Gerhardt is apparently unaware of all of the barriers that the current administration has raised in front of any meaningful role for nuclear energy.
Tina Gerhardt has published an almost sadly amusing article on the Huffington Post titled Obama’s Climate Action Plan: Nuclear Energy? in which she tries to make the case that President Obama’s climate action plan is an undeserved endorsement of nuclear energy.
Although less in the headlines than the plan’s position on coal-fired power plants, hydraulic fracturing and the Keystone XL Pipeline, nuclear energy forms a crucial component of President Obama’s climate action plan. And action is moving ahead by leaps and bounds.
…
President Obama’s Climate Action Plan discusses nuclear energy as “Clean Energy Innovation”, which the plan states encompasses “a range of energy technologies, from advanced biofuels and emerging nuclear technologies — including small modular reactors — to clean coal.” To bill nuclear energy as a “clean energy” source is a sleight of hand.
She is apparently unaware of all of the barriers that the current administration has raised in front of any meaningful role for nuclear energy, including the selection of two antinuclear chairmen of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the complete abandonment of several decades worth of research and development on used nuclear fuel storage, the moratorium on both new licenses and license extensions based on the lack of waste confidence, and the shrinking budget for new license reviews under the guise of austerity for an agency that sends bills for $274 per bureaucrat hour to the people who get the reviews.
Ms. Gerhart’s article was full of a litany of supposed ills and risks associated with nuclear energy, despite the fact that the power source provides the energy equivalent of 4 million barrels of oil per day of emission free electricity to the US economy at an average cost of about 2 cents per kilowatt hour without having caused a single civilian death from radiation in more than 50 years.
A slew of issues put the safety of nuclear power plant into question. Numerous nuclear power plants, such as the recently shut down San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, are located near seismic fault-lines.
Other nuclear power plants, too, are located in earthquake, tornado or hurricane-prone zones. For example, the Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York and the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, 100 miles north of Santa Barbara, rest on fault-lines or active plates.
Many nuclear power plants are located near water, either rivers or the ocean, which they draw on for cooling. This factor puts plants at risk from flooding or rising sea levels. For example, the Fort Calhoun power plant, 19 miles north of Omaha, Nebraska, closed in 2011 due to the flooding of the Missouri River.
And throughout the U.S., nuclear power plants are located close to cities: Indian Point sits 24 miles north of New York City; Pilgrim rests 38 miles southeast of Boston; and Turkey Point is 20 miles south of Miami.
I had to comment, even though participating in comment threads on Huffington Post can be an exercise in futility and can subject one to accusations of unspeakable dishonesty. Here was my first comment:
Your litany of concerns about nuclear energy plants can be repeated for every piece of human constructed infrastructure. Everything on earth is a finite distance from fault lines, can be subjected to floods or hurricanes, or is a finite distance from cities.
As Hargraves mentioned, nuclear plants are designed to be safe in the place where they are sited. They can be operated safely everywhere with the right kind of engineering; I can testify that nuclear plants have operated in the deep ocean, under the North Pole, in the middle of deserts, under the ice in Greenland, and in the downtown areas of many port cities around the world.
In my opinion, a world that is currently dumping 35 billion tons of hydrocarbon waste into its share atmosphere every year NEEDS a power source that is clean enough to run inside submarines. Fortunately, mother nature or God gave an abundance of several materials that can perform that amazing feat – uranium, thorium and plutonium.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
As I almost expected, that comment received a rather typical – for the Huffington Post – response:
Genders
Love, Tolerance, Enlightenment
6 hours ago (11:23 PM)
BS. won’t ever be a rooftop solar disasters, or an offshore wind disaster.
Nice lie.
Nukes are the most expensive electricity ever created.
At the risk of continuing to waste my time, I fired back with one more response that I think is worth sharing here:
@Genders
You’re right. Both rooftop solar and offshore wind are fated to be such tiny power sources affecting so few people that occasional deaths from falling will never be classified as a disaster.
There will also never be a reliable power system that can serve the energy needs of 7-9 billion people based on weaklings like rooftop solar or offshore wind.
The real competition in the energy business – coal, oil and natural gas – are certainly capable of being the source of large scale disasters.
If you truly believe that nuclear energy is inherently expensive, there’s nothing I can write to convince you of the errors in your thinking.
However, for all of the readers that are willing to challenge tripe they have been fed by the hydrocarbon establishment, here is information that should stimulate a questioning attitude.
The current market price for a pound of uranium is $40. That lump of metal that you can fit into your hand contains as much potential energy as 30 large tanker trucks full of oil (roughly 900 metric tons) that would cost approximately $660,000 at today’s market price of $105 per barrel ($735 per tonne).
That uranium can release its energy in the form of emission-free heat and be converted into useful power in machines similar to the ones used to convert oil into power.
There is a reason that nuclear power plants are expensive and it has NOTHING to do with the basic technology.
Rod Adams, Publisher, Atomic Insights
Though it is perhaps completely futile, it is occasionally amusing or interesting to engage in public debates that just might get read by enough people to change a mind or at least encourage thinking. I encourage you all to consider devoting at least a portion of your time to such activity. The people who take the time to comment here are doing a bang-up job of keeping it interesting and making me feel like the effort is a worthwhile investment. Thank you.
Rod Adams
Rod Adams is Managing Partner of Nucleation Capital, a venture fund that invests in advanced nuclear, which provides affordable access to this clean energy sector to pronuclear and impact investors. Rod, a former submarine Engineer Officer and founder of Adams Atomic Engines, Inc., which was one of the earliest advanced nuclear ventures, is an atomic energy expert with small nuclear plant operating and design experience. He has engaged in technical, strategic, political, historic and financial analysis of the nuclear industry, its technology, regulation, and policies for several decades through Atomic Insights, both as its primary blogger and as host of The Atomic Show Podcast. Please click here to subscribe to the Atomic Show RSS feed. To join Rod's pronuclear network and receive his occasional newsletter, click here.
15 Comments
Hey Rod, I know what you mean. I engage in comment threads in the Toronto Star, Daily Kos and the occasional site here and there in spite of the apparent futileness of the endeavour. I do this because I believe voices that bring facts about nuclear energy to the public debate helps to counter general ignorance and fossil-fuel funded misinformation. We can’t really know how many people are made to re-think, or even possibly experience a change of mind, by what we say in the form of online comments. However, the number is surely greater than it would be if we just gave up. So,I say to all – pick up the keyboard and keep hammering away! This is a very important battle…
Huffington Post has now deleted my comment critical of Tina’s article.
I believe you posted a link to your own book on Thorium (which may have been seen as unrelated to the original article). Presumably, the original article was about Obama administration, and potential upcoming plans to scale development of uranium power plants and SMRs in the States.
Just guessing.
I see. Thanks. Bob
Also on her article, Tina points to the new Moniz’s DOE appointment as an Obama pro nuclear move.
Well, the DOE is in a third attempt to secure a loan for the Votgle plants. What’s the beef? Third attempt?
Well, it is very simple. Moniz states that nuclear plants have to be able to prove that they can be built on time and on budget. Financing is a bit of an issue and loan guarantee are an accepted paradigm in this context on plants that can provide clear and safe electricity for the next 100 years. (The next 100 years paradigm comes from Nnadir on a well maintained plant)
So the DOE offers Geogia Power, a company with 12 billions in quality annual revenue, a loan at the same prohibitive interest rate they would charge a Solyndra that has no credit history. Fair game ?
I do not think so.
So do not ask yourself if the DOE understands basic financial risks and are pro nuclear and if Georgia Power knows a raw deal when it sees one.
Several tears ago I was introduced to a subject that is very hot among psychologists and neuroscientists and it deals with how people think and how they make decisions. The results of all the studies introduces us to the difficult acknowledgement that people make illogical and irrational decisions, contrary to accepted belief otherwise. Another book published in 2008 called Risk and the irresistible draw of illogic and irrational decision making by Ira and Rom Bromfman.
It highlights how many rational and responsible people are often drawn into making irrational decisions contrary to their training and understanding. What I have learned from these studies is how useless it is to discuss and try to persuade anti-nuclear people to accept facts that range outside their mind set. Perhaps a few, that are borderline can be persuaded by facts and logic. The only realistic solution to this dilemma is follow the science and ignore the irrational. Leaders, that are successful have always done this in spite of criticism.
I’m one of the ones that started thinking because of such striking examples. Like the fact that Chernobyl has an unintended natural reserve instead of being a waste land, or that the best way to get rid of nuclear weapons is by burning its plutonium in power plants, or indeed the incredible energy density of uranium.
When I was irritated by the sensationalism and lack of information in the news about the tsunami and Fukushima accident, I searched for better info myself, and found more than I ever could have imagined before I started that journey. It turned my ideas about the subject completely, though I wasn’t really anti anymore like in my teens and I hadn’t emotionally invested in an anti stance, so the change wasn’t so heart-wrenching.
Now I try to set the feet of other people on a similar path of discovery. This evening I talked about it with a woman who didn’t like the idea of more nuclear power but was willing to listen and said she didn’t know a lot of the things I said. I don’t have the illustion that she thinks differently about it now after just a talk of some minutes, but she was interested in hearing something else than she thought was true. Who knows if a couple more of such encounters and a bit of reading will start her on such a journey.
So posts like yours can have an effect, and especially the ones in your blog, for people that search for more info. The fierce anti’s you can’t reach, but people in two minds like I was, you can and do.
Hi Rod.
I recently took John Daly of Oilprice.com (someone I note you’ve taken to task before) to task over his recent article Chernobyl at Sea? Russia Building Floating Nuclear Power Plants, and was quite surprised and delighted by the support I received from others who took the time to post.
It’s definitely worth making the occasional stand when you see the rubbish some people publish.
Rod,
I occasionaly post comments to nuclear power stories at Huffington and have run into the same commentor that you did. That commentor, and many others, will never change their minds no matter what or who proves them wrong.
But I still dip my toe in every so often for the fact that there are many more silent people who read the comments but never make a comment. Some of those people are amenable to reason, or at least may be lead to question the FUD and do some follow up research of their own.
There is a hard core group at both extremes of just about any issue that will never change their opinions. But the greater number of people are floating in the middle and can be nudged to either side. And if only the antis do the nudging then the floaters will tend to flow that way.
Rod,
As a prolific commenter on the Huffington Post I try to ignore the personal attacks, “paid poster” “shill” “lying murdering purveyor of nuclear poison” and colloquial “Mikie” label which seems to be a favorite and focus on the issue, to provide accurate information for that third party “lurker” who just might be open to reason. I don’t always succeed and sometimes I get drawn into extended discussions on my motivation for posting. I appreciate it when others lend their voice to help counter the avalanche of misinformation posted by anti-nuclear propagandists. Thank You!
Michael Mann
When I participated in a comments section for a nuclear related Huffington Post article (“Christine Todd Whitman: Envisioning a Sustainable Energy Future”) that Genders person also showed up there.
She is impervious to outside input and it is only worth debating her in order to put on a calm and informative show for any lurkers who might be amenable to persuasion.
At one point she claimed that every nuclear reactor in the USA receives a half billion dollar subsidy per year. I pointed out that that would be more than $50 billion per year, which is 40% larger than the DOE’s entire budget.
She didn’t even slow down. No matter how wrong you prove her, it has no effect on her opinions.
Actually Robert you ran into Idyl a rabid antinuclear commenter that has an in with management. If he wants your post deleted it is gone almost immediately for the least of excuses. It’s likely listing your own book was the excuse used.
Try reposting again without the the reference.
Trashing Genders posts can be fun. Since he posts the same stupid statements over and over again, I just post the same debunking. He used to be known as Research before finally getting the boot for outrageous ad homs.
Unfortunately, he also has an in with management – so keep in mind he can say anything he wants. You on the other hand, will get the boot if you respond in kind. Mr Mann here has developed an incredibly thick skin when dealing on Huffpo which explains his longevity their.
The supposed “dangers” of nuclear power are based on the assumption that no level of radiation is safe. This comes from an outdated “linear no-threshold model” (LNT) that is only applied to radiation and not to other mutagens (like food). The French Academy of Sciences, the Health Physics Society and the American Nuclear Society have all rejected LNT, having found that doses below 10 rem (which includes allowable occupational and environmental exposures) result in risks of health effects that are either too small to be observed or are non-existent (take your pick). These organizations are made up of individuals who actually work in the field providing protection for workers and the public from radiation exposure. Their position on LNT actually puts their livelihood in jeopardy because it implies levels below concern and therefore lessens the demand for experts in their field. On the other hand, anti-nuke organizations like the U of Concerned Scientists rake in money by stirring up public sentiment against nuclear power. I work in the nuclear industry on the west coast and the only isotope that we saw in the air from Fukishima was I-131 – barely detectable and with 8-day half-life, and barely detectable Cs-134 that was entrained and concentrated by our cooling towers. These trace amounts were completely decayed below detectable levels within a week.
“He was the CEO of Liberty Energy, North America’s second largest hydraulic fracturing company…” Sounds like a reasonable pick for…
How can it use a Brayton cycle if it doesn’t get output heat at 1200 Celsius?
*Just realised that it is using an open air brayton cycle turbine, which won’t work underwater! I guess it could…
Could this be used to make the Australian Navy’s upcoming Ghost Shark drone submarines almost unlimited range? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HTdytBojsM&t=4s
Hi Rod, Fascinating program on e-Vinci with Leah Crider. Looking at the Westinghouse website, there is shielding on one end…
On October 9, 2013, David Letterman interviewed Mark Z. Jacobson, a leading proponent of a 100% renewable energy future. He described Jacobson as a man with a plan that should make us all more optimistic; that plan describes a world that has a completely changed energy supply system that does not threaten us with catastrophic…
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Bob Hargraves, the author of Thorium: Energy Cheaper than Coal, recently traveled to Shanghai to present a 30 minute talk summarizing the main points of discussion that he covered in his book. The occasion of the trip was Thorium Energy Conference 2012. Bob is a professor with a good facility for numbers and a talent…
Dr. Jim Conca recently published an article titled What’s Better? A Carbon Tax or Energy Subsidies? for his column on Forbes.com. I invited him, along with Cal Abel, a nuclear engineering PhD candidate at Georgia Tech with a strong interest in energy economics, for a chat on the Atomic Show. We got a little off…
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Hey Rod, I know what you mean. I engage in comment threads in the Toronto Star, Daily Kos and the occasional site here and there in spite of the apparent futileness of the endeavour. I do this because I believe voices that bring facts about nuclear energy to the public debate helps to counter general ignorance and fossil-fuel funded misinformation. We can’t really know how many people are made to re-think, or even possibly experience a change of mind, by what we say in the form of online comments. However, the number is surely greater than it would be if we just gave up. So,I say to all – pick up the keyboard and keep hammering away! This is a very important battle…
Huffington Post has now deleted my comment critical of Tina’s article.
I believe you posted a link to your own book on Thorium (which may have been seen as unrelated to the original article). Presumably, the original article was about Obama administration, and potential upcoming plans to scale development of uranium power plants and SMRs in the States.
Just guessing.
I see. Thanks. Bob
Also on her article, Tina points to the new Moniz’s DOE appointment as an Obama pro nuclear move.
Well, the DOE is in a third attempt to secure a loan for the Votgle plants. What’s the beef? Third attempt?
Well, it is very simple. Moniz states that nuclear plants have to be able to prove that they can be built on time and on budget. Financing is a bit of an issue and loan guarantee are an accepted paradigm in this context on plants that can provide clear and safe electricity for the next 100 years. (The next 100 years paradigm comes from Nnadir on a well maintained plant)
So the DOE offers Geogia Power, a company with 12 billions in quality annual revenue, a loan at the same prohibitive interest rate they would charge a Solyndra that has no credit history. Fair game ?
I do not think so.
So do not ask yourself if the DOE understands basic financial risks and are pro nuclear and if Georgia Power knows a raw deal when it sees one.
Several tears ago I was introduced to a subject that is very hot among psychologists and neuroscientists and it deals with how people think and how they make decisions. The results of all the studies introduces us to the difficult acknowledgement that people make illogical and irrational decisions, contrary to accepted belief otherwise. Another book published in 2008 called Risk and the irresistible draw of illogic and irrational decision making by Ira and Rom Bromfman.
It highlights how many rational and responsible people are often drawn into making irrational decisions contrary to their training and understanding. What I have learned from these studies is how useless it is to discuss and try to persuade anti-nuclear people to accept facts that range outside their mind set. Perhaps a few, that are borderline can be persuaded by facts and logic. The only realistic solution to this dilemma is follow the science and ignore the irrational. Leaders, that are successful have always done this in spite of criticism.
I’m one of the ones that started thinking because of such striking examples. Like the fact that Chernobyl has an unintended natural reserve instead of being a waste land, or that the best way to get rid of nuclear weapons is by burning its plutonium in power plants, or indeed the incredible energy density of uranium.
When I was irritated by the sensationalism and lack of information in the news about the tsunami and Fukushima accident, I searched for better info myself, and found more than I ever could have imagined before I started that journey. It turned my ideas about the subject completely, though I wasn’t really anti anymore like in my teens and I hadn’t emotionally invested in an anti stance, so the change wasn’t so heart-wrenching.
Now I try to set the feet of other people on a similar path of discovery. This evening I talked about it with a woman who didn’t like the idea of more nuclear power but was willing to listen and said she didn’t know a lot of the things I said. I don’t have the illustion that she thinks differently about it now after just a talk of some minutes, but she was interested in hearing something else than she thought was true. Who knows if a couple more of such encounters and a bit of reading will start her on such a journey.
So posts like yours can have an effect, and especially the ones in your blog, for people that search for more info. The fierce anti’s you can’t reach, but people in two minds like I was, you can and do.
Hi Rod.
I recently took John Daly of Oilprice.com (someone I note you’ve taken to task before) to task over his recent article Chernobyl at Sea? Russia Building Floating Nuclear Power Plants, and was quite surprised and delighted by the support I received from others who took the time to post.
It’s definitely worth making the occasional stand when you see the rubbish some people publish.
Rod,
I occasionaly post comments to nuclear power stories at Huffington and have run into the same commentor that you did. That commentor, and many others, will never change their minds no matter what or who proves them wrong.
But I still dip my toe in every so often for the fact that there are many more silent people who read the comments but never make a comment. Some of those people are amenable to reason, or at least may be lead to question the FUD and do some follow up research of their own.
There is a hard core group at both extremes of just about any issue that will never change their opinions. But the greater number of people are floating in the middle and can be nudged to either side. And if only the antis do the nudging then the floaters will tend to flow that way.
Rod,
As a prolific commenter on the Huffington Post I try to ignore the personal attacks, “paid poster” “shill” “lying murdering purveyor of nuclear poison” and colloquial “Mikie” label which seems to be a favorite and focus on the issue, to provide accurate information for that third party “lurker” who just might be open to reason. I don’t always succeed and sometimes I get drawn into extended discussions on my motivation for posting. I appreciate it when others lend their voice to help counter the avalanche of misinformation posted by anti-nuclear propagandists. Thank You!
Michael Mann
When I participated in a comments section for a nuclear related Huffington Post article (“Christine Todd Whitman: Envisioning a Sustainable Energy Future”) that Genders person also showed up there.
She is impervious to outside input and it is only worth debating her in order to put on a calm and informative show for any lurkers who might be amenable to persuasion.
At one point she claimed that every nuclear reactor in the USA receives a half billion dollar subsidy per year. I pointed out that that would be more than $50 billion per year, which is 40% larger than the DOE’s entire budget.
She didn’t even slow down. No matter how wrong you prove her, it has no effect on her opinions.
Actually Robert you ran into Idyl a rabid antinuclear commenter that has an in with management. If he wants your post deleted it is gone almost immediately for the least of excuses. It’s likely listing your own book was the excuse used.
Try reposting again without the the reference.
Trashing Genders posts can be fun. Since he posts the same stupid statements over and over again, I just post the same debunking. He used to be known as Research before finally getting the boot for outrageous ad homs.
Unfortunately, he also has an in with management – so keep in mind he can say anything he wants. You on the other hand, will get the boot if you respond in kind. Mr Mann here has developed an incredibly thick skin when dealing on Huffpo which explains his longevity their.
The supposed “dangers” of nuclear power are based on the assumption that no level of radiation is safe. This comes from an outdated “linear no-threshold model” (LNT) that is only applied to radiation and not to other mutagens (like food). The French Academy of Sciences, the Health Physics Society and the American Nuclear Society have all rejected LNT, having found that doses below 10 rem (which includes allowable occupational and environmental exposures) result in risks of health effects that are either too small to be observed or are non-existent (take your pick). These organizations are made up of individuals who actually work in the field providing protection for workers and the public from radiation exposure. Their position on LNT actually puts their livelihood in jeopardy because it implies levels below concern and therefore lessens the demand for experts in their field. On the other hand, anti-nuke organizations like the U of Concerned Scientists rake in money by stirring up public sentiment against nuclear power. I work in the nuclear industry on the west coast and the only isotope that we saw in the air from Fukishima was I-131 – barely detectable and with 8-day half-life, and barely detectable Cs-134 that was entrained and concentrated by our cooling towers. These trace amounts were completely decayed below detectable levels within a week.
Oh, here’s great little article on how many lives are saved by nuclear power using the anti-nuke’s game of application of fuzzy math.
http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/web/2013/04/Nuclear-Power-Prevents-Deaths-Causes.html