Guest Blog at Scientific American – The Influence of Information on an Open, Inquiring Mind
On Saturday, May 1, 2010, I had a conversation with John Horgan, the host of Science Saturday for Bloggingheads.tv. John was a long time nuclear skeptic who had expressed his support for President Obama’s initiative to reduce America’s nuclear weapons stockpiles, but his concern for the president’s support for nuclear power plant construction loan guarantees. He saw those two positions as incompatible.
As we conversed, I realized that John Horgan is an inquisitive person who is interested in learning and making good decisions, but he had never been exposed to the kind of information that many nukes consider to be second nature. Part of the problem is that nuclear technologists tend to assume that anyone who asks hard questions is part of the opposition that has pushed our technology down for decades. We have not done a good job of simply conversing and sharing good reasons why we are so darned excited about the potential offered by fission, a process that releases 2-4 million times as much energy per unit mass as burning even the most energy dense hydrocarbons.
After our conversation, I felt pretty good. It seemed that I had exposed John to some new information that intrigued him. Yesterday, several people contacted me to point me to a new blog post that John had published at Scientific American titled Maybe nuclear power isn’t so bad after all. Reading that post and the comments that follow it sort of made my day. Some of the comments revealed that there is still a lot of communicating left to do, but some indicated that I am certainly not alone in my enthusiasm for the process of sharing what we have worked so hard to learn.
Thank you to all of those who have added to that conversation. It warms my heart to realize that there are lots of people in the world who are more like John Horgan, with open, inquiring minds, than like close-minded opposers like Helen Caldicott or Amory Lovins.
For another ray of hope check out the latest issue of POWER mag. The On The Cover looks familiar. It appears that someone at Energy Northwest might read your blog as well.
Rod,
I am surprised that the nuclear energy industry is not taking advantage of the Deepwater Horizon disaster to push its case more forcefully. Even if there was an accident at a nuclear power plants I am sure that fixing it would be much more easier than some gushing hole a mile or so under the ocean. I believe it was Obama’s chief of staff, Ron Emanuel that said something to the effect “a disaster is a terrible thing to waste. The nuclear industry should take heed of that advice to educate the public on the advantages of nuclear power.
I have been saying the same thing elsewhere. In fact the ‘industry’ (such as it is) is been too silent despite a number of fossil-fuel accidents in the past little while. It’s definitely time to at least wave the flag for nuclear a bit after one of these events.
People are reviewing the energy future and in some cases adjusting their plans – it certainly does not hurt to have solid fission nuclear introductory information out before the public (and decision makers) at a time like this.
Developing the nuclear sector is a long term commitment that will take consistent effort over several decades to accomplish. I am a (Thorium) nuclear advocate and I want to see much more of the nation’s power produced from nuclear energy. At the same time I recognize that USA is the superpower that fossil fuels built and that 85% of economic activity in the US is still driven by use of fossil fuels. I do not want to end up as an apologist for the fossil fuels industry but we need to find ways to avoid damaging the dominant fossil fuels sector while innovating nuclear technology to make it more economical and even safer than current exceptionally safe technology. Dismantle the dismantlers that want to use the Gulf disaster as an excuse to drive a narrow energy agenda and do major immediate social economic surgery on America’s dominant energy infrastructure. If you advocate radical revision of America’s energy landscape please conscientously address scalability issues (the solar and wind sectors currently account for less than 3% of US electrical generation capacity) and costs. Radical change based on chear leading from the top and vague visionary hopes not backed up by solid engineering and manufacturing is bound to disappoint.
Robert – my goal is not to “dismantle” the fossil fuel industry, but to compete with it strongly enough to allow it to seek a more reasonable level of power and wealth. Fossil fuel marketers have done us no favors – they like to provide the impression (through repeated advertising and lobbying efforts) that they are working hard and making huge sacrifices to fulfill our needs for energy, but the reality is that many of the people running fossil fuel companies have the temperament to succeed as tobacco company executives or even as Colombian cartel bosses.
They work very hard to encourage an increasing demand for their product, even to the point of helping design, build and deploy more machinery that uses more of it. Once those machines are built, the fossil fuel companies have a new market that has little choice but to continue buying their product even if they know those purchases can get expensive and crowd out other investments. In other words, they feed addiction.
I know that many of my associates in the pro-nuclear fission camp would love to make common cause with fossil fuel and renewables and create a situation of “all of the above”. I happen to believe that the only way you can end up with “balance” in a market where one competitor has such a compelling advantage is to unfairly handicap that competitor by government fiat that makes energy far more expensive than it would otherwise be if the best technology was allowed to play by similar rules to all other technologies.
I have said it before and I will say it again – I expect to form coalitions with the far larger energy consumer segment and expect that the other energy suppliers will always be working to hobble our growth. How else can they have a hope of prospering?
You are making a significant difference to the public dialog, Rod, and I thank you for all your work on this. I need an occasional reminder like this event to express it but I really appreciate your blog and podcasts.
Joffan – thank you for the kind words. Responses like yours help keep me motivated.