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Will the Climate Bill Nuke Earth Day?
The Climate Bill is due on Earth Day. By all accounts it will be a nuclear bomb.
It will be the ultimate challenge of the global grassroots green movement to transform it into something that can actually save the planet.
For the atomic power industry, the bill will cap a decade-long $640-million-plus virtual cleansing of its radioactive image.
It will have the Obama Administration and Senators John Kerry (D-MA), Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and Lindsay Graham (R-SC) embracing very substantial taxpayer subsidies for building new nuclear plants.
Ditto new offshore drilling and "clean coal." The markers have been laid for a greenwashed business-as-usual approach toward pretending to deal with global climate change and the life-threatening pollution in which our corporate power structure is drowning us. All without actually threatening certain corporate profits.
From "An Inconvenient Truth" to Obama's impending Earth Day address, the official emphasis is on each of us, as individuals. To be sure, we ALL must consume smarter, use less and recycle more. Since the first Earth Day, all these great green ideas have had an undeniable impact.
Some corporations have also learned that pollution is by definition a form of waste, and that to actually go green is to become more profitable.
But some technologies and fuel sources have proved simply unworkable on a survivable planet. Topping the list is atomic power.
Once sold as "too cheap to meter," atomic reactors are too expensive to matter---except for massive taxpayer subsidies.
The first commercial reactor opened at Shippingport, Pennsylvania, in 1957. Since then, the industry has failed to solve its radioactive waste problem, failed to find meaningful private liability insurance and failed to find unsubsidized private financing for new reactors.
The handouts in the Climate Bill are sorry testimony to all that. But there's more.
All reactors are indefensible targets for terror and error. As at Fermi, Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, the potential for disaster is apocalyptic.
All reactors kill nearby living things---human and otherwise---from "normal" radiation releases.
All reactors also emit substantial toxic chemicals and greenhouse gases in mining, milling, enrichment, fuel fabrication, transportation, waste storage and other related operations.
Reactors in France, Alabama and elsewhere which have been forced shut because they super-heat rivers and lakes---all in the name of "fighting global warming."
Selling the falsehoods that atomic energy is "carbon free," successful in France and can "fight climate change" has been dirty and expensive.
Along the way, the industry has hired a bevvy of flacks with marginal green credentials.
But on Earth Day we may see its crowning achievement.
Already the Administration has pledged $8.33 billion in loan guarantees to fund a double-reactor project in Georgia. The designs have not yet been certified, the price tag is soaring, there's bitter debate over where the cash will come from and what fees should be attached, and the state's ratepayers are on the hook even if the plant never generates electricity.
But the Administration wants more than $50 billion in loan guarantees to repeat the process elsewhere. Kerry-Lieberman-Graham have toyed with even bigger subsidies, in various forms, ranging to $100 billion and more.
Offshore drilling and "clean coal" also seem poised for new handouts.
It's not clear what the Earth gets in exchange. Cap and trade, once the centerpiece of the whole deal, is gone. A carbon tax does not seem to be on the table. There will certainly be subsidies for various Solartopian technologies, and a headline-grabbing "surprise" or two.
But exactly what the barons of fossil/nuke will offer to justify their massive cash infusions is not yet clear.
All that's certain is that this Earth Day, the Climate Bill will jack the debate to a whole new level.
Given soaring global carbon levels and a wasteful, obsolete economic infrastructure in serious decline, we are clearly at the precipice.
The Administration, the Congress and the country will have to decide: will we continue to subsidize failed atomic technologies and catastrophic fossil mining and drilling whose corporate backers have apparently unlimited funds for lobbying and PR?
Or do we finally turn to the truly green technologies and ways of living that can save both our planet and our economy?
The final battle starts Thursday. The outcome is up to us.
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51 Comments so far
Show AllNO, we won't be able to turn to truly green technologies. Why? Becasue the MIC hasn't figured out how to have and run the biggest and most expensive military force by using soar and wind energy. So they won't. There is no way this country will give up on the negative fuels, because there is no way they will give up on being the biggest bully on the block.
There are trillions of dollars in profits at stake in regards to fossil fuels and nuclear energy. While putting up solar panels and windmills offer potential profit with initial installation, they offer no long term revenue stream.
...and thank you Harvey for the article. It's so important that we fight this growing threat, nuclear power.
So many people do not even know that this is occurring, the push for building new plants. So many people do not understand the futurethreat and the real and present dangers that are already happening. The people that these plants directly effect are aware. But anyone not living next to a plant is oblivious and the sorry truth is that they suck up what ever the gov says is ok to suck up. We know that many people are like little children and will believe anything their parents tell them. The gov is saying that "Don't worry little ones, we will build you many new power plants that will give you all the electric you can possibly want. Don't worry, be happy" Bought, hook line and sinker.
Actually it is the Energy Industry saying this, using the megaphone of its subsidiary, the mainstream news, emanating from the mouths of its bought-off politicians.
["theinitiate"... nice post, succinct and correct] The implicit ('tho often baldly stated) assumption behind every question asked about our energy future is; reducing our energy consumption means reducing our standard of living. You can't get the right answer if you start with the wrong question. So, with that assumption, we ask, how do we replace carbon-based energy with equal amounts of "green" energy? (As though 10,000 SUV's snarled in a traffic jam represents a high standard of living.) Conservation is the most "net energy" positive solution, but doesn't produce much in the way of the corporate profits that frame the discussion. And so we can't think beyond tinkering with the current system's component parts. (Like we'll be SO much greener when we have 10,000 hybrids snarled in a traffic jam.) Questions like, why do we lay out our living arrangement in ways that necessitate 12 average per day trips of (x) miles rather than live locally, as people did for thousands of years, raise our food without fossil fuel based fertilizers and farm equipment, then require (the current average for US food) 1 thousand mile transportation to the table, etc. never enter the discussion. Until the discussion breaks free of corporate, profit-driven assumptions crap like nuclear power and corn based ethanol will drive out any real solutions.
Politicians and the media repeatedly call nuclear power "carbon free" while the reality is that uranium mining, processing, transportation, and nuclear waste disposal has always been fossil fuel intensive and will become more so as we need to dig ever deeper for lower grade uranium that takes more fossil fuel to process.
It all comes down to profits, doesn't it?
Sometimes I think 'they' know that our present path is unsustainable. Instead of changing the system with an eye toward sustainability, it becomes more about gaming the system before the bottom falls out and profit becomes meaningless.
Bingo.
When I studied nuclear energy in college back in the mid 1970's, it was very evident that the OVERALL cost of using nukes to make electric power far exceded the return cost that is charged to the utility customer! When I and others in class pointed this out to the professor he agreed and then tried to moved on...!!!! When we pressed him for a reason he replied..."Its economics not science... Capital flow... big return on borrowed money...do you want the interrest off of a few million dollars for solar investments, by a public utility, or the interrest from a few billion for one nuke power plant for that utility?" And the government underwrites the loan"S"! It still adds up the same way today! Corporate scaming for their own benifit off of the government. Democrats and Republicans are all in on this!
Sioux Rose
MARCI: Thank you for an interesting post. Our "leaders" have shown complacency when it comes to frying other nations' children (via the "brave" acts of our MIC and its cousin, the mercenary army), so why expect them to show conscience when it comes to the long-range likelihood of frying our own?
Great post!
I don't think the puny logic goes beyond electric car = more nuclear reactors.
Professor,
There is some basic truths in your comment. It is a sad day when corruption wins over doing things the honest way. Unless we get real election campaign reform there will be nothing that we the American people can do to change things. If the system is broken because of corruption and greed than it doesn’t matter who we send because in this environment they too will become corrupted. The question becomes how are we going to achieve our goal of real election campaign reform to make sure that we have honest government?
Health Care Bill, Climate Change Bill, or anything else are Bills that are being passed by people in many casees who are just voting the way they are told to vote. That too is something that no one wants to talk about. Do we even have honest men who take the time to do their own research on the Bills and voting the way they feel is best and not because he is told to vote for it by those who hold the real seat of power in this country.
So do we overcome all the struggles that are in our way to stop us from winning? I think we must at least try to fight and do the right thing. The children deserve that we adults fight for their future.
I have hanging in my room the first American flag or as it is better known as the colonial flag. That is the flag my ancestors fought for and were willing to die for. Those American patriots were willing to loose life and fortune for there freedom. It is a natural state for men to want to live free. The colonial flag is the flag I fight for. Everyone has a flag that they fight under. Some of us have more than one flag they fight for. For me and my Celtic background I also like the free Ireland flag and the Scottish flag as well. That too is who I am.
Harvey, post this over at dailykos
For a reading assignment:
On the blog, Question Everthing.
The Future of Capitalism - Profits and Growth
Growth is only possible when energy flow is increasing.
In general try Energybulletin.net and TheOilDrum.com.
There is a concept known as Energy Return on Energy Invested which is very much in play.
And then read "Power Down" by Richard Heinberg.
Our leaders are taking us through the pea patch. If we are charitable, they don't know what they are doing, or it not, they are really scared and are their wits end.
So the question is, how do we STOP this push, this path of destruction-the building of more nuke plants?
I do feel at times like we won't win the battle of global warming... the for profit police will never allow it. BUT, we can fight the additional terrible events that could be brought about by having more nuke plants in the world. I have started to print out some material and sources to hand out to people. The problem is my printing ability has been cut( my secret printing has now been terminated). Oh well, I will have to foot the bill my self now. I will still hand out the material for people to read, as I have done in the past. The more we educate the masses the better chance we have of geeting people to understand and NOT put up with there beautiful blue - green world turning neon blue and green.
So who can also go out and educate even the average person on the street. We need to target them, because those who go to lectures are just the choir hearing what they already agree with to some extent. We need to wake peope up.
“Solar” Heat Pumps Could be Quantum Step in Staving off more Nuclear, Coal, and Forest Biomass Boondoggles.
Heat Pumps, which are solar heat capturing devices, are the best technology out there bar none including solar electric and wind-power. If the U.S. built and installed these new generation of super efficient heat pumps to replace every residential electric water heater and electric resistance space heating system we might be able to shutdown between 200 and 500 1000 megaWatt coal fired power plants.
Japan set a goal of installing 5 million water heating heat pumps that use carbon dioxide as the refrigerant by the end of 2010 to meet their Kyoto Protocol agreements. They started selling these "Eco Cute" heat pumps (google it) in 2001.
Yeah that's right 9 years ago and I would surmise that not one of these has been installed in a U.S. household because of an unspoken corporate mandated embargo by the utilities or coal mining industry that aims to keep them out of the U.S. as best they can.
All those corporations that own the power plants (coal, NG, nuclear, biomass), all the coal mining companies, and Warren Buffet's new Burlington Northern Rail would lose billions in profits and thousands of people would lose their jobs if we made such a drastic earth saving step.
We can't have corporations losing billions and a few thousand people losing their power plant and coal mining jobs can we. We might have to retrain them to do something more worthwhile. So let’s keep this superior efficient “solar” heat pump technology out of the U.S. so the business of killing the biosphere can continue running smoothly.
sw
Energy Conservation professional
The new "solar" heat pumps, ductless and hot water heating ductless, I am talking about start around $3,000 and $5,000 respectively. There is a federal tax credit for them up to 1,500 dollars.
The so called "geo therma heat pumps" are extremely expensive and are not the same technology.
These new heat pump water heaters start at about 5,000 dollars US (if you can find one in the U.S.). If one had a small house one might be able to heat the whole house on top of fulfilling all one's domestic hot water needs. This could drop your house peak power load by 2-4 kiloWatts! That is kiloWatts peak power not kiloWatt hours (1,000 Watts used in one hour). Savings could be in the 2,000 to 5,000 kilowatt hours per year conservatively in the Western US.
The air to air heating and air conditioning ductless heat pumps are around $3000 installed on up per head.
This is what I mean. It's a information and technology embargo on these revelutionary new "solar" heat pumps that the Japanese have a 10 year jump on us.
The utilities, big coal, big nuclear, big biomass, and natural gas don't want this technology to come in and shutdown billions of profits. They would rather destroy the biosphere than let this technology sweep in.
Bill.
Google "Eco Cute" water heating heat pumps and ductless heat pumps with inverter technology. The "Eco Cute" use CO2 for a refrgerant but the other ductless use HFC 410A which has global warming drawbacks (about 1400 times that of CO2) if it leaks.
There are many manufacturers. Hitachi, Sanyo, LG, Mitsubishi, Fujitsu, Dakon, etc. Most are Japanese Corps but some are Korean and I assume some are manufactured in China.
And don't forget, that part of this planet hating bill, will eliminate EPA's regulatory muscle to enforce the Clean Air Act, and will also block individual states' laws that tried to ameliorate EPA's non-action during the Bush Crimes Era. I wonder every day, why again did I vote for Democrats? Just this week, we had Obama's DOJ indicting a whistleblower who was leaking classified information about the NSA violating Americans' Fourth Amendment Rights (which for sure now do not exist). I remember so-called progressives railing against the Bush Administration for its crimes against humanity in the wars, and in its assault on the Constitution, and against its assault on the environment, etc etc etc. (the same things liberals like myself are railing against Obama now) Now these same so-called progressives spin and spin and spin, until their once held principles have spun out of sight, as they eagerly out-Luntz Luntz in reframing those issues so they can be Obama and Democratic Party apologists on steroids.
Sioux Rose
HUE-SIR: I hear you! Let's see if the Obama apologists show up to tell us how adept our Prez is at the art of bipartisan compromise, or champion his capacity for pragmatism, or tell us to wait for more time to judge him by his fruits, or rail about how bad McCain would have been... time to face the fact that the two candidates offered up to the public as viable candidates answer exclusively to the same paymasters. And that is not U.S.
Great post! Thanks.
Most all environmentalist and clean energy advocates have MAJOR issues with nuclear power ANYWHERE, Bill. From all the existing problems of waste storage, to the construction cost, to the decommissioning it was all too expensive 40 years ago and even more so now. Risk? of course all power plants have some kind of risk but not the type that would render very large areas of land unsuitable for humans, wipe out the local utilities and resources and cost several times more in damage than the original cost of construction that is now in the tens of billions of dollars. Bill you claim not to be part of the industry that makes money off of nukes but you sure do defend it like you do! ? hmmm?
Chernobyl had a containment dome. The assertion that it didn't was almost immediately disproven. A slander by a panicked (and dying) nuclear industry.
We progressives need to learn to ask for what we ideally want, to do more than ask for it, to DEMAND it. Otherwise the debate continues to shift to the right.
We shouldn't demand no more nuclear power. We should demand closing down all existing nuclear plants.
We shouldn't demand a carbon tax, much less cap & trade. We should demand outlawing carbon release in new vehicles and power plants by a reasonable date.
We shouldn't demand subsidies and tax credits for solar, wind, tidal and geothermal energy. We should demand immense direct government funding of these in a project comparable to the Apollo Mission or the Manhatten Project.
We shouldn't demand higher mileage standards in our private vehicles. We should demand a new high speed rail system between cities and convenient light rail systems in our cities, all electric, to be built by the Feds in the same way Eisenhower had the Feds do a massive Interstate Highway System.
Let's stop conceding half the debate before we even begin debating.
“Solar” Heat Pumps Could be Quantum Step in Staving off more Nuclear, Coal, Natural Gas, and Forest Biomass Boondoggles.
I WISH PEOPLE WOULD QUIT BLATHERING ABOUT SOLAR ELECTRIC, WIND, GEOTHERMAL, TIDAL AND DO A LITTLE BIT OF RESEARCH TO PROVE ME WRONG ABOUT THESE NEW HEAT PUMPS THAT ARE BEING INSTALLED BY THE MILLIONS IN JAPAN AND ASIA.
I'VE Been trying to get the word out for a few years now but people still don't have a clue.
I have used solar electric for 20 years. I've studied wind energy for 30 years. I had a solar water heater for 15 years.
I now have heat pumps but I don't have a water heating heat pump yet.
Look up "Eco Cute" water heating heat pumps and ductless heat pumps.
When we have installed a heat pump to every electrically heated house and electrically heated water heater in the United States then maybe we'll need to start installing windmills and solar electric on every powerline.
It is too late to prevent catastrophic climate change.
It is too late to prevent a major extinction event.
It is too late to prevent a massive die-off in the human population. Several million can be expected to survive, but they will have a miserable time of it.
There is nothing you can do. Try to be happy with the time you have left.
Do you have any estimation of time
before Albedo dominates greenhouse?
The oceans tend to add a 30 year lag time to atmospheric climate changes.
A study in Mexico shows a fairly dramatic 10 foot ocean shift within perhaps a 50 year time frame, and that's without today's record carbon dioxide readings. A fairly powerful positive albedo feedback mechanism is possible when gigatons of methane are suddenly released after millions of years of accumulation.
I wouldn't give the Arctic polar multiyear ice 5 years. It's already half-gone by August every year. The whole ice pack looked notably weak when a strong wind blew cracks and black leads in the ice over much of the Arctic Ocean last week, and it's only April.
I disagree.
Our small groups, despite the buyup plans of the large corporations, can move to mostly-solar building heat and solar electricity with electric power storage. Our small groups can reimagine transit, and if we're courageous we can then develop it. Our ultimate goal is first to shut down our world's residual coal/oil production, and then to sequester gigatons of algae cellular husks (a byproduct of biodiesel production) into water-impermeable mountains. We come out with prototypes, and then thousands of bio-wildcatters do the heavy work.
Some relatively inexpensive, ecologically friendly thermal transfer devices can re-establish the Arctic Ocean's polar ice cap.
This is the frontier now. The work is quite hard and scary. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't, as small communities, go for it.
I was just reading an article about how bogus the Democrats' financial reform bill will probably be. Coming on the heels of the worse-than-nothing healthcare law, the pattern is clear.
The legislation of the Obama Era will be characterized by toxic subtitutes for reform--laws that damage the nation in the guise of healing it, hammered out at secret meetings in which the voters are betrayed. This will destroy the Democratic brand for decades to come.
My latest educational video is "Barack Obama is a Neocon":
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBHcRDKArFA
The is an energy bill not a climate bill.
Obama is dead wrong on this issue, literally for the planet. And as usual Congress abdicates its responsibilities.
GO TIDAL (CURRENT) ENERGY!! IMO, the most feasible high-density resource for providing FIRM, carbon-free baseline energy is in the tidal currents sloshing by on all our maritime shores and major river estuaries. FYI, tidal (current) energy has the following remarkable advantages: it is predictable (i.e. FIRM), it has much higher energy density-potential than wind or solar (e.g. sea water is 832 times as dense as air), there are many excellent tidal current resource sites nearby to grid-hookups and population centres on both maritime coasts (and worldwide), it is non-polluting and has the lowest enviro-footprint relative to other large-generation energy technologies, and the concepts or tidal technologies now emerging worldwide are proven.
All that remains to fully seat this technology is the political will to support it; presently the UK is working most aggressively to develop a tidal industry for electricity and billions in jobs and exports, but so is Korea, New Zealand and others. FYI, JFK was a huge tidal energy proponent and champion of harnessing the Passamaquoddy tides for renewable, FIRM, non-polluting energy.
Check out this industry association: Ocean Renewable Energy Group: oreg.ca for more industry news;
- Sincerely, Michael Maser, Blue Energy Canada (www.bluenergy.com)
"Solar" Heat Pumps First!
Install new generation of heat pumps to every electrically heated house and electric water heater that could reduce a houses electricity demand by 2-6 kiloWatts of peak load AND THEN install solar electric, windmills onto every power line to every house/apartment, barn, warehouse in every state.
NO NEED TO BUILD HUGE NEW POWER LINES ACROSS THE COUNTRY
There is no need to build these huge new power lines across the country or build huge solar and wind arrays except to pump up corporate profits, corporate jobs, and corporate control of free solar energy. There are plenty of power lines criss-crossed throughout the country to connect to decentralized locally controlled solar and wind infrastructure.
Imagine a solar array or small windmill 5-20 kW INSTALLED at every small rural house, barn, and warehouse. It might be difficult to direct too much extra electricity depending on the local grid but I think that problem could be easily solved.
The nuke business is one of several that are fueled by the empire imperative. The Pentagun nod is crucial to socialized security of these strategerically coddled industries. If you and I can be pushed into consuming gluttonous portions of electric power then we can become part of the impetus for the military-industrial surge. In this capacity we are slaves to the machine, and very productive for "the cause". So we can see that reducing our consumption not only relieves the earth directly, but also by stifling the empire steamroller, and starving the bloodsucking "masters of the universe".