Back when I first read Stewart Brand's "Environmental Heresies," I wrote about it admiringly and, in retrospect, somewhat naively.
Of the nuclear debate, I said that there's an array of great arguments against nuclear power, and one real argument in its favor: There's no other way to cut our CO2 emissions fast enough. That argument, I said, "strikes me as decisive if it's true."
Since then it's become clear to me that it's not true. The pressing realities of climate change argue against nuclear power, not for it, because they argue for the cheapest, fastest, most adaptable and resilient response, and that's not nuclear power. Money spent on capital-intensive hard infrastructure (run by a rent-seeking, politically connected industry with a crappy record of regulatory compliance) is money that would have more positive effect spent on distributed renewables and efficiency. The opportunity costs of nuclear power are too high.
NYT columnist John Tierney, in a hagiographic piece on Brand today, reinforces what I find dishonest and manipulative in Brand's argument.
There's this bit:
"There were legitimate reasons to worry about nuclear power, but now that we know about the threat of climate change, we have to put the risks in perspective," [Brand] says. "Sure, nuclear waste is a problem, but the great thing about it is you know where it is and you can guard it. The bad thing about coal waste is that you don't know where it is and you don't know what it's doing. The carbon dioxide is in everybody's atmosphere."
Good thing we don't have to choose between nuclear waste and coal waste!
But most irksome is Brand's (and Tierney's) decree that the pro-nuke stance represents the "scientist" wing of environmentalism, as opposed to the anti-nuke "romantics." You see a lot of this kind of thing on blogs and forums: the guy -- and it's usually a guy -- who insists that he alone is being rational and that his interlocutors are mired in emotion, if not hysteria. The self-proclaimed rational people are also prone to martyrdom: when they can't convince the benighted, irrational masses to accept their positions, they become, in their own eyes at least, brave "heretics." Nuclear proponents love this kind of intellectual narcissism.
But it's not an argument; it's a substitute for an argument. It's a label. Of course opponents of nuclear power think they are the scientists, if by that we mean those sifting through empirical evidence and drawing reasonable conclusions from it. They believe opposition to nuclear power is the rational position. "I'm the scientist, you're the romantic" amounts to "I'm right, you're wrong, nyah nyah." Such things are not settled by edict.
An equally irksome tic is the notion that Brand represents some sort of next-gen environmentalism. There are basically three of these guys, these new nuclear proponents: Brand, Patrick Moore, and James Lovelock. Every story about one of these guys -- and there are plenty -- tries to spin the next-gen angle. Finally environmentalists are letting go of their old ideas, right?
But I don't see anything new here, much less any brave new environmentalism. I see three guys approaching their twilight years, worn down from a lifetime of fighting, making a desperate bet based on fear.
The fearful don't make history. History passes them by.
Let's not panic. In ten years, by the time we could get any nuke plants built, technological and cultural changes will have rendered their alleged necessity a quaint, archaic notion. Boomer journalists and "futurists" would do well to abandon their jihad against imaginary dirty hippies and get with the zeitgeist.
Comments
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jfleck Posted 8:39 am
27 Feb 2007
Are you completely immune to irony? Does this criticism - labeling, rather than arguing the substance - not have a vaguely familiar ring to you?
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David Roberts Posted 8:49 am
27 Feb 2007
www.grist.org
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jfleck Posted 10:07 am
27 Feb 2007
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eilonwy Posted 10:09 am
27 Feb 2007
Romanticism (perhaps more aptly post-modern thinking) does rule the current political climate in Western nations and I find opposition to nuclear power takes on a quasi-religious tone for many. It is just like with Evolution where arguments based on tradition and superstition are held up by the media and politicians as being equally worthy of 'respect' regardless of the quality of evidence.
For all your smug posturing, you present no facts in favor of your position, nor verifiable claims. Worse, you create a ridiculous straw man of a 'scientist' and pro-nuclear environmentalist with no evidence in tow, so regardez vous:
http://www.uic.com.au/nip43.htm
"The fearful don't make history. History passes them by."
That's why many environmentalists are giving nuclear a new look. rather than letting fear as opposed to rational thinking dictate the course of action. I have never seen a nuclear engineer whip up fear in a lecture or article, whereas fear-mongering is the stock-and-trade of Greenpeace and co (just do a google images search on 'nuclear protest' and the like).
Only terrorism in a post-9/11 environment has come to rival nuclear energy in terms of being the subject of irrational, wide-spread fear. Never mind that terrorists killed 3000 on 9/11 alone whereas less than 60 people have been conclusively shown to have died from Chernobyl in 1986 (and 0 from Three Mile Island). Even if the 9000 or so cancer deaths predicted by the WHO as a result of Chernobyl prove true, how long does it take coal, car accidents, lightening or 'accidents involving furniture' over a 20+ year period to claim as many lives? Look it up:
http://www.nsc.org/lrs/statinfo/odds.htm
I like renewable technologies, especially photovoltaics, and would like to see nuclear fission be unnecessary to harness some day, but that day is likely long off and nuclear is the only proven and throughly studied technology capable of replacing coal. I have more faith in finding new uranium resources and re-processing fuel than 50 million giant wind-turbines sprining up in the U.S (and what are the unknowns in that scenario?).
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David Roberts Posted 10:11 am
27 Feb 2007
www.grist.org
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jfleck Posted 2:03 pm
27 Feb 2007
If it wasn't meant to be an argument about the wisdom of nuclear power, why did you headline it "Nuclear power is not rational"?
It is reasonable in the climate change debate, is it not, to base the discussion on the broad consensus of the technical community of climate scientists on the reality of global warming and its causes?
Why, then, is it not also reasonable to base a discussion of the risks and benefits of nuclear power on the consensus of the technical community? On climate change, it is the "right" that scientizes by picking outliers outside the mainstream. On nuclear power, it is the "left".
This is what Brand/Tierney seem to be getting at when he/they point to the "scientific/romantic" distinction. A large portion of the public fear of nuclear technology has become unhitched from the underlying technical reality. There is a rich technical literature on this issue, but it's also obvious to anyone who's participated in one of these debates. To dismissively call it "intellectual narcissism" without engaging the underlying proposition is to presume the outcome of a discussion you say it was never your intention to have.
In appealing to the scientific consensus on climate change and dismissing those who criticize it without understanding the science you might, with equal substance, be accused of intellectual narcissism as well. In either case, it's a label that misses the substance of the argument.
This is not to say that acceptance of the technical realities of nuclear power automatically compels an acceptance of nuclear power itself - just as acceptance of the science of climate change is only the first step toward discussion of the political and policy response. But your dismissive language - "the fearful don't make history" etc. - is once again just labeling and dismissing, rather than engaging the substantive discussion that needs to go on, and that needs to be based on the technical reality Brand is trying to engage. That's where the irony lies.
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Tod Posted 2:33 pm
27 Feb 2007
"Because the world doesn't matter if you don't have the strength to go ahead and choose something that's really true." - Julio Cortazar
http://www.todbrilliant.com
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David Roberts Posted 3:58 pm
27 Feb 2007
John, I did presume the outcome of a discussion I did not intend to have. I presumed that nuclear power's a bad idea, and I did not intend to mount a comprehensive argument for that position. If I had to write a position paper every time I mentioned nuclear power ... and sorry, Tod, but I don't want to write one either. I'm sure you've seen many such debates online, and you know they are prone to high dudgeon, they always take the same basic shape, and they are interminable. I could link you to 50; we could have #51. Or we could just watch over the next ten years as private capital streams into distributed renewable energy and efficiency, while nuclear energy remains moribund, despite large infusions of taxpayer dollars. Perhaps instead of arguing we should start a betting pool.
Your implication that something like an IPCC consensus exists around nuclear power is dubious. There's technical literature on both sides. But this -- "this is not to say that acceptance of the technical realities of nuclear power automatically compels an acceptance of nuclear power itself" -- is rather an understatement. It's becoming increasingly clear that renewables and efficiency can bridge the gap. So it's no longer true that we have no choice but to accept nuclear power. Now we need a positive case why we should prefer it to the clean alternatives. Why choose massive, centralized hard infrastructure, proliferation problems, waste problems, corruption problems, rent-seeking problems, insurance problems, environmental justice problems, etc., even if some of those problems can be partially mitigated, if you don't have to?
Anyway, you don't make that case merely by incanting about how rational and scientific you are. Such was the modest point of my post, which I admit was mis-titled. It should have been "Nuclear power is not rational or forward-thinking merely because you say so over and over again"
www.grist.org
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Brudaimonia Posted 4:01 pm
27 Feb 2007
David's sixth (one-sentence) paragraph that cuts through this fallacy is as important as his third paragraph on the lack of time that nuclear power could offset carbon emissions when it comes to expounding why nuclear power should not be pursued.
Recently, I had a bitter exchange on Daily Kos with a staunch nuclear advocate who is very passionate about reducing greenhouse gas emissions and occasionally writes knowledgable diares.
I took great offense when he not only accused me of supporting coal power (and stopped just short of implicating me in coal-related deaths), but also said, incredibly, that being anti-nuclear is absolutely identical to being pro-coal. Leibniz must have turned over in his grave after that.
Before we even get into the technical issues of nuclear power, its apologists must argue why we even need it in the first place. They must argue that the amount of energy we now consume is necessary to our well-being, or at least that our well-being demands an energy level only supportable (while taking into account climate change) by nuclear energy.
So I ask nuclear apologists: are we too lazy to practice enough conservation and efficiency (in both our daily lives and our public policies, which affect our daily lives) to meet our energy demand with a well-planned renewable energy system? Isn't relying on large nuclear plants just a cop out of truly building a sustainable way of life?
The whole rallying cry for nuclear is based on the dubious assumption that we need all this energy that we currently consume. This is a very un-environmentalist sentiment in my mind, and asserting it betrays the un-environmentalist in Brand, Patrick Moore, and others who support nuclear power yet would still call themselves environmentalists.
You might think we need all this energy, but that is archaic thinking. If you would have, for instance, attended the very informative talk I attended tonight on energy-efficient houses, you could see that not even half our energy consumption is inevitable.
We don't need nuclear power. We need conservation + efficiency + renewables, and we need people acting on those three principles as soon as possible.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:41 pm
27 Feb 2007
I'd like to focus on what are the actual technical barriers to widespread nuclear implementation.
Since if you can nail that down, then their entire arguement is shot.
_
Fast Breeder Reactors:
I haven't quite gotten the reasons why this isn't valid. But from what I can tell this is the linchpin in the house of cards that the nuclear industry is selling. Without it, Nuclear loses it's moniker of sustainability.
Supply:
Obviously one of the issues is Uranium scarcity.
As Greenpeace mentions, we'd have 4 years worth of Uranium if we switched all fossil energy over to Nukes. Catch being this is extended to 16 years when you add in Thorium. India is hardlining into this since they have so much of it. Still, thats not very long of a supply.
Water:
As is, in 2006 36% of all water went towards electricity generation.
And while conventional power plants and renewables are looking to scale back their water demands. Nuclear looks like it would only increase in it's demands.
For states that aren't near the coast, or can't buy beachfront property to place a nuke plant. This would be a serious bottleneck.
CFCs from HydroFlouric Acid:
Apparently Hydroflouric acid used in reprocessing is the US's #1 emmision of CFCs. But since this facility if grandfathered, this could be a large technical bottleneck as well.
MOX Fuel (Recycled Spent Uranium):
Apparently here's where the hype really comes into play. From what I can tell, it's sold as a means of reducing waste. But it actually produces more waste than standard uranium reactors. Seems like it's a scam that merely reduces Uranium mining, in trade for a lot of transport and precautions.
It also has other issues, where it's so radioactive that it can't be stored underground. And that conventionally it's never been recycled more than once.
_
If you have some other technical barriers to nuclear, please send em my way.
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caniscandida Posted 7:04 pm
27 Feb 2007
In his defense (and Tierney's too), his amused reflexion on past predictions of his that turned out wrong was rather disarming. And his comment that one does the world a great deal of good by admitting one's mistakes was most welcome.
It is not clear that you find yourself in quite so cynosurish a position of authority as to be able to tell us all what the current Zeitgeist is. Nevertheless, I very much like your TomPaine.com essay of the first week of January, on URGE, "Use responsibly generated electricity, efficiently." The concept of "mining negawatts" is especially interesting. And one might observe that Brudaimonia is apparently on the same page as you, when he (?) complains about the false assumption, that we inevitably shall continue to consume at least as much energy as we are now consuming.
But lest we conclude that the agreement of DR and Brudaimonia on this matter is a sign of today's Zeitgeist coming into view, we should read again his words:
<<
The whole rallying cry for nuclear is based on the dubious assumption that we need all this energy that we currently consume. This is a very un-environmentalist sentiment in my mind, and asserting it betrays the un-environmentalist in Brand, Patrick Moore, and others who support nuclear power yet would still call themselves environmentalists.
>>
Brudaimonia is plainly referring to what he considers to be a classic environmentalist value, nothing at all radically new.
Old ideas, and the old people who open their mouths and tell us what they are thinking, are not ipso facto to be discredited. Is there not perhaps a bit of ageist prejudice in these words?:
<<
But I don't see anything new here, much less any brave new environmentalism. I see three guys approaching their twilight years, worn down from a lifetime of fighting, making a desperate bet based on fear.
>>
And similarly, in the parting shot at "Boomer journalists"?
On the Prydain Chronicles: In the late 1980s, an earnest and intelligent eight-grader pressed into my hands a copy of a book by Lloyd Alexander, as a gift. He said either that that was his favorite book, or that Alexander was his favorite author. Maybe both. I liked it well enough, but was not exactly enraptured. I forget what it was: not one of the Prydain books, I think; it was something either literally or imaginatively Welsh, or else Welshoid, and the hero was a promising, talented kid growing up in obscure circumstances, something like a blacksmith's apprentice. Or then again, maybe not.
My student could not have known that the medievalizing-fantasy region of my brain was already thoroughly imprinted with J.R.R. Tolkien.
As for our present Princess Eilonwy, it was unusually courteous of you to overlook her stout disagreement with you on the matter of nuclear energy development. Do you find that it often happens to you, that your take-no-prisoners sense of righteous indignation tends to flag, when you come into the presence of noble young ladies?
Chickens are our cousins!
So are other sensitive animals!
Enough is enough!
No more factory farms!
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amazingdrx Posted 8:08 pm
27 Feb 2007
A very popular informal fallacy with the nuke-u-ler crew.
As far as waste and decommisioning costs, look at what I found out about the only US nuke that's been decommisioned, and where the leavings ended up.
In an unlined trench in South Carolina landfill, that is leaking into a tributary of the Savanah River! Ther cost for that decommisioning of this tiny reactor, only 67 megawatts (most nukes are 1000 megawatts or more)? 350 million tax dollars so far.
That's with the used fuel rods left on the shore of Lake Michigan in casks (cement tanks).
http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/02/recordl ...
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 8:17 pm
27 Feb 2007
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2007/01/11/unified_green ...
Take that you think tank "freemarketeers"!
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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jfleck Posted 3:16 am
28 Feb 2007
Maybe I misunderstand your role as a journalist.
There is currently a large and fascinating debate going on about the future of the energy component of the world's economic structure. There are thoughtful and interesting people on all sides of this debate. Some smart people serious about dealing with climate change think nuclear power is a reasonable path. Other smart people serious about dealing with climate change think decentralized power generation and conservation are the key. The outcome is undetermined. I view a journalist's job as to seriously entertain what all the smart and reasonable people are saying, and to try to share that with his/her readers, so they can better understand the terms of the debate.
My frustration with your work here and elsewhere is that you have determined who you believe is right in these debates. So rather than thoughtfully entertaining Brand's argument, for example (or Pielke's) you use dismissive labels. That's a sort of journalistic hubris that I do not think serves your readers well.
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David Roberts Posted 3:39 am
28 Feb 2007
I happen to think that Gristmill is as good a site as any on the web for thoughtful discussion of energy issues (among others); I've worked hard to make it so. If you do not, there are many other sites to choose from. What I object to is not you misunderstanding my role but you trying to dictate it. If what I do does not fit your conception of what a journalist does, then don't call me a journalist. Call me a blogger, call me a writer, call me an advocate, whatever. But if you would like to see things written about differently, write about them differently, rather than appointing yourself referee for other people's debates.
www.grist.org
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Karen Street Posted 3:52 am
28 Feb 2007
In one universe, hundreds of plant managers and tens of governments rely on one set of data for the amount of uranium and thorium; in the other, we are going to run out of "high quality" uranium this year.
In one universe, China built 100 GW (one GW is 1,000 MW) in coal plants last year, equivalent to the capacity of US nuclear power plants (though the capacity factor will likely be lower -- they will be off more for maintenance). Texas will be building several GW in new power, ditto Kansas, ditto several countries, many with plans for nuclear power plants as large as 1.6 GW. In the other, big power plants have disappeared, and no new nuclear plants are anticipated.
I don't read Tierney, so I don't know his arguments. I agree with Brand that a few years from now, few people who call themselves environmentalists will oppose nuclear power. I'm seeing the shift now, with people moving out of the anti-nuclear power group, and no one new joining them.
It seems to me that to oppose nuclear power, you have to successfully address the following arguments:
we can keep total temperature increase below 2 C without nuclear power, with plenty of room for error,
the advantages of keeping the increase in the Earth's temperature even lower are outweighed by the disadvantages of nuclear power (these arguments need numbers, such as so many people will die from this year's use of nuclear power, from....),
if even one coal power plant is built, let alone hundreds of GW over the next decade, that coal plant is safer than nuclear for the following reasons (numbers again),
the US is disproportionately responsible for the GHG in the atmosphere and should be disproportionately responsible for reducing the world's GHG. If we can reduce our GHG emissions even faster we have a moral obligation, and this includes preferring nuclear power to baseload natural gas. The counter-argument to that is....
lots of plans for increased electricity consumption in the near future: greater air conditioning load in a hotter climate, plug-in hybrids, even desalination may become an important consumer of electricity. So all the above has to take into account that people might increase electricity use.
I like the idea of people consuming less. I've cut my electricity and natural gas use to considerably below the national average, don't drive, don't fly, do take buses and trains quite a bit though. Like most people in my position, we have a hard time imagining a widespread shift in public behavior ahead of government regulations, etc. If it happens, then policy people and utility managers will be able to adjust their projections, but until it happens, I wouldn't depend on this solution.
Karen Street
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Brudaimonia Posted 5:43 pm
28 Feb 2007
I can't speak to trends among environmentalists either increasingly supporting or increasingly rejecting nuclear power (or staying the same).
However, I do take issue with several of the necessary conditions you demand for opposing nuclear power.
we can keep total temperature increase below 2 C without nuclear power, with plenty of room for error
I'm not sure that nuclear power could achieve this anyway. In the time it takes to commission, permit, fund, and build a host of new nuclear plants, we could, if we made a concerted, collective effort, achieve great strides in renewable energy capacity (wind power was the second largest growing power sector in the US, behind natural gas) and both kinds of conservation (efficiency and conscious choice).
Nonetheless, you are right that we nuclear opponents should have a plan to decrease the likelihood of a 2 C increase. Some of us do; George Monbiot's a good start. And I think it is possible, with enough work, to come up with a plan.
the advantages of keeping the increase in the Earth's temperature even lower are outweighed by the disadvantages of nuclear power (these arguments need numbers, such as so many people will die from this year's use of nuclear power, from....),
if even one coal power plant is built, let alone hundreds of GW over the next decade, that coal plant is safer than nuclear for the following reasons (numbers again),
These two are variations of the "false dichotomy" fallacy I referenced above. Nuclear power opponents need not prove that coal is safer than nuclear because it's not the only alternative to nuclear. And the former variation begs the question by assuming that nuclear power is the only way of keeping the earth's temperatures low enough.
the US is disproportionately responsible for the GHG in the atmosphere and should be disproportionately responsible for reducing the world's GHG. If we can reduce our GHG emissions even faster we have a moral obligation, and this includes preferring nuclear power to baseload natural gas. The counter-argument to that is....
The counter-argument begins with exorcising the archaic thought that renewable energy is only some token solution at best. If you look at wind energy capacity by state, for instance, you realize that a lack of will (political, business-wise) is what is stopping it. Fifteen states still don't have a drop of wind power capacity, yet I'm pretty sure the wind still blows there. Four of these states are in the Mid-Atlantic region and have huge potential for off-shore wind -- 330 GW, according to the study mentioned in the link. Even if that is overstated by a factor of 2, 165 GW is still HUGE. 330 GW is about 10 percent of our current consumption -- and this is just from mid-Atlantic offshore wind farms.
The burden of proof falls on nuclear advocates, not opponents.
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GRLCowan Posted 6:45 am
01 Mar 2007
But if they are to continue with the pretense that others' safety concerns them, they must identify some alternative that is safer. Recent windpower fatalities in the US divided by its relatively small production show that it is not such an alternative.
They can't refute that, but sometimes argue that no-one believes nuclear is safer. That is a lie. Anyone who has been paying attention knows that nuclear is safer.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around B fire, car goes
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David Roberts Posted 6:52 am
01 Mar 2007
www.grist.org
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GRLCowan Posted 8:32 am
01 Mar 2007
Paul Gipe assembled some statistics up to the turn of the millennium and concluded,
it appears that the current mortality rate of wind energy of 0.15 deaths per TWh is roughly equivalent to that of mining, processing, and burning of coal to generate electricity according to some researchers. (This data doesn't include increases in mortality from the air pollution that results from burning coal.) Data from other researchers indicates that wind's mortality rate is about half that for the occupational mortality rate for coal.
This UIC news summary says US windpower production now is 31 TWh per year, so if those fatalities were the only ones for 2004 and 2005 and there were none in 2006, and we approximate 93 TWh production for those three years, the body count is 0.02 per TWh, down about 85 percent from Gipe's figures. But US nuclear electricity production in the same three years was ~2,200 TWh, with no lost workers as best I recall.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around B fire, car goes
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amazingdrx Posted 8:46 am
01 Mar 2007
Also increased cancer deaths from contamination from power plants. Leaks of tritium and strontium 90 and plutonium from fuel processing are numerous and under reported. There has been a concerted effort to cover it all up for decades.
Don't make me cite the specific contamination from processing, generation plants, and waste storage facilities. You've already seen it happen on other blogs, and suddenly gone quiet, as I remember.
Ever hear of Karen Silkwood? They made a movie about her early death from contamination after she turned whistleblower.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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Nucbuddy Posted 10:59 am
01 Mar 2007
Karen Silkwood was contaminated on or about November 5, 1974, at the age of 28. The movie Silkwood was released in 1983. Do you mean to imply that she contracted and died from plutonium-induced cancer within that short space of time?
In reality, Karen Silkwood died in a car crash on November 13, 1974, about 8 days after she was contaminated with plutonium.
.
findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_v36/ai_3109240
Silkwood: end of the fantasy road - Karen Silkwood
National Review, Jan 27, 1984
AT THE END of the new movie Silkwood, Karen Silkwood, played by Meryl Streep, dies in an automobile crash while en route to a meeting with a New York Times reporter; she is bearing documents revealing serious transgressions by the Kerr-McGee Corporation, a real-life company engaged in processing plutonium for use as nuclear fuel. The movie virtually compels you to believe that Miss Silkwood was murdered by Kerr-McGee or its agents in order to block her revelations, and suggests that a plutonium explosion resulting from Kerr-McGee malpractice could have wiped out an entire state.
All of this has been too much for most reviewers and commentators, who, while agreeing that Silkwood is an exciting and brilliantly acted film, have rebelled against its dishonest dealings with facts that are on the record.
Kerr-McGee did not doctor photographs in order to cover up flaws in its fuel rods. In fact, all of its 9,537 rods have performed as designed. There could have been no such explosion as suggested by the film. Miss Silkwood did have company records with her when she died--the film claims that they mysteriously disappeared from her car--but the records did not support her claims about plutonium and Kerr-McGee. There is no evidence that she was murdered, and every indication that she fell asleep at the wheel in a Quaalude-induced daze. The film grossly falsifies her personal life, including her attitude toward her husband, children, and lovers.
In the Washington Post, Nick Thimmesch is disturbed by "glaring discrepancies between the known record and the film's representations." Vincent Canby in the New York Times celebrates the film's artistry but says its mixture of fact and fiction "goes dangerously wrong." So gross are the film's misrepresentations that the Times was moved to comment on them in a major editorial: The "decision to select data and present them as the whole truth respects neither evidence nor audience."
Please see, also:
Nick Thimmesch. "Karen Silkwood Without Tears." Saturday Evening Post December 1979, cont'd January 1980.
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