Where an underachieving, 2.9 GPA-havin' 2nd-tier state university graduate takes on the Harvard-educated leader of the Free World.
Welcome to the inaugural edition of Monday Morning President! I realize it is not Monday. And as I type, "morning" is quickly fading. But I just recently returned from an extended Caribbean holiday, bitches... every fucking day this week feels like Monday morning. So, like... shit, man. Mellow your criticizzy a tad will you?
OK. Let's get right into it:
Several weeks ago, while touring a Maryland training facility for energy jobs, President Obama announced 8.3 billion in federal loan guarantees to build a nuclear power plant in Georgia. It would be the first such plant built in the country in over three decades.
The good news about the announcement?
The good news about the announcement?
This president pronounced "nuclear" correctly.
The bad news?
The bad news?Well, aside from the fact that it's a backwards move at odds with the forward-thinking (but apparently poor listening ) "green voters" hugely responsible for Obama's election and the fact that it's a proven failed technology that's no safer or less expensive than it was 30 years ago, there really isn't any. Oh, and some may also find the fact that about a quarter of existing plants in the U.S. (built with the same technology that would be used for the new Georgia plant ) are leaking tritium slightly disconcerting.
Pssh. You ol' Nervous Nellies, you.
(Above) Seems fine.
Obama has two words for those people:
So with virtually everybody against the development of nucul--damnit--nuclear energy, what in the fragglerockin' name of Zeus is Obama's motivation here?
I dunno.
Maybe these guys can tell you.
So with virtually everybody against the development of nucul--damnit--nuclear energy, what in the fragglerockin' name of Zeus is Obama's motivation here?
I dunno.
Maybe these guys can tell you.
Posts
11 comments:
My environmental opinion may not be worth much, due to incoherence, (I've opposed wind power on the grounds of disrupting bird migrations, yet I currently have a styrofoam cup of water staring at me from my desk) but I wholeheartedly disagree.
Obviously it's not a perfect technology, but if it hadn't been allowed to stagnate for decades we might actually be making some progress on reducing carbon emissions. Bitching about tritium leaks while coal and petroleum plants continue to scorch the sky more and more each day seems to be missing the gaping head wound in favor of a scraped knee.
Wall Street won't touch renewable energies (in any meaningful way) with a ten foot pole either, and will continue to ignore them until the tech matures into something that looks good on quarterly balance sheets. Nuclear could be a useful stopgap between our current reliance on dirty energy and a pie-in-the-sky future of fusion and renewables. A future which most people seem to be content to wait patiently for while blackening the sky with fossil fuels.
Environmentalists can't just be against everything. Renewables aren't happening in the near term, and the last time we tried to convince everyone to wear sweaters and turn down the thermostat, Reagan won the next election in a landslide. Nuclear power may not be squeaky clean, but it beats the status quo.
Also, people who constantly toss up legal roadblocks to the construction of new plants are not allowed to argue that "delays in construction" make the technology cost prohibitive. While it is technically a valid argument, it's also a self sustaining rhetorical feedback loop and an implicit threat.
"We are going to fucking sue your ass, and when it eats into your bottom line, we'll use that as an argument against your technology's feasibility."
Focus people! We'd be better off improving nuclear power technology than protesting against it. A radiation free wasteland is still a wasteland.
knarfie, i love you. but this comment = way off base.
"Wall Street won't touch renewable energies (in any meaningful way) with a ten foot pole either"
Wall Street interest re: nuke energy isn't just low, it's non-flippin'-existent. On the other hand, any investor can see that public opinion (and sustainability of the world economy) will only keep trending toward green tech. It's profit potential and the continuation of the human race are intertwined. It's an investment device that could satisfy Wall Street's greed AND humanity's desire to continue on... I'd say that's a pretty solid sell.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703657604575005083160626318.html
http://www.greenchipstocks.com/investing-in-renewable-energy
"and the last time we tried to convince everyone to wear sweaters and turn down the thermostat, Reagan won the next election in a landslide."
it's not 1980 anymore, duder.
"Focus people! We'd be better off improving nuclear power technology than protesting against it. A radiation free wasteland is still a wasteland."
No. We're better off using the billions of dollars needed to make ONE damn plant (and the god-knows-how-much in upkeep and eventually decommissioning it) to develop the relatively inexpensive solar/wind technologies and smarter urban blueprints that we truly need.
"Nuclear could be a useful stopgap between our current reliance on dirty energy and a pie-in-the-sky future of fusion and renewables."
It wouldn't be. It's horribly inefficient, wouldn't offset enough carbon spewage and oh, yeah, have we figured out what to do with nuclear waste yet? Wasting time with "improving" nuclear energy only retards the growth of the true solutions, while we're left to deal with spewing smokestacks AND radioactive waste/leakage/meltdowns/financial costs.
"Also, people who constantly toss up legal roadblocks to the construction of new plants are not allowed to argue that "delays in construction" make the technology cost prohibitive. While it is technically a valid argument, it's also a self sustaining rhetorical feedback loop and an implicit threat."
Come on... now you're just being ridiculous. This is not what makes the technology cost prohibitive.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/06/02/nuclear_power_price
"It's profit potential…"
*Its
I'm just going to let Greenpeace co-founder (and current environmental pariah) Patrick Moore state my case:
http://www.greenspirit.com/logbook.cfm?msid=240
The long and the short of it is that nuke is still far cheaper than renewables per kilowatt hour, (nobody is seriously investing the kind of money wind and solar need to produce anything close to nuclear or dirty fuels) nuclear waste is an overblown issue (too bad Obama just shuttered Yucca mountain for good, preventing it from becoming a complete non-issue), and meltdowns are nigh impossible with modern safety techniques.
On a side note, it's funny and sad how no matter what side of a given issue you fall on, Obama is probably doing something or other to disappoint/enrage you. That's what I call bipartisanship.
ugh.
1. patrick moore, climate change skeptic, is in no way a "co-founder" of greenpeace. anymore than I'm co-founder of K-Mart because I worked there for a summer. his association with greenpeace came over a year after its creation.
2. "The long and the short of it is that nuke is still far cheaper than renewables per kilowatt hour, (nobody is seriously investing the kind of money wind and solar need to produce anything close to nuclear or dirty fuels)."
This is exactly the kind of shortsighted fuckery that got us in our current energy mess to begin with. Even if nuke energy is cheaper per kilowatt hour (I haven't seen the stats on that, so I'll take your word... though, with wind and sun being free, i raise a brow to that claim) it's entirely too much to spend on backward-thinking tech and inflexible infrastructure that can't eventually be converted to a power station for safe renewable energy.
3."nuclear waste is an overblown issue"
huh??? you're trollin' me, right?
4. "(nobody is seriously investing the kind of money wind and solar need to produce anything close to nuclear or dirty fuels)"
nobody? please see links from previous response. and of course the investment isn't anywhere close to what's needed to produce the output of dirty fuels… NOW. dirty energy has over a century headstart and an entire fecking industrialized world dependent on it. But that wasn't always the case…
"Dude who was involved with, briefly ran the Canadian chapter of, and has since had a falling out with Greenpeace" doesn't have quite the same ring to it.
My blundering onto that rhetorical landmine aside, I stand by my controversial statement: nuclear power is not that scary compared to the threat of global climate change and the fact that the Tea Partiers and their ilk would rather fight a sequel to the Civil War than accept any changes to the lifestyle to which they have been accustomed.
Without any sudden miracle developments in solar panel efficiency or cold fusion (which would be the most promising tech to invest in if not for the fact that it might not be physically possible), we're pretty much fucked by now anyway. Of course there is always the singularity to hope for...
And I'm totally not trolling about nuclear waste, much of it can be reused and what's left over could (except for all the NIMBY roadblocks) be shoved into a box the size of a Howard Johnson inside of Yucca. Dangerous for about a century and the area's natural inhospitality should keep most of the Morlocks away for the next 10,000 years. (Also, if a Morlock gets ball cancer because he really wanted to climb inside of a mountain in Nevada to hump a giant concrete box, more power to him.
Not perfect, but I think it beats the hell out of burning dinosaur bones until we run out and start eating each other's faces.
Everyone else is free to join in on this spirited discussion. Otherwise it's just gonna be me and Fridley pummeling each other until one of us loses interest.
lose interest? fat chance, black! why, i'm one of the most tenacious debaters you'll ever-HAHA! Hey! This potato chip looks just like Craig T. Nelson of televsision's "Coach"!
I say until someone can finally harness the true power of Apples, its a moot debate.
This just in...Powersauce, is Amazing!
I win!
*SMOKE BOMB*
what?? how do YOU win? *I'm* the one who found the Craig T. Nelson potato chip…
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