As a conservative environmentalist (and no that is not an oxymoron), I am sick of clean nuclear power being held hostage to the alternative power fad de-jour. We could have, and should have, replaced every smog generating coal power plant in the country 30 years ago if Greenpeace and the other back to the stone age Green socialists had not blocked any form of meaningful progress. Their stubborn insistence on unrealistic New Source Review standards and opposition to nuclear power has led to more pollution in our air and water than any 10 purposely polluting corporations. We also need to counter their arguments regarding subsidies for the nuclear power industry by pointing out the vast bulk of such subsidies consist of the Federal Government providing liability protection against frivolous lawsuits threatened by environmentalists in the very unlikely event of a major disaster. No nuclear power plant in the last 50 years has ever had to tap into that subsidy. The remaining subsidy has been the construction of Yucca Mountain, defined going forward as a “sunk cost”.

Enough already! If wind power is such a great power source than we would all want on board, which must not be the case since these companies need my money to keep them afloat. T. Boone Pickens tried his best to get people on board and didn’t change public opinion much at all, remember all those commercials?

Next they will tell us that this decision is too important to leave to the free market and so the government “specialists” should be able to do what they please with tax-payers’ money for the good of the environment. Well I am tired of these government “elites” without a whit of practical experience insulting my intelligence while wasting my husband’s hard earned income. 2012 can’t come soon enough for me.

You remember ethanol – huge subsidies for Big Ag, higher food prices, shorter engine lives, no relief from dependence on foreign energy, less efficient than gasoline, more damaging in toto to the environment, and politically impossible to get rid of.

Let’s not let Big Wind get its nose under the tent . . .

Big wind has no redeeming qualities. Look it up.

I hope this link works, this is a very good book on nuclear power. It’s somewhat dated (1990) but the science hasn’t changed. Chapter 8 on “Understanding Risk” puts risk into perspective and is worth reading even if you don’t read any other part of the book.

http://www.phyast.pitt.edu/~blc/book/BOOK.html

really want back to the feudal days when there was royalty (the ruling class) and serfs (us). They are against power lines, so big wind can generate, but not deliver. Nucs are the best solution to all power needs, just keep them in one form-factor (no 57-varieties). Let the nay sayers (force them) live without the power they detest. (and no home generators that pollute more than anything else). Pollution ratings need to be put on all items (electric cars manufacturing pollutes, as well as the coal-fired electric they charge with).
Stop taking my money to push your agenda!!!!

The mantra of “sustainability” is all the rage among the greenies, yet they have no problem with “alternative” energy produced by “industries” that will need subsidies in perpetuity in order tonot just be competitve, but for thier very existance.

How many here think the the Republican House will pass a bill to defund the fraud of wind power? Anyone, anyone?

Mini-reactors are the new generation of clean energy.
Did anyone know that Bill Gate and Toshiba are teaming up to produce mini-reactors that can run on spent fuel rods and last for thirty years….?

Gates specifically backs a new a new type of reactor known as a traveling wave reactor (TWR). As he explained in a February keynote at TED, a TWR could actually use the depleted uranium currently being produced as a waste product of existing nuclear reactors. According to Gates, just the existing waste currently squirreled away in hazardous waste sites could power the U.S. for two centuries. Each reactor would potentially produce between a few hundred watts and a gigawatt of energy – enough to power a small city.

But wait there’s more.

Hyperion power module.

The Savannah River Site could soon be home to a new “mini” transportable nuclear reactor. The Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL) and Hyperion Power Generation, Inc. announced their agreement this week.

Garry Flowers, president and CEO of Savannah River Nuclear Solutions, which operates SRNL under contract to the U.S. Department of Energy, says, “Small and modular reactors can become the primary base of new, clean power for the world.”

It would be nice to see the U.S. lead the way on this.
Imagine the future when large buildings or small cities can completely remove themselves from the grid by having their very own power plant.

It would have been developed in tandem with the rise of the petroleum industry in the 1940′s & 50′s. It was never viable until the social experimenters got ahold of it and pushed the government to subsidize it. It is still not self sustaining and never will be. You cannot force the wind to blow harder or force the wind to turn your turbines. My grandfather & uncle were farmers. I remember the windmills they had on the farm to pump water. And I also remember when they replace them with diesel generators to run the water pumps. And as a boy I remember asking my uncle why they needed as engine to pump the water when the windmill seemed to be working. And he said “Well if God would blow a little harder and more often I would not need this engine pump”.

I couldn’t agree with the article more. This is not that wind power is a bad idea in itself, it is the business plan. If bailouts are required, it should be rethought.

The government waste over $100 Million on a solar plant in CA and these companies want them to keep throwing massive amounts at continued ventures that are destined to fail.

Green jobs are garbage, if the econaomy wanted them we would have them. 2012 can’t come fast enough for me either.

http://crazyconservative.wordpress.com/

Cancun climate conference: the warmists’ last Mexican wave

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/8181558/Cancun-climate-conference-the-warmists-last-Mexican-wave.html

Why, for instance, when our public debt is still rising by £3 billion a week, do we allow our Government to ring-fence £2.9 billion of our money to help the developing world to build useless wind turbines and solar panels?

Why do we tolerate a Parliament which blithely commits us to spending £18.3 billion every year for 40 years under the Climate Change Act, without having the faintest idea how we are going to keep our lights on?

The global warming scare may have been fun for the children while it lasted. But the time has come for the joke to be declared well and truly over.

Yes, why indeed.

The US ONCE had a nuclear power industry, but thirty years of neglect and scorn have taken away our ability to do nukes.

Westinghouse Electric Company was sold to Toshiba. General Electric’s nuclear technology is now GE Hitachi.

The “Class-A” certified workers who built US nuclear power plants are retired or in their fifties.

Neither Chicago Bridge and Iron nor any other American firm retains the machinery needed to BUILD a sizable nuclear reactor.

“Small and modular” reactors is a pipe dream … our remaining nuclear reactors might qualify, but are constrained to use on ships and submarines. Despite their power, the energy needed to drive a ship is far less than that produced to generate electricity for a city. And the design parameters for a civilian US nuclear power plant include the ability to withstand the impact of a 747!

Wind sounds good … if you don’t mind killing off a few bugs and birds, reducing efficiency by 30% in a few months … finding out that the land “downwind” of wind farms turns into desert due to turbulence and rapid evaporation … or that turbines and cables far out in the ocean tend to corrode from the natural action of oceans.

One could remember the “stimulus” of Synfuels Corp … a $4 billion waste of taxpayers money that discovered that turning coal into oil is costly, although the Germans of WWII thought it effective, and the South Africans do it to this day.

If business plans that depend on bailouts are unsuccessful … just ask the executives of S&Ls or Goldman Sachs. A modest $10 billion contribution to Congress over the past ten years brought them $trillions in taxpayer money. And not a few politicians bought up failed S&Ls for their retirement portfolios.

Meanwhile, the Dresden nuclear plant was first activated in 1960 and none of the fish in its cooling ponds have more than one head, to this day! Three Mile Island was decommissioned, but “The Kemeny Commission Report concluded that “there will either be no case of cancer or the number of cases will be so small that it will never be possible to detect them. The same conclusion applies to the other possible health effects.” Harrisburg PA is still standing.

Harry Reid and his predecessors were only too happy to take $18 billion to build Yucca Mountain, and South Carolina is suing Congress for “breach of contract.”

Nuclear energy solves a great part of the “carbon crisis,” but neither environmentalists nor Congress will let it happen. Our chances are blowing in the wind.

Let’s say a company that sends me and my family on vacation 3 times a year,a dn invites my wife and I to dinner once a week,a dn has no real income coming in…it doesn’t take too long untilt he IRS shuts that down as a fake company…..

how can a continual subsidisation company then continue to exist?