light. The black line is a graph of the received infrared power as a function of wavenumber or frequency. The area under the black line is proportional to the total thermal infrared power emitted by Earth. On the left hand side of this graph the received infrared power is partially suppressed by water vapor in Earth's atmosphere. In the middle of this graph is the large notch due to CO2 in Earth's atmosphere. That notch is wider today because this data was acquired about 27 years ago and there has been further CO2 accumulation in the atmosphere in the interim.
29) However, the real killer is the red line. It shows that 27 years ago the average Earth emission temperature seen by the spacecraft was about 270 degrees K. Today the red line will be about 1 degree C higher. Remember that the melting point of ice is almost pressure independent at 273.16 degrees K. The significance of this matter is that today some of the atmospheric ice crystals visible in Figure 2 are melting. That ice crystal melting reduces Earth's visible light reflectivity, also known as albedo.
30) The reduction in albedo increases the absorbed solar power, which in much of Canada doubles or triples the temperature rise as compared to heating from CO2 alone, which you may recall is 3 degrees C at an atmospheric CO2 concentration of 550 ppm.
31) Let me summarize this matter bluntly. The atmospheric CO2 concentration is 425 ppm today. At 2.5 ppm per year we will reach 550 ppm in:
125 ppm / (2.5 ppm / year) = 50 years.
32) If present fossil fuel use trends continue that 2.5 ppm per year rise in CO2 concentration will increase to 5 ppm per year, reducing the CO2 concentration rise time to about 33 years. If you fail to act now, in about 33 years time the average temperature over much of Canada will be about 6 to 9 degrees higher than the preindustrial reference. If you think that we have a wildfire problem now, you have seen nothing yet.
33) A major consequence of this temperature rise will be massive human migration from the tropics toward more temperate countries. Already the USA and Europe are not able to control immigration via their southern borders and the situation will become many times worse during the decades to come. I remind you that desperate people do desperate things. From a moral perspective tropical residents believe that they have been wronged by the developed world's unbridled use of fossil fuels, so from their perspective you deserve whatever they do to you.
34) Today you have a binary choice. You can either be a leader and take effective action to mitigate climate change or you can fail to do so and become a victim of thermal extinction. Half measures that do not actually prevent further rises in the atmospheric CO2 concentration will only delay the inevitable.
35) Today combustion of fossil fuels (natural gas, oil, coal) continuously produces about 21,000 GWt of heat. Wind and solar electricity generation contribute little to the thermal power requirement. Due to present third world expectations, likely 40,000 GWt of thermal capacity will be required by the year 2070.
36) Present thermal neutron nuclear power reactors produce about 1400 GWt of heat. Even if tripling of that capacity is achieved by the year 2050, as envisaged by our politicians, the output will barely meet 15% of the 2050 thermal capacity requirement. There will be no climate mitigation.
37) There is also the nuclear fuel problem. Existing thermal neutron reactors recover ony 0.5% to 1% of the energy potentially available from natural uranium. To sustainably supply the thermal power necessary for climate mitigation requires much more efficient Fast Neutron Reactors (FNRs) and repeated fuel reprocessing. For basic reasons related to reactor physics those reactors must convert abundant U-238 into fissile Pu-239. Existing prohibitions regarding production and use of Pu fissile fuel must be abandoned.
38) This fuel breeding reactor technology was developed in the USA and France during the period 1964 to 1994 and was then discarded due to the fossil fuel industry political lobby.
39) In order to finance construction of a fast neutron reactor (FNR), one must first have a certain source of FNR core fuel.
40) In Canada the only practical source of FNR core fuel is reprocessing of used CANDU fuel. In Ontario we have 60,000 tonnes of used CANDU fuel, so there is nothing other than foolish government policy and regulation preventing us from recycling it to obtain FNR fuel.
41) The physics and chemistry of the required fuel recycling are well known. However, development of a safe fully automated hot nuclear fuel recycling faciity of sufficient capacity to meet near term Canadian requirements will likely take 5 to 7 years from a standing start.
42) Both fuel reprocessing and reactor construction require regulatory reform. The concept that private industry should finance development of complex new regulations must be abandoned. In view of the developmental urgency we would be better off with engineered safety than with poorly implemented regulatory safety. Remember that many existing power reactors were built before the present regulatory framework even existed. Responsible engineers are not stupid.
43) There must be better political appreciation of the scale of the CO2 problem and the measures necessary to mitigate it. Simply displacing existing fossil fuel use in Canada requires a total reactor capacity of about:
40,000,000 people X 10 kWt per person = 400 GWt.
44) If Canada is to reasonably take in another 40,000,000 people migrating from tropical countries the construction target becomes 800 GWt. This target is far beyond present Energy and Electrification Ministry planning which is only about 1 GWt / year for Ontario. At present we only have about 30 GWt of reactor capacity in Ontario.
45) Preliminary engineering has shown that the largest reactor size suitable for urban installation for distributed district heating is about 1 GWt. This reactor and its support equipment will require about one city block. Support facilies for construction, operation and maintenance will likely require the equivalent of another city block. See Figure 4 and Figure 5.
Figure 4 - 1 GWt FNR Side Elevation
Figure 5- FNR Site Plan
46) Realizing the required FNR deployment rate will likely also require further investment in Intense Neutron Generators to meet transition fuel reqirements.
47) The political thinking in other provinces is even more irrational than in Ontario. Recently Simon Fraser University in British Columbia built an entire renewable energy facility with no provision for sustainable nuclear power.
48) There is no simple solution to this matter other than to force necessary changes in government. It is essential to change high school core curricula so that graduating high school students value and demand rapid deployment of sustainable nuclear power. Then within few years their voting influence will be enough to force major governmental policy changes.
49) Motivating efficient use of clean energy by the public will require major changes in retail electricity rates and in wind and solar generator compensation. Consumers must learn that about 90% of clean electricity system costs are related to dependable capacity, not energy. Wind and solar electricity generation without massive energy storage provide no dependable capacity.
50) Presently Ontario exports surplus clean electricity at about $0.01 / kWh instead of making this surplus clean electricity supply capacity available to Ontario consumers for fossil fuel displacement and hydrogen production. This foolish policy must change. The fossil fuel companies will object to this price competition, but so be it. If fossil fuel companies want to improve their ROI they must invest in sustainable nuclear power.
This web page last updated September 8, 2024.
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