The World in 2050_ Four Forces Shaping Civilization's Northern Future - Laurence C. Smith [146]
138 Up to 26% liquid biofuels by 2050. Ibid.
139 Table 9.1, “Nuclear Generating Units, 1955-2007,” U.S. Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/nuclear.html (accessed March 11, 2009).
140 A. Petryna, Life Exposed: Biological Citizens after Chernobyl (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002), 264 pp.
141 The recovery workers now suffer a cancer rate several percent higher than normal, with up to four thousand additional people dying (over the expected one hundred thousand) by 2004. By 2002 about four thousand children had contracted thyroid cancer from drinking radioiodine-contaminated milk in the first months after the accident. The Chernobyl Forum: 2003-2005, “Chernobyl’s Legacy: Health, Environmental and SocioEconomic Impacts,” 2nd rev. ed. (Vienna: IAEA Division of Public Information, April 2006). Available from http://www.iaea.org/Publications/Booklets/Chernobyl/chernobyl. pdf. The Chernobyl Forum is an initiative of the IAEA, in cooperation with the WHO, UNDP, FAO, UNEP, UN-OCHA, UNSCEAR, the World Bank, and the governments of Belarus, the Russian Federation, and Ukraine. The mortality figures in this report are decried by some as being too low, but this comprehensive UN-led effort does represent a conservative assessment of the disaster.
142 M. L. Wald, “After 30 Slow Years, U.S. Nuclear Industry Set to Build Plants Again,” International Herald Tribune, October 24, 2008; “EDF Nuclear Contamination,” The Economist, November 21, 2009, 65-66; “Obama offers loan guarantees for first new nuclear power reactors in three decades,” USA Today, February 16, 2010; S. Chu, “America’s New Nuclear Option: Small modular reactors will expand the ways we use atomic power,” The Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2010. A record 62% of Americans surveyed in a March 2010 Gallup poll favored the use of nuclear power, the highest since Gallup began polling on the issue in 1994. “Public support for nuclear power at new peak,” The Washington Post, March 22, 2010.
143 The other being hydropower.
144 The white gas is water vapor, see note 120.
145 Energy Technology Perspectives: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2008), 643 pp.
146 S. Fetter, “Energy 2050,” Bulletin of Atomic Scientists (July/August 2000): 28-38.
147 Of particular promise are new “light water” reactors designed to be safer than today’s nuclear plants, with core-damage probabilities lower than one in a million reactor-years. Ibid.
148 Conventional meaning “once-through” nuclear reactors of one thousand megawatt capacity each, with no spent-fuel recycling, thorium, or breeder reactors. The Future of Nuclear Power: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study (Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2003), 170 pp.
149 Global electricity production from nuclear power was 2,771 TWh/yr in 2005, capturing 15% market share. By 2050, based on a range of global decision scenarios modeled by the International Energy Agency, it could fall as low as 3,884 TWh/yr and 8% market share (“Baseline 2050” scenario, with few new reactors built) or rise to as much as 15,877 TWh/yr and 38% market share (“BLUE HiNUC” scenario, with maximum expansion of nuclear power). Table 2.5, Energy Technology Perspectives 2008: Scenarios and Strategies to 2050 (OECD/International Energy Agency, 2008), 643 pp.
150 Geothermal, ocean waves, and tidal energy are all carbon-free energy sources with high potential in certain places on Earth. However, none is foreseen as becoming more than a niche energy source by the year 2050.
151 Hydropower currently supplies about 2,922 TWh/yr, capturing 16% of the world electricity market. Based on a range of global decision scenarios modeled by the International Energy Agency, it will grow so slowly that it will actually lose market share, rising to between 4,590 TWh/yr and 9% market share (“Baseline 2050” scenario) to 5,505 TWh/yr and 13% market share by 2050 (“BLUE hiOil&Gas” scenario). Table 2.5, Energy Technology