45 Comments

  1. Indeed, the only three options that scale are solar, fusion and nuclear. Solar is horribly intermittent, expensive, requires too many metals, too much water, and has a very low EROEI. With storage, the EROEI is negative, like biofuels. Without storage, it can only be used for water heaters, swimming pools, some space heating or cooking, and passive daylight. It is a joke. As for fusion, it releases its energy as damaging neutrons. In a commercial deuterium tritium fusion plant, we would have to tear apart the insides of the reactor every few months due to neutron damage, then build it back up again– this would make it more expensive than solar, and have a negative EROEI. The one type of fusion that might one day work, where you might be able to get around the neutron problem, is deuterium and helium 3. But there is no helium 3 on Earth. Some people have suggested mining it on the moon, but alas, this would yet again create a negative EROEI. All the other renewables are too small to matter, even wind. Fossil fuels are now peaking, and going into decline, forcing us to chase after and hype low flow rate and EROEI shales, which will solidify the decline, not ameliorate it. Fossil fuels will soon be seen as but an ephemeral event in human history. All that leaves is nuclear. Powering the world using light water reactors would deplete global uranium reserves in 6 years, but for breeder reactors the fuel supply is unlimited! Extracting uranium from seawater for LWRs has a break even EROEI, but for breeders the EROEI is as high as an oil gusher! Unlimited clean energy forever, according to Bernard Cohen! We’re saved! Unfortunately, nobody even knows about the breeder, and they just think there is “nuclear,” just LWRs. We only use LWRs, and are building only LWRs now. The end of megatons to megawatts in 2013 will mean uranium shortages. Our leaders plan to just let us run out of uranium. My global warming nonsense has just been a hoax to shift attention away from peak oil, coal and gas. We are planning a power down, a start over. We are tired of having to make that pie bigger and bigger, of allowing more growth, of letting in invading Third World mestizos. We have decided to end growth. We are choosing to collapse civilization, and there is nothing you can do about it. Good day!

    1. I’ll afraid you have forgotten about proton boron reactions and we have lots of boron. However, we don’t have fusion technology with that works yet. Nuclear Fission is probably be on it’s 4th or 5th generation before fusion is ready. Hybrid Fission-Fusion technology might be a possibility as well.

      However, I have found that anti-nukes still consider fusion nuclear and thus evil. From the physics standpoint we only have 3 sources of energy. Nuclear Decay (fission), Solar (indirect fusion) and Fusion, Pressure Gradients caused by Gravity and Temperature i.e. Hydro, Wind, Tidal, etc…

      So the future is nuclear and folks opposing us simply hate anything related to the word. Sometimes I think they hate the fact that atoms exists because their held together by nuclear forces.

      1. Fusion may or may not ever be ready. I was really excited by what I read about fusion when I was just 13 years old … that was in 1966. It’s been a long wait. Besides, who cares? Fission can supply all the energy we will ever need. Fusion really has nothing special to offer. I wish I could find a good engineering study I read on fusion some time back. It was fairly discouraging regarding the use and disposal of materials, including materials rendered radioactive. But, frankly I lost interest long ago. Fusion has been nothing but an employment program for Physicists for decades.

        It is a red herring … let’s get on with the ‘fission’ nuclear revolution.

        1. I sat through a presentation today with Weston Stacey, one of the leading engineers in the country on fusion research. The time line he laid out showed that if my children live to be 100 they might see commercial fusion reactors. They are 3 and 5-years old.

          This is the first honest statement of the timeline of when fusion will be available, and may prove overly optimistic. It truly is a technology of the future and we no doubt will need it and thus the research is not unjustified.

          The problem is the energy supply needs to be met today. Solutions developed now for the problems we face. Not perfect solutions or even second best solutions. We need “third best” solutions.
          http://spacefaringamerica.net/2007/06/30/10–the-now-solution-is-the-third-best-solution.aspx

          1. @Cal

            In one of our rare disagreements, I strongly deny the veracity of the following:

            “It truly is a technology of the future and we no doubt will need it and thus the research is not unjustified.”

            If we spent 1/10th as much taxpayer money on enabling fission nuclear power plants to be built using private capital as we waste on fusion research, we would have access to more energy than human civilization would ever need.

        2. Rod,
          Point taken. After some sleep and thinking about it some more. Fusion is a distraction. I fell into logical trap. He used MIT’s numbers (future of the fuel cycle) as a justification of the expenditure on fusion research. That is not a accurate estimate of the actual power that is available in uranium or even thorium as they only looked at aqueous processes and excluded concepts like IFR and LFTR.

          I learned something yesterday too. Fusion reactors (tokamaks) are pulsed because the magnets will overheat. They operate for 3-4 seconds and then have to cool for 30 minutes. Then you have superconductors but the thermodynamic efficiency is terrible because of the cryogenics.

          Thinking about it some more, fusion is probably best suited for making the ion drives for distant space travel using fission reactors to supply the heat. As that is still a ways away it would probably be best funded by private sector when the economic need arises.

          I have been going back and forth on Vannevar Bush’s “Science the Endless Frontier” about the role of federal research into fundamental sciences. I don’t think this is necessarily the best approach. As what you said is that it results in an inefficient allocation of resources and focuses on problems that are too far away or even solutioneering, like the fission-fusion hybrids are.

          So, the jury in my head is still out on the larger question and on the efficacy of fusion research. Although I do have to say, the math is actually very interesting… That’s just my inner nerd getting its geek on.

          Thank you for making me think about this some more.

  2. Whilst China’s human rights record is not great in terms of capital punishment and political and religious tolerance they have done a great job of lifting their population out of poverty. They’ve made mistakes along the way but cheap, reliable energy is key to continuing to increase the nation’s wealth.

    1. “they have done a great job of lifting their population out of poverty. ”

      The Chinese people have lifted themselves out of poverty. All that the government has done is to lift the restrictions that previously made it impossible to start a profitable business.

  3. A large part of population lives within 100km of sea coast, navigable rivers or large water bodies. Floating or submerged nuclear power stations of small or medium size can serve these areas.
    The power units can be Factory Made at some shipyards and sail to these areas when the need is felt. This will give very little time to NIMBY protesters.
    People close to running power plants have much less opposition to the source of energy, business or jobs. Once the benefits are experienced, others may accept them even on land sites.

  4. It’s a battle for the hearts and minds and brains of the great skittish unwashed out there who now tremble and cower at the very words “radiation.” The media has finally openly shown its anti-nuclear bias by shutting out real pro-nuclear advocates and eagerly handling air-time and white hats out to the Greens. It’s going to take aggressively hunting out and calling out the disinformation and slants of anti-nuclear pages masquerading as legit news sites which schools reference to, such as http://www.nuclearpowerdaily.com/ It’d also be nice sending email invitations to favorable politicians to drop a word off at sites like this. It’s unreal that pols on Japan now want to litter their lovely horizons and sea vistas with windmills up and down the coast just because of one accident! — and believing anti-nukes that accidents are INEVITABLE at every nuclear plant! There’s even a Hudson River green group that has supposedly shipped a Fukushima worker over here to spell his tales of woe to help shut Indian Point down! Worst — there’s no pro-nuke group that counters them! Yes, if nukes are to see any new age we need an ARMY of pro-nuke Carl Sagans!

    James Greenidge
    Queens NY

  5. Sunup to sundown, the sun’s rays shed about 400 watts per square meter of ground in the temperate latitudes. By theoretical limits, only about 25 percent of this can be converted into electricity. This means that solar electricity can light one 100-watt bulb for every card table. Covering every square foot of every building in the North America with solar panels would be enough to provide our indoor lighting—about 4 percent of our total electrical consumption—during the daytime. Other forms of solar energy flows—wind, and biofuels—are more dilute.

    The only way to make up for the relatively low density of solar flow is to use more land in gathering it. There is no Moore’s Law waiting to improve the process. Solar cells, windmills, and other forms of solar flow may be made cheaper—which is where most of the research is going right now—but land requirements will never be reduced. Those requirements, when confronted, turn out to be staggering which is why even if a very cheap and efficient storage technology is developed these modes will never be competitive with nuclear or burning fossil-fuels.

    And this is easy to see: consider the size of catchments that feed the only solar-powered renewable worth considering – hydro-power. The drainage areas that feed reservoirs, or rivers suitable for dams are vast. This is the scale of the real estate that would need to be covered with solar cells, or wind turbines to harvest a comparable amount of energy.

    1. And if the figures on solar efficiency that DV82SL cites aren’t discouraging enough, on top of this add the fact that sunlight is available only part of the day. Then toss in the round-trip efficiency of energy storage. At the end of all this, one finds that a system that intercepts 100 watts of incident peak solar power can deliver only a few watts of power average over a day. Then to add insult to injury, the incident solar power is diffuse, so large areas must be covered, thus using large amounts of material. The only hope to make this practical is to make the solar arrays dual purpose (at low cost of course), e.g., solar roofing shingles.

      I also notice people citing Moore’s Law with regard to improving the efficiency of solar energy. Well folks, it doesn’t work in this case. Moore’s Law works with information because technology has allowed the use of less and less material and energy to store and manipulate a bit of information. There is no such possibility with solar energy. A joule of energy is a joule of energy. The intensity of sunlight is constant for all practical purposes. The closest thing to Moore’s Law in energy is energy density – lots of energy from a small amount of material. Nuclear is the clear winner here!

  6. I’m sorry but I don’t get too excited by the TED TALK darlings of hyperbole.

    I mean, really…so NASA put a high tech camera to view solar activity-great. It’s an advancement for science, but reality 101 tells me-So what?
    How does that save our planet?
    What can happen when our sun or some Quasar event or deadly solar mass coronal event bathes our planet with insane ‘species ending’ levels of gamma radiation wiping out 80% to 90% living matter on earth?

    So great the world has more communication gizmos. So what? We’re still shackled with a global feudal monetary & economic system aggravating conflict war and dependency slavery.

    Nuclear power does represent developing nations leverage to provide abundant independent energy sources for their public and domestic markets.

    This is scary for the industrialized first world.

    What these minions of ‘hype’ should be saying is how can we cooperate to organize free open trade in markets toward peaceful sustainable prosperity.

  7. If any company could take the lead in America it could be Westinghouse. For them I recommend the following:

    A Bold new logo – what they have reminds of appliances and is dated.

    Improved website, with more information about their product (not just how to get a job there).

    Website can also have photos and videos and animation about their projects.

    I would like to see commercials in a kind of a Japanese Anime style, which would be unique and dramatic.

    So if anyone from Westinghouse is reading, I will be glad to share more with you!

    Jagdish: I propose that for a place like Hawaii, an underwater nuclear power plant. Be kind of like 2 containment buildings, one for the reactor and the other for everything else. They would be made like submarines and watertight. To get in and out would be from the top, like the lab in the movie “Deep Blue Sea”. I suppose they could have a waterproof connection that would lead to a switchyard on the shore.

    Al Gore it is not that I think we should power down, I just don’t think people like the dads here that the Earth in unlimited. All people have to do is have fewer or no kids, but I guess everyone here is a dad.

    1. @Bob Connor
      Hawaii has already been home to more than a dozen underwater nuclear power plants operating for the last thirty years.
      Some people call them submarines.

      1. Hawaii also has a factory that could be used for assembling underwater nuclear power plants. Some people call it the Pearl Harbor Shipyard.

  8. China will laso have an impact on solar from another angle with its restriction on trade of rare earth minerals that are a major input into the manufacturing of solar panels. China has most of the world’s reserve.

    Is it time to get out of solar or what ?

  9. You may be reading a bit more into the announcement than was actually meant. I read the statements in the link you provided and understand your interpretation. However, consider that:

    “Zhengrong Shi has delivered the most bullish forecast to date for the China solar PV market, predicting that 4 gigawatts – or even more – of solar PV could be deployed in the country in 2012.
    Shi, the former UNSW researcher who now heads the biggest solar PV manufacturer in the world, Suntech Power, said more than 3GW of solar was deployed in China in 2011 (more than previous forecasts).
    This suggests that even the most recently updated prediction of 15GW of solar by 2015 (the year-ago forecast was for 5GW by 2015) in the world’s biggest consumer of energy could be beaten quite handsomely.”
    See: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2012/solar-buzz-suntech-obama-lift-hopes-for-solar

    Similar optimistic forecasts have been made by other major Chinese PV manufacturers.

    I suspect these forecasts will prove to be substantially correct.

    I accept the potential for the interpretation you offer, at least to some degree. However, I believe a more likely and more complete interpretation of the Chinese Premier’s comments refer to construction of:
    1. Wind farms for which transmission facilities didn’t exist and which were unlikely to have such facilities in a timely fashion.
    2. Solar and wind manufacturing facilities which were built at a staggering, and “optimistic” rate. This excess manufacturing capacity contributed to: the crash in PV prices; the collapse of PV profitability; the instigation of unfair trade charges in the US (with the potential for a trade war); a similar but not as severe fall in wind equipment prices.

    Having said that, it is also reasonable that the Chinese are proceeding with an aggressive nuclear build out and development of advanced nuclear technologies. Their present generating capacity is still well below their current needs (electricity shortages are forecast for this summer), let alone those of their future. Their existing coal fired capacity is a stop gap. Adding more coal fired capacity is increasingly undesirable for multiple reasons (economic, infrastructure, domestic coal supply, pollution, etc.) Indeed, they have been closing numerous particularly inefficient coal plants. While the Chinese now appear to have a potentially large supply of natural gas, it will likely be next decade before they are using it to any substantial degree. And, although renewables have and will continue to have an important and appropriate role to play, nuclear (although not necessarily LWR) will be a key to China’s energy future.

    1. Shi, the former UNSW researcher who now heads the biggest solar PV manufacturer in the world, Suntech Power, said more than 3GW of solar was deployed in China in 2011

      I’ve run across this figure as well. However, other sources that I have read (which were not written by solar boosters) indicate that less than 60% of this 3 GW is actually connected to China’s grid today. That is, this capacity is “deployed” but not “connected.” Pay attention to the words that are used.

      Can you imagine the stupidity of that?

      Solar and wind are not going away in China anytime soon, and their generating capacity will almost surely increase in the future. What is clear, however, is that China’s central planners intend to stop the insanity (“blind expansion,” to use their words) that has lead to China manufacturing 20 times the number of PV modules that they can use and more than they can export.

      The “solar cheaper than fossil fuels” nonsense is a consequence of three things:

      (1) wishful thinking,

      (2) bad math, and

      (3) poor planning by China’s manufacturing sector.

      Reality is starting to hit home in China, because Rod is essentially correct: China has been wasting money on building excessive, unneeded PV and wind turbine manufacturing plants. Now, China is taking efforts to correct these mistakes. Don’t expect the era of ultra-cheap, “dumped” solar panels to last forever.

      1. Its important to note that 3GW of installed capacity is the equivalent of 326MW of installed nuclear or 350MW of fossil. Capacity factors mean everything when comparing generating sources.

      2. @Brian – however, a good deal of the money that China has wasted on solar and wind came from Europe. Their emissions trading schemes gave them credit for renewable energy investment in developing countries. Though there are plenty of other dumb investments in their portfolios, part of the weakness in European banks is their portfolio of stupid renewable energy investments.

        1. A good deal came from the US as well. China’s big mistake was overestimating how much money other countries were able to waste.

          1. @Brian – I am not so sure that the Chinese overestimated the appetite in the US and Europe to waste money on foolish dreams of a world powered by unreliables (aka renewables). It appears to me that they simply accepted all of the money that was flowing and when the money flow stopped, they changed direction to more lucrative endeavors.

            It is not clear that they spent any of their own money on the production infrastructure for wind and solar.

  10. PV PR sales pitch notwithstanding, China is going to move away from “green” because of economics, environment and politics. 90% of the rare earths mining and production is in China… because it’s DIRTY. Now China is being forced to sell that cheap and pollute themselves into extinction in order to accommodate the green cult.

    There are multiple ironies here, the dirty green and the farce of forced “free trade” . Free trade is free when the seller can set whatever price they want. What’s free about the buyer setting the price? Why should China develop a technology with such insane political and environmental costs?

  11. People like Diamandis could IMHO still become powerfull allies to the cause of nurturing a rational and relevant public discussion, when they get better intelligence on nuclear technology. Several prominent anti-nuclears have done this in the past, some greenpeace bosses I recall, George Monbiot of course, etc.

    Now, over at Joe Romm’s Climate Progress webblog, there is a curious piece by him about the “negative learning curve of nuclear power”. It leaves the impression that there is something intrinsically wrong with nuclear power that makes it ever more expensive to employ, rather than cheaper which is what you would expect. But it provides little background or discussion on why this is so. I put up the following comment (still awaiting moderation.)


    Joe Romm should have explained *why* costs of new nuclear power plants in some parts of the world have risen so much. It is a fascinating piece of history, that should have been given more attention. Otherwise, people won’t understand how there can be such a thing as a “negative learning curve” for nuclear power, which is something that is actually an anomaly in human history, worthy of carefull study.

    A summary of the issue is given here:

    COSTS OF NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS — WHAT WENT WRONG?

    Excerpt:

    “Regulatory ratcheting is really the political expression of difficulties with public acceptance. In an open society such as ours, public acceptance, or at least non-rejection, is a vital requirement for the success of a technology. Without it, havoc rules.

    It is clear to the involved scientists that the rejection of nuclear power by the American public was due to a myriad of misunderstandings. We struggled mightily to correct these misunderstandings, but we did not succeed.

    By the mid-1980s the battle was over. Groups that had grown and flourished through opposition to nuclear power went looking for other projects and soon found them. Many of them learned to distinguish between trivial problems and serious ones like global warming and air pollution. Some of them have even made statements recognizing that nuclear power is a solution to some of those problems.

    The regulatory ratcheting, of course, has not been reversed. But the nuclear industry is now developing new reactor designs that avoid most of the problems this regulatory ratcheting has brought. It is relatively easy to accommodate regulations in the initial design stages. Moreover, the new designs go far beyond the safety goals that drove the regulatory ratcheting. The nuclear industry absorbed the message that the public wants super-super safety, and they are prepared to provide it. The next chapter describes how this will be done.”

    http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/chapter9.html

    All the best,

    Joris

    1. Hm, I just checked Joe Romm’s weblog again, but I see that he has finally after 5 days of pondering over it, decided not to allow my comment above to be posted. Strange! It’s the first time I’ve had a comment be refused. (I guess it had to happen at one point)

      I’ve sent him a message asking why he would not publish my comment, but I’m not holding my breath.

  12. @Brian
    I agree, China will focus on addressing the insanity of deployment versus connection. I specifically mentioned it wrt wind but it also applies to solar. I’ve seen varying figures for both. The reality is unclear but it seems like it has been a massive problem.

    While I too expect the “era of ultra-cheap, ‘dumped’ solar panels” to end, I don’t believe that will end the price decline of PV. Too much innovation still occurring. Most recent example is equipment from Twin Creeks Technologies. If validated (and I believe it will be) and combined with a few other production/installation changes to PV products (that appear to be in the works), I have little trouble projecting installed US commercial roof PV price at ~$2.75 by ~2020, unsubsidized. At that point I’d be more concerned about the impact of finance cost on PV projects in the US since I expect interest rates to go up. Depending on assumptions on finance charge, grid electricity tariffs, etc., that will allow grid parity in many US areas.

    I also don’t believe any of this has a meaningful impact on nuclear. As Rod frequently indicates, the real competition for nuclear is, and has been coal & natural gas.

    Frankly, I think that in the US a bigger issue for nuclear is Gen 3 versus MSR or Gen 4. (This is not true in countries with inadequate electricity such as China, India, etc. or high cost electricity such as Saudi Arabia. They need to move ahead with available technology.) This is particularly true given license extensions and uprates.

    @Mike H
    Certainly the installed PV capacity must be derated. I don’t know whether the specific numbers you propose are appropriate for China. But, even if they are low by a factor of two (say 652MW of equivalent nuclear) it still supports my belief that PV does not compete with nuclear baseload.

    @Jou
    Rare earth mining in China is dirty. However, that is more a function of the approach taken than an inherent characteristic. Molycorp, in the US, is well on the way to commercializing a cost competitive, “clean” approach to mining rare earths. Similarly, the Lynas rare earth operations will be much less polluting than those in China.

    As a comparison, many Chinese coal fired generators are much more polluting than coal fired plants in the US or Europe. And, coal mines in China are much more hazardous than coal mining in the US, Europe or Australia. And the fuel transportation infrastructure in China is woefully inadequate. Many plants have coal provided by convoys of trucks, leading to horrendous traffic jams and further pollution / inefficiency. Surely you aren’t blaming these issues on the “green cult” and “forced free trade.

    1. @alexy – We agree that solar cannot compete with nuclear for baseload power. In fact, it cannot compete with nuclear in any market other than distributed battery recharging when the need for power is really low. Oops, that is not even true, RTGs are far superior to solar in that market. Solar can win for recharging lightweight, low power pocket calculators – as long as you remember to take the calculator out of the drawer once in a while.

      The big reason I tilt at the solar and windmills is that energy ignorant people have been taught that they are the utopian power source that eliminates the need to use nuclear energy. They have been taught that those “natural” sources are risk free and can provide reliable power – as long as you ignore the fact that the reliability is actually provided by a grid connection or by a diesel generator that actually supplies about 80% of the needed power.

      Wind is a great power source for sailboats and kites. It can also assist in aviation fuel consumption reduction if it is blowing in the right direction. Solar energy is a terrific daytime light source and provides wonderfully diffuse warming rays when it is available.

      Other than that, the promotion of wind and solar is just a distraction. The funding source for the advertisements is often the global fossil fuel industry because they KNOW that those sources do not compete and do not reduce demand for their profitable products.

      1. That last argument is one that I have been using a lot, because it really ties the whole story together.

        At Energybulletin, I posted a few comments on the featured Joe Romm “Nukes of Hazard” story, but the editor of that news clearing house has concluded in that discussion with me that civilian nuclear power still should be eliminated. His final argument was that Admiral Rickover decided that nuclear power should be eliminated from the civilian sector because Rickover didn’t expect that military-grade discipline and quality could be reliably applied in the civilian nuclear power sector.

        Is that true? Did Rickover really end up dismissing nuclear power for civilian applications? I’d like to know more about this and what the exact arguments and context of Rickover were, since it is currently an argument from anti-nukes that I have no good rebuttal to.

        1. I might be half-wrong because I only skimmed it once maybe in the ’70s (a World Book Year Book?), but I read that initially it was early proposed that the Navy run nuke plants in the U.S. I think that the AEC adopted some of (Rickover’s?) concerns into the groundwork for procedures running a nuclear plant. Supposedly the protocols and management styles are different from all other fuel-fired plants except hydro, which that article made sound was the least demanding in having critical tolerances and emergency responses (I guess because you’re not really dealing with anything volatile or explosive with hydro.) I think Rickover’s hard attitude toward industry was perhaps influenced by General Doolittle because I recall his name peeved of slackard corporate standards mentioned on the same page. Something to deep-Google over I guess.

          James Greenidge
          Queens NY

      2. You and I agree on more than the one point you highlighted. Many with whom I speak consider me a nuclear promoter. (And, I like much of what I have seen of the mPower on which you indicate you are working.) Further, I have actively cautioned against expectations of quick, widespread and cost effective use of PV in the US. Yet, your statement that solar PV is uncompetitive in any market is so blatantly incorrect as to be stunning. To imply that it will indefinitely remain so compounds the error. Clearly it doesn’t compete with nuclear from many perspectives. Clearly it has operational and cost issues. PV and nuclear (particularly in its present embodiment) have very different profiles and best serve different markets. And they both have roles to play.

        I found it ironic that you used the same term for PV and wind, a distraction, as many “enviros” use for nuclear.

        And I found it telling that you employ Quixotic terms to describe your own efforts.

        1. I’ll bite. Please tell me which markets I missed where solar has a chance of competing without mandates or large subsidies.

          By the way, I have read Cervantes enough times to know that Quixote was a satire and the real enemies that the Don Quixote character battled were worth fighting.

      3. Thank you for the offer. I’d be pleased to give you examples.

        However (and Rod thinks…I knew it…here it comes):
        1. I’m traveling
        2. I want to provide a relatively broad set of examples
        3. I want to provide references as I’m sure you will, appropriately, question some (if not all) of my examples.
        4. The combination of items 2 & 3 will result in a moderately lengthy response.

        I’ll try to respond by next weekend, but NLT EOM. Since by then this comment thread will be stale, I will plan to respond in another thread.

        Regards,

        Alexy

  13. Tomorrow at the NRC:

    CHICAGO (Dow Jones)–House Republicans asked Nuclear Regulatory Commission Chairman Gregory Jaczko to explain alleged inconsistencies in testimony he gave under oath last year.

    A little NRC Chairman bashing once in a while is OK by me.

  14. I liked this lecture but the omission of nuclear energy, the poster-child of energy abundance, was a glaring omission.

    1. If Bill Gates just spoke up — just one word that he supports nukes, that’d do more to sweep Arnie and his lemming herd back into their holes of fear and bogeymen and boost public acceptance of nukes more than a hundred pro-nuclear PSA’s! Why O Why isn’t he speaking out more??? Isn’t he immune from anti-nuke and.NY Times defiling by now?

      James Greenidge
      Queens NY

        1. Granted — but no one knows about it! Not even on the anti-nuke sites! Where’s he speaking — at garden clubs? You wouldn’t know that he’s the same guy who pushed Windows out on the world!

          James Greenidge
          Queens NY

  15. I’m sorry, for being be such a ‘stick in the mud’.

    But a large part of the nuclear story in N. America is the timidity of the culture shown by the community.
    It needs to get behind groups and politician that ‘call out’ slander by groups that spread blatant un-justified pseudos science anti-nuclear lies.
    It needs to get behind politicians that call for fair open trade and a return of sane monetary policy. To level the playing field in fiscal policy and return to a sane economy.
    The nuclear community wins the technical arguments but does not follow through with concrete remedies like litigating financial houses, insurance underwriters etc. who press to lobby BIG gov’t to suppress competition in the energy sector by graft & corruption.

    Keep it simple communication suggestions:

    Energy generation: NOT RISK FREE 100%

    Try a simple MISSION STATEMENT:
    -To provide the best most efficient energy safely
    -To provide minimal enviro impact
    -To provide the best energy cost value for ratepayers on the planet.

    Please nuclear community get more active and fight for your industry don’t let ‘lamestream’ media spread lies about your industry !!

    1. “Please nuclear community get more active and fight for your industry don’t let ‘lamestream’ media spread lies about your industry !!”

      Yes, it’s indeed vexing to see the “industry: not standing up for itself, but though I can HALFWAY understand why energy companies don’t want nuclear to compete with their own non-nuclear assets, I’m totally bewildered why the atomic workers union isn’t taking up the torch! Even car washer unions know how to aggressively protect their own!

      James Greenidge

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