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1AC Nuclear Waste 5.0 SDI Tournament Version

Inherency Despite a host of incentives the nuclear industry needs one more a place for waste disposal. Frank N. von Hippel, a nuclear physicist, professor of public and international affairs in Princeton University's
Program on Science and Global Security, prior assistant director for national security in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, co-chair of the International Panel on Fissile Materials, April/May 20 08, Nuclear Fuel Recycling: More Trouble Than It's Worth, http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=rethinking-nuclear-fuelrecycling&page=5, VP Although a dozen years have elapsed since any new nuclear power reactor has come online in the U.S., there are now stirrings of a nuclear renaissance. The incentives are certainly in place: the costs of natural gas and oil have skyrocketed; the public increasingly objects to the greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels; and the federal government has offered up to $8 billion in subsidies and insurance against delays in licensing (with new laws to streamline the process) and $18.5 billion in loan guarantees. What more could the moribund nuclear power industry possibly want? Just one thing: a place to ship its used reactor fuel. Indeed, the lack of a disposal site remains a dark cloud hanging over the entire enterprise. The projected opening of a federal waste storage repository in Yucca Mountain in Nevada (now anticipated for 2017 at the earliest) has already slipped by two decades, and the cooling pools holding spent fuel at the nations nuclear power plants are running out of space. Plan: The United States Federal Government should pursue a dual track approach to nuclear waste storage allowing interim dry cask storage and developing permanent storage.

Solvency The plan would save the nuclear power industry. Charles D. Ferguson, Council on Foreign Relations28, APRIL 2007 NUCLEAR ENERGY AT A
CROSSROADS(DS) Lexis, dru The waste storage problem in the United States is manageable. The United States should pursue a dual-track approach: commit to developing a consensus and then opening up a permanent repository and in parallel store as much spent fuel as possible in dry casks that are hardened against attack at existing reactor sites. The combination of interim storage and commitment to a permanent repository would provide the assurances needed by the public and the investment community for continued use of nuclear power .

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New technology makes nuclear power more effective and safer. James M. Taylor 12/1/06 MIT Scientists Find a Nuclear Fuel Design that Is Safer and More Efficient
Published in The Environment & Climate News by The Heartland Institute o.z. http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=20260&CFID=5911648&CFTOKEN=55847241 A new fuel design created by scientists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) promises to increase nuclear power output by 50 percent at existing plants, MIT announced on September 20. After three years of research and testing of next-generation fuel technology, MIT scientists discovered that forming uranium into the shape of hollow tubes rather" than solid cylinders allows for more efficient energy exchange and safer operations. Currently, uranium is formed into solid, cylinder-shaped pellets of less than an inch in diameter. In a nuclear reactor, fission releases a tremendous amount of energy in the form of heat that turns water into steam. The steam is then captured and funneled to power turbines that generate electricity. Lower Temperatures Possible The MIT scientists discovered that forming uranium into hollow tubes prior to fission allows more efficient energy exchange by allowing water to interact with a greater uranium surface area. The new design also increases safety because it requires an operating temperature of only 700 degrees Celsius, as compared to 1,800 to 2,800 degrees Celsius under the current design. Currently, a single pickup-truck load of uranium fuel is sufficient to run an entire city for a year. Under the new design, the same amount of uranium fuel will power that city for an extra six months. Promising Nuclear Future According to Pavel Hejzlar and Mujid Kazimi, the MIT scientists who made the discovery, the new fuel design should be available commercially within 10 years. The discovery is expected to form an important bridge to new technologies, such as pebble bed reactors, which are roughly 20 years away from commercial use in the United States. "Nuclear power already was one of the most promising energy sources of the future," observed Jay Lehr, Ph.D., science director for The Heartland Institute. "This breakthrough adds still more momentum to our most affordable cleanburning fuel source. "Pebble bed reactors are the exciting future of nuclear power," Lehr added, "but increasing energy output by 50 percent in existing reactors certainly bridges nuclear power's present to its future. Nuclear power makes more and more economic and environmental sense with each passing day."

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Advantage One Coal Although policymakers believe that nuclear power is now a viable investment, private investors have been hesitant. The construction of coal-fired power plants will begin to meet the electricity needs of the United States if nuclear power plants are not built Fred Bosselman (Professor of Law Emeritus, Chicago-Kent College of Law) 2007 The new power generation:
environmental law and electricity innovation: colloquium article: the ecological advantages of nuclear power, New York University Environmental Law Journal, lexis In 2005, there were 104 U.S. commercial nuclear generating units that were fully licensed to [*3] operate, and they provided about 20% of the Nation's electricity . But no new nuclear plants have been built in the United States for over twenty years. 2 Some policy makers and designers of such plants believe that they can now build plants that avoid the mistakes of the past and produce power that is both safe and economical. 3 Although Wall Street remains doubtful about the economics of such plants, the idea seems to be gaining
momentum. 4 The Energy Policy Act of 2005 provided "Standby Support for Certain Nuclear Plant Delays," authorizing the Department of Energy to enter into up to six contracts with sponsors of new nuclear power plants under which the federal government will guarantee to pay certain costs incurred by the sponsors in case full power operation of the plant is delayed by litigation. 5 For individual projects, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has consolidated its permitting processes and established an Early Site Permit (ESP) program to resolve in advance all on-site environmental issues associated with the licensing of a new reactor. 6 Although no company has [*4] definitely committed to building a new plant, companies have filed applications for more than two dozen plants that are in various stages of the permit process. 7 The NRC must take into account various issues when deciding whether to allow these applications to go forward. Although Congress and the Administration have made their support for new nuclear power plants clear, any decision to build a nuclear power plant requires the agreement of many entities, including: (1) a company prepared to build it; 8 (2) financial backers willing to invest in it; 9 (3) federal policymakers and regulators; 10 (4) state energy and environmental regulators; 11 and (5) a local community prepared to site it. 12 These entities will undoubtedly take into consideration a wide range of issues, including safety, efficiency, profitability, health, and security. 13 [*5] This article concentrates only on one issue related to that decision - an issue that often receives less attention than it deserves: How will the decision affect ecological processes and systems, both in the United States and globally? 14 The article makes three arguments: (1) if nuclear power plants are not built, the gap will be filled by more coal-fired power plants; (2) the impact of coalfired power plants on ecological processes and systems is likely to be increasingly disastrous; and (3) nuclear power's ecological impacts are likely to be neutral or even positive.

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The burning of coal does more ecological damage than a nuclear plant explosionthe environment can adapt to the nuclear meltdown, but it can not bounce back from the burning and mining of coal Fred Bosselman (Professor of Law Emeritus, Chicago-Kent College of Law) 2007 The new power generation:
environmental law and electricity innovation: colloquium article: the ecological advantages of nuclear power, New York University Environmental Law Journal, lexis The study of the ecological impact of the Chernobyl experience should cause us to compare that terrible disturbance to the more gradual and less dramatic changes that humans are causing by burning coal. Explosions, even huge ones, are one-time events. Ecological processes have a long history of adapting to such events and recovering, as they have in the area around Chernobyl. But incremental changes of a unidirectional nature, which go on and on at rates faster than the kinds of change to which ecological processes have adapted, such as acid rain, mercury emissions, and climate change, may be the most serious threat to ecological systems and processes. 274 Ecological systems can be "metastable" if irregular disturbances at a particular scale are
within the level of resilience of the system, thus allowing the system to remain relatively stable at a larger scale. 275 But

disturbances that are continually pushing ecological systems in the same direction, as in the case of the disturbances that cause climate change, are likely to exceed the boundaries of metastability . 276 The
"excess carbon dioxide we put in the atmosphere today is removed exceedingly slowly, meaning that the carbon dioxide we emit in the next half-century will alter the climate for millennia to come." 277 Many biologists and ecologists today are more concerned about the impacts of climate change than about threats of nuclear accidents ; 278 British scientist James Lovelock has written: [*52] I am a green and would be classed among them, but I am most of all a scientist; because of this I entreat my friends among greens to reconsider ... their wrongheaded objection to nuclear energy. Even if they were right about its dangers, and they are not, its use as a secure, safe and reliable source of energy would pose a threat insignificant compared

with the real threat of intolerable and lethal heatwaves and sea levels rising to threaten every coastal city of the world. 279 If we were to assume that nuclear power would produce a Chernobyl every thirty years, a highly improbable assumption, I believe we would do much less damage to ecological systems than is resulting from the ecological damage caused in large part by the burning of coal.

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Coal extraction devastates the environment. Technological improvements only ensure that speedy extraction will come at the expense of the environment and clean coal technologies wont be online fast enough to reduce pollution devastating groundwater, killing species and creating massive air pollution. Fred Bosselman (Professor of Law Emeritus, Chicago-Kent College of Law) 2007 The new power generation: environmental law and electricity innovation: colloquium
article: the ecological advantages of nuclear power, New York University Environmental Law Journal, lexis

Virtually all of the coal mined in the United States is used as boiler fuel to generate electricity, 122 and although
few users of that electricity realize it, half of the nation's electric energy is provided by coal. 123 In his recent book, Big Coal, Jeff Goodell points out that in the United States, the

mining and combustion of coal typically occur in such remote locations that most Americans have no idea "what our relationship with this black rock actually costs us." 124 This is particularly true with regard to public understanding of ecological systems that are being destroyed in remote places or through chains of causation that only experts understand. Coal is ecologically destructive through (1) mining, (2) air pollution, (3) greenhouse gas emissions, and (4) water pollution; and (5) while so-called "clean-coal" technology is a long-range hope, it is not likely to be common in the next decade. 1. Coal Mining Is Destroying Vast Amounts of Natural Landscape Originally, almost all coal mining took place through the construction of a network of shafts underground from which coal would be cut and brought to the surface. Such "underground" mining still takes place in the United States, 125 but each year a [*26] larger share of the mining is "surface" mining. 126 Both kinds of coal mining have an impact on the landscape both directly and indirectly. Underground mining typically brings to the surface large volumes of minerals, only some of which constitutes usable coal. The residue is known as "gob" or "culm" and residue piles from both existing and abandoned underground mines are common sights in older mining areas. 128 The rain penetrates the piles and leaches out the soluble material, creating sulfuric and other acids , which are supposed to be stored in impoundments on the mine site but often flow directly into local watersheds or potable aquifers, particularly if the mine has been abandoned. 129 This kind of acid mine drainage pollutes streams throughout older mining regions, often turning them bright orange, rendering the water non-potable and uninhabitable by wildlife, and changing the ecological processes on the riparian landscape far beyond the mine site . Underground mining also destroys landscapes through subsidence . If a mine shaft is not properly supported, its roof will collapse, which typically causes the surface of the earth over the mine to subside. In older mines, such subsidence regularly happened only after a mineshaft was abandoned, but many
newer mines use a system called "longwall" mining, which makes no attempt to support the roof over the area where coal is removed, resulting in intentional subsidence. Both

can change drainage patterns on the surface in ways that may destroy existing ecosystems. Even more directly damaging to the natural landscape is surface mining, which now produces the majority of our coal. 132 The two most prominent examples of surface mining in the United States and the resulting ecological consequences
intentional and unintentional subsidence are in the Powder River Valley of Wyoming, and in a section of the Southern Appalachians that includes parts of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 133 In both areas, surface mining is used extensively, but the differences in the terrain result in quite different impacts. 134 The Powder River Valley is relatively flat and dry rangeland, supporting cattle and, in the streams, trout. 135 The coal seams in this valley tend to be massive, and the parts that have been mined are relatively close to the surface. 136 The earth overlying the coal, [*28] known in the trade as "overburden," is blasted with explosives and then removed by massive machines built for the purpose. 137 The scale of the operations is so large that seventeen Wyoming surface mines supply over a third of U.S. coal consumption. 138 Despite the effects from the dust created in these operations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently proposed to classify such dust as a non-pollutant. 139 In December 2005, the EPA issued proposed rules that would exempt mining operations in rural areas from dust emission regulations. 140 In the Southern Appalachians, surface mining is taking place in a forested landscape of rolling hills and mountains with relatively

The current mining method is known as "mountaintop mining," and involves blasting and scraping off the tops of mountains to obtain access to the coal underneath. In an earlier era, this coal would have been accessed by underground shafts, but today's massive machinery and cheap explosives makes it more economical to remove the mountaintop and use surface mining equipment to take out the coal . 142 The rubble that was once the top of the mountain is simply dumped into a valley adjacent to the mountain, creating what is euphemistically called "valley fill." The result is the destruction [*29] not only of the ecological characteristics of the mountain itself but also of the adjacent valley . 143 Although this destruction has been widely criticized, it continues to be supported by both federal and state regulating agencies. 144 Although reserves of coal in the United States remain plentiful, the quality and accessibility of the coal is likely to decline. 145 "A good percentage of the coal that's left is too dirty to be burned in conventional power plants, and much of it is buried in inconvenient places - under homes, schools, parks, highways, and historical landmarks." 146 A future shortage of good quality coal may add to the ecological destruction involved in coal mining by requiring more disruption to get at equivalent amounts of coal. 2. Coal Combustion Pollutes a Wide Range of Environments In their recent "Nutshell" book on energy law, Joseph Tomain and Richard Cudahy concisely summarize the primary types of air pollution caused by coal combustion: [*30] Coal combustion generates four main sources of pollution: sulfur oxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide, and particulate matter; all of which spoil land, water, and air. Sulfur oxide, which increases with the sulfur content of the coal, causes human health problems, crop damage, and acid rain. Nitrogen oxide contributes to the same problems and causes smog. Tons of particulate matter are emitted from coal burning facilities daily and cause property damage and health hazards . Finally, carbon dioxide causes what is known as the greenhouse effect, which is an increase in the temperature of the earth's surface. We have long known that air pollution from coal combustion damages crops and natural vegetation, in addition to its impact on human health. In the last thirty years, scientists have learned that pollutants from coal-burning power plants travel long distances and create acid rain that significantly harms plants and animals.
moist conditions. 141

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Scenario 1 Global warming Current levels of warming may have benefits but if we build all of the coal plants currently scheduled to go online runaway global warming will be triggered and the small benefits of warming will be gone and instead humanity will face extinction. Dale Allen Pfeiffer, geologist and peak oil theorist, author of the widely-acclaimed books Giants in Their Steps and The End Of The Oil Age. Global Climate Change & Peak Oil, Wilderness Publications 2004
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/072004_global_climate3.shtml As oil and natural gas production go into decline in North America, the alternative we will ultimately turn to is coal-whether we like it or not. Coal is considered to be abundant in North America, and it is cheap. Despite all the talk of a
hydrogen economy, the real investment will go into stepping up coal production. In fact, the production of coal-fired power plants has already been stepped up. As of February 2004, at least 100 new coal-fired electric power plants were planned to go up in more than 36 states.23 This new growth market is currently flying below radar, because once plans for a coal-burning plant are made public, they are liable to be halted by the legislative efforts of environmentalists and neighborhood coalitions. If even

half of these plants are completed, they will increase exhaust gas emissions by 120 million cubic feet per minute. All the new coal plants being proposed would add one-tenth of one percent to the world's annual carbon dioxide emissions.24 That may not seem like much, but it is certainly a move in the wrong direction. And it is only the beginning. As the production of oil and natural gas continues to slide, we will open up our coal
reserves for electricity production, heating, industrial use, and to process coal into liquid transportation fuel. In the process, we will increase our exhaust emissions, rip up vast areas of land, create immense slag dumps, and pollute our waterways and groundwater. And we will require a major upgrade in our coal transportation network-that is, trucks and trains. You can expect strong efforts from industry and politicians to turn back environmental laws regulating coal production and coal burning. It will be argued that these regulations are damaging the economy. They will point to an economy choking from a constricting energy base, and they will insist that they cannot provide the energy we so desperately need with all these legal restrictions. Power outages will act to blunt the environmental sensibilities of the public. Perhaps the only salvation here lies in recent research (reported in FTW), that coal is likely to peak sometime around 2032, if not sooner.25 This will leave us a little less than 20 years of stepped up production before coal joins the list of has-beens. Then our carbon emissions really may begin to decrease. But the US is not the only country likely to turn to coal. China is also eying its large reserves of coal, as is India. If the world's two most populous countries step up their coal consumption along with the US, then the decline in petroleum and natural gas production will actually be greeted with a pronounced increase in carbon emissions. Peak oil will not be a blessing in disguise with regard to global warming. The models of global climate change developed by the IPCC and others have not taken into account the impacts of Peak Oil and the North American Natural Gas Cliff. These models are based on faulty economic projections produced by neo-classical economics -a warped discipline which is blind to resource depletion.26 If we turn to coal and biomass to make up for the decrease in oil and natural gas production, then it is likely that our actions will push the average global temperature well beyond the 6 C threshold mentioned above. The end of the oil age could very well push us into an age of runaway global warming. Coal will not be able to support the kind of energy-intensive economy which we have built on oil and natural gas. It will be a faltering effort from a civilization in denial, intent on clinging to unsustainable ways. It will fail in the end, but in this last mad burn-off of energy resources, we may very well incur the demise of life on this planet.

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And, Runaway warming kills billions, collapses the global economy and put humanitys survival at risk. Lester Milbrath (director of the Research Program in Environment and Society at the State University of New York at Buffalo and a professor emeritus of political science and sociology) May 1994 The Futurist, Climate and
chaos: societal impacts of sudden weather shifts, lexis Extreme weather conditions may cause population shifts and decreased agricultural output. Humanity might face the ultimate test of survival. Climate modelers have been cautiously predicting that the earth will gradually
warm in the years ahead, producing similarly gradual changes in climatic patterns. For instance, the middle of North America will slowly grow arid. It continuesAnother scenario suggests that there could be an extended period, perhaps a decade or two, when

there is oscillation-type chaos in the climate system. Plants will be especially vulnerable to oscillating chaos, since they are injured or die when climate is too hot or too cold, too dry or too wet. And since plants make food for all other creatures, plant dieback would lead to severe declines in agricultural production. Farm animals and wildlife would die in large numbers. Many humans also would starve. Several years of climatic oscillation could kill billions of people. The loss of the premise of continuity would also precipitate collapse of would financial markets. That collapse would lead to sharp declines in commodity markets, world trade, factory
output, retail sales, research and development, tax income for governments, and education. Such nonessential activities as tourism, travel, hotel occupancy, restaurants, entertainment, and fashion would be severely affected. Billions of unemployed people

would drastically reduce their consumption, and modern society's vaunted economic system would collapse like a house of cards.

Scenario Two is freshwater: Contamination of our freshwater destroys any possibility for life on Earth. Robert B. Jackson and Steven W. Running Spring 2001 Water in a Changing World, Issues in Ecology,
Ecological Society of America, http://www.biology.duke.edu/jackson/issues9.pdf Life on earth depends on the continuous flow of materials through the air, water, soil, and food webs of the biosphere. The movement of water through the hydrological cycle comprises the largest of these flows, delivering
an estimated 110,000 cubic kilometers (km3) of water to the land each year as snow and rainfall. Solar energy drives the hydrological cycle, vaporizing water from the surface of oceans, lakes, and rivers as well as from soils and plants (evapotranspiration). Water vapor rises into the atmosphere where it cools, condenses, and eventually rains down anew. This renewable freshwater supply sustains life on the land, in estuaries, and in the freshwater ecosystems of the earth. Renewable fresh water provides many services essential to human health and well being, including water for drinking, industrial production, and irrigation, and the production of fish, waterfowl, and shellfish . Fresh water also provides many benefits while it remains in its channels (nonextractive or instream benefits), including flood control, transportation, recreation, waste processing, hydroelectric power, and habitat for aquatic plants and animals. Some benefits, such as irrigation and hydroelectric power, can be achieved only by damming, diverting, or creating other major changes to natural water flows. Such changes often diminish or preclude other instream benefits of fresh water, such as providing habitat for aquatic life or maintaining suitable water quality for human use

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Scenario Three is eco-system collapse: Ecosystem loss risk extinction David N. Diner (Judge Advocate Generals Corps of US Army) 1994 Military Law Review, Lexis
No species has ever dominated its fellow species as man has. In most cases, people have assumed the God-like power of life and death -extinction or survival -- over the plants and animals of the world. For most of history, mankind pursued this domination with a singleminded determination to master the world, tame the wilderness, and exploit nature for the maximum benefit of the human race. n67 In past mass extinction episodes, as many as ninety percent of the existing species perished, and yet the world moved forward, and new species replaced the old. So why should the world be concerned now? The prime reason is the world's survival. Like all

animal life, humans live off of other species. At some point, the number of species could decline to the point at which the ecosystem fails, and then humans also would become extinct . No one knows how many [*171] species the world needs to support human life, and to find out -- by allowing certain species to become extinct -would not be sound policy. In addition to food, species offer many direct and indirect benefits to mankind. n68 2. Ecological
Value. -- Ecological value is the value that species have in maintaining the environment. Pest, n69 erosion, and flood control are prime benefits certain species provide to man. Plants and animals also provide additional ecological services -- pollution control, n70 oxygen production, sewage treatment, and biodegradation. n71 3. Scientific and Utilitarian Value. -- Scientific value is the use of species for research into the physical processes of the world. n72 Without plants and animals, a large portion of basic scientific research would be impossible. Utilitarian value is the direct utility humans draw from plants and animals. n73 Only a fraction of the [*172] earth's species have been examined, and mankind may someday desperately need the species that it is exterminating today. To accept that the snail darter, harelip sucker, or Dismal Swamp southeastern shrew n74 could save mankind may be difficult for some. Many, if not most, species are useless to man in a direct utilitarian sense. Nonetheless, they may be critical in an indirect role, because their extirpations could affect a directly useful species negatively. In a closely interconnected ecosystem, the loss of a species affects other species dependent on it. n75 Moreover, as the number of species decline, the effect of each new extinction on the remaining species increases dramatically. n76 4. Biological Diversity. -- The main premise of species preservation is that diversity is better than simplicity. n77 As the current mass extinction has progressed, the world's biological diversity generally has decreased. This trend occurs within ecosystems by reducing the number of species, and within species by reducing the number of individuals. Both trends carry serious future implications. Biologically diverse ecosystems are characterized by a large number of specialist species, filling narrow ecological niches. These ecosystems inherently are more stable than less diverse systems. "The more complex the ecosystem, the more successfully it can resist a stress. . . . [l]ike a net, in which each knot is connected to others by several strands, such a fabric can resist collapse better than a simple, unbranched circle of threads -- which if cut anywhere breaks down as a whole." n79 By causing widespread extinctions, humans have artificially simplified many ecosystems. As biologic simplicity increases, so does the risk of ecosystem failure. The spreading Sahara Desert in Africa, and the dustbowl conditions of the 1930s in the United States are relatively mild examples of what might be expected if this trend continues. Theoretically, each new animal or plant extinction, with all its dimly perceived and intertwined affects,

could cause total ecosystem collapse and human extinction. Each new extinction increases the risk of disaster. Like a mechanic removing, one by one, the rivets from an aircraft's wings, mankind may be edging closer to the abyss.

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Scenario Four is the Economy US coal production has already peaked the most recent studies conclude that remaining reserves are of LOW QUALITY and impossible to mine. Global coal reserves face a similar fate, and will peak within 15 years Richard Heinberg, Core Faculty member of New College of California and a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute,
widely regarded as one of the world's foremost Peak Oil educators. Peak coal: sooner than you think, Energy Bulletin, May 21 2007 http://www.energybulletin.net/node/29919
Coal provides over a quarter of the world's primary energy needs and generates 40 per cent of the world's electricity. Two thirds of global steel production depends on coal. Global consumption of coal is growing faster than that of oil or natural gas - a reverse of the situation in earlier decades. From 2000 to 2005, coal extraction expanded at an average of 4.8 per cent per year compared to 1.6 per cent per year for oil: although world natural gas consumption had been racing ahead in past years, in 2005 it actually fell slightly. Looking to the future, many analysts who are concerned about emerging supply constraints for oil and gas foresee a compensating shift to lower-quality fuels. Coal can be converted to a gaseous or liquid fuel, and coal gasification and coal-to-liquids plants are being constructed at record rates. This expanded use of coal is worrisome to advocates of policies to protect the global climate, some of whom place great hopes in new (mostly untested) technologies to capture and sequester carbon from coal gasification. With or without such technologies, there will almost certainly be more coal in our near future. According to the widely accepted view, at current production levels proven coal reserves will last 155 years (this according to the World Coal Institute). The US Department of Energy (USDoE) projects annual global coal consumption to grow 2.5 per cent a year through 2030, by which time world consumption will be nearly double that of today. A startling report: less than we thought! However, future scenarios for global coal consumption are cast into doubt by two recent European studies on world coal supplies . The first, Coal: Resources and Future Production (PDF 630KB), published on April 5 by the Energy Watch Group, which reports to the German Parliament, found that global coal production could peak in as few as 15 years. This astonishing conclusion was based on a careful analysis of recent reserves revisions for several nations. The report's authors (Werner Zittel and Jrg Schindler) note that, with regard to global coal reserves, "the data quality is very unreliable", especially for China, South Asia, and the Former Soviet Union countries. Some nations (such as Vietnam) have not updated their proved reserves for decades, in some instances not since the 1960s. China's last update was in 1992; since then, 20 per cent of its reserves have been consumed, though this is not revealed in official figures. However, since 1986 all nations with significant coal resources (except India and Australia) that have made the effort to update their reserves estimates have reported substantial downward revisions. Some countries - including Botswana, Germany, and the UK - have downgraded their reserves by more than 90 per cent. Poland's reserves are now 50 per cent smaller than was the case 20 years ago. These downgrades cannot be explained by volumes produced during this period. The best explanation, say the EWG report's authors, is that nations now have better data from more thorough surveys. If that is the case, then future downward revisions are likely from countries that still rely on decades-old reserves estimates. Altogether, the world's reserves of coal have dwindled from 10 trillion tons of hard coal equivalent to 4.2 trillion tons in 2005 - a 60 per cent downward revision in 25 years. China (the world's primary consumer) and the US (the nation with the largest reserves) are keys to the future of coal. China reports 55 years of coal reserves at current consumption rates. Subtracting quantities consumed since 1992, the last year reserves figures were updated, this declines to 40 to 45 years. However, the calculation assumes constant rates of usage, which is unrealistic since consumption is increasing rapidly. Already China has shifted from being a minor coal exporter to being a net coal importer. Moreover, we must factor in the peaking phenomenon common to the extraction of all non-renewable resources (the peak of production typically occurs long before the resource is exhausted). The EWG report's authors, taking these factors into account, state: "it is likely that China will experience peak production within the next 5-15 years, followed by a steep decline." Only if China's reported coal reserves are in reality much larger than reported will Chinese coal production rates not peak "very soon" and fall rapidly. The United States is the world's second-largest producer, surpassing the two next important producer states (India and Australia) by nearly a factor of three. Its reserves are so large that America has been called "the Saudi Arabia of coal". The US has already passed its peak of production for high-quality coal (from the Appalachian Mountains and the Illinois basin) and has seen production of bituminous coal decline since 1990. However, growing extraction of sub-bituminous coal in Wyoming has more than compensated for this. Taking reserves into account, the EWG concludes that growth in total volumes can continue for 10 to 15 years. However, in terms of energy content US coal production peaked in 1998 at 598 million tons of oil equivalents (Mtoe); by 2005 this had fallen to 576 Mtoe. Confirmation: a second study The EWG study so contradicts widespread assumptions about future coal supplies that most energy analysts would probably prefer to ignore it. However, an even more recent study, The Future of Coal, by B. Kavalov and S. D. Peteves of the Institute for Energy (IFE), prepared for European Commission Joint Research Centre and not yet published, reaches similar conclusions. Unlike the EWG team, Kavalov and Peteves do not attempt to forecast a peak in production. Future supply is discussed in terms of the familiar but often misleading reserves-toproduction (R/P) ratio. Nevertheless, the IFG's conclusions broadly confirm the EWG report. The three primary take-away conclusions from the newer study are as follows: "world proven reserves (i.e. the reserves that are economically recoverable at current economic and operating conditions) of coal are decreasing fast"; "the bulk of coal production and exports is getting concentrated within a few countries and market players, which creates the risk of market imperfections"; and " coal production costs are steadily rising all over the world, due to the need to develop new fields, increasingly difficult geological conditions and additional infrastructure costs associated with the exploitation of new fields". Early in the paper the authors ask, "Will coal be a fuel of the future?" Their disturbing conclusion, many pages later, is that "coal might not be so abundant, widely available and reliable as an energy source in the future". Along the way, they state "the world could run out of economically recoverable (at current economic and operating conditions) reserves of coal much earlier than widely anticipated". The authors also highlight problems noted in the EWG study having to do with differing grades of coal and the likelihood of supply problems arising first with the highest-grade ores. All of this translates to higher coal prices in coming years. The conclusion is repeated throughout the IFE report: "[I]t is true that historically coal has been cheaper than oil and gas on an energy content basis. This may change, however ... The regional and country overview in the preceding chapter has revealed that coal recovery in most countries will incur higher production costs in future. Since international coal prices are still linked to production costs ... an increase in the global price levels of coal can be expected ..." As prices for coal rise, "the relative gap between coal prices and oil and gas prices will most likely narrow", with the result that "the future world oil, gas and coal markets will most likely become increasingly inter-related and the energy market will tend to develop into a global market of hydrocarbons".

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Peak coal means our window is closing failure to begin transitioning away from coal NOW guarantees global economic collapse Richard Heinberg, Core Faculty member of New College of California and a Fellow of the Post Carbon Institute,
widely regarded as one of the world's foremost Peak Oil educators. Peak coal: sooner than you think, Energy Bulletin, May 21 2007 http://www.energybulletin.net/node/29919 Evidence that coal resource limits may constrain CO2 emissions would seem to be good news for climate protection advocates. However, the latter may be wary that industry-led opponents of emissions-reduction policies will seize on this
new data to argue that governments needn't do anything about emissions, since rates of coal extraction will decline in any case. Nevertheless it makes more sense for climate activists to embrace the news and use it to advantage, rather than to deny or marginalise it. They can argue that, even if society finds steep voluntary cuts in the use of coal to be economically onerous, there is really no alternative: declines in production will happen

anyway, so it is better to cut consumption proactively than wait and be faced with shortages and price volatility later. The findings of the 2005 USDoE-funded Hirsch report (PDF 1.17MB) (Peak of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management) regarding society's vulnerability to peak oil apply also to peak coal: time will be needed in order for society to adapt proactively to a resource-constrained environment. A failure to begin now to reduce reliance on coal will mean much greater economic hardship when the peak arrives. The new information about coal tells us that even if the economic price for carbon reduction is high, we have no choice but to proceed. There is no "business-as-usual" option, even ignoring environmental impacts, given the resource constraints. Nations that are currently dependent on coal - China and the US especially - would be wise to begin reducing consumption now, not only in the interests of climate protection, but also to reduce societal vulnerability arising from dependence on a resource that will soon become more scarce and expensive. The reports' findings are not uniformly encouraging for climate matters, though. The IFE authors suggest that price increases for coal may discourage deployment of technologies to capture and bury carbon to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: in poorer countries, "producing cheap and affordable electricity is more important than producing environmentally friendly electricity". A wake-up
call on coal Taken together, the EWG and IFE reports deliver a shocking message. For a world already concerned about future oil supplies, uncertainties about coal undercut one of the primary strategies - turning supposedly abundant coal into a liquid fuel - that is being touted for maintaining global transport networks. The sustainability of China's economic growth, which has

largely been based on a rapid surge in coal consumption, is thrown into question. And the ability of the US to maintain its coal-powered electricity grids in coming decades is also cast into doubt. In summary, we now have two authoritative studies reaching largely consistent conclusions with devastating implications for the global economy. Surely these studies deserve follow-up reviews of the data by the International Energy Agency. If the EWG and IFE conclusions hold, the world will need to respond quickly with an enormous shift in the directions of energy conservation and development of renewable sources of electricity. Climate concerns
are already drawing some nations in these directions; however, even nations leading the efforts may not be proceeding fast enough. For China and the United States, the world's two most coal-dependent countries, the message could not be clearer: whether or not global climate concerns are taken seriously, it is time to fundamentally revise the current energy paradigm.

Economic decline causes global nuclear war Mead 92 [Walter Russel, fellow, Council on Foreign Relations, New perspectives quarterly, summer pp. 28]
What if the global economy stagnates - or even shrinks? In that case, we will face a new period of international conflict: South against North, rich against poor. Russia, China, India - these countries with their billions of people and their nuclear weapons will pose a much greater danger to world order than Germany and Japan did in the '30s.
But what if it can't?

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Advantage Two Proliferation Investors need a clear signal that the federal government will allow nuclear power to flourish. Jack Spencer, Research Fellow in Nuclear Energy in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, November 15, 2007, The Heritage Foundation, Competitive Nuclear Energy Investment:
Avoiding Past Policy Mistakes, nna http://www.heritage.org/Research/EnergyandEnvironment/bg2086.cfm Nuclear power is a proven, safe, affordable, and environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels. It can generate massive quantities of electricity with almost no atmospheric emissions and can offset America's growing dependence on foreign energy sources. The French have used it to minimize their dependence on foreign energy, and at one time the United States was on the path to do the same. However, the commercial nuclear energy industry in the U.S. is no longer thriving. Investors hesitate to embrace nuclear power fully, despite significant regulatory relief and economic incentives. This reluctance is not due to any inherent flaw in the economics of nuclear power or some unavoidable risk. Instead, investors are reacting to the historic role that federal, state, and local governments have played both in encouraging growth in the industry and in bringing on its demise . Investors doubt that federal, state, and local governments will allow nuclear energy to flourish in the long term . They have already lost billions of dollars because of bad public policy. The United States once led the world in commercial nuclear technology. Indeed, the world's leading nuclear companies continue to rely on American technologies. However, in the 1970s and 1980s, federal, state, and local governments nearly regu lated the U.S. commercial nuclear industry out of existence. U.S. companies responded by reallocating their assets, consolidating or selling their commercial nuclear capabilities to foreign companies in pro-nuclear countries. This paper reviews how overregulation largely destroyed the nuclear industry and why it remains an obstacle to investment in the industry. This dynamic must be understood and mitigated before the true economics of nuclear power can be harnessed for the benefit of the American people.

Nuclear power is expanding worldwide and the U.S. is losing its leadership because we dont have a vigorous nuclear industry. Robert E. Ebel the Director, Energy and National Security Center for Strategic and International Studies Washington, D. C. 6/8/2000. AP. http://www.csis.org/media/csis/congress/ts000608ebel.pdf
Clearly, all will benefit if developing countries have access to adequate, clean, and secure sources of energy. At the same time, they will not place environmental policy ahead of economic growth. To assist these consumers, it is essential that clean coal technology is a viable option, given their high coal consumption. Equally important, nuclear power must be promoted as a viable option in the developing world, to supply electricity in rural areas and to promote general industrialization, while keeping nuclear power as a viable option in the developed world. Let me ask, does the United States have a forward-looking plan for nuclear power? No, it does not. Does Russian? Yes, the Minister of Atomic Energy recently stated that there are plans to quadruple the generation of nuclear electric power by the year 2030. Does China? China today has 10 nuclear reactors under construction and will build 20 nuclear power stations by the year 2020. Does Japans, despite a recent shift in public opinion? Yes, the government currently plans to add 20 new reactors by the year 2010. I can visualize our leadership slipping away. The nuclear option faces a difficult choice: Exercise the nuclear option, through government support (it is our judgment that the market alone won't do it).

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U.S. needs to add nuclear power plants to internationally extend its influence and stop proliferation. American Council on Global Nuclear Competitiveness, May 2007 LC
www.nuclearcompetitiveness.org The influence of the United States internationally could be enhanced significantly if the U.S. is able to achieve success in its Nuclear Power 2010 program and place several new orders in the next decade and beyond. There is a clear upsurge of interest in nuclear power in various parts of the world. [Thus], if the U.S. aspires to participate in these programs and to shape them in ways that are most conducive to nonproliferation, it will need to promote the health and viability of the American nuclear infrastructure. Perhaps more importantly, if it wishes to exert a positive influence in shaping the nonproliferation policies of other countries, it can do so more effectively by being an active supplier to and partner in the evolution of those programs. Concurrent with the prospective growth in the use of nuclear power, the global nonproliferation regime is facing some direct assaults that are unprecedented in nature. International confidence in the effectiveness of developments underscore the importance of maintaining the greatest integrity and effectiveness of the nuclear export conditions applied by the major suppliers. They also underscore the importance of the U.S. maintain in effective policies to achieve these objectives. Constructive U.S. influence will be best achieved to the extent that the U.S. is perceived as a major technological leader, supplier and partner in the field of nuclear technology. As the sole superpower, the U.S. will have considerable, on-going influence on the international nonproliferation regime, regardless of how active and successful it is in the nuclear export market. However, the erosion of the U.S. nuclear infrastructure has begun to weaken the ability of the U.S. to participate actively in the international nuclear market. If the U.S. becomes more dependent on foreign nuclear suppliers or if it leaves the international nuclear market to other suppliers, the ability of the U.S. to influence nonproliferation policy will diminish. It is, therefore, essential that the United States have vibrant nuclear reactor, enrichment services, and spent fuel storage and disposal industries that can not only meet the needs of U.S. utilities but will also enable the United States to promote effective safeguards and other nonproliferation controls through close peaceful nuclear cooperation with other countries. U.S. nuclear exports can be used to influence other states nuclear programs through the nonproliferation commitments that the U.S. requires. The U.S. has so-called consent rights over the enrichment, reprocessing and alteration in form or content of the nuclear materials that it has provided to other countries, as well as to the nuclear materials that are produced from the nuclear materials and equipment that the U.S. has supplied. Further, the ability of the U.S. to develop improved and advanced nuclear technologies will depend on its ability to provide consistent and vigorous support for nuclear R&D programs that will enjoy solid bipartisan political support in order that they can be sustained from one administration to another. As the U.S. Government expends taxpayer funds on the Nuclear Power 2010 program, the Global Nuclear Energy Partnership, the Generation IV initiative and other programs, it should consider the benefit to the U.S. industrial base and to U.S. non-proliferation posture as criteria in project design and source selection where possible.

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Proliferation is extremely dangerous it creates multiple scenarios for nuclear war. Utgoff 02, [VICTOR, Dep. Director of Strategy Force and Resources Div of Institute for Defense
Analysis,Survival summer, Vol 44, no 2, pg 87-90) Many readers are probably willing to accept that nuclear proliferation is such a grave threat to world peace that every effort should be made to avoid it. However, every effort has not been made in the past, and we are talking about much more substantial efforts now. For new and substantially more burdensome efforts to be made to slow or stop nuclear proliferation, it needs to be established that the highly proliferated nuclear world that would sooner or later evolve without such efforts is not going to be acceptable. And, for many reasons it is not. First, the dynamics of getting to a highly proliferated world could be very dangerous. Proliferating states will feel great pressures to obtain nuclear weapons and delivery systems before any potential opponent does. Those who succeed in outracing an opponent may consider preemptive nuclear war before the opponent becomes capable of nuclear retaliation . Those who lag behind might try to preempt their opponent's nuclear programme or defeat the opponent using conventional forces. And those who feel threatened but are incapable of building nuclear weapons may still be able to join in this arms race by building other types of weapons of mass destruction, such as biological weapons. Second, as the world approached complete proliferation, the hazards posed by nuclear weapons today will be magnified many times over. Fifty or more nations capable of launching nuclear weapons means that the risk of nuclear accidents that could causes serious damage not only to their own populations and environments, but those of others, is hugely increased. The chances of such weapons falling into the hands of renegade military units or terrorists is far greater, as is the number of nations carrying out hazardous manufacturing and storage activities.

These scenarios put all of humanity at risk.