The Atomic Show #062 – Recording and discussing John Edwards talk of 19 June 2007
John Edwards is a former US Senator from North Carolina. He is also running for President of the United States as a member of the Democratic Party. I attended a recent campaign event and decided to record and share his talk. His energy plans are particularly interesting and quite disturbing.
I have been intrigued by the populist message and the Internet savvy of the John Edwards campaign. I like the ideas of implementing programs for peace, for improving access to college education, for reducing poverty at home and abroad, and for restoring the understanding of the importance of working people (as opposed to executives). I decided to go listen to Senator Edwards in person.
On June 19, 2007, Senator Edwards held a “Small Change for a Big Change” campaign fundraiser at a Washington, DC bar called MCCXXIII located at 1223 Connecticut Ave, just south of Dupont Circle. (In case your Roman numeral skills are rusty, the name of the bar is simply the street address – 1223.) The entry donation – which kind of felt like a cover charge – was only $15. There was a good crowd of several hundred people, mostly young professional types that might frequent that location anyway.
One thing that I did not really think much about until I was leaving the event was the fact that I do not recall seeing any blacks – which seems odd to me for an event in Washington held by a Democratic candidate for President.
I had brought my recording gear – an 8G iPod nano with a Griffin iPod microphone. I find that set-up to be pretty good at picking up amplified voices in a crowd, and it is really easy to stick in a shirt pocket.
The recording turned out pretty well, though I did miss the first couple of seconds and the first applause gathering promise – to stop the war in Iraq. The show includes a brief introduction and some post speech commentary.
The energy vision that Edwards provided indicates to me that neither he, nor his staff, can do math very well. None of them seem to have much understanding of the way that energy is produced right now. He promised to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050 and to do that by supporting wind, solar and biofuels. He promised to invest at least a billion dollars in technology for carbon capture and sequestration and to discourage the construction of any new coal fired power plants while that research was being conducted. He said, “oh, by the way, we do not need any new nuclear plants either.”
However, the most disturbing part of the speech for me was the following passage. I thought it was important enough to transcribe word for word so that it could be available through search or for those people that do not listen to the Atomic Show. I would be very interested in hearing what you think about the implications of this vision. I am especially interested in the views from places like the Middle East, Europe, Japan and most especially Africa (all mentioned in the below passage.) This passage came after he talked about the energy sources that would supply America.
“What do we do with the rest of the world? We know that in the Middle East there are bad governments, bad leaders that have absolutely no incentive for economic development to educate their kids. Why, because they are on a drug called oil and they are mainlining that drug. Until we force them off that drug they will not change.
Suppose that America leads on this effort, that we clean up our own house. Europeans follow, Japanese follow. All of a sudden the price of oil plummets. Then they have no choice. They are going to have to educate their children. They are going to have to engage in economic and political reform. And all of a sudden the Middle East is completely changed, completely transformed. And even, take another step with me. Not only have we strengthened America, not only have we dealt with the crisis about whether the planet is going to exist, not only have we transformed the Middle East, but here’s another one.
For those of us who worry about issues like global poverty, which I care deeply about. Suppose that when America – which it can do – produces its own biofuels. You know we have the land base, we have the farms, we can do it here in America, but the Europeans don’t, the Japanese don’t, so hopefully they will buy some of their biofuels here in America, but, in addition to that, they are going to be looking for cheap land. They are going to be looking for a place that they can go to grow their own crops, produce their own biofuels. Where are they going? They’re going to Africa. And as a result, millions of families and children in Africa are lifted out of poverty. Look at what America can do if we have a little vision, if we have a little leadership.
Hope you find the show interesting, useful and passion generating.
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As a citizen of the most powerful nation in the world (the EU), I feel deeply concerned about this sort of populist rhetoric from a US presidential candidate. The idea of FORCING the Middle East into some sort of radical change is absolutely ridiculous. To me it’s obvious that the price of oil cannot possibly plummet as demand will go up whenever the price decreases. The only people (oil exporters excluded) losing from lower oil prices would likely be those not buying it. Although America has land to produce some biofuel, the economics show that most of it will end up being ‘grown’ in Brazil thus probably doing great damage to the environment. This kind of leadership is the only way that America can finally put its vicious economic growth to rest. But then again, it’s possible that populist is the only language most people understand in that country.
Wow, Gunars. You got some grasp of economics! Demand of a commodity will go up when the price of the commodity goes down. That’s it; no other factors. The price of Middle Eastern oil (and all oil) will plummet when demand plummets. Nuclear power will someday (soon I hope) force that plummet.
What is “vicious economic growth” and why should anyone want to put it to rest? Free up the EU and enjoy some “vicious economic growth” yourself!
Like any other cheap politician, and they are all cheap in this latest campaign, Edwards does not have a clue what he is talking about. How does he think he will accomplish all those promises without cheap energy source. His outright rebuff of nuclear energy shows his incompetence as a leader from 1000 miles away. The wind, solar and bio fuels will be our salvation according to him. These sources hardly made a dent in our energy supplies despite decades of effort and subsidies. I believe that bio fuels could be produced economically if their production would be combined with nuclear power to drive various processes necessary in all production including bio fuels. The reality facing United States is so catastrophic that no politician out there realize it at this time. Without nuclear power being brought on line very very fast there will be no great nation these cheap politicians talk about. Instead, it will be a steadily declining nation caught in the spiral of ever increasing price for fossil fuels, hampering the economy. Bio fuels and other alternatives as they are rigged here in US will be one disappointing failure as it has been so far to date. I call this stupidity in leadership and in our misled public “Titanic Syndromeâ€
First there is the denial that we have a hole in our national ship, later we will debate for years whether there is a hole or not, much later it will turn into panic and to death once the ship sink. Those few life boats in form of wind, solar and bio fuel energy simply wont be enough to save everyone.
For Titanic victims it was over with in 2 hours. We will linger on for much longer, however, just like on Titanic, the stupid and arrogant leadership will bring the same results.
Frank:
You’re correct. IMHO the hole appeared in our national ship in the early 1970’s, when our own ability to increase oil production peaked. That would not have been such a tragedy if we had simply continued our process of replacing coal, oil and natural gas with atomic fission capable fuels like uranium, thorium and plutonium.
Unfortunately for all of us, the people in the world that like the power and wealth gifted to them by ownership and/or control of fossil resources have fought long and hard to ensure that they continued to accumulate wealth throughout the oil end game.
I have no issue with properly using coal, oil and natural gas as fuel sources, and I have no issue with purveyors of those fuel sources being successful. My issue is with being successful at the expense of everyone else and with them reducing the overall prosperity of the world by limiting access to one of the most amazing gifts of nature that I have ever learned about.
I am still in awe of the fact that a guy with a backpack full of uranium can carry more energy than an entire supertanker full of oil. That backpack sized quantity of uranium can supply a city of a million people for about 10 days with all the electricity that they need. At the same time, that city would not need a single smokestack to dispose of the CO2, NOx, SOx, mercury, fly ash, or other deadly waste products of burning fossil fuels.
Amazing. Disruptive. Scary as hell if you are someone who depends on the competing fuel sources or if you happen to have fallen in love with the idea of wind or solar power.
Rod
Atomic power is the best technology to produce power in large quantity in practically renewable mode. Like you said, breeding fuel from thorium and natural uranium makes atomic energy sustainable far into the future. As you personally pointed out, the light water reactor in Shippingport has demonstrated uranium 233 breeding from thorium a long time ago. https://atomicinsights.com/oct95/LWBR_oct95.html
Nuclear power is also very safe. Chernobyl accident has demonstrated this beyond any doubt.
Chernobyl was the worst possible accident that could happen. Absence of upper reactor containment allowed air to enter steam damaged reactor and caused the graphite moderator to burn for 10 days. The fire lifted radioactive particles high into the stratosphere from where the fallout started all over Europe and Western Soviet Union.
The scarecrow media and fanatic environmentalists started immediately screaming how this will cause many millions of cancers and deaths.
None of those doomsday predictions happened. There were no cancers and deaths caused by fallout. The radioactivity in the fallout turned out to be a lot weaker than the natural background radiation in many places on Earth where people live with no ill effects.
Read the report from Dr Javorowski at: http://www.uic.com.au/Jaworowski_on_Chernobyl.pdf
In an effort to save the Earth, the anti nuclear activists of 1970’s and 80’s have blindly put the Earth on the path of destruction. The result of their activity was vastly increased fossil fuel consumption for electric generation. This is a devastating path and the fossil fuel madness is actually accelerating at the time when we already have an iron clad proof that our fossil fuel habit has very adverse effects for our planet.
I have this to say to all green house gas effect nay sayers. If you don’t believe it make yourself a small experiment. Make small fire in an enclosed room and soon you will notice that something terribly stinks. Planet Earth is also an enclosed room, only slightly larger in dimension. Nevertheless, when you dump combustion products from billions tons of coal, oil and natural gas this larger Earth’s enclosed space will also get sooner or later filled with something that stinks.
I am opposed to burn any fossil fuel whatsoever for production of electricity. The remaining fossil deposits must be reserved for future chemical industry, air transport and other uses where it is highly justified. Nuclear electricity must replace fossil fuel wherever possible. I am not against other alternatives, however, those are not measuring up to the task so far.
If this is not done we will be in serious trouble. Earth will be chocked in combustion products and only God knows what will happen next when Earth will refuse to support us. Most likely starvation and death.
In a century or so we will burn all fossil fuels left and then be hastily forced to nuclear power anyway, provided the deteriorated society can scrape enough energy to make the switch.
Our present, insanely unsustainable use of fossil fuels is dragging us straight into the point of no return, point of no escape. We are already sinking into it, however, only a few can see it. We act as we don’t care at all about the future of our children. We have already created for them too expensive housing, too expensive health care and too expensive energy. What is worse, with our existing status quo, we have no remedy in sight to rectify the situation. In other words, we are building a disastrous future for them.
Now is the time we need a leader who is bold enough to tell the truth instead of a rhetoric and who will steer the humanity into sustainable ways. Someone who will stand up to special interests and convince them to do the right thing.
From all the presidential hopefuls I have not seen such a person anywhere on the horizon yet.
Hello Rod:
Please replace the link to Dr. Javorowski’s paper on chernobyl with this link:
http://www.uic.com.au/Jaworowski_on_Chernobyl.pdf
The link I put in my previous comment does not work
Frank
The link posted by Frank Kandrnal is not valid any longer, and after 4 years this is quite understandable.
But! Luckily Prof. Jaworowski has published updated papers on Chernobyl in the Summer of 2010, here are a couple of links:
Observations on Chernobyl After 25 Years of Radiophobia
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2010/Summer_2010/Observations_Chernobyl.pdf
Belarus to Repopulate Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles_2010/Chernobyl_repopulation.pdf
Ciao, Luca
Futuro Nucleare
Milan, Italy