California cars
The recent decision by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) to require 15.4% of new cars sold in California in the year 2025 to run on batteries, hydrogen fuel cells, or plug-in hybrid technology represents a triumph of political correctness over science and economics. CARB made clear that its goal is to have 87% of new vehicles operating on such technology by the year 2050. Apparently, the members of CARB never heard of the branch of science called thermodynamics.
There are about 19.8 million automobiles and 14 million light trucks, vans, and sport utility vehicles (SUVs) registered in California. Assuming the fuel cell vehicles are small cars, like the Chevy Volt, the fuel cell output necessary to power just the automobiles in this fleet of vehicles for one year would be about 80 billion kw-hr. However, the process of producing hydrogen from water is so energy-inefficient, approximately 260 billion kw-hr of electrical energy would be needed to produce and compress this hydrogen. This represents about one third of the total nuclear generation in the US today. Just to produce this hydrogen, about 35,000 Mw of new nuclear generation would have to be built. This is equivalent to 17 new Diablo Canyon plants.
The environmental lobby would like us to believe this electricity will come from solar. There are several problems with this idea, not the least of which is the enormous area of collectors required (about 300,000 acres). Furthermore, even if the solar generating capacity were built, we would need 35,000 Mw of back-up gas-fired generation for cloudy days. Questions such as who is going to pay for all of this capacity seem to have been ignored.
But, you say, not all of the vehicles operating in 2050 will be fuel cell vehicles. True, although CARB's goal is for fuel cell vehicles to comprise about 60% of all vehicle sales by the year 2050. That would mean light trucks, vans, and SUVs operating on fuel cells. Such vehicles consume a lot more energy that the 0.42 kw-hr/mile used in these calculations. It also makes both the economics of CARB's plan and the back-up generating capacity problems worse. There are presently about 9,500 gasoline service stations in California. If 60% of new vehicle sales are going to run on fuel cells, we need a comparable number of hydrogen refueling stations. Who pays for this?
CARB has told the public the cost of operating battery-powered vehicles will be lower than gasoline-powered vehicles because they can be recharged at night off-peak. The problem is there is no solar energy at night, and in California, frequently no wind. Therefore, the batteries will have to be recharged at night with gas-fired generation. Electricity rates will certainly rise to cover the cost of the additional back-up capacity. This is equivalent to a tax on energy. This is no way to run an industrial state. A much cheaper alternative would be to operate conventional internal combustion vehicles on compressed natural gas and save the taxpayers the $7,500 tax credit that the Chevy Volt enjoys (for traveling 35 miles on a charge of electricity).
It is worth noting that replacing the entire fleet of 19.8 million automobiles in California with vehicles running on fuel cells would reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 73 million tonnes/year—just 0.2% percent of the present world total. China's carbon dioxide emissions are increasing by about 400 million tonnes/year. CARB needs a reality check.
Donald F. Anthrop
Berkeley, Calif.
Iran's nuclear background
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has announced that Iran is mastering the entire nuclear fuel cycle. That mastery includes mining, processing, enriching, and fabricating fuel from uranium for a nuclear power plant such as the one at Bushehr in Iran. We are unlikely to hear about Iran's other nuclear objective—producing a nuclear weapon which can be a payload on Iran's Shahab-3 medium-range ballistic missile.
The Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is charged with reporting on Iran's compliance with its nuclear Safeguards Agreement to the United Nations Security Council. The IAEA's latest report has information from various sources which suggests clandestine progress in Iran on the technology required for development and delivery of a nuclear weapon. The specific weapons technology includes work on explosives, enrichment, formation of spherical uranium metal, exploding bridge wire detonators, neutron sources, and re-engineering the payload chamber of the Shahab-3 missile.
To understand Iran's nuclear program and ambitions, we need to return to 1953, which saw both the installation of Shah Reza Pahlavi in Iran and the launching by US President Dwight Eisenhower of the Atoms for Peace program. Under Atoms for Peace, the shah established the Tehran Nuclear Research Center with a US-supplied 5-Mw nuclear research reactor.
Iran has oil revenues, and US and European companies rushed to do nuclear business with the shah's Iran. A Siemens-led group contracted to build a $5 billion dollar nuclear power plant at Bushehr. Iran lent $1.1 billion for a 10% share of Eurodif, a uranium enrichment plant in France, jointly owned by France, Belgium, Spain, and Sweden. Iran financed a nuclear cooperation agreement with South Africa in return for supplies of enriched uranium fuel from South Africa and Namibia.
US President Gerald Ford signed a directive offering Tehran the chance to buy and operate a US-built reprocessing facility for the complete "nuclear fuel cycle," including extracting plutonium from nuclear reactor fuel. The Ford strategy paper said the "introduction of nuclear power will both provide for the growing needs of Iran's economy and free remaining oil reserves for export or conversion to petrochemicals."
The shah approved plans to construct, with US help, up to 23 nuclear power plants by 2000. The shah echoed Ford's theme, saying, "Petroleum is a noble material, much too valuable to burn. We envision producing, as soon as possible, 23,000 Mw of electricity using nuclear plants."
In 1979, the overthrow of the shah and the occupation of the US embassy ended US and most European cooperation with Iran's nuclear program. German companies withdrew from the Bushehr project, which was more than half complete and for which they had received at least $2.5 billion. Eurodif did not supply Iran with any enriched uranium.
Iran's nuclear program stalled during the Iran-Iraq War, which ended in 1988. Iran then began seeking other partners for its nuclear ambitions. Russia formed a joint effort with Iran, called Persepolis, which provided Iran with nuclear experts and technology. In 1995, Iran contracted with Russia to complete the Bushehr nuclear plant. Most other potential partners were discouraged by aggressive US objections.
Iran was also a beneficiary of Pakistan's clandestine nuclear weapons sharing network, which included Libya and North Korea. With centrifuge technology from this network Iran was able to build large uranium-enrichment facilities at Natanz and Fordow; neither was disclosed in advance to the IAEA as required by the Safeguards Agreement.
The November 2011 report to the UN Security Council by the IAEA director general states that Iran is obligated by Security Council resolution to cooperate with the IAEA on all issues which give rise to concerns about military dimensions to Iran's nuclear program. Since August 2008, the report states, Iran has not engaged with the agency in any substantive way on this matter. The agency is therefore unable to provide credible assurance that all nuclear material in Iran is in peaceful activities.
Israel is about 900 miles from Iran. The Shahab missiles have an effective range of well over 1,000 miles.
Rolf Westgard
Professional member, Geological Society of America and the American Nuclear Society
St. Paul, Minn.
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