j_b

Libertarians like JayB often bring up corn ethanol subsidies (a bad idea to be sure), yet they never mention the much more important subsidies to fossil fuels that have been written into the tax code. Anybody knows why that would be?

What is evil is pretending the neoliberal race to the bottom doesn't demand that leveling occurs near the bottom for all peons (except for medical doctors with their protected status).

Without subsidy there would be no nuclear industry but that won't prevent JayB from telling us that nuclear is the way to go. Talking from both corners of his mouth per usual. We also won't discuss external costs (like what coal extraction does to other activities) left to pay by the citizenry because that's not subsidy according to JayB's strange math.

JayB gloats about the effects of "free trade", i.e. competing with subsidized industry in China, and concludes that energy subsidies don't work. What A joke!

troll.

MIT report: "Findings: Geothermal energy from EGS represents a large, indigenous resource that can provide base-load electric power and heat at a level that can have a major impact on the United States, while incurring minimal environmental impacts. With a reasonable investment in R&D, EGS could provide 100 GWe or more of cost-competitive generating capacity in the next 50 years. Further, EGS provides a secure source of power for the long term that would help protect America against economic instabilities resulting from fuel price fluctuations or supply disruptions. Most of the key technical requirements to make EGS work economically over a wide area of the country are in effect, with remaining goals easily within reach. This achievement could provide performance verification at a commercial scale within a 10- to 15-year period nationwide." http://geothermal.inel.gov/publications/future_of_geothermal_energy.pdf what other energy resource can you say this about? Certainly not coal (dirty and impossibly expensive to clean and get rid of CO2 emissions, utter destruction of all other resource), oil (GHG's, Spills, resource peak), nuclear (uncertain resource, cost, risk), hydro (resource maxed), and wind and solar aren't base-load yet although they could easily become so with the evolution of storage. Who is bullshiting whom on this considering your pushing nuclear just a few pages ago?

This is just an excerpt, check out the full speech if you have time: [video:youtube]0k5dptjc3LY

1)it sounds like you are describing nuclear (high initial investment requiring public dollars, expensive, no existing technology to deal with waste,...), not EGS. 2)EGS is a proven technological breakthrough. Its cost? The MIT report found that EGS could be capable of producing electricity for as low as 3.9 cents/kWh. 3)we are discussing sustainable energy production, i.e. it's the real economy, not the make believe world of passing external costs onto future generations, and we don't have to be absolutely competitive with current unsustainable coal economics. But, even though, EGS will be competitive with the dirtiest, most unsutainable form of energy within a few years. EGS is possible most everywhere and doesn't need storage, grid infrastrucure or waste management.

Sounds like Larry is on Republican health care ("hurry up and die")

Are you suggesting that having a strong ego isn't a good thing or that being unconscious of it is not good?

Nice piece at huffpo about resource extraction mismanagement and its cost: On Louisiana coast, damage from oil goes much deeper than spill Chris Kirkham Last summer's Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico -- the largest offshore oil spill in recorded history -- made the Gulf Coast states the poster children for the enormous environmental risks posed by energy production near their shores. But while the BP spill was conspicuous, an even more profound wave of environmental destruction has been steadily battering the Gulf Coast with little public scrutiny for most of a century: Continuous oil and gas development has contributed to the disintegration of nearly 2,000 square miles of Louisiana's coastline -- an area larger than the state of Delaware -- making New Orleans far more vulnerable to the flooding inflicted by hurricanes that regularly roll in off the Gulf. Pipelines and navigation channels meant to ferry oil and natural gas from the vast reservoirs beneath the Gulf have chiseled away at the natural landscape of Louisiana, degrading coastal forests, swamps and marshlands. Many scientists believe the weakening of this formerly protective layer of land enabled Hurricane Katrina to lay waste to key areas of the city. "These are long term problems that make the effects of the oil spill, even in the worst-feared case, pale by comparison," said Donald Boesch, the president of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Sciences who has studied coastal Louisiana and the Gulf for more than 30 years. Yet despite the damage the oil and gas industry has imposed on Louisiana, the state has received only a minute fraction of the billions of dollars in royalties doled out by oil companies over the years in exchange for leasing the Gulf from the federal government. Instead, most of that money has landed in the coffers of the U.S. Treasury by dint of a decades-old disagreement over who controls the bounty of the sea -- the states, or the federal government? Huge stakes hang in the balance: Offshore oil and gas revenues, primarily from the Gulf, have contributed more than $150 billion to the federal government's coffers since the 1950s, the second largest source of revenue behind taxes. To be sure, Louisiana has seen significant economic benefits from the presence of the oil and gas industry -- not least, approximately 15 percent of household earnings, according to the state, and tax revenues and fees that contributed about 14 percent of the state's general fund. But state leaders argue that a lack of direct compensation via a slice of offshore energy royalties has left them with inadequate funds to restore lands that have been harmed through oil and gas extraction. The damage has left southern Louisiana, and particularly New Orleans, acutely exposed to the anticipated effects of climate change. The city is widely considered the most vulnerable in North America to the impacts of rising seas. [...] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/11/louisiana-damage-deeper-than-spill_n_807274.html?view=print

it's also an investment issue; since fossil fuels are subsidized, the energy majors have no incentive to go all out for renewables. For example, Washington state and many other western states have great, essentially untaped, geothermal potential, and thermal solar power has a great future in southern states while the technology already exists for the most part. It doesn't seem at all like that if we were really trying there wouldn't be adequate solutions for the foreseeable future. cool looking blog about geothermal potential in Washington: http://northofthehotzone.com/

A good and short discussion of renewable baseload energy here

I stayed in one of those a very long time ago and it was quite nice for roadside camping. It certainly beats hauling a trailer. Considering fuel cost it'd be interesting to compare to a full size van.

Hong Kong: Capital of Domestic Slavery The Heritage Foundation is revolting.

and the report from Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War on the effects of Chernobyl, which is at 180 deg opposite to the WHO report: The IPPNW/GfS Report "Health Effects of Chernobyl - 20 Years After the Reactor Disaster" documents the catastrophic dimensions of the reactor accident, using scientific studies, expert estimates and official data: * 50,000 to 100,000 liquidators (clean-up workers) died in the years up to 2006. Between 540,000 and 900,000 liquidators have become invalids; * Congenital defects found in the children of liquidators and people from the contaminated areas could affect future generations to an extent that cannot yet be estimated; * Infant mortality has risen significantly in several European countries, including Germany, since Chernobyl. The studies at hand estimated the numberof fatalities amongst infants in Europe to be about 5000; * In Bavaria alone, between 1000 and 3000 additional birth defects have been found since Chernobyl. It is feared that in Europe more than 10,000 severe abnormalities could have been radiation induced; * By referring to UNSCEAR one arrives at between 12,000 and 83,000 children born with congenital deformations in the region of Chernobyl, and around 30,000 to 207,000 genetically damaged children worldwide. Only 10% of the overall expected damage can be seen in the first generation; * In Belarus alone, over 10,000 people developed thyroid cancer since the catastrophe. According to a WHO prognosis, in the Belarussian region of Gomel alone, more than 50,000 children will develop thyroid cancer during their lives. If one adds together all age groups then about 100,000 cases of thyroid cancer have to be reckoned with, just in the Gomel region; * Altogether, the number of Chernobyl related cases of thyroid cancer to be expected in Europe (outside the borders of the former Soviet Union) is between 10,000 and 20,000; * In more contaminated areas of Southern Germany a significant cluster of very rare tumours has been found amongst children, so-called neuroblastomies; * In Germany, Greece, Scotland and Romania, there has been a significant increase in cases of leukaemia; * In a paper published by the Chernobyl Ministry in the Ukraine, a multiplication of the cases of disease was registered - of the endocrine system ( 25 times higher from 1987 to 1992), the nervous system (6 times higher), the circulation system (44 times higher), the digestive organs (60 times higher), the cutaneous and subcutaneous tissue (50 times higher), the muscolo-skeletal system and psychological dysfunctions (53 times higher). Among those evaluated, the number of healthy people sank from 1987 to 1996 from 59 % to 18%. Among inhabitants of the contaminated areas from 52% to 21% and among the children of affected parent from 81% to 30%. It has been reported for several years that type I diabetes (insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus) has risen sharply amongst children and youth. http://www.ippnw-students.org/chernobyl/research.html

here is a map of the region concerned at Chernobyl, to put your "complete crap" in perspective:

I said the consequences of Chernobyl were covered up. Can you tell the differences with what you wrote? It appears that TMI didn't cause any cancer, although we aren't certain, but we came within 20 minutes of a serious melt down with major consequences. I see a lot of misinformation about nuclear and most of it comes from the nuclear lobby.

too many people wrongly dismiss the influence of the wingnuts: 60% of elderly voters gave the victory to the GOP during the last mid-term. That is the single most important age group viewership to propaganda organizations like Fox.

too many points to answer considering I am quite busy today so it'll be a quicky. I provided a link to ~8 estimates of peak uranium, some of which are further into the future than the one you cited. It seems a more balanced approach than relying entirely on on one estimate that appears to be the work of the nuclear lobby. Chernobyl was a disaster with huge consequences that were covered up. The WHO report for Chernobyl cited something like 43 casualties, which is a total joke as there were likely more casualties among the workers who buried the reactor in the weeks following the 'accident'. Ukrainian medical researchers have shown there were/will be 100,000 of cases over the decades following the melt down, huge areas unusable for decades because of contamination. Also, check out how close we came to a major melt down at 3 miles Island in 1979 to understand the risks, and epidemiology reports are always controversial. a French technocrat elite played a role but so did the bottomless pit that is military nuclear research, their total lack of oil resource, the 80's recession forcing the closure of almost all coal mines, and their not being in control of the dollar printing press (like us) I'd reconsider nuclear if we didn't have a limitless potential of clean energy at a fraction of the problems and likely cost. if I have time, later I'll address base load, energy grid and renewables, which I agree is the most difficult aspect of relying entirely on renewable energy.

80 years is 'not too far off?' That's with a fairly lax exploration program. http://www.world-nuclear.org/info/inf75.html the wiki article I linked provides a range of estimates, some of which are considerably lesser than 80 years, and by organizations with less at stake than the one you cited.

the French program is no cleaner than anybody else, except the Russian program of course. The French haven't had a major problem but they had numerous small leaks that were hidden from the public, like everybody else. In term of the centralization needed to control the risk involved in a a nuclear program, civilian programs have little to envy to military programs. Climate change is not a valid reason to develop a nuclear program that entails risks much greater than renewable energy like solar, wind, hydrothermal, etc ...Especially, that nuclear centrals need river water to cool, which was notoriously a problem during the 2003 heat wave when river waters became so warm (due to heat wave and cooling reactors) as to threaten river ecosystems. Since summer heat waves are supposed to ~double in frequency over the past, it seems to be something we take into account. Finally, the costs involved in nuclear (including liability) are likely greater than that of clean energy programs as shown by having few private investors willing to invest in developing plants.

I was pointing out that peak uranium might be not too far off and it'll get a lot more expensive when we have to mine and refine low grade ore.

[video:youtube]MeRTCepmkqQ