Good morning!
WE NEED ENERGY NOW
How do we get rid of hydrocarbon usage in this country? It’s pretty tough. According to a Wall Street Journal article, right now we’re getting 60% of our energy from hydrocarbons (coal, natural gas and oil). The other 40% comes from hydropower (which dams up our rivers), nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal and other renewables. The choices before us are among a series of less-than-optimal choices. If one chooses to go “all in” on wind and solar, one must delay the decommissioning of coal-burning plants for a very long time. If one chooses nuclear, one must address the issues of melt-down and the disposal of waste. If one does nothing, the earth will continue to heat up. There is no easy solution. But suggesting doing nothing—or maintaining the purity of purpose that will not accept any pollution or risk—are themselves decisions with consequences.
While we are increasing our solar, hydrogen, wind, and geothermal production, we are going the other direction with nuclear power. This is bad news in several ways:
There are limits to the production and storage of wind and solar energy. Until we can store vast amounts of this when it’s produced, there is a limit to the efficacy.
Solar energy and wind turbines require rare earths and other substances that are polluting to mine and are not easily attainable at a reasonable cost (and the largest producer is China)
We still need to think about ridding ourselves of some of our hydropower, both because it affects our natural waterways and fisheries and it become increasingly difficult to generate power if droughts become a regular fixture of our environment, forcing reservoir levels to further decline.
Wind power needs regularly constant wind and it endangers wildlife.
It’s time we made a real choice between various alternatives, each with their challenges. I would argue that for the above reasons we must embrace greater nuclear power production. I’m not saying geothermal energy production isn’t promising, nor am I suggesting that we might not ultimately find a way to store meaningful amounts of energy in batteries, nor that we might not crack the nuclear fusion puzzle. But none of this is accessible with current technology.
This leaves nuclear as the most immediately available energy source. It’s clean. It doesn’t require that we purchase rare minerals from others. It utilizes known technology. It will reduce the disease and death spewing from coal and oil burning plants. It will allow us to un-dam our great rivers and restore natural habitats, including fisheries. The major risk, of course, is a major nuclear event. But we’ve only had a few of those. In two of those, Fukushima and Three Mile Island, the problem was handled, if messily. Chernobyl also was a different matter with more significant risks (and let’s remember that Russian reactors of that vintage didn’t have adequate containment systems). I believe the United States can effectively control the risks associated with nuclear power.
France, Israel, and others are looking toward nuclear power to help solve the energy demand. Ninety-one percent of France’s power comes from clean sources (including nuclear). Some, like Germany, are going the other way (their percentage of clean sources is much lower). Wind and solar require between 400 and 450 times more land mass to produce the same power as a single nuclear plant. I am told that moving toward small modular reactors will help in reducing the transmission cost and the potential risks of larger plants. We should lift the restraints on approvals of nuclear plants and get to work cleaning up the environment.
And when new technologies are found and take hold, perhaps we can start decommissioning the nuclear plants. But not until then.
YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP
Fifty-six percent of all Americans believe that Arabic numerals should not be taught in the schools. Most of us recall that the “regular” numerals we use (i.e., 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.) ARE called “Arabic numerals.” Jingoism and fear of others apparently knows no bounds. Of course this is ludicrous and serves only to point out the prejudices of people—as well as why we can’t give people the right to determine the curricula in our schools. By the way, 72% of Republicans don’t want to teach Arabic numerals. Here’s an article in the Independent:
Clearly this is about nomenclature and knowledge (who would actually object to learning numbers?) but it underpins the prejudice of the people trying to control curricula and the fears they have of anything foreign.
Have a good day,
Glenn
From the archives:
Very interesting. As a follow-up to this blog, it would be interesting to cite ways we can each make a difference. For example, cut back on driving, flying, electricity, retail returns, garment purchases, and meat consumption.