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]

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.

I guess I could be worried about Obama's support of ethanol biofuels. What is the point of raising food prices for "renewable" fuels that have a large net positive carbon footprint because they need fossil fuels for fertilizers, harvesting, etc. I guess a carbon tax or cap-and-trade would accentuate that, which is why I wish that was getting more play. But, you know, taxes don't play well, even when we really need a particular kind.

Also, Ike....

[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.

If you are asking me to trust Republicans with more nuclear plants, then I need to ask why they have been sitting with so much old reactor fuel stored above ground. Have a look in 10 C.F.R. 20 and let me know whether they think soluble U-238 is more dangerous than the insoluble they are converting it to. When the Department of Energy throws open the doors to Yucca Mountain, I will reconsider my position on new nuclear.

Wind power is less expensive, and has been for years. It's been competing with coal, which new nuclear hasn't been able to do for a while. It's easier to put up faster, and doing so creates jobs without inflating the economy. Pouring more money down the new nuclear hole at this point does not appeal to me.

I'm glad McCain is backing cap-and-trade, and I hope he and Obama both get asked about it. I guess supporting ethanol fuel is okay if it's part of a crop management plan which will increase topsoil, and breaks even in carbon.

[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 boot ethanol infrastructure, but it's not a big win for anybody but agribusiness and the politicians wishing agribusiness' support. Non-corn ethanol is much more interesting (there are plants in Florida being built to use citrus byproducts), but so far it's vaporware.

[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 this Slashdot story made me laugh a lot.