The plot thickens:
White House aides Monday were mum about what would happen to the Office of Energy and Climate Change except to declare that Browner, a former Senate staffer to Al Gore, believed energy issues would remain front and center for the president.
One wonders now if Obama will even mention climate during the State of the Union Address Tuesday night. With jobs and economy taking front and center and Browner’s announcement right before SOTUA, government climate initiatives may be relegated to the back-burner. We’ll have to wait and see.
And it gets stranger, Haunting the Library writes:
Andy Revkin of the New York Times reported that Hansen was not happy with the current Obama administration, as despite offering his services “I never heard back anything from the White House”. This “lame” approach, he said could be seen in past Democrat administrations:
Nowhere is the lame middle-of-the-road go-slow compromise approach clearer than in the case of nuclear power. The [Obama] Administration has been reluctant to admit that the Carter and Clinton/Gore administrations made a huge mistake in pulling the U.S. back from development of advanced nuclear technology.
That is the way to make nuclear power safer (nuclear power already has the best safety record of any major industry in the United States) and resistant to weapons proliferation
New York Times. Dot Earth. NASA’s Hansen Pushes Obama for a Carbon Cost and a Nuclear Push.
Hansen also slammed President Obama for buckling to advocacy groups who impede progress on nuclear power, rather than being a “responsible leader” and authorizing a major new programme of building new nuclear power stations:
Nevertheless, the easiest thing that he could do, and perhaps the best that we can hope for, is for him to give a strong boost to nuclear power.
Unfortunately, he seems to fall prey to Democratic politics on this, rather than being a responsible leader.
New York Times. Dot Earth. NASA’s Hansen Pushes Obama for a Carbon Cost and a Nuclear Push.
Hansen’s comments may well be a dig at blogger Joe Romm (Climate Progress), formerly Acting Assistant Secretary at the Department of Energy for the Clinton administration. Despite frequently proclaiming global warming to be an existential threat to humanity, Romm has hindered the move to low emissions energy by waging a campaign against nuclear power, which – as Hansen notes – has “the best safety record of any major industry”. Why is Romm ignoring the advice of the scientists he himself champions? Is it science, or is it politics?
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Ouch, that’s gonna leave a mark.
Seems like the climate/green energy movement is self destructing on the eve of the SOTUA.
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“Why is Romm ignoring the advice of the scientists he himself champions? Is it science, or is it politics?”
Perhaps there is a third possibility: That Romm (and Al Gore among others) have a vested monetary interest in various “green” energy sources, and if the world moves toward nuclear, their investments are toast.
All Gore admits as much at 5:35 on the video below:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpqYM7Acvxk&w=425&h=349]
One down, many more remain. Until someone recinds Carter’s decision not to reprocess nuclear waste, we will have nothing but hot air from nuke proposals. France reprocesses, has for 30 years, without many problems. Reprocessing nuke waste cuts the volume by 90% or so, far less to be buried.
Until we do that, it is a ‘waste’ of time.
starzmom: “The reason to prohibit nuclear plants is to protect utility ratepayers from unknown and possibly exorbitant costs for waste disposal.”
Actually, ratepayers have been paying [indirectly] into a disposal fund for quite a while now; it amounts to well over $50 billion. (The aborted Yucca Mountain Project — which could still be started back up; the decision to cancel was purely political, not technical — barely made a dent in it.) Since, however, the fund has always been administered by the Federal Government, it has all undoubtedly been spent on research into the effect of Global Warming on the sexual behavior of tree frogs.
“…despite offering his services “I never heard back anything from the White House”
Mr. Hansen really comes across as ‘full of himself”, similar to Our Dear Leader.
If we want nuclear power, we have to get Yucca Mt. operational. Politics shut it down and only politics with a backbone will get it operational. To achieve that and so much more that is needed and warranted, We must tear our Nation free from the restraining web of half truths and deceits spun by environmental Lilliputians like James Hansen and Al Gore.
We must work diligently these next 21 months to educate, campaign for, and elect pols to the House, Senate, and White House that will reject the socialist ‘green’ agenda hamstringing our national energy production and get on with the pragmatic business of powering a nation that will explore the solar system and reach for the stars! The planets are within the grasp of manned spacecraft, using nuclear powered plasma engines known as Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rockets (VASIMRs) drives.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/08/06/vasimr_plasma_for_iss_griffin_remark/
Capture the imagination of your children and encourage them to demand their birthright as explorers of the Solar System. Give them something more to strive for, beyond the navel lint gazing of environmentalism. Give their lives optimism and meaning!
http://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/k-4/features/F_Engine_That_Does_More.html
For nuclear power proponents, I suggest reading the following:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/nuclear-plants-on-islands-nutty-idea.html
Nuclear power is far too expensive, too clumsy, far too dangerous, and creates far more problems than it solves compared to the proven, safe, and low-cost fossil fuel power plants.
Carol Browner is both corrupt (caught destroying her agency files and then lying about it) and a lunatic. Combined with a total lack of scientific credentials, a strong belief in socialism, total disregard for individual rights, and you have a thoroughly unpleasant person on your hands.
I was tempted to cheer about this, but on closer examination it looks like Comrade Browner is being kicked out for accidentally agreeing with reality on the BP oil spill.
She went along with the plain factual observation that bacteria were busily consuming the oil, which was heresy.
Oil is only part of nature when it’s still under the earth; as soon as we take it out, it becomes a Toxin Of Infinite Sinfulness, which can only be expunged from our Record Of Iniquity by buying Trillions Of Carbon Indulgences. She forgot this Infallible Truth for a moment, so she had to go.
The Environmentalism stance on nuclear power confuses me. They oppose all nuclear because of its potential environmental impact and champion hydrogen fuel cell cars, batteries and solar panels as clean energy. The manufacture of all of these things creates carbon emissions. The disposal of batteries is an ongoing concern. The production of hydrogen fuel requires large quantities of fossil fuels or water. The benefit of increased efficiency over the environmental impact is negligible. As I would argue with any of the aforementioned “green” energy sources.
Watch for Browner to lead and profit from the tobacco like lawsuits against oil and coal companies that are about to begin. I believe it was her who pushed through the endangerment finding for co2 by the supreme court.
starzmom wrote: “And the Obama administration has presided over the shutdown of Yucca Mountain and ended efforts to license it.”
Jeremy wrote: “Oh, and Obama’s loan guarantees for Nukes are a total farce. His direct decision effectively closed Yucca mountain before it had even begun operations, and after taxpayers paid all that money to create it/defend it.”
Amazingly enough, the Yucca Mountain Project is not completely dead. Work by the Department of Energy (DOE) has stopped on it due to Obama submitting a 2011 budget request with zero funding for the DOE and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). However, Congress never passed that budget and the government is still working under a continuing resolution for 2011 funding.
The DOE submitted a License Application to construct a repository at Yucca Mountain to the NRC for review in accordance with the Nuclear Waste Policy Act (NWPA). Halfway through the review, Stephen Chu (Obama’s appointee as the head of DOE) requested that the License Application be withdrawn (Amazingly enough, Chu was all for Yucca Mountain before being appointed Secretary of Energy. The only reply he gave when ask why it was being shut down was that the administration had decided to go in a different direction).
A panel of NRC judges with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruled that DOE does not have the authorization to do this. The commissioners at the NRC then reviewed the matter and could not come to a conclusion on what action to take. The Chairman of the NRC, Greg Jaczko, worked for Harry Reid (senate majority leader and as Senator from Nevada opponent of the repository) and has delayed announcing results of any vote that the commissioners took. Jaczko has also ordered the NRC staff to stop reviewing the License Application, a move that the staff disagreed with.
In the meantime, multiple States, cities, Indian tribes, and business men have sued in court claiming the work stoppage and failure to proceed with the License Application violates the NWPA. This case was stalled in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. But since the NRC Commissioners failed to take any action the court plans to hear oral arguments March 22. Given that the NRC judges with the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board already ruled that DOE can’t withdraw the license the Circuit court has a significant precedent.
Additionally, multiple bipartisan members of the House of Representatives plan hearings on this whole fiasco, as shutting the project down for no good reason (possibly other than to get Harry Reid re-elected) is seen as wasting ratepayer and taxpayer money. Money continues to be collected on every kilowatt of power generated by nuclear power to pay for permanent disposal and more court cases have been filed over this as there are no current plans for a permanent disposal site.
joe says:
January 25, 2011 at 1:05 am
“didn’t obama announce loan guarantees for the nuclear industry about 6 months ago?”
The loan guarantees use the same criteria commercial banks use and cost about the same. The price the federal government wanted for the loan guarantees for the Calvert Cliffs nuclear project was $800 million.
There are 3 big risks in a nuclear project
1) Construction cost overruns
2) Costs related to regulatory delays.
3) Demand Risks.
The only way to get over risks 1 and 2 is to build a pair of reactors of a given design.
The first one doesn’t tell us much as the regulatory risk and unexpected construction costs will be blurred. The second plant gives us an accurate picture of what the costs should be for plants 3+.
The purpose of loan guarantees was to address risks 1 and 2.
Unfortunately, along came a recession which pushed down demand.
Natural Gas Fracking also came along and no one can say for certain how much the price of natural gas will be absent a recession. Estimates range from $4-$8/mmbtu.
At $4/mmbtu for natural gas nuclear isn’t cost competitive. At $8/mmbtu it is.
In unregulated electricity markets the low cost producer wins. Building a nuclear plant when you’re not sure you will end up being the low cost producer is a bit of a problem especially if you are competing against subsidized windmills.
In states with 20% renewable energy standards that don’t define nuclear as ‘renewable’ the result is that windmills get built which require natural gas for load balancing. The end result is that there is no market left for nuclear.
Secretary Chu has been floating the idea of a national renewable energy standard that includes nuclear and coal/gas with CCS and just letting the electric industry executives figure out what makes the most sense.
Mick says:
January 25, 2011 at 1:34 am
“Pres. B.H.O. is a pragmatist. Eventually.
I hope!”
I understand why you believe this. The media has pushed the image of him being a cool and intelligent guy, but make no mistake his pragmatism is limited only to getting elected and re-elected.
I draw your attention to his presidency and chairmanship of the Chicago Annenburg Challenge for 5 years, which was a program whose goal was to improve education in Chicago. They spent over $100 million dollars and found zero improvement over schools they didn’t fund.
This is because they spent the money trying to radicalize students, improve their self-esteem, and understand their cultural roots. Here is some info on the subject:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212856075765367.html
He wasted $100 million then and he is wasting trillions now.
CPT. Charles says: “She was the key figure in opening up the Alamogordo Weapons Lab to espionage, thus the PRC gaining god-knows how much of our nuclear weapon designs and associated energy research.”
Alamogordo Weapons Lab? Typo?
Most (but not all) intelligent folks who see AGW as a serious generational challenge embrace nuclear as a base load energy source, including many who opposed it before the threat of AGW became apparent. Be careful in painting with too broad of a brush. While those wacky “environmentalists” may have driven initial opposition to nuclear power, it is primarily astronomical start up costs that have prevented new nuclear in recent decades. Most of the leading environmental groups, from business-minded NRDC to tree-hugging Sierra Club, recognize that nuclear has to play a role in a less carbon intensive energy future. (Environmnetalists are not the reason ethanol continues to be subsidized either … that’s the farm lobby).
While Obama pledged to triple DOE guaranteed loans for new nuclear, Congress did not carry that pledge thru with legislation. And there’s blame on both sides for that … the Dems tried too hard to limit that pledge to part of an overall energy bill that died its predicted death, and the GOP refuses to couple new nuclear incentives with any alternative energy incentives . It’s politics, and it’s a shame.
thegoodlocust: “The media has pushed the image of him being a cool and intelligent guy”
Anyone who has read Dreams from my Father must admit that Obama is very intelligent. Whether he is politically/ideologically misguided is another thing, but he is clearly a highly thoughtful person.
Colonel Sun says:
January 25, 2011 at 7:36 am
I’m bemused that the majority owner of Westinghouse Electric Company is Toshiba.
From my memory, the nuclear stuff went to Siemens. 20 years ago Toshiba was ban[n]ed for a spell because they ripped of some of our technology for nuclear subs.
Obama did not need Browner when he has Lisa Jackson killing the economy. Maybe he will highlight her single handed efforts in his state of the Union speech. Kill those jobs here and send them overseas. Deficits are good jobs bad.
Buddenbrook says:
January 25, 2011 at 10:05 am
“Anyone who has read Dreams from my Father must admit that Obama is very intelligent. Whether he is politically/ideologically misguided is another thing, but he is clearly a highly thoughtful person.”
The problem is that his actions have often been very very stupid. Does he come off as intelligent in a book? Perhaps, but I have no idea how much he contributed to his writings and how much was written by ghost writers or modified by editors.
I do know for a fact that he didn’t even manage to get minimal honors at Occidental college when he was getting his degree in poly sci – and that screams “idiot” to me. How he got into Harvard with a record like that is interesting, and I wish the media would’ve investigated his claim about graduating magna cum laude from Harvard since it is so at odds with his previous lack of educational accomplishment, but instead they simply parroted his claims. My personal opinion of the man is that he is a narcissist and therefore a liar.
Westinghouse was sold to Siemens (German-based engineering and energy and … company), but the Navy required that Westinghouse’s US Navy nuclear part NOT be sold to an overseas company (German or Japanese). So it was broken out from the Siemens sale and is separate. Not much publicized outside of the nuke business either. There are still nuke service in Siemens who have the drawings and people from the old commercial Westinghouse group. (The old Westinghouse consumer electrical group (stoves, refrigerators, AC, irons, etc.) was also sold to somebody – don’t know who right now.)
Siemens runs the former Westinghouse nuclear and non-nuclear power plant turbine and generator and repair business and their people and tooling and old buildings. But “service and repair” is very different than new construction and new construction design. (Almost no construction of anything in the US now under anybody except for gas turbines and gas turbine-heat recovery steam generation, so the “new” commercial nuclear plants are from Japanese owned companies running their own engineers using “local” US labor – like at the South Texas new Units 3 and 4.) Some of the nuclear power plant non-nuclear plant design IS identical to coal or GT power plant design, so some of the whole plant can be done here, but not the entire thing by any means.
GE is a Siemens competitor and a BIG Obama/democrat party links in many areas including “green energy” like windmills and lightbulbs and non-conventional power. They have similar issues of “new construction” limits for nuclear plants
We (the US) CANNOT now build the reactors nor steam generators anymore We MUST import those parts and forgings.
ALL those factories and rolling mills and welders and forges and whatnot are shutdown and sold for scrap: see Youngstown OH, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Buffalo, Philadelphia, …. or Baltimore. See ANY industry in those old buildings where Chicago Bridge and Iron used to be? Where the steel mill used to be outside Baltimore at Sparrows Point? Where US Steel used to be in Pittsburgh?
Simple stuff like cement, rebar, small pumps, and the small building steel pieces we can still make. But the big stuff? The designs themselves?
No more.
*****
Sera says:
January 25, 2011 at 3:53 am
Go nuke- and use the extra electricity at night to make hydrogen for my car.
*****
I worked with pressurized H2 — large utility generators are cooled w/H2 gas (but only at a mere 30 psi). I chased tiny hydrogen leaks at regular intervals for yrs. From that experience, I would not want an H2-powered car. Why?
1. Hydrogen is extremely flammable — more than anything else. It’s the epitome of volatility. When you “fill-up” at a station, there’s going to be some leakage. Note how even a tiny source of H2 like a lead-acid battery can explode when you jump-start.
2. It can’t reasonably be liquefied (unless you’re NASA), so to get any “storage” in a vehicle, it must be highly pressurized. You have a 2000+ psi pressurized “bomb” in your car. What happens in an accident?
3. Hydrogen is the smallest atom, so it leaks out of the tiniest crevices, pipe unions, valves, fittings, etc. Completely eliminating every leak is nearly impossible.
Given the current nanny-state concerning “safety”, it’d seem incongruent to have a vehicular hydrogen fleet. LNG, propane, etc, that can be liquefied & stored at reasonably lower pressure are much more sensible.
Well the big problem with Carol Browner leaving the White House, is worrying about where she will go next to brew up her poisonous potions. At least in the WH, we had her where we could see her.
Is Hansen really serious in pushing Nukes. Makes a lot of sense to me; but what is his angle. Lots of intelligent people have been arguing for more Nukes; so we shouldn’t pay a lot of heed to another one; who maybe just looking for another featherbedding job.
dwh, I’m surprised that you didn’t mention Mercury in your coal ash hazards menu. The greenies are constantly bashing coal on the basis that the burning of it in power stations is a major source of Hg contamination so we have to ban coal “for the children”.
So what’s the story, does coal burning re[l]ease lots of mercury ? And if so, how did the mercury end up in all those old trees.
But as for energy czars, I’m for getting gummint out of the way, and let private enterprise develop whatever energy solutions they want to; so long as it isn’t thermonuclear. We will all be in real trouble if we ever do get virtually unlimited supplies of energy from thermo. We will be able to mess up the environment something fierce.
For an old engineer like me, this is but a rerun of the energy crisis of the 1970s.
The main problem, as aways, is transportation and fueling points. The costs of providing fueling points would be enormous.
Back then, experimental vehicles were tried. For instance, compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles were tried. Of course, they had to be dual fuel vehicles, for the lack of fueling points. The mass of the CNG tanks on the vehicles, + the mass of a filled tank of gasoline made for extremely unwieldy vehicles with terrible performance, and the lack of energy density with natural gas as opposed to gasoline assured that before all that long, only gasoline was used.
Electric battery vehicles have and will have limited range, and there is no way to have an accurate fuel gage. They do run out of electrical energy abruptly. A few kilowatt hours can not be transferred to the battery quickly. The traffic congestion caused by all the tow trucks would be amazing. Are there no DIYs with lithium battery powered drills?
As for hydrogen powered vehicles, hydrogen/air mix is extremely explosive, and the last thing I want to drive is a miniature Hindenburg.
Transportation, transportation transportation. Any economy revolves around transportation. Our Interstate Highway System has fueled the economy of our nation since its inception, along with relatively inexpensive carbon based fuels. Goods AND services have to be transported as well as people. Fuel has to be transported, the less expensively the better.
The USA has the most reserves of carbon based fuel, in equivalent barrels of oil, as compared to any other nation. That is, petroleum, natural gas and coal. To prevent our use or significantly increase the costs of these fuels is no more than to destroy our economy.
Dr. Hansen may be correct once or twice per millenium.
Advocacy of nuclear power is probably his first. If he were to support electric vehicles powered by nuclear plants situated along the interstate higways (submarine size) and connected so as to charge the vehicle’s batteries on the fly. He could be correct a second time.
Until such plants are up & running we won’t be seeing many electric cars. AD 2200?
Roger Sowell says:
January 25, 2011 at 8:32 am
For nuclear power proponents, I suggest reading the following:
http://sowellslawblog.blogspot.com/2009/07/nuclear-plants-on-islands-nutty-idea.html
Hey Roger, here is a photo of 200 Mw of nuclear power in Hawaii.
http://www.navsource.org/archives/02/027632.jpg
As someone who has worked at a nuclear plant, a good portion of the increased cost is due to lawyers. Most of the paperwork and QC is just to document where the material came from so they could be sued in the future and hence the increased costs of every item. Prior to Three Mile Island, nuclear plant costs were in the range of 125% of a coal plant of same size.
You are correct in that nuclear power doesn’t follow power curves well. France gets by selling excess power to the ‘Alternate Energy’ countries, which the US cannot get away with.
Naval nuc’s have a long safe history and to not use the technology is a shame.
Dr Hansen agrees with noted conservationist photographer Ansel Adams in supporting nuclear power. That would make him a true believer in what he’s doing, not just your average Luddite.