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Earth's Population to Drop by 80 Percent, Says Top UK Scientist
By James Finch

James Lovelock's Latest Book Trashes Renewables, Endorses Nuclear Energy
By James Finch

Earth's Population to Drop by 80 Percent, Says Top UK Scientist
By James Finch

Some like it hot. According to environmentalist James Lovelock, we’ll get plenty of hot between now and the end of the century. “We are so far down the path toward the hottest we have been, since we were 55 million years ago,” Dr. Lovelock, who is also a leading atmospheric scientist, told StockInterview in a tape-recorded interview last week, “that as many of us look at it, it’s not going to make very much difference what anybody does.” In stronger commentary, which he wrote for England’s Independent newspaper, this past January, Lovelock warned, “The Earth is about to catch a morbid fever that may last as long as 100,000 years.” And we were worrying about another Ice Age?

Skeptics might wonder if his 1200-word essay was just book publicity hype. Lovelock’s scathing our-world-is-doomed article was published about two weeks before Penguin Books (UK) began selling his latest work, The Revenge of Gaia, in bookstores across the British Isles. He did admit within his newspaper commentary, “This article is the most difficult I have written.” While interviewing Dr. Lovelock, during our transatlantic phone conversation, the octogenarian sounded sad with his prediction, but still optimistic, despite his ruthless appraisal of what may lay ahead for the rest of this century. “I see the crunch coming as an opportunity to improve ourselves in a way. Who knows? Man may have a better chance when he starts again.”

ONLY ABOUT ONE BILLION HUMANS WILL SURVIVE

What does he mean by starting again? “By the end of this century, there is a high probability that the bulk of our species on the planet will be eliminated,” the soft-spoken Lovelock gravely remarked. “There may be something, plus or minus, on the order of a billion left.” Is there much hope, we asked. “I don’t see our current civilization hacking it,” he lamented in his response. But, but, what if? “Enormous changes must be made,” he stressed. “Society is much too slow in cutting back.” He insisted these changes should have started at least 50 years ago. Later he added, as an afterthought, “If Europe and USA were trying to be good and cut back by 30 percent, it’s really not going to help much. I don’t think the public wants to do it.”

In Lovelock’s forecast, he envisions, at the end of this century, the last few humans would be forced to rebuild the remnants of our civilization in the Arctic. It won’t be as cold up there by then, as you might think. He told us, “Within 25 years, most of the global ice in the Arctic will be gone. You will be able to take a sailboat to the North Pole.” How long before we begin to feel these changes? “In my own modeling, I rather think it is an unknown number of years,” Lovelock explained. “It may be five years or it may be 30 years.” He offered a visual, “Think of it as a rope or a string. Global warming may run up in a straight line or a curve lying a bit loose as the IPCC seems to project.”

Lovelock summarized why his forecast is dire and probably irreversible, “Everybody forgets the greatest damage we’ve done to the earth is not so much the emissions from greenhouse gases, but taking away the natural resistance from the farmland ecosystem. By doing that, we have disabled the planet’s ability to regulate itself.” Lovelock does not enjoy painting a picture of what earth might look like several decades from now. He wrote in the Independent, in January, “Much of the tropical land mass will become scrub and desert, and will no longer serve for regulation; this adds to the 40 per cent of the Earth's surface we have depleted to feed ourselves.” Through his book and in various articles, Lovelock has repeatedly blasted environmentalists who gamble away earth’s future by campaigning for renewable energy sources.

That’s when we began talking about environmentalists, especially the idealists who claim to be helping preserve the earth. So, we asked this leading environmental scientist what was really wrong with today’s environmental movement. Bitterness entered his voice when Lovelock answered, “It’s mostly made up of urban people, who know almost nothing about the countryside and still less about the ecosystem.” He scoffed, “Their solutions are basically urban-political solutions. They continue to insist on wanting to run their cars on bio fuels. This is one of the maddest ideas of the lot.” Lovelock cuts no slack for those championing the cause of bio fuels. He writes in The Revenge of Gaia, “It would require us to burn every year about two to three gigatons of carbon as bio fuel (a gigatons is one thousand million tons). Compare this quantity with our yearly food consumption of half a gigaton tons… We would need the land area of several Earths just to grow fuel.”

Does he believe environmentalists are wrecking the environment? “I’m afraid I do,” he glumly responded. Because we know there remain several environmental groups who refuse to embrace nuclear energy as a much-needed solution to the planet’s energy mix, we asked what he would like to say about them. “They are being very foolish,” he quickly shot back. After a pause, he added, “They are living in a dream world.” Like the father figure he is, Lovelock is disappointed but tries to remain buoyant. He wrote in his recent book, “My feelings about modern environmentalism are more parallel with those that might pass through the mind of a head-mistress of an inner-city school or the colonel of a newly formed regiment of licentious, and naturally disobedient young men: how the hell can these unruly charges be disciplined and made effective?”

LOVELOCK WANTS THE WORLD TO GO NUCLEAR NOW

The headline of a recent editorial in a Boston newspaper asked, “Are Pro Nuclear People the New Greens?” We discussed that. “It’s a bit of an old term, really,” he grinned. “Nuclear has been around for more than 40 years at least. I suppose in some countries, like the United Kingdom, you will find some groups are looking more toward nuclear.”

Make no mistake in thinking James Lovelock is anything but Pro Nuclear. His quote adorns the top of the front page of the World Nuclear Association’s website, “There is no sensible alternative to nuclear power if we are to sustain civilization.” Rightly so, the trade association refers to their proponent as the “preeminent world leader in the development of environmental consciousness.” In his book, Lovelock writes, “There is no alternative but nuclear fission until fusion energy and sensible forms of renewable energy arrive as a truly long-term provider. Nuclear energy is free of emissions and independent of imports from what will be a disturbed world.”

Lovelock briefly analyzes the value and harm of each energy source in The Revenge of Gaia. He has a burning disgust for coal mining, and finds carbon-based fuels inefficient and dangerous, not only to humans but also to earth as a self-regulating system. He has frequently warned that renewables are insufficient to meet our planetary energy needs. In contrast to renewable advocates Amory Lovins or Senator Hillary Clinton, Lovelock sees little value in the immediate future for either solar or wind energy programs, and has harsh words for them, writing, “It will fail and bring discredit both to the greens and to the politicians foolish enough to adopt renewables as a major source of energy before they have been properly developed.” He believes their renewable energy solutions might only hasten our civilization’s demise.

Because Lovelock strongly opposes widespread mining, and because nuclear power depends upon the mining of uranium, how does he feel about uranium mining? “I don’t think it matters because it will never be a very big operation,” he replied. “When you consider the ratio of the energy produced from uranium compared to coal, on a ratio of millions to one, the quantity of uranium being mined is trivial compared to coal mining.” We explained to Dr. Lovelock how U.S. uranium companies replaced conventional mining with In Situ uranium recovery. Lovelock thought the In Situ is “a good idea because it mobilizes the uranium with the oxygen in the water and doesn’t make a god-awful mess of the environment.”

CALLS NAVAJO NATION URANIUM BAN ABSURD

Because of our coverage regarding environmental developments in New Mexico for companies such as Uranium Resources (OTC BB: URRE) and Strathmore Minerals (TSX: STM; Other OTC: STHJF), we talked about uranium mining in that state. Given that it was such an odd event, we discussed the Navajo Nation ban on uranium mining in the four-state tribal reservation area, called ‘Four Corners.’ Puzzled ourselves by this, based upon the latest scientific developments of the in situ uranium recovery method, we discussed an earlier conversation we had with Dr. Fred Begay.

This past November, while visiting Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL), we had asked Dr. Fred Begay about the new face of uranium mining. Dr. Begay, who is both a nuclear physicist and a Navajo, was continuing his affiliation with LANL by conducting community out-reach programs on the Navajo reservation. He told StockInterview, “The Navajo don’t get it. They have illiteracy on mining and uranium.”

We asked James Lovelock what he thought of the Navajo uranium ban in the context that the tribe also receives about $100 million annually from coal mining royalties. “Had there been no mining at all in the Navajo Nation, and they wanted to keep the deposits pristine as part of a natural ecosystem, I could understand their rejection to any mining,” he explained. “But if they allow coal mining, then it’s absurd to reject uranium mining.”

What would James Lovelock say to Navajo Nation president Joe Shirley, Jr. or to any of the aborigine tribes in Australia and elsewhere, which dislike uranium mining? “Very little,” he abruptly replied. Then, he clarified his response. “It’s almost like trying to persuade any religious person that their belief is unfounded. I wouldn’t dream to explain to a devout Catholic that I’m doubtful about the virginity of the Virgin Mary.” He compared it to an article of faith, adding, “They don’t think about it. They don’t know that it is wrong. It is very difficult to deal with people like that.” Does that apply to the average anti-nuclear environmentalist? He explained how he does deal with the uninformed, “The only thing I found effective in this country, the United Kingdom, is to say, ‘Yes, it may be slightly dangerous, but nothing quite so dangerous as global warming. So, we may have to use it to overcome this.’”

CHINA AND FINAL WORDS

One can not talk about 21st century nuclear energy without bringing up China’s dilemma. The world’s largest coal miner and one of the worst air polluters, China is planning the most aggressive nuclear energy expansion program of the past thirty years. “The Chinese government is the strongest government in the world,” Lovelock began. “I have a friend that goes over there regularly to advise the Prime Minister on their environmental problems.” Thus began a classic Lovelock anecdote:

“They say to him, ‘We’re all doing our best to have more renewable energy than anybody else. We are building nuclear power stations, as fast as we possibly can, so as to not add more carbon to the atmosphere. However if we can’t develop the resources for our people, strong as our government is, there will be a revolution tomorrow. We are in no position to stop using the coal resource until we build enough nuclear or other renewable sources to meet our needs.’”

He concluded, “If the Chinese can’t do it, how the heck can the Western democracies do it?” Therein lies what some consider his fatalism about Earth’s health. Is he truly the pessimist some make him out to be?

“Quite to the contrary,” he responded. “I’ve been accused of being a pessimist, but no, I don’t think that way.” Lovelock compared the current threat of global warming to his experiences as a student and young worker, during World War II. “In 1940, we were threatened by invasion by a very powerful enemy,” he reminisced. “Some people threw up their arms in horror and said, ‘There’s nothing we can do.’ But it was a very enjoyable time for those who worked hard and faced the threat.” Britain and Lovelock survived the threat, passing to the next generation what he learned from this experience, “It is terrible to think of Global Warming, but it is nevertheless challenging. It can be quite a wonderful time for a lot of younger people.”

Some have reported The Revenge of Gaia is Lovelock’s last will and testament. We instead read Lovelock’s masterpiece in a different light. Our conversation with Dr. Lovelock led us to believe his book is his sternest warning to the world’s politicians and scientists to speed up their embrace of nuclear energy in order to avert a very possible series of catastrophic events, which may come to us in the decades ahead. He did say there was “a high probability,” but Lovelock never said “definitely.” In this broad difference, Lovelock yet looks into his cup and finds it half full, not half empty.

James Finch contributes to StockInterview.com and other publications. Sign up for your free subscription to articles by James Finch by visiting http://www.stockinterview.com Write to James Finch at jfinch@stockinterview.com

James Lovelock's Latest Book Trashes Renewables, Endorses Nuclear Energy
By James Finch

On the front page of the World Nuclear Association website prominently rests a quote from what some consider the world’s leading environmentalist and among the world’s top scientists, Dr. James Lovelock:

“There is no sensible alternative to nuclear power if we are to sustain civilization.” - James Lovelock, preeminent world leader in the development of environmental consciousness

At age eighty-six, Dr. Lovelock has just published his fourth book, The Revenge of Gaia (Penguin Books, 2006). “Gaia” is Dr. Lovelock’s belief that earth is a living, evolving organism, not just a hunk of rock we all live upon. Through his book, Lovelock refers to Gaia, when he is discussing our third planet from the sun. His latest book is a MUST read for anyone who is following the renaissance in nuclear energy. Environmentalists won’t read this book. Perhaps their bosses will BAN them from reading this book. Those environmentalists who carefully read Lovelock’s latest book may very well become nuclear power lobbyists, if they would bathe, shave and spiff up a bit. Chapter Five, “Sources of Energy,” will instantly disintegrate every ridiculous argument propounded by the naïve and antediluvian anti-nuclear movements across the world.

Dr. Lovelock’s credentials and achievements are light years beyond those of any environmental mouthpiece espousing the “green” movement. More so than anyone alive, Lovelock is first and foremost a giant of the earth’s environmentalist movement. Since 1974, Lovelock has been a Fellow of the Royal Society. Since 1994, he has been an Honorary Visiting Fellow of Green College, University of Oxford. New Scientist described him as “one of the great thinkers of our time. The London Observer has called him, “one of the environmental movement’s most influential figures.” In 2003, he was made Companion of Honour by Her Majesty the Queen. Prospect magazine named Dr. Lovelock in September 2005, “one of the world’s top 100 global public intellectuals.”

How does Dr. Lovelock respond to the question of nuclear waste? He writes, “I have offered in public to accept all the high-level waste produced in a year from a nuclear power station for deposit on my small plot of land; it would occupy a space about a cubic metre in size and fit safely in a concrete pit, and I would use the heat from its decaying radioactive elements to heat my home. It would be a waste not to use it. More important, it would be no danger to me, my family or the wildlife.” That should enlighten the yokels arguing against the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste depository.

Chapter Five, “Sources of Energy,” concisely and cogently answers every silly “theory” about renewable energy sources hyped by the “green” movement. Let’s take Biomass, which makes sense to any concerned citizen. Lovelock even agrees with the theory of Biomass, writing, “Used sensibly and on a modest scale, burning wood or agricultural waste for heat or energy is no threat to Gaia.” Please note that he modified his statement with “sensibly” and “modest.” In a nutshell, he explains why Biomass will not become a leading energy source, “Bio fuels are especially dangerous because it is too easy to grow them as a replacement for fossil fuel; they will then demand an area of land or ocean far larger than Gaia can afford… We have already taken more than half of the productive land to grow food for ourselves. How can we expect Gaia to manage the Earth if we try to take the rest of the land for fuel production?” He added poignantly, “Just imagine that we tried to power our present civilization on crops grown specifically for fuel, such as coppice woodland, fields of oilseed rape, and so on. These are the ‘bio fuels’, the much-applauded renewable energy source…We would need the land area of several Earths just to grow the bio fuel.”

Wind power gets shellacked as well. For those environmentalists, such as Amory Lovins, who believe “Wind Farms” are going to become a significant energy source, they are full of hot air. According to the Royal Society of Engineers 2004 report, onshore European wind energy is two and a half times, and offshore wind energy over three times, more expensive per kilowatt hour than gas or nuclear energy. Denmark, which pioneered wind farms, is regretting the decision. Niels Gram of the Danish Federation of Industries said, “In green terms windmills are a mistake and economically make no sense… Many of us thought wind was the 100-percent solution for the future, but we were wrong. In fact, taking all energy needs into account it is only a 3 percent solution.” Lovelock writes, “To supply the UK’s present electricity needs would require 276,000 wind generators, about three per square mile, if national parks, urban, suburban and industrial areas are excluded… at best, energy is available from wind turbines only 25 percent of the time.” German environmentalists, who have recently led the charge for Wind Power, should reconsider. Lovelock writes, “The most recent report from Germany put wind energy as available only 16 percent of the time.”

Surely, solar power must be the answer, right? Wrong! Lovelock writes, “Solar cells are not yet suitable for supplying electricity directly to homes or workplaces, mostly because, despite over thirty years of development, they are quite expensive to make. At the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales there is an experimental house with a roof made almost entirely of silicon photocells. In summer it provides about three kilowatts of electricity, but the cost of installation was comparable with the house itself, and the expected life of the cells is about ten years. Sunlight, like wind, is intermittent and would, without efficient storage, be an inconvenient energy source at these latitudes.”

Solar and wind power were just two of the many energy sources Lovelock sends to the dumpster. Wave and tidal energy, hydro-electricity, hydrogen, fusion energy, coal and oil and natural gas all suffer similar consequences under Dr. Lovelock’s scientific microscope. Geothermal gets a partial endorsement, but Lovelock writes, “Unfortunately there are few places where it is freely available. Iceland is one of them, and it draws a large part of its energy needs from this source.” How many of you know that, while natural gas could cut carbon dioxide emissions by half, if used ubiquitously, some of the natural gas leaks into the air before it burnt? According to the Society of Chemical Industry’s report (2004), this amounts to about 2 to 4 percent of the gas used. Methane, the main constituent of natural gas is 24 times more potent a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Fusion sounded great in theory, but when I discussed it with Dr. Fred Begay, at the Los Alamos National Laboratories, this past November, he told me it may take fifty years to develop, if it ever could be developed as an energy source. Lovelock explains in his book why Fusion Energy would be wonderful, but he brought up the one point, which stymies nuclear physicists (and which environmentalists won’t even talk about), “… the nuclear fusion of hydrogen yields millions of times more energy than its mere combustion, but to start the powerful reaction requires some means of heating the hydrogen to 150 million degrees.” How exactly go you go about heating something on earth up to 150 million degrees, when the core of the sun has a temperature of a little more than 100 million degrees? Again, great theory and work is being done in this arena to bring about a solution sometime this century, but this technology remains in an incubation stage.

The most shocking and disturbing discussion through Lovelock’s book was the problem with carbon dioxide emissions. The burning question these days is “WHAT” to do with nuclear waste. Lovelock believes we should start worrying about what to do about carbon dioxide emissions waste, “The world’s annual production of carbon dioxide is 27,000 million tons. If this much were frozen into solid carbon dioxide at -80 degrees Centigrade, it would make a mountain one mile high and twelve miles in circumference. To sequester this much each year could not be achieved quickly – probably not sooner than twenty years from now.” He added, “If only had developed and installed the equipment for removing carbon dioxide from power stations and industry fifty years ago, we would now face surmountable problems.” Another problem with carbon dioxide should give you nightmares or reach for a gas mask. Carbon dioxide, according to Dr. Lovelock, “has a complicated removal with an effective residence time of between fifty and a hundred years. About half of the carbon dioxide we have so far added to the air remains there.” That means the carbon dioxide we add to our existing air pollution will still be breathed by our children, grandchildren and their children. How is that for a legacy?

James Lovelock’s Conclusion on Nuclear Energy

How does James Lovelock feel about nuclear energy? “I believe nuclear power is the only source of energy that will satisfy our demands and yet not be a hazard to Gaia and interfere with its capacity to sustain a comfortable climate and atmospheric composition. This is mainly because nuclear reactions are millions of times more energetic than chemical reactions. The most energy available from a chemical reaction, such as burning carbon in oxygen, is about nine kilowatt hours per kilogram. The nuclear fusion of hydrogen atoms to form helium gives several million times as much, and the energy from splitting uranium is greater still.”

Through his book, Lovelock reminds us that nuclear power is the single answer for this century, “We need emission-free energy sources immediately, and there is no serious contender to nuclear fission.”

Lovelock addresses Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, nuclear testing in the 1960s, and many other events over the past fifty years, as nuclear energy has developed. If you wondered about radiation and cancer, Lovelock answers that as well. You may leap up, after reading those pages, and start faxing them off to every environmentalist group you can contact. It may be the most definitive analysis of the disconnect the media and the greens have about nuclear energy and its impact on our health that you have ever read. Lovelock concludes, “The persistent distortion of the truth about the health risks of nuclear energy should make us wonder if the other statements about nuclear energy are equally flawed.”

One specific question that has puzzled me, for a number of years, was this: How many people die to produce each of our energy sources? The table below answered that question. The comparative safety of the different energy sources comes from the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland in a 2001 report, which Lovelock reproduces on page 102 of his book. The Institute examined all of the world’s large-scale energy sources and compared them against their safety records. The numbers of deaths were expressed in terms of terrawatt year of energy made, between 1970 and 1992. A terrawatt year (TTY) is one million million watts of electricity made and continuously used throughout a year.

Lovelock does not simply endorse nuclear, as an idle thought. He is passionate about nuclear energy as a life-saving measure, “My strong pleas for nuclear energy come from a growing sense that we have little time left in which to install a reliable and secure supply of electricity…. The important and overriding consideration is time; we have nuclear power now, and new nuclear building should be started immediately. All of the alternatives, including fusion energy, require decades of development before they can be employed on a scale that would significantly reduce emissions.”

He concludes his masterpiece of Chapter Five of The Revenge of Gaia by writing:

“Meanwhile at the world’s climate centres the barometer continues to fall and tell of the imminent danger of a climate storm whose severity the Earth has not endured for fifty-five million years. But in the cities the party goes on; how much longer before reality enters our minds?

James Finch contributes to StockInterview.com and other publications. His archived articles can be found at http://www.stockinterview.com Please contact James Finch with your feedback and comments by emailing him at: jfinch@stockinterview.com

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