Atomic Insights

Atomic energy technology, politics, and perceptions from a nuclear energy insider who served as a US nuclear submarine engineer officer

nuclear fuel recycling

The Atomic Show #126 – Wasserman v Moore moderated by Goodman and Adams

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On Thursday February 5, 2009, Amy Goodman of Democracy Now! moderated a brief debate about nuclear power between Harvey Wasserman and Patrick Moore.

The forcing function for holding the debate on that date was the fact that the Senate has included an additional authorization for $50 billion in loan guarantees for clean energy as part of the stimulus package. Though all forms of low emission energy can qualify, the fear among the virulent anti-nukes like Harvey Wasserman and the O’Connor family sponsored Texans for a Sound Energy Policy Alliance is that the vast majority of the loan guarantee authority will be captured by the nuclear power industry.

That is a reasonable evaluation of the current situation. After all, utility companies interested in building new nuclear power plants already have $122 Billion in shovel ready projects waiting in line for loan guarantees. The project applications were turned in several months ago and are being ranked and evaluated by the Department of Energy.

During the debate, Wasserman focused on telling lies about nuclear power plant insurance, about the risk of living and working near a plant, and about the expense associated with recycling used nuclear fuel. He also attempted to attract some strange bedfellows from conservative groups like Cato by focusing on what he called the market failure of nuclear power.

Moore admitted that he had been totally wrong in his youth by not recognizing the difference between nuclear weapons and beneficial uses of nuclear technology. He talked about the benefits of clean, reliable nuclear power that can reduce the need to burn coal, about the myth that we do not know what to do with the waste, and also wondered why Wasserman, a man with no history of love for the free market, is so certain that government should not be involved in electricity supply enterprises.

Of course, you can view the full debate uninterrupted at the Democracy Now! web site: Should the Economic Stimulus Bill Include Billions in Loan Guarantees? but I think this interrupted version adds some entertainment and informational value. I hope you agree and come to the site to share your thoughts.

In addition, please do make the effort to contact your senator and congressman to let them know how you feel about loan guarantees. (If you do not like them, that’s okay. I would be interested in hearing why or why not.)

One more thing – Harvey Wasserman is still an idiot.

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The Atomic Show #125 – Economic Interests in Environmental Politics

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It not shocking news to discover that “recovering” politicians often lobby their former colleagues. This show about Gore’s testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is just an example.

This week I spent a several hours listening to the first hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee of the current congressional session. Former Vice President Al Gore, the founder of an organization called Alliance for Climate Protection was the only witness during the 2 hour and 50 minute hearing. Watching that hearing, no one would ever know that the former VP is also a partner in Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers a Silicon Valley venture capital firm with significant financial interests in the very topic of conversation – non-nuclear alternatives to fossil fuel energy power production.

This is a matter of collegial privilege offered to a very few.

After watching the hearing and producing a rather extensive blog post about the hearing for Atomic Insights, I happened to choose to listen to NPR Environment Podcast for January 29, 2009. There was an amusing juxtaposition of stories; the first one talked about Gore’s visit to Capitol Hill, the second one was an interview with Ray Lane, also a partner in KPCB, about the need for federal assistance to the alternative energy industry in the fact of the global economic crisis.

None of the NPR correspondents made the connection between Gore and Lane.

It was also amusing to hear Gore explaining to Senator Corker and Senator Isakson, two strong nuclear advocates and former independent businessmen, why he talks down the potential for nuclear power as a tool in the fight to save human civilization against the twin threats of climate change and fossil fuel addiction.

I know that this might sound like I am picking on the former VP, but if I am, it is not because I am on a different political team. I happen to agree with some of the things that he says and stands for.

I just think that he should be more open about his financial interests in ensuring that climate change is recognized as a crisis big enough to force the taxpayers to subsidize the very companies into which he is putting his “private risk capital”. At the same time, I think he needs to do a better job of explaining why the crisis is not big enough to allow the expansion of a proven technology that supplies massive quantities of emission free power already.

His claim is that fission either costs too much or presents too big of a risk of “proliferation” means that he puts those factors higher on the priority list than saving human society from choking on deadly fossil fuel waste.

My interpretation is that fission simply presents too big of a risk to the success of his investments in alternative forms of energy production. None of the projects that KPCB is financing in alternative energy could compete without both a direct boost from the government and unreasonable handcuffs on competitive energy source from that same government.

Update posted Feb 2, 2009 at 0641: Ausra is one of the companies that KPCB has funded. During the hearing, John Kerry, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee specifically mentioned that company, its Las Vegas, NV location and its expansion plans, stating that it was “the future”. I just ran across an article about the company in the San Jose Mercury News dated January 29, 2009, the day after the hearing took place. Here is a quote:

Today, the Palo Alto company says it has responded to the financial crisis by downsizing its goals and now plans to make smaller energy-generation plants and to sell its technology and equipment to utilities and other companies. Ausra’s chief executive said he now doubts the viability of the large-scale solar-thermal segment.

“What a lot of people thought when they went out and signed 500- or 900-megawatt power-purchase agreements was that it was easy to go from a 1-megawatt demo plant to a 900-megawatt project,” said Robert Fishman, Ausra’s chairman, president and CEO. “That’s simply not reality. The finance market will not support it.”

You can also read more about the hearing over at Atomic Insights.

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The Atomic Show #122 – Steven Chu – Confirmation Hearings for Secretary of Energy

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Steven Chu is a well respected scientist, national laboratory manager and biofuels focused researcher. He has been nominated by President-elect Barack Obama to be the Secretary of Energy, a position that puts him in charge of approximately 30,000 people and an annual budget of approximately $25 billion. As Dr. Chu stated in his testimony, the […]

The Atomic Show #121 – LFTR with Kirk Sorensen and Charles Barton

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Kirk Sorensen and Charles Barton are some of the world’s most vocal advocates of the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor (LFTR) concept. Together, they operate Energy from Thorium, one of the richest veins of energy knowledge available on the web. During our conversation, they provide a lot of food for thought with their detailed descriptions and […]