Why Not Nuclear Energy?

Chernobyl and Three Mile Island had already pretty much brought the US nuclear power industry to a halt, when Japan had a tsunami at Fukushima. These were all bad accidents.

The truth is, though, not many lives were lost. Compare lives lost in nuclear mishaps with those lost in the coal and oil industries, gas distribution explosions, much less accidents in employment of those energy products, and nuclear looks very safe by comparison.

Neither does nuclear power spew carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide and other products that will enhance global warming, sea level rise, and other expensive and destructive eventualities.

Nuclear power makes economic and public safety sense.

Still, there is vast public opposition to nuclear.

Ashutosh Jogalekar, a chemist, examines in Scientific American the five most significant reasons that liberals oppose nuclear power. He counters each reason with a rational discussion of pros and cons.

Good article, worth reading.

I mostly agree.

Jogalekar likes the liquid thorium reactor design for its improved safety. He does not mention the pebble bed reactor, which China seems to favor.

I believe the liquid thorium reactor is similar to the design used in the twin-reactor power plant of USS Triton, commanded by Captain Edward L. Beach during the first submerged circumnavigation of the globe.

Wind Energy And Cherry Point

Last night the Pamlico County Board of Commissioners and the Pamlico County Planning Board had a joint meeting at the court house to receive a briefing by Cherry Point on wind generation systems. Specifically, Cherry Point briefed on problems for their air operations that are anticipated from wind turbines.

The briefing acknowledged that it is national policy and the policy of the Department of Defense to encourage alternative energy sources. The briefing did not emphasize, as it might have, that Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has been a leading proponent of alternative energy. 

The main focus of the briefing was how wind turbines adversely affect Marine radar systems and how important radar is to their air operations. The main challenge was how to mitigate those effects.

Unfortunately, Cherry Point officials offered no hope and no prospects of hope for mitigation. "To date," one presentation slide asserts, "no study data is published indicating technology exists to eliminate wind turbine adverse effects on radar."

That isn't exactly what was reported in a 2008 study by MITRE Corporation, one of DOD's most experienced electronics contractors. "There is no fundamental physical constraint that prohibits the accurate detection of aircraft and weather patterns around wind farms. On the other hand, the nation’s aging long range radar infrastructure significantly increases the challenge of distinguishing wind farm signatures from airplanes or weather.

"Progress forward requires the development of mitigation measures, and
quantitative evaluation tools and metrics to determine when a wind farm
poses a sufficient threat to a radar installation for corrective action to be
taken. Mitigation measures may include modifications to wind farms (such
as methods to reduce radar cross section; and telemetry from wind farms to
radar), as well as modifications to radar (such as improvements in processing;
radar design modifications; radar replacement; and the use of gap fillers in
radar coverage).

"There is great potential for the mitigation procedures, though there
is currently no source of funding to test how proposed mitigations work in
practice. In general, the government and industry should cooperate to find
methods for funding studies of technical mitigations. NOAA has an excellent
research plan, but no adequate funding to carry it out.

"Once the potential for different mitigations are understood, we see no
scientific hurdle for constructing regulations that are technically based and
simple to understand and implement, with a single government entity tak-
ing responsibility for overseeing the process. In individual cases, the best
solution might be to replace the aging radar station with modern and flexi-
ble equipment that is more able to separate wind farm clutter from aircraft.
This is a win-win situation for national security, both improving our radar
infrastructure and promoting the growth of sustainable energy."


So the problem isn't technology, it is budgets for what may prove to be fairly minor improvements to radars, new procedures, and possibly coatings for turbine blades to reduce their radar cross-sections. I got the distinct impression that the Marine Corps isn't sufficiently concerned to spend any R&D funds fixing their radars. Why should they, if they can achieve the same end at no cost by intimidating state and local government? The only cost would be to retard economic development in Pamlico County and that doesn't cost the Marine Corps a dime.


In her introductory remarks to the meeting, Commissioner Holton emphasized the potential economic development benefits of wind energy to Pamlico County.

Speaking of mitigation, any measure to replace fossil fuel energy sources with non-carbon alternatives such as wind, solar or nuclear, will delay anticipated sea level rise from global warming. That should matter to every resident of Pamlico County and elsewhere in Eastern North Carolina. In my case, I just raised my house three feet to mitigate the effect of storm surge after Irene. But predictions are that the sea level will rise one meter (39 inches) this century. If so, my house is back in the flood waters.

So I am in favor of wind, solar and nuclear power. No single solution - all of the above.

This discussion has been going on for awhile here and here and here and here and here and here.

Virginia Republican House Speaker Shows Integrity And Class

Republican Representative William Howell, Speaker of the Virginia House of Representatives, ruled that a Senate redistricting bill which had been added to a bill calling for minor “technical adjustments” to House districts.  Virginia Senate Republicans tacked on a 36-page floor amendment that redrew Senate lines across the state. That amendment, Howell ruled, was not germane to the original bill.

The redistricting plan, which received national attention when Virginia Republicans took advantage of the absence of a Democrat regarded as a civil rights leader, who was away attending President Obama’s inauguration. The measure likely would have passed in the House had it gone to the floor for a vote. But Speaker Howell had the power to make it go away. Had it passed the House, it would almost certainly have led to a court challenge, since the Virginia Constitution stipulates that redistricting be done the year following the decennial census.

It's a pleasure to read of an action based on a legislative official's sense of integrity. Well done, Speaker Howell!

Baggywrinkle

A lovely home built gaffer tied up at Town Dock today. Nicely rigged, complete with baggywrinkle.  The owner says he has sailed her 23,000 miles.

If I can ever figure out how to upload from my iphone, I'll put up a photo. Here it is.

Too Many Choices?

My wife is from Texas. When I was stationed in a distant location, she would write home and ask for a "care package" of essentials, including Ro-Tel tomatoes, an essential ingredient in chili con queso. There was never any confusion. Go to the store, find the canned tomato section and pick out one or more cans of Ro-Tel tomatoes.

No more. Now we have choices. There are at least four recipes of Ro-Tel tomatoes. Plus Ro-Tel tomato sauces. I have to read the labels. Before, if we wanted to spice up the con queso, we could add stuff to the tomatoes: a bit of lime juice, some chopped up cilantro, maybe some more jalapenos.

What if none of the four recipes is exactly what I want? Then I can add spices, just like I used to.

Am I happier? Not necessarily. Has life improved now that the various recipes are canned by Nebraska food conglomerate ConAgra instead of some small outfit in Texas?

Is it possible to have too many choices?

Take a look at the rest of the cans in the tomato section. Several different brands. All offer canned, peeled, whole tomatoes, crushed tomatoes, diced tomatoes (with and without peppers), reduced sodium tomatoes, tomatoes with and without basil, plum tomatoes, round tomatoes. More labels to read.

How many years has it been since the US Supreme Court decided I need more choices in my telephone service? I stubbornly stayed with AT&T. I can't have them for land line, but my wireless and e-mail service are with AT&T.

I know people who change their wireless service at the slightest whiff of a possibly better deal. I prefer stability. I still get occasional e-mails from people I haven't heard from in decades.

Works for me.

The problem is, I feel afflicted, not freed, by the multiplicity of choices I have to make. All these choices appear to have been inflicted upon us by the children of Tom Brokaw's "greatest generation." I have a hard time accepting that characterization. I think the baby boomers are arguably the worst generation. Self-centered. Not all of them. Some of our children fall in that cohort. They aren't self centered. But many are and they have dominated markets and dominated intellectual and political discourse for too long.

We hear a lot of assertion of rights. Currently it's about "our second amendment rights." We hear very little discussion about obligations.

Society is the poorer for the absence of such discourse.

All is not lost. At least one author has undertaken a thoughtful examination of choices and markets. He is a Canadian scientist, and I just came across a link to the first chapter of his new book, No One Makes You Shop At Wal-Mart. Check it out.

Public Alcohol: Don't Scare The Horses!

It is revealing to read letters to Town Dock concerning recent proposals to allow consumption of alcoholic beverages on Town property under some circumstances. I'm not sure what it reveals, but I'm sure Commissioner Summers was surprised at the vehement opposition to what he thought was a modest proposal.

I am reminded of a remark by a highly fashionable lady concerning another sort of activity:

"My Dear!" she said, "I don't care what they do so long as they don't do it in the street and frighten the horses!"

Education And Ignorance

I took a first crack yesterday at Governor McRory's attack on higher education in North Carolina. Make no mistake - that is what it was.

Concealed in his remarks about "butts in seats" was an apparent contempt for liberal arts education. Also embedded in his remarks is an erroneous thought that has been given wide credence: namely, that our present level of unemployment is the result of a mismatch between jobs available and personal skills of job applicants. This view seems to be widely shared across party lines. To correct unemployment, some contend,  we need only train more persons in the skills that are so desperately needed.

Unfortunately for the theory, there is no evidence to support it. Unemployment is uniformly high across all fields of endeavor. The problem is lack of aggregate demand, not a jobs-skills mismatch.

Of equal significance, CEOs uniformly complain, not about inability to find qualified employees, but that they can't find employees who can analyze a problem and write persuasively about it.

They are looking in the wrong place for skills like that. They should be seeking graduates of liberal arts colleges.

Brian Rosenberg explains in today's Huffington Post.

Elections And Democracy

Something to think about.

You can't have democracy without elections.

You can certainly have elections without democracy.

There are several schemes afoot to do just that.