“We are surrounded by insurmountable opportunity.”
So said the great Pogo, hero of my favorite comic strip.
The opportunity to fix our energy and climate problems is most assuredly insurmountable if we don’t embrace all the technology available.
The LA Times’ Richard Simon reported today on how some leading Congressional Democrats now look at nuclear power through the climate change lens.
‘Bout time.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Sen. Dianne Feinstein think nuclear energy needs to be considered among the possible clean-energy options. As do Democratic presidential hopefuls Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton. (Some of you might want to now reconsider your position. Please. Don’t.)
Environmental Defense, a sponsor of this blog, was also quoted in Simon’s article saying, “We don’t think any options should be taken off the table when dealing with global warming.”¯
If we’re going to successfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, I think expanded nuclear has to be among the options. Just as we can’t expect to make headway in reducing greenhouse gas emissions worldwide unless nations such as China and India join the effort, neither can we reduce them here at home if nuclear power isn’t considered among the energy alternatives to fossil fuels.
It’s good to see Democratic policymakers surmount their own pasts to seize the opportunity before us. Let’s see if they follow through. . .
This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 4:46 pm and is filed under Alternative Energy Technology, Politics/Government . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
April 10th, 2007 at 7:09 pm
OMITTING THE NUCLEAR OPTION FROM OUR ENERGY INVENTORY HAS ALWAYS BEEN DUE TO NOTHING MORE THAN FEAR, IGNORANCE AND POLITICS. PEOPLE FEAR THAT WHICH THEY CANNOT SEE. THE INDUSTRY, BOTH MILITARY AND CIVILIAN, HAS ALWAYS BEEN SO TIGHTLY REGULATED THAT EVEN A SNEEZE IS REPORTED. IN THE 60′S, SAFETY ANALYSTS FROM OUTSIDE THE INDUSTRY PROJECTED A MAJOR MILITARY INCIDENT RESULTING IN LOSS OF LIFE AND EXTREME CONTAMINATION OF A US PORT BY THE YEAR 1971. I KNOW, I WAS THERE. THE DOOM SAYERS WERE AGAIN WRONG. THEY ASSUMED THAT REPORTED INCIDENTS WERE ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICE BURG. NUCLEAR POWER HAS BEEN PROVEN SAFE. NUCLEAR PLANTS CANNOT BLOW UP. ENRICHED U235 USED AS FUEL REQUIRES A SLOW NEUTRON FOR FISION. WATER IS USED TO SLOW THE HIGH ENERGY NEUTRONS PRODUCED FROM FUSION, DOWN TO USEABLE ENERGIES. LOSE THE WATER FROM A REACTOR AND IT SHUTS DOWN AUTOMATICALLY. CAN A LOSS OF FLUID ACCIDENT MAKE A MESS? YES, BUT THE REACTOR WILL NOT EXPLODE! US REACTORS OPERATE WITH A NEGATIVE TEMPERATURE CO-EFFFICENT. THIS MEANS, THAT AS POWER DEMAND INCREASES, REACTOR POWER GOES UP. IF POWER ISN’T NEEDED, POWER GOES DOWN AUTOMATICALLY WITH NO OPERATOR ACTION. PERFECT AS STANDBY PLANTS FOR THE COMMERCIAL POWER GRID. MOST BASE LOAD POWER PLANTS OPERATE EFFICIENTLY PRIMARILY ONLY AT FULL LOAD. GREEN ENERGY AT PRESENT HAS PROBLEMS WITH PRODUCING POWER 24/7. NO WIND, NO SUN, WELL YOU GET THE PICTURE. NUCLEAR ENERGY HAS, AT THE VERY LEAST, A NICHE USE AND POSSIBLY MORE IN PROVIDING OUR POWER NEEDS. IF WE HAVE DEMOCRATS COMING TO THEIR SENSES WITH REGARD TO THE USE OF NUCLEAR POWER I SAY BETTER LATE THAN NEVER.
April 11th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
Strauss appears to have become somewhat … um … *loud* in the afterlife.
The point about temperature’s fission-suppressing effect is true. In carbon-helium reactors it serves to shut fission off entirely at temperatures well within what the carbon and fuel can stand.
People who are paid to say nuclear is dangerous seem to come to understand that it’s not dangerous for them. So Greenpeace contractors, wanting to study thinning Arctic ice, quietly get on a nuclear icebreaker. They don’t acknowledge this because it would alienate their fuel-tax-funded civil service base, but waiting for a diesel and breathing fumes is obviously a worse way to travel, and somewhat bad for the very ice they study, of course.
April 12th, 2007 at 9:55 am
Interesting about Greenpeace - do you have a link to an article about that?
April 12th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
Google (“eric larsen” “lonnie dupre” icebreaker): 895 hits.
Google (“eric larsen” “lonnie dupre” “nuclear icebreaker”): 12 hits.