• Enact a physical limit on carbon dioxide emissions (a "hard cap") for large users of fossil fuels that steadily declines to zero;
• Eliminate all subsidies and tax breaks for fossil fuels, nuclear power and biofuels from food crops;
• Build demonstration energy supply plants including solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, and carbon dioxide capture in microalgae for liquid fuel production;
• Leverage government purchasing power to create markets for advanced technologies such as plug-in hybrid vehicles
• Ban new coal-fired plants unless they include reliable carbon capture and storage
• Create and enforce stringent efficiency standards for appliances, transportation and buildings

Subject: Sign the Carbon-Free, Nuclear-Free statement
Date: Thu, 24 Jan 2008 16:54:43 -0500
From: "Michael Mariotte" <nirsnet@nirs.org>
To: <done7777@sbcglobal.net>

January 24, 2008
 
Dear Friends:
 
Below is a statement of principles to achieve a Carbon Free and Nuclear Free energy future for the United States, based on Dr. Arjun Makhijani’s groundbreaking new book Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy (for more information on the book, visit www.ieer.org).
 
We are now seeking organizational signatures to this statement in order to show a groundswell of support for this concept.
 
Organizations: please sign this statement by sending your name, title, organization and city/state to NIRS at nirsnet@nirs.org, or just reply to this message with this information.
 
Individuals: While we hope you will support this statement and the Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free concept, we are not collecting individual signatures at this time. Instead, please sign the NIRS statement on nuclear power and climate (if you haven’t already done so!) at http://www.nirs.org/petition2/index.php (organizations that haven’t yet signed this statement are encouraged to do so as well!). And if you have already signed the statement, please send it to a few of your friends and colleagues, as well as other e-mail lists, to encourage more signatures. More than 6,000 of you have signed so far­let’s get to 10,000 this winter and 100,000 by Inauguration Day!
 
As always, thank you for your help and activism.
 
Michael Mariotte
Executive Director
Nuclear Information and Resource Service
nirsnet@nirs.org
 

 
STATEMENT OF PRINCIPLES
TO ACHIEVE A
CARBON FREE AND NUCLEAR FREE U.S. ENERGY SYSTEM BY 2050

 
We the undersigned believe that the United States can and should implement energy production, distribution, and use policies that will phase out the use of fossil fuels and nuclear power by the year 2050. A recent book, Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy,1 provides a detailed analysis that shows that this goal is technically and economically feasible. The Roadmap lays out how we can get from a 94 percent reliance on fossil fuels and nuclear energy (as of 2005) to none by mid-century.2 Oil imports would be completely eliminated along the way.
 
Action to achieve such an energy system as soon as possible is necessary given the scale of the climate crisis, global conflicts over oil resources, and the serious risks of nuclear power. Achieving a near total elimination of CO₂ emissions in the United States is also implied by U.S. commitments under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) combined with the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC estimates that global CO₂ emissions should be reduced by 50 to 85 percent by 2050 relative to 2000 levels to limit temperature increases to less than 2 to 2.4 degrees Celsius, with the former reduction being given only a small chance of accomplishing the goal. If global emissions are allocated on a per capita basis, the U.S. would have to reduce CO₂ emissions by 92 to 96 percent by 2050 to have reasonable confidence that the temperature goal will be met. The United States has signed and ratified the UNFCCC, which went into effect in 1994.
 
A U.S. goal of zero-CO₂ emissions would greatly enhance the likelihood of serious negotiations with China, India, and other developing countries towards an agreement to reduce global CO₂ emissions by 50 to 85 percent. It would be the most practical way to recognize that the United States has contributed disproportionately to the build up of CO₂ in the atmosphere. It would show developing countries by example that economic well-being can be achieved using ecologically sound approaches. And it would establish U.S. leadership in an area where it has been sorely lacking.
 
A reliable electricity sector that is more secure than the present one can be created without nuclear power. The promoters of nuclear energy have used the threat of global warming to rekindle interest, but nuclear power entails risks of nuclear proliferation, severe accidents, and terrorist attacks. It would exacerbate the problem of nuclear waste, for which no reasonable solution is in sight. Overall, it shifts the burden of radiation and proliferation risks arising from current energy use to future generations.
 
Greatly increased energy efficiency throughout the country will make possible a more economical and faster transition to a renewable energy economy. Solar, wind, biofuels, and other renewable energy sources are ample and capable of supplying the energy requirements of a zero-CO₂ U.S. economy. But converting food, such as corn, into biofuel is not a suitable approach, because it is associated with increases in food prices, poor net energy output, and large greenhouse gas emissions. Biofuels must be derived from plants that trap solar energy efficiently and that can be grown on marginal lands. In addition, certain aquatic plants, including some types of algae, could simultaneously provide fuels as well as other environmental benefits.
 
Subsidies for problematic energy sources, notably fossil fuels, nuclear power, and food-based biofuels, should be ended. For example, neither loan guarantees nor production tax credits should be provided to new nuclear power plants.
 
New coal-fired power plants without carbon capture and storage (also called “sequestration”) should be banned. While there is some experience with CO₂ storage, it is not yet a proven technology for climate protection, which requires isolation of CO₂ from the atmosphere for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Storage technology should preferably be developed and tested using emissions from existing rather than new sources of CO₂. Carbon capture and storage technology may be needed to remove CO₂ that has already been emitted to the atmosphere.
 
The U.S. government will need to invest tens of billions of dollars per year in the transition to a carbon-free, nuclear-free economy. The funds will directly support renewable energy and efficiency projects, assist state and local governments, and finance worker and community transition. The money can be raised in a variety of ways, including taxes and the sale of emissions allowances; it should be dedicated to help achieve the transition to a renewable energy economy.
 
Whatever set of policies is adopted, there should be no free emission allowances. Such giveaways are inequitable and regressive. There should be no international offsets or trade in CO₂ allowances, especially with countries that have not set stringent limits on CO₂ emissions. Further, importing biofuels from developing countries could create land pressures that could harm the poor and may even increase greenhouse gas emissions directly or indirectly, for instance, by increasing destruction of tropical forests and peat bogs. U.S. policies must ensure that the goal of reliably ending CO₂ emissions by mid-century is translated into laws, regulations, and intermediate targets that are verifiable and enforceable all along the way.
 
Scientists, including leaders of the IPCC, have been warning that there is little time left to begin to shift from increasing to decreasing greenhouse gas emissions, of which CO₂ emissions are the most important. The United States has delayed too long, partly using the argument that China and India and other major emitters also need to participate in achieving global reductions. We agree that they do; but we note that U.S. leadership, in both immediate action and long-term commitments, is a sine qua non for securing serious commitments from developing countries, which have until recently contributed little to the problem.
 
Finally, the establishment of a goal of achieving a carbon-free and nuclear-free U.S. energy sector by mid-century can have a transformative effect on the global political climate, which is a prerequisite for protecting the planetary physical climate. The ecological, health, and security benefits of realizing that goal will be immense. We are committed to establishing that goal, creating policies designed to achieve the goal, and dedicating the resources to implement those policies.
___________________________________
¹ Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy by Arjun Makhijani, Ph.D., is published jointly by RDR Press and IEER Press, 2007. It can be downloaded free at http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/CarbonFreeNuclearFree.pdf. The Roadmap is described in Chapter 8.
² Another recent book, Winning Our Energy Independence: An Energy Insider Shows How, by S. David Freeman (Layton, Utah: Gibbs Smith, 2007) also advocates a fully renewable, non-nuclear U.S. energy system. 2
 
Signatories (organizational sign-ons, unless indicated: * = organization for identification only)
Brent Blackwelder, President, Friends of the Earth
Helen Caldicott, Founding President, Nuclear Policy Research Institute
S. David Freeman, former Chairman Tennessee Valley Authority*, and President, Los Angeles Board of Harbor Commissioners*
Alexander Lee, Executive Director, Project Laundry List
Arjun Makhijani, President, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research
Michael Mariotte, Executive Director, Nuclear Information and Resource Service
John Miller, Vice-President, Advanced Transportation Systems, Maxwell Technologies*
Lenny Siegel, Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
Jenice View, Just Transition Alliance 3
Daphne Wysham, Fellow, and John Cavanagh, Executive Director, Institute for Policy Studies
Hisham Zerriffi, Ivan Head South/North Chair at the University of British Columbia
 
 
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