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  1. Fuels America is also hitting the air waves as it tries to protect the ethanol status quo with outrageous ads.

    http://www.fuelsamerica.org/

    One ad on CNN shows US soldiers abroad protecting the supply of foreign oil. And then, in the same clip, you see crops being grown.

    Ethanol: The stay safe at home fuel.

    Twisted, dishonest and pure lobby.

    1. The irony is that we do have ways to make fuels at home.  Ways that don’t involve turning a year’s worth of food for someone into one tank of guzzler-fuel.  These ways don’t prop up commodity prices, so they’re given short shrift.

      If we really wanted energy independence and carbon cuts, we’d be making fuel from corn cobs and stover, not corn grain.

      1. Nuclear proponents want to mine the ocean for uranium and a source of hydrogen for making fuels. What is the environmental impact of those activities?

        1. The Japanese were harvesting uranium from ocean currents using a pigment from an Asian species of the persimmon tree.  They suspended material coated with this pigment in the water and left it for a while.  What sort of environmental impact do you think it had?  Do you think that sea organisms need uranium as an essential nutrient?  I hope you’d have more of a clue than that.

        2. Well uranium in the ocean is constantly settling out in the sediment and new dissolved uranium is entering the oceans from river flow. The relatively constant level of uranium in ocean water is very dilute but the ocean is so large that mining ocean water for uranium won’t make a detectable change. Also as Engineer-Poet stated, uranium isn’t a vital nutrient for any sea life.

          As to using the ocean as a source of hydrogen, you may want to read up on the water cycle. Water is constantly leaving the oceans through various mechanisms while other mechanisms are bring new water to replace the water that leaves. Any hydrogen that is made from ocean water will utlimately be used as fuel. And I assume you are smart enough to know that the product of hydrogen combustion is water, that will ultimately return to the ocean.

          So why don’t you find a real problem to whine about rather than continue to act like an ignorant troll?

      2. Coal to liquids and oil shale are both credible yet somewhat expensive and somewhat carbon intense domestic sources of liquid fuels. With nuclear hydrogen production (high temperature steam electrolysis or the sulfur iodine cycle) the carbon footprint of direct coal liquefaction can be reduced to near negligible levels; of course nuclear hydrogen production comes with a price.

        Using domestic resources we can achieve energy independence at any time we like for likely hundreds of years. Of course, carbon remains a concern, but not an insurmountable one.

  2. It shows the poor state of US electricity reliability.

    No one here (NL, Germany) would raise the issue of electricity reliability in a sales promotion add, as it is always there.
    It would generate questions at the public:
    About what are they talking?
    Do they try to undermine our electricity supply?
    What is going on?
    Is gas a bad thing?

    1. Why don’t you frustrated fission fizzlers come to your senses? Bas the Fiat Clown wants to give any ol **paper** fusion design scam ***** 10’s OF BILLIONS OF FIAT DOLLARS ***** . He said the completely useless ITER “project” didn’t get enough with 16 BILLION EURO TOILET DIGITS DOLLARS DOWN THE DRAIN SO FAR AND COUNTING.

      The braindead sheep you all call the public don’t want a base hit with mere fizzlin FISSION. They want a HOMERUN!!!

      1. @starvinglion
        Are you Greek related or so?
        If so, I never meant to insult you or the Greek. Sorry.

        If not, what made you so angry?

    1. As you know it also competes with food production and naturalized lands. Like most biofuels. They have colossal land use implications and impacts on wildlife.

  3. Re: “for one of only two new nuclear power plant projects that are under construction in the United States.”

    This is so telling one can cry.

    Either the climate change people start honking their horns about the peril and the need for nuclear to stem it, or put up and shut up while being investigated for misuse of funds and grants as a $$$ red herring sham. Just why is the media alarm over global warming dying down the same time as nuclear plant progress in the US is slowing to a near dead standstill?

    James Greenidge
    Queens NY

    1. How about both James? Im tired of the “renewable” sham. I think the populist left has always been more concerned with being anti nuclear, caught up in selling this weird “renewable” new age religion, and pushing infantile social and economic justice theories than it was in dealing with pollution, climate change and acidification.

      Look at the joke international climate talks turned into. Again.

  4. I think this points to the fact there really exists nothing called “The Nuclear Industry”. That private utilities continue to have to pay the piper (their stock holders) and, function as any other large corporations (albeit highly regulated) shows why there needs to be a major nationalization of the nations generation facilities or, a regional one like the TVA. We need a utility entity that sees nuclear as this country’s future. Without that, they will always be playing all sides against the middle and trying please everyone. Not good.

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