McCain Going Nuclear (power)

[bhikkhu]

"Why is it that European countries have come up with solutions that people generally approve of? They have been able to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions," he said. "In the case of France, 80 percent of their electricity is generated by nuclear power."

McCain acknowledged the controversy surrounding nuclear technology -- including the "billions we've spent already trying to clean it up ... It's staggering and we have a whole lot more to do."

"If other countries are able to make use of nuclear power ... I don't know why the United States of America can't."

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/05/13/mccain.environment/

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Just to put on the table what the opposition is cooking...personally I think nuclear is a dangerous dead end, but so it coal and NG. Wind and solar require infrastructure development first, then an entirely different expectation for scale of use. That is (speaking for myself rather than my candidate) gross consumption must decrease. Carter said this too, and I admired him for it.

[Selatius]

1. And for some reason people went ahead and elected Ronald Fucking Reagan.

The first thing Reagan did was junk the solar panels Carter had installed on top of the White House, and then the next two decades turned into examples of mediocrity instead of vision and leadership in terms looking for new ways to live with less and new sources of energy. We should be decades ahead of where we are today, but people opted to buy SUVs instead.

[bhikkhu]

2. Thanks for mentioning that.

28 years later, whenever I hear Reagan mentioned, I remember that he junked the WH solar power system. Great president? I hope history knocks him down a few notches below Carter, at least. He set us back decades while the rest of the world marched ahead...

[anigbrowl]

13. Fully agree. Carter had the long view but Reagan was all about the quick buck

I'll speak up for Reagan now and again not because I admire his policies but because he was a political genius, and we should learn from his ability to connect with the electorate on an emotional level. Unfortunately he degraded Americans' patriotism and enterprise something awful and turned freedom into a codeword for selfishness, greed, and irresponsibility.

when I was a teen growing up in Ireland during the Reagan years we were terrified that he was going to lose it and start a nuclear war. The soviets looked sane by contrast, even if they didn't know what they were doing economically.

[boppers]

3. Nuclear buys us greenhouse time.

Basically, we can collect the radioactive stuff off the ground, concentrate it, and buy a bit more time with proven technology, but the only long term (>500 years) solutions are gonna have to be renewable... wind, tide, solar, biofuel (etc.).

Right now, we just don't have a lot of viable options, and so we go with a series of lesser evils.

As far as concerns about radioactive concentration, we really need to invest more into reversing the process. We have a whole lot of technology going into concentration, but not a whole lot into dilution and re-scattering it back around the same world we pulled it from.

Heck, the current "thinking" is to keep it insanely concentrated, and, uhm, bury it? :eyes:

[Egnever]

5. Interesting statement

Nuclear buys us greenhouse time.

I need to chew on that one for a while.

Thnx

[bhikkhu]

9. Perhaps...I am not sure nuclear is a good transitional power source

Each plant is a huge project to build and maintain. Mining uranium is a problem - the mining infrastructure has slid for decades and now uranium demand outstrips supply. A new infrastructure needs to be in place. Disposal has no good solutions yet.

I am inclined to think that we have a limited amount of energy and funds to put into transitional power sources, and the amount that would be funneled into nuclear would scavenge from every other more promising project. And then everything we dump into nuclear is likely to become "stranded infrastructure", massive investments into temporary non-solutions.

[boppers]

11. You make a good argument.

What gives me pause is the thought of possible rolling blackouts, as we transition away from dead-end tech to sustainable solutions... can we ramp up sustainable technology fast enough to handle the load? Do we invest in load-abatement, and sustainables, at the cost of much grumbling? Do we slam the money into sustainables exclusively, at the (possibly huge political) cost of doing the right thing?

I suppose, put another way, from another time, should we put solar panels on the white house and wear sweaters, at the risk of having another yet-another-8-years-of-insanity as a follow up?

[anigbrowl]

14. Seconded. I'm actually pro-nuclear in principle...

as it does have a lot going for it if managed right. The problem is that a good sustainable nuclear infrastructure means planning on a 25 horizon and I don't think our political system is very amenable to that.

A friend of mine (a conservative who I've converted into a firm Obama believer) has this idea that since we run aircraft carriers and subs with small nuclear plants and no disasters, there might be some benefit in deploying smaller reactors as a supplementary rather than a central part of our energy infrastructure. He's a retired engineer and I think he might have a good point. He's also turned into a really effective Obama advocate; when I met him 4 years ago he was arguing for re-electing Bush, but a lot has changed since then.

[McCamy Taylor]

4. MSNBC/GE is backing McCain because they make billions on nukes.

That is why their "pro-Obama" coverage has all been anti-Hillary smears designed to look like oppo comining from the Obama camp. They want the Dems at each others throats.

[Youphemism]

6. Everyone running is pro-nuclear

Of course, Nader doesn't count.

This may be the first time ever that we have all pro-nuclear candidates running. I know that Obama and Clinton claim to be against Yucca Mountain storage -- they had to campaign in Nevada. I'm not sure where McCain is on that, but given that he's supposed to be a states' rights advocate, he should be against that, too.

[boppers]

7. It helps to differentiate between energy gathering, and energy disposal.

We all live in a wash of radiation.

What makes nuclear technology interesting is the use of that radiation.

What makes it ugly isn't that the earth and stars warm us with it, then we gather and concentrate it.... but rather, what makes it interesting is what we do with our concentrations.

Yucca is all about trying to bury the "old" concentrations, and their related materials.

The simple solution seems to be dilution, to put the isotopes back where they came from. Scattered about, a bunch of weak noise, absorbed by their counterparts.

[Barack_America]

8. Kick!

Thanks for the oppo research!

[bhikkhu]

10. Compare MCCain's "Gee whiz...why don't we?" w/Obama's plan:

http://www.barackobama.com/issues/energy/

The impression is: McCain = 6th grade project, Obama = just getting it done, and done right.

[smalll]

12. If our climate crisis is as serious as the global-warmers contend, seems to me -

the pro-nukesters have the only present answer available.