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There are doubts about Dept. of Energy Sec. Chu regarding support to nuclear energy. Nearly all of his public actions to date have lacked focus related to this. However, Sec. Chu sent a letter to the White House’s OMB in December 2009 complaining about the [OMB] recommendation to curtail advanced reactor research and implementation. Is the OMB independent or is it listening to the President? Based on Chu’s rant, the OMB is working counter to the DOE and the necessary efforts to have a full portfolio of useful solutions for energy and used nuclear fuel streams. Several commentators* have picked up on this internal high level dirty laundry. Put together with other contradictory messages from the White House (http://kandg.org/WPBlogger/?p=272), one could consider the present administration to be governing in a Byzantine** manner. *http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/2429274/posts **of, relating to, or characterized by a devious and usually surreptitious manner of operation <a Byzantine power struggle> b : intricately involved : labyrinthine <rules of Byzantine complexity> Does anyone know who made the following two statements?
The first was made in a speech by President Obama on October 15, 2009 in New Orleans. The second was in the President’s December 9, 2009 response letter to the following in a personal letter to the President October 25 :
The “N” word is absent from the President’s direct response. Despite the hint of encouragement in his October speech, the response to corporate America’s request for nuclear enablement is continued shunning at nearly all levels of US government as is exemplified at the USA-CARGO.INFO website. This is in spite of the growth of public acceptance of nuclear power from 50% in 1996 to nearly 70% in 2008 (slide 24). Is this modern President living in the past? As is shown by the BPA Balancing Authority wind production charts, the foremost Presidential solution continues to be nothing but a poor supplement in a modern nation hungry for low cost power. Average wind energy capacity is at best 30% of installed turbine potential and has an availability factor of nearly 0% for any meaningful time period. The second Presidential supplemental solution (solar) is the most costly and suffers similar capacity problems. Heck, it’s not even available at night. The avoided nuclear option has a proven dispatchable/available capacity of 90%. The President’s focus on non-nuclear ‘green renewable’ energy conflicts with pursuing energy independence. The solution to the vagaries of the masthead wind power is to use natural gas. Natural gas is also proposed to compensate for turning away from coal. Current advertising claims that we have 90 years of inventory available. What will that become if we convert to this form? 50 years? 30 years? Definitely a short time compared to the potential of no greenhouse gas emissions nuclear. In addition, the President’s goal of immediately doubling or tripling wind power will affect only about 2% of our nation’s total energy needs. Compare this to the 27% of total in foreign petroleum consumption in the transportation sector. Since there is very little coupling of the electrical sector to transportation, the argument is non-productive. As wind and solar power are implemented without new nuclear, we become more dependent on compensating fossil fuels and foreign sources. Electrification of and synthetic fuel for transportation require lots of energy unlikely from wind and solar. The potential for nuclear power to support modern needs for several millennia requires nuclear fuel re-cycling. At one time, the US had capacity to reprocess over 18,000 metric tonnes (mt) of used nuclear fuel per year. The processed uranium was recycled back into production reactors. Through re-cycling, the current inventory of 70,000 mt at US commercial reactors can be reduced 20 fold. The cancellation of funding for Yuca Mountain storage is a huge opportunity to revisit the known processes and advances in use in other countries (Obama, Oct. 15). We need to get on with implementation of Generation III reactors and restart research and implementation of Generation IV to fuel those. The latter gives us the opportunity to close the fuel cycle and generate new energy and fuel as an expanding resource. We need to stop the 30 year moratorium that is the current defacto operation mode of the US. If we start now, we may be able to catch up with the rest of the world in 15 to 20 years. Making two conflicting statements on energy at the Presidential level does not help us get into command of our energy destiny. “What did they say, a hundred years ago, when they burned cow hides?” Not only does David’s son get it, but so to, the US Department of Energy Office of Inspector General. Many of us with past exposure to the DOE know of research stimulus grants to lots of folks in energy and climate research. So it was not to surprising to see the links to the US DOE Savannah River Site causing Monday’s litigation hold on all related notes, documents, and correspondence in that realm. This author has used the services of the IG before; they are serious dudes. This author’s first inkling of the memo was a drop in on the British Telegraph blog by James Delingpole. He shows the meat of the DOE order and traces the linkages back to East Anglican University’s Climate Research Unit in both correspondence and funding. Looks like it may be a long winter for many climatologists. As the Chinese curse says: “May you live in interesting times.” The Memo: “December 14, 2009 DOE Litigation Hold Notice DOE-SR has received a “Litigation Hold Notice” from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) General Council and the DOE Office of Inspector General regarding the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia in England. Accordingly, they are requesting that SRNS, SRR and other Site contractors locate and preserve all documents, records, data, correspondence, notes, and other materials, whether official or unofficial, original or duplicative, drafts or final versions, partial or complete that may relate to the global warming, including, but not limited to, the contract files, any related correspondence files, and any records, including emails or other correspondence, notes, documents, or other material related to this contract, regardless of its location or medium on which it is stored. In other words, please preserve any and all documents relevant to “global warming, the Climate Research Unit at he University of East Anglia In England, and/or climate change science.” That should slow some things down a bit. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. – Edmund Burke The recent revelations of document and correspondence materials from the Climate Research Unit at Anglican University brings me to contemplate Burke’s statement again. There are millions of good people in the sciences around the world who have done little to challenge the ‘consensus’. On first seeing the news, this skeptical scientist paused to consider that such a revelation could be as cooked as the suspected aspects of the climate change debate. The potential vindication of skepticism abounds. But, if the revelation stands proper scrutiny, then significant damage is done to science as a standard of inquiry. Good scientists record the what, the how, and the conclusions in a manner for others to examine, challenge, replicate, accept, or refute in an open process. What is showing here is a set of people bent on defending without showing the evidence, including falsification of data. The notorious temperature hockey stick was the first guffaw in the process: no data, no algorithms, no derivations. Only with the perseverance of two scientists who would not do nothing were we enlightened as to the fraud, still being defended by its proponents. Is there a conspiracy? That is being denied. But as has been done before, following the money has revealed strange monetary and political collusions. Yes, as RealClimate.org opines, scientists are people. However, that in no way excuses the blatant abuse of the science process, ethic, and stature. Now, even Monbiot is questioning the method of defense by climate change advocates. Time will tell. Hopefully, there will be some humility on both sides of the issue. That will be the only thing that can restore science to the respect it tries to attain. Maybe something will compute. But, today, the hypothesis of climate change caused by man computes less. On November 10, the Benton County Public Utility District (PUD) in Southeastern Washington state presented it’s information regarding the need for an electrical consumer cost rate increase for 2010. Residential will see a 4.6% increase and heavy industrial users such as the local large agricultural food production farmers will see 8%.  Energy Choices (BPA hydro is yellow line). Part of the presentation included a chart showing the new resource cost estimates for various power sources without subsidy from taxpayers. As shown in that chart here, the sources recommended for use by the Northwest Power and Conservation Council (NWPCC) have costs that are integral multipliers above the projected percentage rate increases. So, if we continue to let the soft supplemental energies be our primary focus, we can expect significant increases in cost for less reliable energy. Sounds like war on the poor. In addition when questioned, the PUD commissioners had no idea or explanation of the makeup of the ‘Conservation’ element in the chart. It is documented that conservation numbers are generally endogenous (fake) based in planning models. However, they unanimously agreed that the NWPCC’s recommendation of avoiding 85% of new build through conservation was ridiculous. Looks like the public has some serious learning and lobbying to do or roll over to subsistence living. |
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