Political thought #2

[babasyzygy]

Just once, I'd like to see a vocal Democrat say, "you know, Obama's relative lack of experience is truly an understandable cause for concern. But in balance, I'd rather have somebody who tries to work in the right direction rather ineffectively than someone who is efficient and doing the wrong things. Any President has a host of appointees,

Comments

[strspn]

I tried to do this, and can't figure out how I could be concerned about an editor of the Harvard Law Rev who wants wind and plug-in hybrids. Sorry. Cred is cred.

[babasyzygy]

I can't tell whether you think that's a good or bad thing.

Mind you, both major candidates want wind and plug-in hybrids... rhetoric aside, their positions are not very different on energy: do everything, including drilling except for in ANWR (McCain is opposed to drilling in ANWR, Palin supports it).

They're not even very different on Iraq, in practical terms: both want major combat troops out sometime soon (McCain says after an imminent "victory," Obama says a soft 16 months), both want to leave a residual force indefinitely.

[strspn]

It's a bad thing. I should be terrified as hell that Obama might lose, making phone calls to swing states every night. Why am I not calling 10 people in swing states every day? I should be.

At least the R.N.C. speakers mentioned both global warming and climate change, once. Same as President Bush, lol. Obama wants $150 billion in renewables, McCain wants 45 nuclear plants and $2 billion for clean coal. On the other hand, the Democrats love plug-in hybrids and wind power, and know fossil fuel is better used for plastics than to burn. FOX's Major Garrett blogs about the energy plan differences, calling it a "Frontier Issue." Okay

[babasyzygy]

McCain backs incentives to develop technology, and manufacture and purchase zero-emission vehicles... the methodology is different (and neither will survive contact with Congress), but the goal is the same. McCain backs cap-and-trade, too - this was another point of contention between him and the rest of the Republican party.

I have 0 problem with 45 nuclear power plants, and wish it were more. Nuclear should be our source of base-load power. But you're right, this is a place in which they don't agree - and I think Obama comes up badly wanting. But honestly, I simply can't ignore the choice of Biden vs. Palin as backups.

[strspn]

The problem is that nobody knows how many jobs are in 45 power plants, and if McCain squeaks by, are the Democrats likely to make it any easier? Even if they could bring themselves to, the regulation at the local level can make or break a nuclear plant

[babasyzygy]

I think it's pretty much a given that any massive roll-out of nuclear power plants needs a massive change in the legal structure around it. I, for one, think we really should be reprocessing most of that waste, and that we really need an approval process that stands a change in hell of approving designs newer than cutting-edge 1960s technology. I think that there are a lot of options for dealing with post-reprocessed waste once our politicians understand where nuclear power has gone elsewhere in the world over the last 50 years.

Wind power is a great source - the world's largest wind farm is about 200 miles from my home. But it's not an answer to the base-load problem, which is what you still need when the wind isn't blowing and the sun isn't shining. In my ideal world, we'd have grid-supplied nuclear power and grid- and local-supplied wind and solar (depending upon where you are, in Texas we have plenty of wind and sun).

Corn Ethanol fuel is, IMO, a major boondoggle - it's interesting as a first generation stopgap measure to

[strspn]

I have not closely studied modern fuel reprocessing, so I could be wrong about this, but the last time I read about it there seemed to be some clear suggestions that we would still need about the same amount of space for hot waste. In either case, if Yucca Mountain stays tied up in red tape, there's still an above-ground waste problem whether we are reprocessing or not. When Yucca Mountain opens, I don't think I'd be objecting to new traditional or new reprocessed fuel nuclear plants. And it's not like Yucca Mountain is going to be a one-way trip for old reactor cores. When we need to reprocess them, they will be retrievable.

But as we add more wind and the cost of fossil fuels increases, the increasing relative proportion of nuclear and hydro-power (possibly with added pumps to convert it to pumped-storage hydro) may be enough to shape intermittent wind sources. If not there are a lot of other possibilities including industrial-scale chemical batteries which I think would be very cool.

On a vaguely-related note the comments on

[babasyzygy]

BTW, Antonin Scalia was also an editor of the Harvard Law Review.