I have a problem with the nuclear power debate in Australia, and it isn’t a problem with nuclear power. I’m pretty much in agreement with Tim Flannery that the threats posed by global warming are so much greater than the risks involved with nuclear power and that the option of using it should be very much on the table.
Instead my problem with the debate is that it seems to be about whether we should use nuclear power, not whether we should consider nuclear power as an option. This is missing an important point. As even the uranium industry admit
Coal is, and will probably remain, economically attractive in countries such as China, the USA and Australia with abundant and accessible domestic coal resources as long as carbon emissions are cost-free.
As it stands nuclear power isn’t really an economic option in Australia. It’s just not a cost effective way of producing power compared with the other options.
Therefore it seems that if we are going to introduce nuclear power we will need somehow to subsidise it. Now I don’t have a problem with that in itself if it solves the problem of CO2 emissions, but perhaps there is a better way? Perhaps we should directly target the problem of CO2 emissions, by taxing them directly, and letting the industry work out if its cheaper to cut costs by alternative energy, or by something like geosequestration (if they can get it working), or if its now competitive, nuclear power. Perhaps the effect will be to crank the costs up and my neighbours will stop leaving the light on outside all night, and people will think twice about whether they really need that clothes dryer rather than the line, or the air conditioning set to 23 rather than 26 degrees. Either way its going to make everyone think hard about how they can minimise their CO2 emissions.
Quite seriously the debate, as it has been framed, is a joke. If the government acknowledges CO2 emissions are a problem, and it appears they do, then they need to act directly not by subsidising a pet industry. If they want to practice free market rhetoric in the labour market then they sure should be doing it in the energy market, and they should be doing it by charging for pollution.
Um, yes. John Quiggin says so, along with just about every economist who’s looked at the problem. As Paul Norton pointed out, the Australian Conservation Foundation and various businesses are saying so. For the minimal worth of my own opinion, I’ve said so many times.
One thing that is not particularly well understood here is that geosequestration, almost by definition, can’t be cost-competitive without carbon charging, because pumping the stuff underground is an expense no matter how you do it (unless you can somehow get some economic value out of the gas and still dispose of it safely). Without a carbon charge, the cost of releasing flue gases is virtually zero. The disingenuousness of the conservatives on this issue, proclaiming geosequestration as the answer but without introducing a regulatory regime to make it financially feasible, is appalling.
But back to nuclear power, I think even Naomi was prepared to agree with me that even if the economics of nuclear power in Australia are unfavourable, that is not in and of itself a reason to ban it. Banning because it’s unsafe is perfectly reasonable (if it is indeed unsafe; I think it’s more than safe enough), banning it because the government’s numbers say that a private company can’t make money on it is silly. If a private company (or the French or US government) want to come and tear up dollars on our soil we should feel free to let them.
That said, I reject the assertion that nuclear power is and always will be uneconomic in Australia without carbon charging. It may well be, but the nuclear reactor manufacturers are aiming for a capital cost of 1000 USD per kilowatt for their next-generation reactors (the first of which will begin construction in the next couple of years, not 20 years down the track as some envisiage), a price point that would make them price-competitive (somewhere down the line when the kinks in the construction process are evened out) even without subsidy or carbon charging.
It seems that that waiting for this to happen is the Liberals’ genius strategy for dealing with greenhouse – basically, wait for the rest of the world to pay for the R&D and use the technologies they’ve sweated on to fix the problem at the last minute. There’s probably a similar thought process going on for transport emissions; wait for the US, EU, and Japan to perfect whatever combination of fuel cells, hybrids, and biofuels are the best and introduce them in a mad rush in 2025 or so.
Yes, this is breathtakingly cynical, but I don’t think anybody has ever accused John Howard and the current government of having any shortage of that resource…
Yes, I read Quiggin’s piece after I wrote this, but its hardly an original idea of mine or his. Its obvious, but it doesn’t seem to get much traction and needs to be said more.
Oh and if someone wants to come in subsidy free and build a nuclear power plant because they think they can be cost effective (while meeting safety regulations) then I think they should. I doubt they will anytime in the near future.
The wait for new breakthrough technology is really just closing your eyes and hoping it goes away. Solutions big and small will arrive sooner if people are actually forced to pay for their mess.
“if people are actually forced to pay for their mess. ”
What mess, steve? I really don’t see a mess here. The problem I have with this issue is that though I believe there is carbon forcing I cannot see who is being damaged here. In other words to argue externality you need to argue in favor of a victim(s). Show me one.
On he other hand pushing for nukes means we are raising the cost of producing energy as we need to replant, accelerate amortization of current plant and then pay world prices for nuke rods.
I see us as all being victims in the second choice.
So I welcome your input in preenting a the case for externality without a victim.
JC, if the predictions of the climate models come true, north-east Victoria’s climate will be dryer, hotter, and most importantly produce a lot less runoff into the Murray-Darling Basin within a lifetime. Variability will also increase, with more very wet years and more drought.
North-East Victoria and far south-east NSW provide the vast majority of the water that goes into the Murray river. That’s a whole lot of irrigation, not to mention Adelaide’s domestic water supply, that are going to be in big trouble.
But that’s just small fry. Therethere’s the risk that the Gulf Stream might weaken, sending northern Europe into the icebox it should be, by rights.
Now, you might dispute the modelling, but there’s no shortage of externalities out there if it comes true.
I think the Liberals’ idea is Australia will wait until the big polluters have invented (and paid for the R&D on) technology to clean up their own messes, which we will then buy at a more reasonable price as mature technology later on. In other words, we sponge off the rest of the world’s efforts to clean itself up. And, from a narrow Australian interest, it probably sounds like a clever strategy. There are two problems with it, though.
The first is that while transport rolling stock turns itself over pretty quickly, power stations last for many decades. JC’s point about accelerated depreciation of current power generation plant may actually be worse if we don’t decide on a carbon charging regime soon.
The second, of course, is what it does to the soul of Australia as a nation. I doubt even the aspirationals aspire for Australia to be a country that, rather than doing its fair share, sponges off the efforts of others in attacking the most serious global environmental issue the world has ever faced.
Following your personal links Robert Merkel we go from nuclear power to morality to mockery of “aspirationals”.
Is that the well spring for all this botheration?
Robert Merkel – the key to your statement is “if the predictions of the climate models come true”.
My question – what if they don’t come true? What if climate change is purely a natural and irreversable thing?
It seems to me to be a huge economic risk to spend huge amounts on something that is based on an “if”.
JC says:
True enough. Well rather than argue specifics of how climate models predict as Robert has, I’ll mention a few more general trends that would likely be associated with warming. Although i haven’t studied the models in depth I am sceptical about predicting specific outcomes for small regions. That may be misplace but more globally I think we can say this:
1) the risk of the sea level rising. There is any number of low lying areas and countries that would be devastated. This alone could be vastly expensive.
2) increased risk of severe weather disasters and associated damage.
3) disease. Tropical diseases are bad, and its likely that more areas will come under threat. They play no small part I am sure in the lack of development in the equatorial belt.
4) This is more tentative, but I tend to think that many people have optimised where they live with existing climate as a factor. Certainly why my wife left Tassie! More seriously though infrastructure etc for existing industries is based on crops that grow well, current rainfall etc. We’ve optimised the way we live according to prevailing climate, any change to that is surely going to push it further away from this optimisation. Will openning up virgin permafrost in Russia for farming compensate for developed land australia turning to desert. I doubt it.
There is nothing here that I am 100% certain about, but there are many things I think are big dangers and big costs. Even if I was only 50% sure I would still think that it would be worth reducing CO2 for insurance, against the downsides.
Do you insure your house Razor? Or your car?
Most people are prepared to pay a reasonable amount to remove the risk of an “if”, even when that “if” is only a small chance of happening.
Steve, I’m glad you wrote this post – it’s a very important that all energy options be looked at properly.
In a very small way I’ve been able to help do this by pointing out the problems in a motion that came before an internal ALP body a few weeks ago from a local branch. Paraphrasing, the motion stated in part “a. we recognise the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, b. nuclear power could never be safe, c. the safest place for uranium was to keep it in the ground, d. the ALP maintain its three mines policy”. I’ve forgotten the detail but this was essentially it.
I pointed out that this was an anti-scientific, reactionary, and facile motion (eg part c.) that would open the ALP to ridicule. After discussion, it was sent back to the branch for reconsideration. I thought that this kind of motion suggested that an anti-scientific (although possibly well-intentioned) approach be taken to a nontrivial problem and I would hope that any serious political party would not consider this kind of approach to policymaking.
Robert, Steve
Accelerating amortization of current plant is a big ticket we’re talking about here. But an even bigger ticket is the cost of producing nuke energy while no longer using coal. Coal – coal carries a local price i.e. it’s virtually free whereas uranium carries a world price.
The current setup we have now allows us to maintain a distinct natural advantage in energy production that other countries could only wish for. Our power is cheap real cheap by world standards..
Junking plant and going to nuke would be an enormous strain on our economy that would make a good nightmare movie. It would in fact turnkey our economy in one fell swoop. Energy cost would close to treble for all of us including businesses.
Well, you say that’s a choice, a hard choice we have to make. I don’t consider that a choice as it seems more of an impulsive decision than anything else. Current predictive models aren’t even close to telling us what are the effects on regions. Robert’s assertion that a small pocket of land in northern Vic would die of thirst while another would die of floods is quite frankly disturbing to hear because climate scientists, at least the reputable ones, are telling us to be careful with they are coming out with as it is still grossly speculative. Yet non-climate dudes are heading off and fencing out 100,000 acres saying this place is going to run out of water. This is too speculative to turnkey the economy by perhaps 15-20 % of GDP, which in today’s dolls is comes to about $150-200 billion. That’s a good estimate as to what it would cost to change over.
Perhaps the best solution is to wait it out and observe. Technology is moving ahead anyway. Florida for instance recently developed the very first coal-fired plant that emits almost no co2.
You don’t give away the farm on what looks like an impulse.
Climate dudes are saying that through current co2 forcing global temps are going up at around .1 to .6 degs a decade. As they keep telling us it is cause for concern but it’s hardly a reason to hit the panic button just yet.
Water may also not be a problem if in ay 20 years time nuke processed sea water becomes a cheaper proposition and piped to where it is needed. These decisions should not be made easily and certainly not impulsively. We want to be wealthier if we’re going to go nuke and waiting allows to do that no counting the fact that cheaper technology and superior also comes with time.
But I certainly wouldn’t be doing what some people are suggesting. Robert you are almost getting to the stage where your getting a street map out and telling me the road 3 k away is going flood while the one at the other end isn’t going to get any rain. We’re still at the initial stages of figuring all this out- certainly at a regional level anyway. The thing I would be most concerned with is that we’re increasingly reliant on mid east oil the most unstable region in the world meanwhile exploration has been stopped by the Victorian government along its coastal region because the gov has designated it as a sea park or what ever. Good one guys!
Steve
How does a carbon tax remove the demand for energy seeing it’s relatively inelastic.
JC, Are you talking short term or long term elasticity? Elasticity of energy use or elasticity of Co2 emissions? With a nuclear option ruled out or available?
Disagreement on action here seems unavoidable, given different assessments of actual risk of carbon-forced global warming, and different assessments of the costs of warming. But there must be some point at which action to increase costs of Co2 emissions is a good idea. (Note Steve pretty clearly said he didn’t support ‘pushing for nukes’ or banning coal, so perhaps you’re counterarguments are really not counterarguments at all.) How would you identify when that time has come?
Christine
JC, Are you talking short term or long term elasticity? Elasticity of energy use or elasticity of Co2 emissions? With a nuclear option ruled out or available?
1.Both long term and short term.
2. Elast. of use.
3 I’m saying that there is litle subsitute for energy down a wire. Hence a severe price increase would cause much deep economic hardship.
Christine
My optimum view is that we actually don’t need to do anything at all as the rate of decade increase is actually quite slow.
30-50 years time is is how long we should wait for two reasons
1 By that time i’m dead being a smoker hope to be ex.
2. As i said technology will have caught up making nuke or other solution a more compelling change over. Fusion will come.
Computing power is thundering along and a huge speed and this will help in figuring out a better more advanced solution.
Sure over the short term its not going to change much, but as technology is replaced it can change a lot. I don’t expect demand to decrease greatly, I do expect our efficency of using energy to increase more rapidly over time and there is good reason to think it will. I also expect it will foster a push to cleaner energy and the two of these together would both reduce CO2 emissions while not costing a great deal. Particularly if the carbon tax is put into R&D on energy research.
The amount of oil consumed per dollar of GDP in the US decreased around 45% since 73, with two thirds of that occuring in the first 10 years with high oil prices.
Obviously the severity of the shock was a problem, and a good reason to introduce such a carbon tax gradually, but still it does show that higher prices will drive more efficient use over time.
I took the liberty of editting the commenters name in the last two comments by JC. Originally they said Christine, which I presume was an accident on JC’s part.
I may be slightly OT with this suggestion, but one of my biggest concerns RE: the current nuclear debate is whether or not I trust the government (of any persuation) to happily sit atop a mound of lovely enriched Uranium (or Plutonium for that matter) and ignore its potential “deterance” capabilities?
As Indonesia is (apparently) going to have 4 nuclear power stations by 2020 (and one would assume the bomb soon after (thank’s to the likes of Pakistan)), how long would it be before our pollies argued that we must have “The Bomb”?
The government is already well versed in fear mongering (e.g. North Korea could strike Australia with its missiles), so how hard would it be to whip up hysteria over Indonesia and have the masses convinced we needed the bomb ourselves? Then again, why even tell us (taking a lead from the likes of Israel)?
“The amount of oil consumed per dollar of GDP in the US decreased around 45% since 73, with two thirds of that occuring in the first 10 years with high oil prices.”
America came off the gold standard and peaked in oil production around this time. Money is a loose proxy for energy but we cannot create energy on a printing press.
“Obviously the severity of the shock was a problem, and a good reason to introduce such a carbon tax gradually, but still it does show that higher prices will drive more efficient use over time.”
An across the board carbon tax is long overdue, as is the removal of hidden subsidies for inefficient processes eg free pollution rights for coal plants, subsidised ethanol plantations that will drive the cost of food to match the cost of fuel, free environmental costs for Gunns timber etc
Adding up the true cost of energy returned on energy invested over the lifetime of the process (including decommissioning costs for nuclear plants) will show that most of them are not sustainable over the long term
The same applies to the ridiculous amounts of money being thrown at roads and tunnells in an era of rising and soon to be unaffordable liquid fuel prices, when we need massive investment in light and heavy rail
Thanks Steve
I must edit more or get someone to do it for free.
Steve E
The problem as I see it that people are taking this blase attitude towards energy thinking through what i consider to be impulsive solutions.
We can’t live without cheap elect. It makes our world go round. It gives us great pleasure and comfort and longer life.
It get the felling that lots of people hate energy, but the big non- secret to our way of life is cheap plentiful energy in all its forms. We should learn not only to love it, but adore the gift technology has given us. More to the point we need to be very careful with what we do in the future as the first objective is to ensure our supplies are cheap and abundant.
Steve Edney – yes, I do pay insurance, but only when it is worth it.
JC: I’ve learnt through a few years of experience that editing is a skill necessarily concomitant with writing if you want others to make sense of your scribblings, alas.
An interesting post over at energy bulletin on the economics of oofle dust.
http://energybulletin.net/16579.html
RobWindt says:
Its hard to find information on this that isn’t either supplied by people writing explictly pro or anti nuclear pieces. Some anti pieces try to claim that the lifecyle CO2 cost of nuclear was similar to that of gas. Pro pieces of course claim its close to zero.
More balanced reports such as the UK sustainabile development comission (which incidently foudn against using nuclear in the UK) indicate that its something like 5% of the emissions of gas, 2% of coal, while admitting that the long term waste disposal and decomissioning costs are difficult to calculate its still likely to be a fraction of the cost.
The idea that the total energy output from nuclear isn’t sustainable once you include decommissioning costs is wrong, its around 6% or less of the total output.
Thanks JC – but see, now we almost agree. Carbon tax guys don’t want it mostly because it’ll decimate all energy use now, though I think they’d like to get rid of the high Co2 emitting low efficiency sources (brown coal?). Steve E pointed out a big advantage is incentives to innovation. These innovations may be available in 30 years (when you are hopefully alive with healthy lungs) if we decide for sure we’ve got a problem.
Then, though, there’s the concern of positive feedback loops and maybe an inability to undo the damage of the intervening years’ carbon usage? So not all the way to agreement, but closer.
`Perhaps the effect will be to crank the costs up and my neighbours will stop leaving the light on outside all night, and people will think twice about whether they really need that clothes dryer rather than the line, or the air conditioning set to 23 rather than 26 degrees. Either way its going to make everyone think hard about how they can minimise their CO2 emissions.’
Some common sense has been spoken here. It is the little things that we all do that are building up CO2 emmissions. Finding a way to increase costs is one of the fastest ways to change our carelessness.
I am however not comfortable with nuclear power. There are so many more creative options. To me it’s an easy fix.
I’ve been researching the global warming problem and your blog is one of the better sites I found dealing with the real issues. I’m glad there seems to be an increasing number of people waking up to this very real problem.
” I’m pretty much in agreement with Tim Flannery that the threats posed by global warming are so much greater than the risks involved with nuclear power and that the option of using it should be very much on the table.”
Explain yourself Edney.
Well done Sacha, for standing up to the troglodytes at that ALP mtg. We can’t afford to be blind-sided by unthinking ideology when it comes to planetary health. Witness the ideological denialism of panelbeaterbord and JC thru this thread.
Striking, because they almost being forced to argue against nuclear power because they don’t like the premise of climate change because they are stuck in the 1990s mindset that climate change is a greenies conspiracy. But today they share a position with them – for different reaons of course – on atomic power. Wierd.
wbb you are absolutely correct.however call me crazy, I don’t beleive PanelBeater and others of his ilk really believe their own rhetoric.
Their arguement is bollicks and the scientists that matter are telling them that,these bastards would rather be party to fucking up the planet than admit they were wrong.After all that has happened in the last twenty ref global warming, I would have expected the most extreme right wing looney’s to at least err on the side of caution.I remember some un-sufferable right wing loon tune tell me once,the exon valdez spill would clean it self up in six months.The mind boggles.
These alleged scientists are talking nonsense.
We are in an ice age. CO2 warming is the most benign thing imagineable. It tends to heat up the dry air. It tends to reduce heat differentials.
Most of the dry air on this planet IS COLD AIR.
What is wrong with the permafrost melting in Southern Siberia?
Don’t we like Siberians?
You people march in lock-step like zombies. You’re embarrassing.
By the way. Empirically speaking nuclear power would have to be the safest energy source in all history. Its hard to think of a SINGLE industrial argument in nuclear power production in the civilised world that killed anyone. Whereas coal mining and Oil production kill people the whole time.
That accident in the Soviet Union. Well thats just leftism killing folks. Got nothing to do with nuclear.
Bird,
For the most part I agree with you on the nuclear safety issue. Its much safer than coal for instance if you consider the deaths in coal mining. I do think long term storage of waste has problems, but not unmanagable ones, and ones that we may be able to deal with much better in the future with advanced reprocessing plants.
Warming will be detrimental in the short and medium term. Cities, farming and other infrustructure is optimised to current climatic conditions. If these change it will almost certainly be a negative. How much, I think is up for debate, but I certainly wouldn’t want to be living on low lying land.
You argument that its going to be much better when the permafrost melts may be true in the long term. Maybe. Not in the short term.
What are your working definitions of medium and long term Steve?
But I like to keep them vague!
Short and medium, I was thinking of perhaps the next fifty or so years. Longer term more like 100 as we’ve adjusted our patterns of behaviour etc. I’ll keep them a bit rubbery perhaps.
Didn’t realise i was asking you to reveal trade secrets Steve
Still, 100 years ain’t very long in the grander scheme of things.
These alleged scientists are talking nonsense.
There is nothing alleged about these scientists.
PanelbeaterBird from your statements I assume you must be a scientist that works in the field of global warming.? No. O/K so you have designed and operate your own computor modelling system to come up with your own analysis.? No, o/k You personaly know all of the scientists involved that are warning of the consequences of global warming and they are 1. all liers.2.Not very good scientists.3.Have an ulteria motive by promoting a false thesis ? No.
So what you are doing in essence is (and I don’t know F.A. about it and err on the side of caution)is just parrotting other peoples ideas.You are sideing with scientists who are not necessarily in denial about global warming, but will say anything for cash,and in most cases who I might add, been found to be lobbyists for mining,power,and forrestry company’s.
Michael,
Yes, 100 years isn’t so extraordinarily long, but the point is, its a maybe (and also a fuzzy time estimate). Maybe even then it will won’t ever be better in an absolute sense.
” I do think long term storage of waste has problems, but not unmanagable ones, and ones that we may be able to deal with much better in the future with advanced reprocessing plants.”
Dude. Its SUCH a missed oppurtunity that we didn’t listen to the Great Labour Prime Minister Bob Hawke.
We should take ALL THE WORLDS NUCLEAR WASTE…. Because one day it won’t be waste. It will be a magnificent resource.
They used to burn off the gas that came with the oil. Then later you find out that its the best resource there is. The only energy that when you turn it off the heat is gone straight away. We are mad not to take it all. And with a straight face CHARGE them for the privelidge of taking it off their hands….
“We’ll take it off your hands for a fee” we’ll say. And we’ll try not to burst out with the giggles.
Mr Edney.
You managed to DODGE the other post.
The National Interest (midday today) is going to feature a debate on nuclear power between Tim Flannery and Ian Lowe.
Great tip thanks.
And wasn’t that music rather good at the end. Still don’t know what the panic is about. But always good to hear Tim Flannery.
He’s not exactly an effective booster for nuclear. Perhaps a bit too ’scientific’ in his attitude in that he’s not trying to overpower nutballery on the other side.
What neither of these guys realise is that if EITHER coal or nuclear is obstructed we are in deep trouble because it will get harder and harder to maintain our current Oil output at reasonable prices. Other alternatives may grow in real terms every year but they cannot make up the deficit that levelling out oil or more expensive oil will bring.
Time to go outside the Anglosphere to scientists that aren’t swamped by our bullshit momentum.
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/08/25/globalcooling.shtml
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060206/43371626.html
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2006/02/06/globalcold.shtml
I am certainly interested in what both Steve and JC are syaing in this thread. However there’s a neat irony in this statement of JC’s;
Because nowadays a lot of research in computing ‘power’ is around gaining efficiencies around computing-unit (MFLOP) delivered per energy Watt consumed. Of course in most cases this is driven from a need to reduce heat production (and anyone with a modern notebook can experience exactly what I mean here). However energy efficency, i.e. not converting electrical energy into wasteful thermal byproducts, has become a big issue in modern computing environments. Even in ‘big iron’ installations, for example of the type that might undertake climate modelling, have to be concerned with this issue because the thermal issues are typically solved with air-conditioning or other extravagant, and electricity-bill generating, cooling schemes.
Just saying. Personally I am neither for nor against nuclear power, but I don’t think we ought to be rushing headlong into it at this stage.
I think we should be rushing headlong into it. We will get caught short by the growing expense of maintaining/ increasing oil production.
Why not rush headlong into nulcear?
We better.
It’ll hurt if we don’t.
JC
Perhaps the best solution is to wait it out and observe. Technology is moving ahead anyway. Florida for instance recently developed the very first coal-fired plant that emits almost no co2.
Is this true? May I have a link?
Tyro Rex — I think maybe what JC was referring to was not heat efficiencies in the physical machine of a computer, but to so-called ‘parallel processing,’ whereby the steadily increasing speed of small home computers makes it possible for networks of, say, common laptops, to break down and solve large problems that were once only soluble by great big Cray supercomputers.
In other words, the complex calculations needed for developing alt-energy solutions (many of which are simply engineering problems that just happen to be beyond our grasp at the moment) have greater chances of being solved due to the force-multiplier effect of DIY w/ laptops, instead of having to go to deep-pockets institutes that can afford a Cray. Which increases the likelihood that these problems will be solved sooner rather than later. ‘Many hands make light work.’
But I could be mistaken.
j_p_z: i was well aware that JC wasn’t referring to heat efficiencies, which is why I was.
I would beware ideas like ‘force-multipliers’ and the like as applied to computing. There are entire classes of problems that are still unsolveable within the expected lifetime of the universe even if you enlist every atom in the universe as a bit for your computer (all of which is obviously impossible). Some problems are even unsolveable, full stop. Another thing is massive parrallellism only lends itself to algorithms that can be broken down into such parallel units. Finally before you can compute any solution first you have to have the algorithm! (I don’t know if any of the above is the actual case or not, but I mean by all this you can’t just wave the magic wand of ‘massive parallelism’ at a problem and expect that it can be solved).
Anyway, I was just pointing out the small irony that quite a lot of commercial computing research resources are nowadays significantly dedicated to researching energy efficiencies and not absolute power!
Panelbeaterbird: Rushing headlong into things may cause concussion and other head injuries. Make sure you are wearing your helmet first.