I meant inherently safe to the general public. Russian nuclear design was more dangerous than the idiocy of the control room supervisor. Definitely watch the RBMKs like a hawk, and see about adding a containment. The concrete containment kept Three Mile Island’s radioactivity inside, despite leakage of radioactive steam from the reactor and a partial melting of the core. No one died from the incident. That’s what I meant by inherently safe.

Gas cooled reactors like the PBMR and HTGR are walkaway-safe, and I think most liquid metal fast reactors are as well. Those designs are what you must have been referring to. They actually cannot really melt down.

I support nuclear power but I wouldn’t go so far as to say all existing plants are “inherently safe”. There are in fact inherently safe designs — i.e., designs for reactors that will shut down due to the laws of physics when something goes wrong — but most of the designs of current reactors depend upon control systems functioning correctly to prevent a meltdown. Three Mile Island was a good example of what can happen when there is a control systems failure. Chernobyl is an example of what happens due to severe human error (though admittedly US designs are far safer than the design of the Chernobyl plant). What I am in favor of is a transition to inherently safe designs for new nuclear plants and careful regulation and inspection of older plants. As for waste storage, I don’t know that the problem has been definitively solved, but it seems to me the problem is solvable. The main problem there is ensuring safe storage over the very long term. But it seems to me such a problem is solvable.

Dry cask storage is fairly cheap and basically answers the fuel question.

Refinery building sounds good on paper, but these things aren’t necessarily clean and safe. They can have toxic/carcinogenic emissions, and they can also explode when run unsafely. They are not inherently safe. Removing environmental and safety regulations will get people killed. You need to actually site it at good distance from people, with appropriate safeguards. Eminent Domain might come in handy to get the site built. It would be nice to see refineries built with modern engineering principles and to environmental standards, after all. Better production and less harmful in all probability.

For another discussion of Nordhaus’s conclusions go to:
http://boomerang.blogs.com/optimist/2008/06/five-ways-to-fi.html#more

Scroll down to the entry on “Five ways to fight global warming.” He’s got some nice diagrams and explanations there.

Conservation and alternative energies are definitely part of the answer, but, in order to continue to maintain our present standard of living, it will be necessary to extract as much energy as possible from fossil fuels as we transition to the clean, safe, abundant fuels of 75 years from now.

I’m not against doing any and all things to increase both the supply of energy, finding efficiencies and conservation, and becoming less dependent upon fossil fuels. We should do it ALL. I’ve always advocated an approach that is diversified. I just do not want our energy policy hogtied by the environmentalist lobby. BTW, I am not against protecting the environment and conservation. I’m just not sold by Al Gore’s hypothesis. If we are going to reduce pollutants and carbon emissions. we should bring into the orbit of these goals those nations that are rapidly becoming the biggest polluters on the planet, which is why I will never accept the U.N. regime’s remedies.

I would prefer that we go to synfuels, which can be made from coal. And it can be done cleanly. I am against using grains to make ethanol because this has precipitated enormous inflation in the cost of food, which not only hits us hard but really slams many Third World nations. It is plain stupid to grow food for the purpose of using it for fuel additives. I consider it sinful. The Good Lord put food in our hands to feed us, not motor us.

One of our two cars is a Toyota Prius. We like it, and we bought it primarily for savings on our fuel bills. The fact that it is also somewhat environmentally friendly is nice, but it is besides the point. We’ll probably trade in our Subaru Forester at some point for a hybrid too, and we are hoping that Subaru will come up with a hybrid, since we love the all wheel drive feature. Where I live (New Hampshire) having all wheel drive comes in handy in the snow and ice storms.

But, there are enormous supply pressures for oil. And they are coming mainly from Asia. Asia is where the economy of the future will continue to boom. And they are not encumbered by environmental regulations and fuel efficiency standards over there, and I see no signs that this will change in the near future.

We most certainly can find more efficiencies, but that takes many years to implement. Yet, unless we take measures to increase the supply of oil in the short to intermediate term our economy and much of the economy of the developed world will be in big trouble.

Any money spent correcting a problem that does not exist is a waste of money.

Are we clear?

Why should the hypothesis of man made global warming drive energy and economic policy, through the imposed penalties and parameters of the as-yet ratified Kyoto Protocols?

mitsu, into your corner…

Bear in mind that almost all the costs of paying those enormous penalties to the U.N. would fall on working and poor Americans. Corporations and wealthy individuals have ways of passing on those costs to the consumer or buying the carbon credits.

Will wealthy Democrats be willing to ante up to working and poorer Americans the losses in jobs and income that will accrue to us?

What I mean is: what you’re talking about has nothing to do with what I either believe or have said. You’re projecting fantasies onto me.

physicsguy:

I don’t know where you get the idea that they corrected the satellite readings based on surface temperature readings. They corrected it by simply applying the orbital decay data. The original UAH data assumed the satelittes were at the precise same distance from the Earth, but that is not correct, because the orbit decays in a known fashion. Also, it wasn’t Hansen who corrected the data, also, it was Wentz and Schabel. Hansen was merely discussing the correction in the above-linked article.

You are correct, of course, that there are fundamental limits to efficiency, but more importantly practical limits. Fuel cell systems as a whole will probably not go over about 40% efficiency for a variety of practical reasons. Solar cells currently max out around 43%, though there are reasons to believe we can go as high as 60% or thereabouts, but then theoretical limits start to set in, depending on the precise design of the solar energy system. However, considering the fact that the Aptera Typ-1 gets 130 mpg running on gas alone, and 200-300 mpg running as a hybrid, it’s evident that we can get massive improvements in efficiency for transportation with more efficient vehicles.