Global Warming

Today’s buzz word or should I say “Climate Change” is the flavor of the day. Personally, I know the world is going through a change, it’s always changing and there is nothing new about it. I wonder why Mars is going through a warming trend? Something to do with the sun? But I also think humans are having a negative impact and there is something we can do about it. Will it make a major difference, who knows. Can we do it and survive economically? Yes! We can do it and come out stronger. I will cover this in my energy policy.

Energy Policy

Say YES to nukes! As a guy who has over 20 years working in nuclear power plants and having received over 3 rem lifetime dose (not counting the many rems taking IVP’s and X-rays) I can tell you the American public has NO CLUE what a resource we have available to us.

Go ahead and tout 1979, Three Mile Island (TMI). Big Whoop. How many died? ZERO. More people have died choking on a steak than have died in nuclear power plants. Ten times maybe a thousand times more people will die from health issues eating at Burger Doodle than will die as a result of radiation. How many people got sick? Honestly I don’t know but I haven’t heard of any multimillion dollar law suits so if I heard about 1 person spilling coffee and suing (BTW winning) I think I would have heard about a few suing TMI. The technology has changed. Compare a 1975 Ford Pinto to today’s cars. Major changes, better, more efficient, and safer. Do you realize the rest of the world has figured out that nuclear power is a good way to go?

“Nuclear energy accounts for 90 percent of all electric utility reductions in carbon dioxide emissions since 1973” Patrick Moore, Cofounder Greenpeace before a US Senate committee.

And the US quit building plants in the early 80’s. We haven’t started new construction of a nuclear power plant in almost 30 years. Why? Hysteria is why! Ignorance as to how a plant actually operates and what the benefits are.

First “urban” myth. A nuclear power plant is a bomb waiting to explode. Pure myth. A reactor is designed to shut down. In other words you have to “make” it run. The more heat you want, the more water you have to push. The little bubbles that build up on the fuel rods (just like in the bottom of a pot you are boiling water) actually “kill” the reaction process. You have to force water through the reactor and get rid of the bubble to sustain the reaction. Secondly the fuel used is around 2% enriched. It’s not 98% like bomb material. These are designed safe and are no where near the point of “fixin” to explode at any minute. You may as well take a teaspoon of gunpowder and mix it with a 5 lb. bag of sand and call it an IED. Take time to learn more about them.

Another “myth”. “I seen a green glow coming from that tower with all the smoke coming out of it.” That “smoke” is water vapor and it’s not even from the reactor. In some units the reactor makes steam that turns a turbine (BWR). That steam is cooled by tubes of water and the cooling water is water you see giving off steam in the tower. IF and I mean IF a tube leaks, the cooling pressure is higher than the condenser pressure (actually its in a negative pressure state) and if there was a tube leak, the coolant water leaks INTO the condenser not the other way around. In other units (PWR) the reactor makes hot water, that in turns heats up water that becomes steam. It’s a totally separate unit. These units are used all over the world, safely. Chernobyl? Well that was another case where the reactor was trying to shut down and “forced” to operate causing the accident. It was operator error, not design error, and on top of it, that is another Pinto.

What’s the rest of my energy plan?

First we start training young people real life working skills. The US is falling behind in the crafts. Pipefitters, ironworkers, boilermakers, machinists, electricians, civil engineers, all kinds of trades are dying. We are too busy building strip malls and fast food joints we have lost our industrial base. If you want a large forging today you have to order it from overseas. Our steel industry has shut down. We are losing our crafts. Our kids want to have a corner office and be day traders or game designers. Go to any major plant during a shutdown and the contractor force looks like an AARP convention (of which I will soon be a proud member). It is the older generation that has all the skills, valuable skills that are going to be lost soon if we don’t do something about it. Yes, we are turning into a service economy. Look around you and tell me if you want your kids growing up in the “service” sector. Get used to asking “Would you like fries with that”? That’s part of a service economy. We aren’t making anything anymore. Who is going to fix anything 20 years from now. The US will have nothing to offer in a few years and not only will we be energy dependant we will be dependant on almost any manufactured good.

First we have to have the people, second we have to have the industrial resources. I want to build enough reactors to ELIMINATE ALL fossil fired base line units within the next 30 years. I want to totally eliminate the need for natural gas, coal, or oil fired units. That will give plenty of time for existing units to recover their investment costs and to be slowly mothballed at the end of their service life. We should have a combination of nuclear and hydro units to provide the power needs of the US for the foreseeable future. Did you know to order a new rotor for a turbine you have to get the forging overseas? We have gutted our manufacturing base. We are slowly selling our future to foreign countries.

This will reduce our current greenhouse gases by 81%. That’s more than anything anyone else has come up with. It’s doable and it actually makes sense. That should make a lot of tree huggers happy (nothing personal, I think nature is actually pretty wonderful). I believe it is the right thing to do. It will reduce our electrical costs. It will reduce our dependence on foreign oil.

I also want to build excess units to “cheaply” produce hydrogen fuel for the auto industry. I want Detroit to produce up to 50% of their units to run off hydrogen within the next 20 years. By then almost every vehicle on the road will be replaced any way. I want the US to lead the world in reduction of POLLUTION. I want the US to lead the world in the manufacturing of nuclear units, in hydrogen powered vehicles. I want to re-energize our manufacturing sector. I want jobs back in the US.

How are we going to do this? First off streamline the process. There are over 30 pending sites wanting to build a new unit, WITHOUT TAX DOLLARS. The value is there, the need for energy is there. Cut out the layers of government in the process. Turn it over to the private sector. Tax breaks, heck, no taxes on your investment in this endeavor. Tax breaks on training and so on. Let our economy roar. Get the government out of the way. If you buy a hydrogen car, write it off. Make it affordable to do what is right. I plan on cutting government spending so we won’t need the revenue any way.

You want to do something for the environment? You want to make the US energy independent? You want to revitalize our industrial economy? Here is how we do it.

No one in our government can think beyond the next sound byte. I want to put in a plan that I know will take 20-30 years to complete. Our current politicians won’t plan beyond the next campaign and ALL they do is geared to winning the next election. Most of them don’t care, it’s all about their power. Let’s start looking to our countries and our children’s future not the next election cycle.