Everything you could possibly want to know about nuclear power — and its (limited) potential as a potential climate solution — can be found in the new Keystone Center Report with the less-than-captivating title “Nuclear Power Joint Fact-Finding.”

Reuters is confused in its article on the report, “Nuclear Power Can’t Curb Global Warming – Report,” and actually overstates the case for nuclear:

Nuclear power would only curb climate change by expanding worldwide at the rate it grew from 1981 to 1990, its busiest decade, and keep up that rate for half a century, a report said on Thursday.

Specifically, that would require adding on average 14 plants each year for the next 50 years, all the while building an average of 7.4 plants to replace those that will be retired, the report by environmental leaders, industry executives and academics said.

Incorrect. You would need 8 to 10 times faster growth (3 nuclear plants built each week for 50 years) — and some 100 Yucca Mountains to store the waste – for nuclear to curb global warming on its own. How did Reuters get it wrong?

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[Hint -- the killer has the initials G.M.]

Celsias has posted the whole movie (at least until Sony makes them take it down). It is well worth watching — and not just because I make an appearance to explain the “five miracles” needed for hydrogen cars to succeed.

General Motors is still operating under the delusion that “GM would have a ‘cost-effective’ fuel cell car by 2010.” A “cost-effective” fuel cell car is like “victory” in Iraq — a difficult concept to define in theory and essentially impossible to achieve in practice.

Fortunately, GM is pursuing plug-in hybrids, so at least somebody in the company has a clue.

They like Chris Mooney’s latest book, due out next month. My review will come in July.

Remember, you can catch Mooney in person (with Matthew Nisbett and me) at the Center for American Progress in Washington, DC, Tuesday morning (tomorrow).

Short version: “Great book, worth reading, deserves a spot on the shelf between Flannery and Monbiot [!]”

Treehugger’s Lloyd Alter of Canada reviewed my book after a small dispute over my review of George Monbiot’s book Heat (he liked the book, I didn’t). His bottom line on Hell and High Water:

It is well written and very informative, a window on America for those of us who cannot quite figure out what goes on down there.

Interestingly, his “favourite line in the book” comes from conservative messaging guru Frank Luntz — and it is a line progressives and scientists should take to heart:

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Offsetting chief warns of carbon cowboys – The Guardian. Quote: “There is a lot of confusion out there with people buying offsets without having the certainty that it will result in emission reduction.” Offset oversight is needed.

Coming Up – World’s First ‘Zero-Carbon’ City – IPS news. In Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, of all places!

Plea to stop atolls sinking into Pacific – The New Zealand Herald. “Tuvalu could be underwater as soon as 2040 or 2050 and inaction will result in the destruction of the islands.”

Boeing ‘really excited’ about biofuels – EurActiv.com. “If you can run the airplane on a 50% blend, you’ll reduce your carbon footprint by maybe 20-25%.”

This post will address two questions. What exactly is the discount rate? Did Sir Nicholas Stern, a former chief economist with the World Bank, use the wrong discount rate in his landmark 2006 report, the Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change?

These may seem like abstruse economic questions, but for analyzing the cost-benefit analysis of climate action — whether we must act urgently or at leisure — the discount rate is probably the single most important factor. The discount rate basically represents the so-called time value of money, how much more $100 is worth to us today than next year.

A high discount rate means we would much rather have money today than in the future. The issue is complicated by the fact that society should have a lower discount rate than individuals, since a high “social” discount rate essentially means that we don’t value future generations much.

I must confess that even though I minored in economics and have followed the discount rate issue closely for years, after reading various recent blogs by economists, I realized I didn’t really understand it, particularly as it applies to climate change. I was not alone — the New York Times completely misunderstood Stern’s choice of discount rate.

Since discount rates are probably as important to the climate debate as feedbacks, I would very much commend the work of Australian economist John Quiggin. He explains why Stern’s choice of a low discount rate is fully justified — and why most critics are either wrong or confused or both — in an essay, “Stern and the critics on discounting” and a lengthy blog post, “Discounting the Future yet Again.” The blog post has a fascinating quote from an Environmental Science & Policy article, “Discounting and the social cost of carbon” on the PTRP [Pure Time Rate of Preference]:

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