breckhenderson’s Recent Comments

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  This is just plain dumb

  Hundreds of millions of Chinese are lifting themselves out of poverty, and it takes abundant energy to accomplish that.  Poverty in China means no access to health care, and thus much shorter lives.  It means no electricity for heating or cooling, for powering modern conveniences, or for building businesses.  It means no infrastructure for transportation or communications systems.  It means they can't upgrade homes and buildings to withstand earthquake, or to build flood control projects.  

  They are not going to voluntarily continue living in poverty, nor should you wish them to do so to support your global warming fantasies.

  Here are some facts that you don't seem to be aware of:

  1.  Owing to real scientific, engineering limitations, run a modern electrical grid with enough power to run factories and cities with wind and solar alone.  Of course you can do it with hydroelectric power, but I'm sure you don't favor the Three Gorges Dam and other projects such as that either.  

  2.  Because of #1, China has no choice except to build coal plants, and nothing Obama or Bush can do in the future, or might have done in the past, will change their course.

  3.  China does have an aggressive nuclear power program, which is the only other way to provide the energy to build a modern economy for more than 1 billion people.  These plants are expensive to build, take time and a trained work force to operate.  You should cheer them for this effort.

  I don't have the time or space to elaborate on global warming, except to say that although there has been a small amount of warming over the last 100 years or so, there is no crisis.  There is much science to support this view, and you should make yourself aware of it.  www.junkscience.com is a good starting place.On Eight years of Bush inaction leave Obama with a near-impossible challenge posted 10 months, 1 week ago 4 Responses

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  Some good news here

  Nice to see that Obama has the good sense not to blindly get on board with all of the "progressive" (I prefer "far left") agenda.

  It's highly hypocritical for the left to bash President Bush for eight years for politicizing science, and then reject scientific advances in agriculture that have the potential to feed billions more people because you don't "feel" good about genetically modified crops.

  If you're a wealthy American or European, you can afford the niceties of organic food grown on small, family farms. And you can even ignore the science, which says eating organic has no measurable health benefits even though it costs a great deal more.  Sadly, billions around the world don't have that luxury.

  Last time I went to Whole Foods, there seemed to be quite a number of farmers who are eager to fleece willing organic shoppers with certified organic products.  So what's the problem? Do you want to force all of us to eat organic?

  Breck Henderson

  On What happened to the big win for progressives, the environment, and organic food? posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 5 Responses

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  Waste & Insurance

  Currently, all nuclear waste is stored on site at U.S. nuclear plants. Most sites are putting spent fuel rods into dry cask storage. A little information here: spent nuclear fuel is solid ceramic pellets encased in a metal fuel rod. After 20 years or so, most of the radioactivity has decayed so that very little heat is generated, and the radioactive hazard is much reduced. Dry casks are large concrete structures that encase steel containers, which hold the fuel rods, which hold the ceramic fuel pellets. The casks are cooled by natural convection -- cold air in at the bottom, slightly warmer air out at the top -- and sit on concrete pads with security provided by plant security forces.  Not that anybody could throw a cask weighing 10s of tons into the back of their pickup and drive away.

  As another writer has mentioned, I'd gladly take a few of these casks in my backyard if they ever need to rent more space. There is no safety issue, as these casks can survive train wrecks, air craft impacts, earthquakes, fires, whatever. The NRC has licensed the Goshute Indians of Utah to build a large, dry cask storage facility, but I don't know what happend to their plans to build it.  

  Yucca Mountain is a good technical solution for very long term storage, but it's tied up in politics. Certain politicians refuse to allow their state to be the dumping ground for nuclear waste, even though it means jobs and income for a depressed area and poses no significant danger to anybody.

  Yes, processing uranium requires burning some fuel to dig it up and turn it into ceramic pellets. That's true of anything we do -- solar cells take a lot of energy and toxic chemicals to manufacture. I think the overall gain is going to be much on the positive side.  I'm a global warming skeptic -- yes, we're getting warmer over the last 100 years and probably since the end of the Little Ice Age, but is that bad? Is CO2 to blame? Are the positive feedbacks postulated in computer climate models real and sufficient to trigger a runaway greenhouse effect? Can the earth adapt to a small climate upset without our help? Is man-made CO2 the only or even the primary cause of the last 100 year's warming? All questions that lead to the "no crisis" view, IMO.

  But we should still build nuclear plants just because it's a clean, safe, reliable, concentrated form of energy.

  Later,

  Breck Henderson

  On Responding to Heritage's staggeringly confused 'rebuttal' posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 30 Responses

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  Good Questions, Max

  Again, I must warn that I'm speaking only for myself, not for the NRC.

  The COL process is not overrated, it's vital to new construction. It significantly reduces the risk of regulatory delay.

  I don't work in licensing or new reactors, so I can't speak in detail about those issues. You're correct that it takes a certain number of manhours to review a new license application. But the big picture is that, if there is political will to shorten this time, it could be done, either by increasing manpower or by adjusting review procedures. Procedures can increase or decrease amount of detail NRC examines, which can increase or decrease the time required. (We can argue about how much detailed review is prudent, whether, for example, to accept the designer's work on a component or have it redone by a national lab, and so forth. One could easily force the process to take many years.) Also, as we become familiar with the technical issues by reviewing a license for one type of plant, it shouldn't take as long on the next one.

  The other side of the coin is that political desire to block nuclear construction can easily be accomplished through regulation. The NRC is currently being restricted as to how many resources can be spent on the Yucca application. I'm sure you can guess which politician is behind this.

  I'm not familiar with what we're doing in regard to the Gen III versus Gen IV applicants. We're always resource limited -- which, BTW, I think is good for a gov't bureaucracy.
  

  Breck Henderson

  On Responding to Heritage's staggeringly confused 'rebuttal' posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 30 Responses

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  China burning coal

  China is not going to curb it's economic growth for any reason, and certainly will never bow to environmentalist religious dogma, which would have us believe that CO2 is destroying the planet. China has perfectly competent scientists who obviously know better.  It will be interesting in the coming years to witness environmentalist reactions when CO2 increases continue and the world fails to come to an end.

  Breck Henderson

  On China to increase coal production 30 percent by 2015 posted 10 months, 2 weeks ago 28 Responses