h/t Willie Soon – Lifelong Democrat, Founder and President of Environmental Progress, and Time Magazine Hero of the Environment Michael Shellenberger will stand as an Independent candidate for Governor in the 2019 California Election.
Shellenberger, who supports nuclear power as a legitimate means of reducing CO2 emissions, is horrified at Brown’s efforts to shut down the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. He accuses the California Democrat Party of corruption, waste, environmental destruction, and hurting poor people with out of control cost of living increases.
Dear Friends,
As most of you know, atomic humanists around the world have recently scored a series of big victories protecting nuclear power, our largest source of clean energy.
Last year we won in Illinois and New York; this year we won in South Korea, Connecticut, and France.
Battles are still simmering in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey, where I will testify on Monday.
But the biggest battle is here in California — my home state.
Soon, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) will announce a plan to kill Diablo Canyon, our largest source of clean energy, and replace it with fossil fuels.
Who’s behind the CPUC’s effort to kill our largest source of clean power? Our anti-nuclear governor, Jerry Brown, who appoints its members.
As Brown travels around the world claiming to be a climate leader, emissions have risen in California every year since he took office. Meanwhile, throughout the rest of the United States, they declined.
The main reason? The Brown Machine’s successful effort to kill another nuclear plant, San Onofre, in 2012, and replace it with natural gas, at a cost to ratepayers of $3.3 billion.
The more I looked, the more corruption I found:
There is an active state and federal criminal investigation of the California Public Utilities Commission’s role in killing San Onofre;
The State Legislature has twice tried and failed to reform Brown’s corrupt California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC);
Under Brown, electricity prices in California rose 40 percent, from 13 to 18 cents/kWh — that’s four times more than rates rose nationally;
Every Californian family of four has paid $1,200 in higher gasoline prices since 2015 — and Brown Machine lawmakers in Sacramento refuse to investigate why;
Brown is trying to build ecologically destructive water tunnels — at a cost of $17 billion — that no independent water expert believes are needed;
Brown is trying to build a slow-speed train at a minimum cost of $64 billion — even though self-driving cars will make it obsolete before it’s finished.
The people who are paying the highest price are, as usual, the poor and vulnerable.
Today, California has the highest poverty rate in the nation. Why? Because the cost of living is so high, and wages are too low.
Air pollution has worsened in southern California, disproportionately increasing asthma attacks among the poor, Latino, and African American children.
Even though we pay some of the highest taxes in the country, seven percent of Californians lack health insurance, housing prices are outrageously high, and tuition keeps rising.
Meanwhile, our schools are failing. Less than half of our students are proficient at math and English. And Latino and African American students suffer the most.
And our prison industrial complex — rightly called “the new Jim Crow,” for its racially disproportionate impact — is maintained by lavish campaign contributions from the corrupt prison guards union to the Brown Machine.
Who is the heir-apparent to the Brown Machine when Brown steps down in 2019?
Gavin Newsom.
As Lieutenant Governor, Newsom is implicated in the corruption. Indeed, he has played a pivotal role in the effort to replace Diablo Canyon with fossil fuels.
When Newsom appeared on “The Colbert Report,” in 2013, he babbled like an airhead, but he is no idiot.
Why does Newsom spend all day attacking Donald Trump on Twitter and Facebook?
To distract us from his record running and ruining our golden state.
Meanwhile, none of the other candidates are telling the truth. None are offering real solutions. And none can be trusted.
Over the last year I have struggled with what to do.
I went to Sacramento and discovered that the few clean legislators who exist are powerless against the Brown Machine;
I tried and failed to participate in the corrupt CPUC process;
And I tried and failed to recruit a reform-minded legislator to run for governor.
None of it has worked.
I am left with one option to save our largest source of clean energy, and our state, and that’s to run for Governor.
While I appreciate this may come as a shock, I hope you will consider supporting my candidacy.
First, though I am a lifelong Democrat, I’m running as an Independent. The Democratic Party is corrupt, through and through.
Second, I’m running to win, and “winning” will require more than getting elected. It will require enacting sweeping reforms.
Until we smash the dirty Brown Machine, nothing we do on jobs, schools, health care, housing, or energy matters.
I only came to this decision very recently, and very reluctantly.
I hate politics for precisely the reason I am running for governor: it’s a dirty profession and must be cleaned up.
I have spent most of my career fighting for clean energy. Now, I must fight for clean government.
I have spent my life creating and working for not-for-profit organizations. Now, we must make California’s government a not-for-profit organization.
I did whatever it took to win in Illinois, New York, South Korea, Connecticut, and France — I will do whatever it takes to win in California.
This won’t be easy. The Brown Machine is backed by millions of dollars and the dark money of its allied special interest groups.
But we have something on our side they don’t have: the truth. It is the stone in our sling shot.
My campaign will be a campaign of action: it will consist of exposing the corruption of California by the Brown-Newsom Machine at every turn. Sunlight remains the best disinfectant.
The media gatekeepers can no longer stand in the way between the public and the truth.
Twitter and Facebook have ripped down the barriers to communicating directly with the people of California.
I need your help. I can’t win without your moral and financial support.
Before I ask you for a contribution, I want to ask for your volunteer labor.
We need everything: researchers; organizers; graphic designers; fundraisers; attorneys; and administration. If you’d like to help, please send me an email.
But don’t ask me for permission. If you support the reform agenda I’ve laid out here, then please just start campaigning: make your own Shellenberger for Governor sign; share this on your Facebook page; and recruit your friends and family to help.
I have so far only asked one person for his or her endorsement, and that’s climate scientist James Hansen. I am honored to announce he has given it to me.
Let me reassure you that EP’s critical work saving nuclear around the world will continue.
I will testify in New Jersey next Monday, and I will travel where I need to travel to defend clean power in crisis.
And I will keep a very bright line between my work at EP, and my work at Shellenberger for Governor.
Thank you for your support in helping EP to achieve our goals of nature, prosperity and justice for all.
Now let’s go fight for the California dream.
Michael
Source: https://m.facebook.com/michael.shellenberger1/posts/10154770325226895
Back in September this year I posted Extreme Poverty USA: The True Cost of Climate Madness, in which I discussed the horrific suffering caused in part by Jerry Brown’s climate zealotry.
While Shellenberger is not a climate skeptic, he does point out the obvious – renewables don’t work. They are hideously expensive, they don’t reduce emissions, and they hurt poor people.
Shellenberger also points out something which should be even more obvious, that nuclear power is the only viable way to rapidly decarbonise the economy – a point supported by high profile green activist James Hansen, former director of NASA GISS. Even hardline green campaigner Senator Sheldon Whitehouse thinks nuclear power is a good idea.
If Shellenberger wins, California will still be expensive and green; but if Shellenberger is true to his word, if the Brown climate madness is tempered with a little compassion, under Shellenberger poor people in California will have at least a chance of living their lives with dignity and hope.
California – much like Western Europe, Australasia and Canada – has an appointment with death. They aren’t going to vote for something which is sensible. Much of the population has gone quite literally gibbering insane and they feed off raw emotion. A sensible practical measure is total anathema to them and they will surely reject it in favour of Moonbeam’s eternal emo madness.
Perhaps instead of secession, some good citizens will petition Washington to replace the California government. It is failing in its prime objectives. It has run off chasing unicorns.
“Aside,I have been an environmentalist for 70 years, I even took first place in the HS Science fair for making…”
Is that like being a progressive? Just try to get folks with such labels to explain. Maybe usurbrain will give a shot.
I also one the science fair by making an x-ray using a radio tube and model T coil. This does not make me an environmentalist. Taking time to learn the science of the envelopment does.
Sometime between being born and my first ship in the navy, being an ‘environmentalist’ in California became political. In San Diego harbor we pumped bilges and left a noticeable oil sheen. It was not about protecting the environment it was about deploying to Viet Nam.
Being ‘ship shape’ has its own merits. You can eat of the floors in the engine room of a nuke ship or power plant.
So clearly nuclear is an environmentally friendly way of producing power but the ‘environmentalists’ in California are strongly against nuclear power.
The people to blame for closing all the nukes in California are the people who work at the nuke plants. I worked at a nuke plant in California that closed many years ago. When we were not busy shooting ourselves in the foot, were providing ammunition for the press to make us look bad.
The goal is to inspire you neighbors by setting a very high standard. Not come up with lame excuses. If you do that, just maybe the community will support your plant in a political battle.
Would people on the thread please use paragraphs?
When these people reduce atmospheric CO2 to their target level, will they pledge to also decrease their food consumption so the poorest among the world’s population will still have something to eat?
Maybe only then will these clueless activists realize how counterproductive their short-sighted objective really is!
“…Brown is trying to build a slow-speed train at a minimum cost of $64 billion — even though self-driving cars will make it obsolete before it’s finished…”
Wishful thinking. Otherwise it is nice to finally see some resistance to Jerry the Moonbeam.
janus,
Do you object to the “slow-speed” or the $64B?
Neither. I am questioning the self driving cars beating the train …
Shellenberger seems to be a slow learner.
Hope he learns more before he becomes Gov. of CA.
I rate Brown at about 0.1, Shellenberger about 4.
That’s progress.
OT…but related to climate madness in California. Musk has announced that he is going to send a Tesla roadster to Mars by next month. …http://www.sfgate.com/entertainment/the-wrap/article/SpaceX-CEO-Elon-Musk-Plans-to-Shoot-a-Tesla-to-12400753.php
In other mad news regarding Musk, I read a piece last week which claimed that Musk plans to launch 4425 satellites in the next several years with the plan of starting an internet company. Musk may finally end up with a money making business yet. If at first you don’t succeed try, try, try, try again and again. …http://www.newsweek.com/spacex-applies-4425-internet-satellites-elon-musk-522152
That is unregulated capitalism for you.
Well we can’t all be Venezuela.
I smell a rat.
Worral said:
“Shellenberger also points out something which should be even more obvious, that nuclear power is the only viable way to rapidly decarbonise the economy.”
The old ‘carbon’ canard, as if CO2 = chunks of sooty carbon flying around in the air.
More precisely, why ‘deCO2, the economy’ at all?
CO2 give us increased plant life which equals a better environment for all.
Shellenberg nonsensically said:
“Air pollution has worsened in southern California, disproportionately increasing asthma attacks among the poor, Latino, and African American children.”
So asthma targets mainly the poor, browns, & blacks?
How does that work?
And CO2 is actually a bronchial dilator.
That is why breathing into a paper bag, or using breathing techniques that raise lung CO2 levels, can help overcome or even prevent an asthma attack.
So the excuse that CO2 is causing asthma is a load of anti-science crap….
.,… as is basically everything to do with the AGW Agenda
He did not say anything about CO2 being air pollution. You assumed he equated the two. Most people do not associate CO2 with asthma.
“Atomic humanists”??
That’s a new one, to me anyway.
The more recent GA and SC nuclear plant projects plus all the other lobbyist lies that came before them provide the basis for a financial intelligence test for all. It was always a financial disaster for the country and the ratepayers. It was the gift that kept on giving from the idiot president Jimmy Carter and all his Navy buddies, including the one who chaired the federal reserve system while taking interest rates to banana republic levels.
That is only because the uranium/plutonium light water reactor beat out the thorium molten salt reactor in the marketplace. And the former won for one reason. It was highly subsidized by the defense department because the former could be used for making weapons when the latter could not. But the latter would have been a far better system for nuclear power.
“It was highly subsidized by the defense department because the former could be used for making weapons when the latter could not.”
Rubbish. LWR’s are horrible for producing weapons grade Pu. To make bombs you use specialized graphite core reactors that you run briefly (weeks) and then process the fuel. Prolonged runs pollute the 239Pu with 240Pu which is wholly unsuitable for making a bomb and so difficult to separate you’re better off just enriching U to weapons grade directly.
Thorium is a needless distraction at this stage (and for centuries). We should just burn good old 235U in the form of LEU fuel in an MSR and call it a day. There’s no compelling need to have the added development time, complexity, proliferation risk (yes, Thorium is probably a bigger proliferation risk than Uranium), and cost of Thorium.
Politicians that believe in CAGW promoting nuclear over pinwheels is a good thing.
Some learned discussion above….
But look at the reality of nuclear plant across the US.
It is expensive to maintain as it gets toward end of life and that’s where a lot of it is. Nuclear plant has been closing faced by competition from gas, just as coal has.
And with 2 of the 4 plants under construction cancelled, there isn’t a pipeline or even any solid proposals of nuclear in the US.
where are the new investment proposals and designs? Govt backing for same?
Its dead for the foreseeable future (and nobody is building any more coal plant, either).
so: lots of great theory -zero chance of seeing new nuclear arrive.
Next solution?
To get private funding on nuclear, you need to be sure your legislative environment doesn’t kill your plan. Americans almost chose Hillary Clinton. You can’t do sensible investments in such an environment. I’m sorry Griff, there is no real solution as long as greens have so much political power. We need the energy prices to skyrocket, so that people understand green idealists are bad for your wallet. Then we need a new Reagan.
“But look at the reality of nuclear plant across the US.”
The US is the world leader in making electricity with 19% coming from nukes. Even with some plants closing, the US does not need to build new nukes because we are also the leader in making them run longer and produce more power.
“or even any solid proposals of nuclear in the US”
The COL process allows a utility to obtain a license to construct and operate a nuke plant in the future. That is an example of solid proposals.
“Next solution?”
What is the problem? Wind and solar are examples of solutions looking for a problem that does not exist.
Wind and solar design capacity factors suggest they are a poor solution at best. Actual performance indicates a cheap junk industry.
It is a good share. France is leading by percentage, 72%.
Next solution? It is a sane comparison of all-in costs for each public and private choice free of advocacy and special interest spin. That spans the rooftop installer arguments that want to ignore shared grid costs to nuclear interests who want to stick the cost overruns to the ratepayers later. But in California’s case it includes the tactics of stalling all pipeline projects to infinity.
Next solution? Assuming you’ve bankrupted coal with taxes and subsidies for solar and wind allowing the latter to sponge off the former then I guess you have to roll out more expensive refined fossil fuelled generation with our taxes in order to have reliable power-
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/diesel-generators-at-elizabeth-and-lonsdale-are-ready-to-provide-276mw-of-extra-power-to-south-australia-this-summer/news-story/b20bfc0eeb1ddf8a66d16e6c9218d3fb
Do keep up with these unreliables Griff.
Can you read a graph Griff? It’s like this mate- http://anero.id/energy/wind-energy/2017/june
and it gets worse with solar output. You know, night time when the sun don’t shine and you’re tucked up in bed with teddy mate.
“Fukushima (profit over safety)”
Icisil can back up that serious allegation?
“The designers of Fukushima did take tsunamis into consideration, but unfortunately allowed profit motive to attenuate safety concerns. To try to save money (water pumping costs) they lowered the plant elevation closer than they should have to the ocean and the modeled max tsunami height.
The designers of the nuclear plant just up the coast from Fukushima were more concerned about safety, and set that plant more than 50% higher than the modeled max tsunami height (a good decision IMO for such a potentially catastrophic technology). It survived intact, barely, because it was 1.8m above the max tsunami surge.”
The seismic tsunami design criteria for all the reactors designed to US standards is the same. They can be found in 10CFR50 Appendix B. It is based on historical records for 200 years and not crystal balls.
“potentially catastrophic technology”
I would hope that civil engineers who design schools and bridges use similar criteria.
The point is that we live in a world with with catastrophic natural disasters. In this case about 20,000 dies.
None were even hurt by radiation. The reason is there are more than 60 general design criteria. Dense in depth.
The more expensive safety features of nuke plants are containment building and redundant and diverse safety systems. This why nuke plants cost more than coal plants.
“To try to save money (water pumping costs) they ….”
The cost are the same.
Yes I can back it up:
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2011/07/13/national/fukushima-plant-site-originally-was-a-hill-safe-from-tsunami/
Safety was not compromised.
I would support Shellenberger, if I was a Californian.
“It should have been the design we used for power plants. But the military wanted a two-fer. They wanted to support technology for nuclear weapons and the thorium cycle was not suitable for that. ”
Here is the problem with this logic. There are many different experimental designs and several different commercial reactor designs in the world. Other countries are not obligated to follow our lead. The CANDU reactor would be an example.
A PWR LWR were adopted for naval propulsion because they would fit inside a submarine. They work very well. They were adopted for stationary power plants because they would fit in a containment building. They work very well. BWR LWR were also developed independent of the military. They work very well..
LWR have no practical use for making nuke weapons.
So why does this engineer know so much about LWR? They work very well. This based on personal experience not something a read on the internet.
Just for the record operating and designing commercial reactors is much more rewarding than reading crackpot ideas by those think they can do it better but will never do it at all.
He has a way with words: “smash the dirty Brown Machine”
That is pretty strong language. I do wonder how much tract that gets?
He accuses the California Democrat Party of corruption, waste, environmental destruction, and hurting poor people with out of control cost of living increases.
S.O.P. for the DemonRats. It’s what we’ve been trying to tell the nation for many years. Not, of course, that I think the Repubican party is much better.
The ‘Golden State’ is now the ‘No State’. Every fifty yards along the Pacific Coast Highway there is a no parking sign.
Just one of the reasons I am glad I am ‘from’ California.
If you paying more for gasoline or electricity than other states or countries; a likely reason is the tax structure.
It takes a lot of money to control every aspect of your citizens. For example, there restriction on window area for new homes.
When a nuke plant closes in California, it will be replaced with natural gas which has a sales tax. When you fill up at the gas station it is transparent. I just checked the ‘average price’ for Los Angeles to compare to the Louisiana city we are visiting. It is over $1 cheaper here.
We maintain utilities at camping trailer where we also have storage shed. Fixed cost for sewer, water, trash pickup, and power is $30/month. The variable rate for fuel in the power bii is $0.03/kwh.
The point is we pay government for services. That is fine with me until the service is wealth redistribution.
Bingo….and it’s no longer deductible on the Federal tax form.
It would appear with no more EV subsidies Mr Musk taking on the Everest of electrochemical storage has more than the ‘cobalt cliff’ to worry about now-
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2017/11/25/the-cobalt-cliff/
As one Rob Arnett elucidates so succinctly in the comments-
“I will take the liberty of saying what I think the poster is getting at.
1. That there are solutions available to those Tesla battery design issues mentioned in the article, but the known solutions will kill Tesla’s range claim.
2. That there are three considerations when talking about batteries for E.V. (electric vehicle) designs. Range, charge time and battery life. The most effective solution for one of these considerations negatively impacts at least one of the other two.
3. That there are solutions readily available that solve any one of the three. Any potential method of solving two of them at once is very difficult and definitely not readily available. There is no solution available to solve all three considerations at once that have even reached the stage of a successful test of the theory in a laboratory. Which needless to say leaves a multitude of real world conditions that aren’t even subject to conjecture yet.
4. Unstated in his post is the oncoming calamity which is the underlying goal of some countries to have every single lawn mower, tractor, car, truck, emergency response vehicle, industrial equipment etc replaced by e.v. in the next twenty years. A goal enforced by law in the hope that a solution for some fundamental battery problems will be solved in the next couple of years when the rollout of the conversion will have to start.”
Will Mr Musk be leading the assault on Everest is a poignant question some are beginning to ask or will he run out of sponsorship-
https://www.msn.com/en-au/motoring/news/comment-tesla-roadster-launch-is-an-illusion-nothing-more/ar-BBFZ4FE