During his marathon live-blogging yesterday, David "Boss-man" Roberts wrote about the GOP love of nuclear power: "Why are Republicans obsessed with this? It's mystifying. Don't they have anything else to talk about?"
Well, they love clean coal too. The question to me has always been why alleged conservatives have so much time for nuclear when it doesn't align with one of their cherished principles: If "big-government nanny-state market interference" had a poster child, the cooling towers of a nuclear plant would be it.
This is, after all, an industry that still traces it's lineage to the military-industrial complex. Created by the exigencies of war in a style of command economy that the United States didn't see again until the Apollo Program, the first atomic weapons in fact cost multiples more than landing a man on the moon. Later, as the U.S. Navy shifted to nuclear power and the arms races of the Cold War gathered steam, the military remained the dominant consumer of nuclear materials. Globally, military uses of uranium were not exceeded by civilian uses until the mid-1970s.
The mid-1970s were, as it turned out, the last best hope for a major nuclear expansion. With unprecedented spikes in the price of oil, France (as any nuclear advocate will endlessly tell you) embarked on a major expansion of its nuclear industry. How did France do this? With yet more nanny-state intervention, of course! Reactors were designed by the state, financed by the state, built by the state, and operated by the state. Permanent waste sites are similarly built and run by the state.
In the U.S., the story is similar but with some quirks. Often called the biggest single subsidy for the nuclear electric industry, the U.S. government insures every reactor built in the U.S. with taxpayers' money. (No private insurer will ever, ever risk a nuclear investment.) The companies that make civilian reactors also just happen to be able to rely on contracts from the U.S. Navy, which powers all its large ships with nuclear reactors.
And now we have Yucca Mountain, a long-term (and I mean long-term!) storage site for nuclear waste being built at taxpayers' expense in a location chosen for political expediency, not safety, efficiency, or even market logic. (Nevada apparently didn't have the sway in Congress to dump in another state.)
The sad truth (for the nuclear industry, at least) is that there's very little sign of change. The safer and more efficient reactors are even more obscenely expensive than current models (some $10,000 per kilowatt for prototype pebble-bed reactors, compared to a historic $4,000 for conventional models) and the nuclear industry cannot afford to finance its own insurance and waste disposal -- not without pricing its kilowatt-hours right out of the market.
All the same ... if, in the 1970s -- the time of the earliest warnings about climate change -- you had asked me to sign up for the French program, I probably would have supported it. (We'll ignore the fact that such a program might not have survived the Reagan Revolution in America, or the War on Deficit that followed.) Except -- and I don't know why this isn't obvious -- we don't live in the 1970s. Check it out -- it's 2007, there's not a bell-bottom to be seen, and we've got different and better options.
Efficiency is cheaper than coal or natural gas. Wind is cheaper than nuclear. (And in some countries, wind is already generating more power than nuclear! Viva!) By the mid 20teens, solar electricity will be cheaper throughout most of America than nuclear, and by 2020 it may be cheaper even in places like Syracuse, N.Y. Storage technologies will make renewables increasingly competitive with base load generation. (Consider what we'd rather Washington spend money on: storing radioactive waste, or storing heat and kilowatt-hours?) More efficient long-distance transmission will make the Midwest the new Middle East of energy. This could all be possible about the same time a nuclear reactor would come online, if we started building it yesterday.
Most of the renewable options are possible without government interference of anything like the same magnitude nuclear receives every hour of every day. Some will be possible without government interference at all, but I'm not a small-government fetishist. But so long as the the state is keeping its thumb on the scales, the market will not act rationally like it's supposed to, and as Republicans claim to believe it should.
Two senators push to ramp up nuclear energy
Nuclear companies face reactor design problems, ethics questions
Will South Carolina become the nation’s new Yucca Mountain?
Comments
View as Flat
ekillian Posted 10:20 am
22 Mar 2007
"The Republican party is not a party of conservative ideology. It is a party of conservative clients. Whenever possible, the ideology will be invoked as justification for taking care of the clients' needs. When the two are in conflict, the conservative principles are discarded and the clients are served."
"To understand the Republican party (or the Democratic party, for that matter), it is most efficient to look directly at the clients -- or as political scientist Thomas Ferguson would call them, the "major investors." On that level, the ideological contradictions are unimportant. Political parties do function as mediating institutions, only not for voters."
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GRLCowan Posted 12:14 pm
22 Mar 2007
Knowing this, when they want to do good to people by requiring that plants built near them be non-nuclear, the people they want to do this for are people way, way on the other side of town. This has got to bother them.
They are the civil servants' party, but perhaps even civil servants can only take reading about so many gas blasts before they begin to wonder whether they really have to have that thirty cents a week in NG revenue -- which "windpower" is code for.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
* Lonnie Dupre and Eric Larsen other had to choose between watching polar ice thin for a while longer and getting a ride home on the Yamal. They got on the boat.
On the web you can find updates of their travels that mention the Yamal without mentioning that it is a nuclear icebreaker. Frequent apologies and claims of necessity? No: they seem to hope it goes unnoticed.
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President Lindsay Posted 5:19 pm
22 Mar 2007
I was just going to point out that Republicans aren't the only people who think nuclear power makes sense. There is so much disinformation and misinformation in this article, though, that I am not even going to bother trying to wade through it all. Anybody who thinks that wind and solar can meet the world's energy needs without resorting to major baseload generation from other sources is delusional. And if you're concerned about GW then nuclear is it. What's stopping us from building the generation 4 plants? Politics only. And people like the writer of this piece are a part of the problem, offering only pie in the sky solutions.
Dude, I'm a dyed in the wool liberal who happens to believe that the percentage of socialism we have in this country should be higher. You diss France for nuclear but they have cut GHG emissions hugely, electricity is one of their biggest exports, and they're continuing now to replace their older generation plants with gen 3 plants. I suppose you figure they're just too stupid to know they're losing money on them, huh? Bullsh*t. Your numbers are totally off the wall. You talk so blithely about new undiscovered technologies taking care of problems like line loss and what have you. Keep fiddling while Rome burns. What a crock!
Nuclear is too expensive, huh? You know what the external costs of coal soot is in this country? $167 billion a year, with 24,000 premature deaths (by an average of 14 years). Know how many modern nuclear plants you could build with $167/year? About 88, if you could keep people like you from driving the cost up with lawsuits and stalling actions. We could shut down all our coal plants in almost no time, and with gen 4 reactors we'd take care of all the nuclear waste to boot. No, I'm not a Republican, I'm an environmentalist and a realist. You are neither.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:26 pm
22 Mar 2007
What gets me is the blatent slash and burn the GOP did for Hydro and Geothermal.
Since pumped hydro energy storage, and dryrock geothermal have the potential alone to meet all of our energy needs. Yet they've been stripped of all subsidy.
Meanwhile, between the DoD and the DoE.
Nuclear gets more subsidies per year than all renewable and energy effeciency programs combined.
_
Heh, although they've been slashing the energy effciency programs too.
_
Guess they don't like competition that could actually deliver the goods, without the need dealing with plutonium sequestration or CO2 sequestration.
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GreyFlcn Posted 5:41 pm
22 Mar 2007
Is because global warming is just that. Global.
Can't scatter access to plutonium throughout all the nations of the world, and expect us to survive through it. Iran and North Korea are bad enough as is.
Especially since Nuclear Winter, is also, Global.
So we don't even need to get hit to be SOL.
_
No matter how carefully one designs a system.
If you have no control over it, it can break down or be corrupted.
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Nucbuddy Posted 11:16 pm
22 Mar 2007
gristmill.grist.org/comments/2007/3/7/16145/25403/#comment19
Also disingenuous is referring to absolute subsidies, as opposed to subsidies per kW-hr, which conveniently overlooks the fact that we produce more than 100 times as much power from nuclear than solar.
It's questionable to equate the govt. research are a pure subsidy, as much of the work does not result in any real benefit for the industry. Nonetheless, even if you take the entire $800 million per year budget and divide it by the ~800 billion kW-hrs generated annually by nuclear, the resulting "subsidy" is only ~0.1 cents/kW-hr. By contrast, govt. pays for ~1/2 of the cost of solar PV systems, which corresponds to a subsidy of over 10 cents/kW-hr; 100 times the nuclear subsidy.
Wind power gets a subsidy of 1.8 cents/kW-hr. Existing nuclear plants get none. As I mentioned above, all costs are fully paid for. The first few nuclear plants will get a temporary (~6 year) subsidy of 1.8 cents/kW-hr (like wind). After the first few (~6), however, all new plants will have to compete w/o the subsidy..
world-nuclear.org/info/inf68.html
In recent years, some controversy has surrounded the question of the relative levels of R&D expenditure on nuclear energy and on new renewables (essentially technologies to harness wind and solar energy).
[...]
The extent of expenditure on renewables significantly outweighing that on nuclear fission everywhere except France and Japan would be unremarkable if the potential contribution from each were similar. In fact the potential scope for renewables contributing to electricity supply is very much less because the sources, particularly solar and wind, are diffuse, intermittent and unreliable.
[...]
Partly as a result of the R&D expenditure, nuclear power now provides 16% of world electricity (more in those countries foremost in the R&D) - 2600 billion kWh per year, compared with a tiny fraction of that for non-hydro renewables.
[...]
US Department of Energy figures show that over the 40 years to 1993 US expenditure on nuclear R&D totalled $60 billion, resulting in it supplying 20% of the electricity, whereas solar & geothermal received $22 billion and supplied only 3% of the power.
[...]
A 2002 Cato Institute report showed that in the previous 20 years renewable technologies received $24.2 billion in US federal R&D expenditure, compared with $20.1 billion for nuclear and $15.5 for coal (adjusted 1996 dollars). The result of this was minimal electricity contribution from non hydro renewables, and 20% and 50% respectively contribution from nuclear and coal.
A 2006 study from Management Information Services on The US Energy Subsidy Scorecard showed that total federal incentives (of which R&D expenditure is only a part) from 1950 to 2003 totalled $63 billion for nuclear power, $111 billion for renewables, $81 billion for coal and $87 billion for natural gas (2003 dollars), lining this up against the resultant contribution to US energy.
Focusing on R&D alone over 1994-2003, the study showed coal got $3.9 billion and nuclear $1.6 billion - both commensurate with their contribution to US electricity, while renewables other than hydro received $3.7 billion - vastly more than their foreseeable contribution..
Ironically, if all of the coal and nuclear-fission subsidies over the years had been given instead to "renewables", the latter would be even more expensive today, rather than less expensive. The reason is that the energy needed for development of "renewable" technologies would have been more expensive. The inexpensive energy provided by coal and nuclear-fission amounts to a subsidy to all other human enterprises.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:16 pm
22 Mar 2007
Good presentation on the French nuclear socialism. Do you faithbasers all want socialist nuclear power here? Gasp!
Nuclear power is a socialist conspiracy. And that leads to... communism!!
Who knew? The dominoes have fallen, communism in the form of nuclear power is right here in the USA. Haaaalp!
The GOP part of a communist conspiracy.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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amazingdrx Posted 11:18 pm
22 Mar 2007
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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mjstuart Posted 1:24 am
23 Mar 2007
Please tell me how much the US taxpayers have paid for this so-called insurance? Even Three Mile Island, the biggest nuclear incident in US history did not invoke this "insurance."
If you care to be accurate, then please note for future reference that the US tax payer doesn't pay anything for this insurance. The utilities pay the premiums, and they get their money from the consumers of their electricity. This means that this thing you call "the biggest single subsidy" is fully paid for by the people who use nuclear electricity, which is pretty cheap in comparison to other forms of electrical generation.
Anti-nukes will throw around subsidy claims for nuclear indiscriminately, as if existing commercial reactors can't operate without them. The truth is that most of the subsidies have gone to defense, NOT commercial electrical generation.
Now, if you wanna talk subsidies, perhaps you'll mention renewables like wind and solar, which enjoy a $18 per megawatt subsidy. Which means that renewables not only get paid for by the people that use them, they also get paid for again by the US tax payer, and judging by the way things are going, renewables will also get money funnelled their way by some of the proposed carbon taxes.
If you want to eliminate subsidies, then what you're really saying is that you want renewables to fail, because everybody knows that renewables can't compete or even survive without them.
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Nucbuddy Posted 1:43 am
23 Mar 2007
I believe you are incorrect. I believe that offering a free insurance policy indeed constitutes a subsidy, and that U.S. taxpayers do indeed pay out of pocket for it. For example, if an individual were to choose not to purchase an insurance policy for his home or car, he would actually still be paying for risk coverage. The reason for that is that he himself would be providing his own risk coverage, and risk coverage by any means always incurs a financial cost since it ties up capital (i.e., imposes an investment opportunity-cost).
You might not choose to count that cost, but it exists regardless of that choice.
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ekillian Posted 3:41 am
23 Mar 2007
Right now Southern California Edison is building 500-800 MW of solar generation in the Mojave desert (Victorville) at $1400/kW. The initial 500MW will generate 1047 GWh annually. San Diego Gas & Electric is building 300-900 MW using the same Stirling Energy Systems technology in Imperial Valley, CA. By the time the U.S. builds another nuclear power plant, we could build dozens of these plants. Indeed, SCE and SDG&E have already purchased much more land than is required. The initial SCE array is 20,000 37-foot diameter dishes and expected to be built in four years. Compare that to the time it takes to build a nuclear plant.
For comparison, a pro-nuclear MIT study estimated the construction cost of a new nuclear plant at $2000/kW (natural gas was $500/kW but of course has a high fuel cost). So solar is cheaper and faster to build. It could solve the problem; nuclear cannot get there in time.
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:06 am
23 Mar 2007
Just like the next 6000MWs of nuclear plants...
Furthermore, I'm comparing about 0.8billion in DOE subsidy in the 2008 budget to 1.2 for all renewables and energy effeciency programs combined, including hydro.
Now that does NOT include the cost of nuclear energy appropriations toward DoD expenses.
Which would most definantly cost a pretty penny.
You don't need to post a 24/7 coast guard patrol around a geothermal power plant for instance.
Furthermore, there's clear evidence that that $25billion paid through the 0.1 cent/KWH
Is likely going to end up to more than $53 billion to pay for.
Meanwhile for every year inbetween 2009-2017, roughly 0.5 billion YEARLY will be paid toward nuclear companies just to cover the cost of dry cask storage.
_
But I guess the real issue with nuclear subsidies.
Removing the cost of DoD expenses sure does make it look a lot cheaper.
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:11 am
23 Mar 2007
Not quite sure which one I like best atm.
Stirling solar offers perfect modularity, and quick build times.
Where as combined cycle solar power plants offer the potential for natural gas to piggyback off the the same infrastructure for nighttime and peaking power.
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:22 am
23 Mar 2007
Which is good for 100% baseload solar, but I have no clue about the costs.
_
But where the real growth in solar is gonna be is in the thin film panels.
Sure they are stuck at 10% eff right now.
But with a boost from quantum dots, they could match the 35% eff of solar concentrators.
http://www.sciencenews.org/scripts/printthis.asp?clip=%2F ...
Not to mention the materials, capital, and operations cost for solar thinfilm manufacturing plants is pretty damned uber.
Considering Sharp, the current silicon solar topdog, only has about 600MW production capacity throughout all of it's production facilities.
Just one CIGS thinfilm manufacturing plant can spit out 500MW of solar panels a year.
And they are going to set up more than one of these manufacturing plants in the next few months.
So assuming it'd actually run at about 250MW, thats what, 2500MW of built electric capacity over 10 years?
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atreyger Posted 4:22 am
23 Mar 2007
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GreyFlcn Posted 4:29 am
23 Mar 2007
Terrestrial biomass is about 1-2% effecient at converting sunlight into energy and it grows linearly.
Algae biomass is about 6-8% effecient, grows exponentially, AND doesn't need farmland or water (Well almost all of the water used can be recycled)
_
But then again.
If you're comparing the solar effeciency
Solar gets 10-35% effeciency.
Solar is just better than biomass at converting sunlight into energy.
Especially when you consider a minumum of 62% of the energy in biomass is lost just to convert it to a biofuel.
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sunflower Posted 4:59 am
23 Mar 2007
At the bottom of the list, the very last thing anybody should consider is: Make electricity with solar and/or nuclear.
The long-term never-ending energy propaganda from vested interests is my chief complaint. We need honest energy leadership that does not have a dog in this fight.
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Nucbuddy Posted 5:42 am
23 Mar 2007
How do you figure?
phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter8.html#3
while many people think that doing without energy is the safest strategy, it is probably by far the most dangerous..
Sunflower wrote: We need honest energy leadership that does not have a dog in this fight.
What if that dog were comprehensive risk-management?
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mjstuart Posted 6:21 am
23 Mar 2007
Just because you call it a subsidy or think it's a subsidy doesn't make is so. Subsidies are a burden on tax payers. Other than administrative cost, this insurance policy you refer to doesn't cost the taxpayers anything.
As far as the policy itself is concerned, are you opposed to it? It's modeled after a similar policy which includes childhood vaccinations.
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mjstuart Posted 6:23 am
23 Mar 2007
But the problem with that is it's PEAKING power. One modern Gen III nuclear plant will generate 14x as much energy per year. Nuclear is also BASELOAD, which is available 24/7. It doesn't stop on cold winter nights. So, unless you plan on including the cost of multiplying the project by a factor of 14 per reactor replaced (remember now, you said it would take like 200 reactors, so we're talking multiplying all of this by a factor of about 3000!), building standby power generation (which would likely be natural gas), storage mechanisms for balancing the excess power, and infrastructure for getting the power from the Mojave desert to Wisconsin (and everywhere else that a desert isn't conveniently located), I'd suggest you leave some room in that Utopia for some nuclear capacity.
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mjstuart Posted 6:32 am
23 Mar 2007
So, if we owe a million dollars and someone offers to pay 200 thousand then we say, "No thanks"?
I've got news for you: Nuclear provides about 74% of the emission free electricity in the US today. It is not THE answer to our energy needs, but along with renewables such as wind, solar, hydro, biomass, geothermal, and of course conservation, it is PART of the answer.
A very big part.
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Zarkov Posted 7:13 am
23 Mar 2007
Well all people living on the Earth today are under delusions or illusions.
White man speaks with forked tongue,,,
Propaganda is today's science, see Gore and EXXON Mobil and the political team of interpreters that speak for unknown renowned scientists through a media that has no credibility or morals.
>>> And if you're concerned about GW then nuclear is it. >>>
Yes that is the blinkered logic of people stuck in the past projecting to the future. Same old same old primitive logic...Solution:- Create an energy source that will spread all the radioactivity that the Earth had locked away in trillions of tons of solid rock and concentrate it and spread it over the surface millimeter of this planet... slowly but surely.
You human beings are the most foolish creatures in the Universe. No animal shits in their own nest.
You guys just love it, rolling in the muck, breathing it in, even spreading it on your toast for breakfast.
LOL, ironic isn't it, y'all will become mutants trying to fix a problem that has been assigned an illusion as a solution. It won't save you, but it might save Exxon Mobil..... LOL
Once again
Your future energy needs MUST come from a NO FOOTPRINT source. The use of oil must be banned, not the use of coal.
But hey, it really doesn't matter, go back to sleep, sorry to wake you up, extinction of LIFE on this planet is now inevitable.
The major bodies of standing fresh water in the world are not being replenished by rain inflows and the water levels are rapidly falling due to evaporation. The ice sheets are melting and all that fresh water is running to the sea to take cover under the seas resident oil slicks.
This is the start of World Drought Day. Celebration time, come on.
No? well back to your knitting guys, nothing to see here.
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Nucbuddy Posted 8:26 am
23 Mar 2007
Yes. Congress provides unlimited coverage beyond the $10 billion paid-for by the utilities.
world-nuclear.org/info/inf67.html
the Price Anderson Act [...] provides $10 billion in cover without cost to the public or government
[...]
Beyond this cover and irrespective of fault, Congress, as insurer of last resort.
Taxpayers pay out-of-pocket for this coverage in the form of investment opportunity-cost. This investment opportunity-cost, since it is essentially in the form of liability, is reflected partly in the national credit status.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_debt#Implicit_debt
Government "implicit" debt is the "promise" by a government of future payments from the state.
[...]
The problem with the implicit government insurance liabilities is that it's very hard to make any accurate assumptions about these liabilities, since the scale of future payments depends on so many factors.
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GreyFlcn Posted 9:46 am
23 Mar 2007
The Department of Defense externality costs of Nuclear are treated as if they don't exist.
However especially in a scenario where nuclear goes global, the price would be astronomical.
Combine these points, and it's clear that Nuclear isn't going to solve our problems.
It will just make news ones, that are just as bad, if not worse.
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GRLCowan Posted 10:53 am
23 Mar 2007
Could you please provide a list of the countries that currently have nuclear power stations, 'GreyFlcn'?
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:27 am
23 Mar 2007
Well, I'll have to look a little deeper.
But here would be my initial guess, based off of countries with nuclear weapons, plus Iran.
US, Russia, UK, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, Iran
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GreyFlcn Posted 11:31 am
23 Mar 2007
"All told today, over 500 nuclear reactors are in operation in 45 countries."
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/19741001faessay10124/adlai- ...
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Jason D Scorse Posted 11:40 am
23 Mar 2007
So you want the free market, ok, then no nuclear, oil, or coal subsidies.
And while we're at it no forestry, fishing, or ag subsidies.
See how easy it is to talk to "conservatives" and also promote environmental improvements?
J.S.
I teach environmental economics and blog at http://www.voicesofreason.info. I am a proud liberal, who stands on the shoulders of giants.
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GreyFlcn Posted 1:00 pm
23 Mar 2007
http://www.sandia.gov/news/resources/releases/2007/blade. ...
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Pangolin Posted 7:04 pm
23 Mar 2007
The most important one is the assumption that power loads HAVE to grow and that those loads will always reflect the same profiles on daily use that they do now. The truth is that most of Europe lives quite well on 1/2 the per capita energy usage of an American. Obviously an achievable goal.
Of course readily available conservation technologies like geo-exchange HVAC and CFL and LED lighting are proven to reduce loads and reduce or eliminate daily usage spikes.
Since the largest peak loads happen during summer heat waves that also corresponds neatly with the solar power availablility. Ice storage sytems have also been proven to save considerable energy AND balance cooling loads over 24 hour periods saving money.
Solar can heat a geothermal resevior when the sun shines and extract heat at night and on cloudy days. Wind can make ice when the wind blows and extract cool on still, hot days.
The best energy savings is not to use exterior energy sources at all. Many straw bale houses have proven to require no heating or cooling for much of the year.
If renewable energy systems were connected to electic vehicles substantial load leveling could be obtained from parked cars that were plugged in and internet connected to grid managers.
The most important thing about all of these technologies is that they don't require any new technologies to implement. We only need to install the existing technologies.
When the Nuclear industry has dealt with it's existing backlog of waste sitting in cooling ponds around the country then they can come talk to us about building new plants; not before.
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President Lindsay Posted 7:14 pm
23 Mar 2007
I had to rub my eyes at that last bit. Zarkov maintains that we have to keep using coal? That nuclear plants spread radioactivity all over the earth and we'll all be doomed? Wake up and smell the sulphur, Zarkov. Coal burning power plants spew over a hundred times more radioactive material than nuclear plants ever would in your worst nightmares. Just a few figures for you to munch on:
* A typical coal-fired power plant annually releases 5.2 tons of uranium (containing 74 pounds of fissile U-235, used in both power plants and bombs) and 12.8 tons of thorium.
* Total U.S. releases for 1982 came to 801 tons of uranium (containing 11,371 pounds of U-235) and 1971 tons of thorium.
* Worldwide releases totaled 3640 tons of uranium (containing 51,700 pounds of U-235) and 8960 tons of thorium.
I would defy you to show me a case where ANY uranium or thorium was released and spread over the landscape from a nuclear power plant, with the possible exception of Chernobyl, which was an antiquated and never repeated stupid design with stupid operators and no containment buiding.
You don't know what you're talking about. Next time you want to rant and rave do it into your pillow.
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President Lindsay Posted 7:38 pm
23 Mar 2007
There's a reason that we use the term "global warming." It's because it's global. Do you believe we can halt the ever-increasing demand for electricity and other energy on a worldwide scale? Not only is our planet's population set to flirt with 10 billion by mid-century, many of the already existing billions are quickly developing and their thirst for energy is immense and growing.
Do you understand that converting one type of energy (wind or solar, in your examples) to another (ice?!?) entails a considerable energy hit, hardly something that can be tolerated when you're seemingly talking about using all solar and wind power for everything. Hey, you can live in a straw bale house and never use an air conditioner or a heater, have at it. As for expecting any more than .0001% of the world's population to do so, just forget about it. The idea that wind and solar can provide all the power our world needs is absolutely ludicrous on any foreseeable time frame. Unless you get considerably more realistic you'll only be standing in the way of real solutions, and global warming will do a number on us all.
I fully agree that geoexchange heat pumps are very sensible and hopefully they'll be much more widely deployed in the future. Likewise CFLs and LEDs (though you should have mentioned cold cathode lighting, better than either of them). Electric cars are great too, IF you use a clean source of energy to make the electricity. That's a big IF.
As for your comment When the Nuclear industry has dealt with it's existing backlog of waste sitting in cooling ponds around the country then they can come talk to us about building new plants; not before. This is not a technical problem with nuclear power, it's a political problem which has come to pass to a great degree as a result of the actions of antinuclear zealots. In point of fact there is a fine technology available, just waiting for the right political decisions, that can use up all that nuclear waste and then some to generate electricity. As for the nuclear industry, of which I am definitely NOT a part (nor am I a conservative either, and I resent the constant lumping of people who promote nuclear power as being somehow automatically Republican), it has to be taken out of the hands of private companies, worldwide. Until it is, proliferation and shoddy practices will be risks for us all.
Look forPrescription for the Planet, coming to a bookstore near you later this year. More light, less heat.
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amazingdrx Posted 11:43 pm
23 Mar 2007
Conservation and renewable energy technology have advanced quite a bit since you last payed attention.
Your comments are peppered with talking points based on dated information. Defeatism in the face of disaster is not a quality we need in a leader.
http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog
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GRLCowan Posted 3:57 am
24 Mar 2007
I disagree with your deprivatize-nukes prescription. Proliferation has not, as yet, ever been honestly laid at any nuclear power plant's door, and to the extent that they have been privately managed, they have been harmless in other ways too; it takes public management to make something as forgiving as a nuke misbehave. Even then, if you recall the San Francisco's full-chat ramming of the seamount, they still tend to be docile. (Is that boat an SSN? Is that the proper prefix?)
Israel and Iran have no nuclear power plants. North Korea may have a 0.0026-GW dynamo attached to their graphite reactor. Countries 'GreyFlcn' didn't mention include Argentina, Belgium, Canada (where I am), Germany, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Japan, South Korea, Lithuania, Sweden, and Ukraine.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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GRLCowan Posted 4:22 am
24 Mar 2007
Actually it makes good sense when ice itself is what is going to be wanted within a few hours or days, and energy with which to make it is available now, but not guaranteed for then.
--- G. R. L. Cowan, former hydrogen-energy fan
Oxygen expands around boron fire, car goes
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mjstuart Posted 3:52 am
27 Mar 2007
You can conserve all you want to, but we're not conserving away 80% of our energy needs anytime in the next half century.
So until we get there, we need sources of energy (please note that I didn't say A source) that are available to meet our demand without polluting the environment.
You can cry radiation pollution all you want, but the fact remains that you would have to live next to a nuclear power station for 50 years to get the same amount of radiation you'd get from one round-trip flight from NY to LA.
Heck, even
peanut butter sandwiches are more dangerous than nuclear power.
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:21 pm
05 Apr 2007
http://test.oxfordresearchgroup.org.uk/publications/brief ...
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:49 pm
05 Apr 2007
Pretty much this is the arguement that can't be beat about nuclear.
i.e. "You can't control risks, if those risks are not in your control."
Other nations can't be directly controled by the United States.
Plutonium can't be effectively regulated by the IAEA, since it's very easy to hide missing quantities of plutonium given the uncertainty of measurement, as compared to uranium which is relatively easy to measure.
Especially when you have nations acting like India. Who have declared all of their civilian nuclear facilities to be "military", and thus exempt from IAEA oversight.
But lastly, even if they could solve all those proliferation issues. I can't imagine what the pricetag for that would be.
But it certainly wouldn't be cheap.
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