Atomic Insights

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

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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 US Department of Energy employs more physical scientists than any other single organization in the country.

On this episode of The Atomic Show, I have cut in audio clips from the confirmation hearing that the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee held to hear testimony from Dr. Chu about his priorities, how he would manage his department and the challenges that it faces in addressing climate change, energy security, and environmental restoration for its sprawling collection of research and development facilities.

I have a great deal of respect for Dr. Chu and for his ordered way of thinking, but I do have some concerns that he is too focused on a scientific approach to problem solving rather than an engineering one.

Let me explain. Though many people mentally link science and engineering, there is a fundamental difference in philosophy between the practitioners of the two important fields. Scientists like to study and find answers to questions that no one has yet solved. Engineers like to design and make things using the knowledge they can find in textbooks, graphs and reference material along with the practical knowledge that they can gain from actually engaging in their craft.

They know that they do not have a perfect knowledge of the universe, but they also know that their knowledge is good enough to create many amazing things. If they find a hard roadblock during the creation process, they are reasonably confident that they will find a way around the obstacle. Both science and engineering are important disciplines, but there is a time and a place for each to have primary influence. When it comes to addressing the world’s energy, climate and water supply challenges, there is no doubt that it is mainly an engineering problem, not a science project.

Unfortunately, Dr. Chu’s approach to the problem seems more influenced by his scientific bent than informed by a strong understanding of what is possible TODAY. His comments during the hearing lead me to believe that he does not yet have a good grasp of the approach needed to empower the people who ALREADY know how to reduce pollution, make energy available and affordable, and who know how to use that energy to reduce supply challenges for other important commodities like water and food.

As you listen to the Senators’ questions, Dr. Chu’s response and my interspersed commentary, you will realize just why I have more concerns about the department’s priorities and initial actions than does the Nuclear Energy Institute. There are a number of things we could be doing now, that do not necessarily involve a great deal of expenditure by the American taxpayers to simply encourage and enable proceeding with due haste to building and operating a new generation of devices that use fission instead of chemical combustion to provide an almost unlimited amount of emission free, reliable, energy.

Fission is not just an option, it is an imperative that has the potential to dramatically improve the lives of everyone on the planet – except those who have been unable to read the handwriting on the wall and continue to depend on selling fossil fuels at elevated prices to enable them to remain powerful and secure.

I know this is a minority view that would not be popular in the Senate committee with all of its competing interests – that is why I am a writer, a podcaster and an analyst, not a politician.

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The Atomic Show #116 – John Rubino, Author of Clean Money and Greenstockinvesting.com

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John Rubino and Rod Adams discuss Clean Energy: Picking Winners in the Green-Tech Boom I recently received a review copy of John Rubino’s Clean Energy: Picking Winners in the Green-Tech Boom. I almost did not read the book after reading the first few pages where John disqualifies nuclear power as a green investment, but I […]

The Atomic Show #114 – Dan Yurman Russia-India Reactors, GNEP meeting, Kentucky nuclear, RWE, Vermont Yankee

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Dan Yurman of Idaho Samizdat and Rod Adams chat about nuclear news from India, Idaho, Kentucky, Germany, Scotland, and Vermont Dan Yurman and I had a great time on November 21 talking about a number of different nuclear news items including a large new power plant deal in India for Russian reactors, Dan’s first hand […]

The Atomic Show #110 – George Karayannis, Executive Director, EnergizeAmerica

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George Karayannis, Executive Director, EnergizeAmerica chats with Rod Adams and Kelly Taylor about energy policies and proposed actions. Here is the mission of Energize America as found on the organization’s web site: EnergizeAmerica is a comprehensive and compelling 20-point plan developed by informed citizen activists to wean the U.S. from its fossil fuel addiction and […]

Atomic Show #098 – Chris Nelder, Co-Author of Profit from the Peak

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Chris Nelder, who co-wrote Profit from the Peak with Brian Hicks, is worried about energy supplies. He favors conservation, population control, wind, solar and geothermal. He is pessimistic about nuclear. I was recently offered the opportunity to read a review copy of Profit from the Peak by Brian Hicks and Chris Nelder. The book, despite […]