Green Options

Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, is one man you can bet is clutching the prayer beads seeking some solace and hope that a potential nuclear power deal with one of the world’s emerging economies would land his country’s way.

That is, if the US Congress helps him by trashing George Bush’s deal with India before he can sign it into law. And the urgency means it is a critical time for both Washington and New Delhi. This might be easy if there’s no deal before the November presidential elections.

Here are the stakes: India seeks out partners to co-develop its nuclear energy potential, worth about US$ 80 billion. By 2032 the government plans to quadruple total generating capacity, to 700 gigawatts, with nuclear accounting for 63,000 megawatts.

A chemical engineer points to serious safety concerns at a South Carolina facility being built to convert recovered plutonium into fuel rods for nuclear power plants. Dan Tedder, emeritus professor of chemical engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology and a former independent technical reviewer for the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), says the NRC “want(ed) me to water things down (and didn’t) want [...]

It was only yesterday that the Congress led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) - the ruling party in India - was negotiating the Nuclear Deal with the United States, in an attempt to boost the country’s Nuclear Power sector. And now that the deal is set and ready to be signed, the Government is itself struggling to stay in power. Energy and ‘Power’ have indeed been closely associated in the recent past and politics is known to be governed by the energy sector. But when the world’s largest democracy faces a political crisis over an energy policy, we can safely conclude that in the climate constrained world of today, the only way to stay in power is to get the energy policy right!

T. Boone Pickens helps bring wind energy to the center of the energy discussion and the center of the political aisle.

Misguided Probing
I don’t think it made the 3 minute clip CBS aired, but in the full 12 minute interview Katie Couric instantly goes after T. Boone Pickens about his financial aspirations of starting a wind farm. Now I’m no big T. Boone Pickens fan, but Katie, people start companies to make money (and tycoons usually start businesses to make billions). As much as you can fault the man for funding the swiftboat attack ads against John Kerry, or fault him for his influence on the Republican Party, you can’t fault the man for starting a business and wanting to make money.

I think Katie is trying to get T. Boone to say what everyone already knows (so why even waste time probing for a confession?) which is, T. Boone Pickens doesn’t care about the environment or the economic revival of rural economies as the well laid out spinning on his Pickens Plan website would like you to believe.

T. Boone Pickens cares about money–and he’s good at making it.

So why then, poke and prod a man who will put his tycoon-ish master mind to work on an energy source that will benefit the nation environmentally and economically?
Katie should’ve poked and prodded T. Boone for what was curiously left out of the Pickens Plan.

Just another reason why uranium isn’t the way to go, it costs the taxpayer way too much money for what he receives.

Take the former Fernald Feed Materials Production Center at Fernald, Ohio, that’s about 20 miles northwest of Cincinnati.  The former uranium processing site opened in complete secrecy during the Cold War in 1951.  The plant fabricated uranium fuel cores for the U.S. nuclear weapons production complex until 1989, when it shut the doors.

Releases from the plant exposed residents of the small community of Fernald to radon, soluble and insoluble forms of uranium and various chemicals, both in groundwater and from blowing dust.  The health consequences to residents and former workers are still being evaluated.

With escalating oil and gas costs and growing French electricity imports, Italy is changing is stance on nuclear power. The re-elected Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi promised on his campaign to recommit the country to nuclear power and an heated debate is now popping up from north to south.

The general impression is there is still strong local opposition for three main reasons: high construction costs, projected build times of one to two decades and no identifiable Italian community willing to see a nuclear reactor built in their neighborhood. Italy has also failed to resolve the issue of what to do with nuclear waste. A proposed dump in Basilicata region was shelved in 2003 after thousands of demonstrators staged road blocks, marches and hunger strikes.

GOP candidate John McCain has his eyes on nuclear energy to address our current climate crisis.

Nothing like solving one problem while creating another. I can understand that he may hate the sun for what it does to his pasty white skin. And that he may hate the wind for messing up his well placed comb-over–but if he could just look past all that and see that both the sun and the wind could provide our country free, clean energy he’d have many more fans in the REAL world.

Could it be the one time cost for a wind turbine and/or solar panels that’s keeping the energy industry, John, and many of his right-wing good-old-boys from falling in love with the right alternative? Without the option for a wide base of customers to gouge repeatedly (ie. fuel costs) they all may be thinking–what’s the point?

For all the minorities in this country who have raised pluperfect hell about their past or current situations, the American Indian has been the quietist, and I wonder why.

Before you write me nasty emails, I’m not minimizing the concerns of minorities in this country: they have their issues and the right to use their voices, and that’s good.

But think for a moment about the original settlers of this land, the American Indian.

They did just fine for centuries, sustaining their cultures with the fruits of the land, picking fights and having wars, just like we all do.

Then, came the white man (no emails please, because that’s what happened), who invaded the natives’ birthright, confiscated their tribal lands, transferred them to reservations and literally forgot about them. Many of those Native Americans to this very day are without electricity and running water, in some cases, living in dirt poor conditions, and they languish without raising their voices.

How incredibly sad.

Nuclear power – an abundant source of carbon free energy, or a dangerous and expensive power source with huge risks to our health and environment?

Britain may not have much choice in this matter as its government seems determined to take the nuclear route in an effort to bring Co2 emissions in line with its reduction pledges and mitigate its dwindling North Sea oil and gas supplies.

Announcing plans to enter into a technology partnership with France, the UK government proposes replacing its 24 aging reactors - which currently provide 20% of the nation’s electricity - with a new set of nuclear power plants which will double Britain’s nuclear power generating capacity. In doing so, Britain hopes to become a “world leader in nuclear technology”, according to Energy Secretary John Hutton.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) plans to hold two public hearings next week on a request to extend the operating license for reactor 1 at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant.

The afternoon and evening hearings are set for Tuesday, March 4, in Middletown, Pennsylvania.

As we skate dangerously close to cut-off time, and this writer gets the distinct impression that he’s beginning to mix metaphors - the big question then: how does the UK feel it views environmentally pressing questions?

Looking to members of the website generous.org.uk I asked them what they felt. Commenting on my earlier blog concerning biofuels, Andrew Fleming gives a full and well-informed account of his personal views. Over to Andrew then:

“Biofuels are not a simple answer - until all the starving are fed, I would prefer that we feed the poor, rather than fuel the rich. It is not a simple question. If we do not alleviate climate change which is happening, then we will lose more land from active crop production due to global warming.