What's Going on here?

How can otherwise apparently sane people come to think that nuclear energy is the only possible solution to the human civilization-disrupting problem of climate change?

They claim it it is the only large scale, cost effective way to meet demand with no CO2 emissions. But are they right? Can this be true?

Nuclear is not cost effective. How could it be? The cost of containing the radioactive fission products of commercial nuclear power plant operation- for 10 or 20 thougsand years is . . . . . . well, how much is that now, really? Hard to guess unless you know how you'd do it.

If we can't meet "demand" without it - meaning with solar energy alone, then maybe we better take a nice close look at what this "demand" thing is, and why on earth it is so unthinkably important we meet it.

I like staring at my navel.

Solar Rules! Nuclear Drools.

The sun is earth's dominant energy source.
Nothing else comes close.
It drives our weather, grows our food, it gives us light to see what there is to see.
And it's big, very big.
Far, far bigger than nuclear power will ever be.

I enjoyed building nuclear plants.
It was fascinating.
It was incredibly complex.
It was rooted in simple, perfectly logical physical realities - just lots of them.
All or at least most of them interrelated.
It is an incredible tribute to the creative intelligence of the human mind that it has learned to make bombs and draw electricity from the process of nuclear fission.

But what a waste!
Sure, maybe someday we'll blow up the alien mothership with a nuke as in "Independence Day".
Or maybe divert an asteriod with a well placed H-Bomb (though you could probably do it with well- timed bag of high speed concrete).
But face it, both bomb and fission in general is of little use on the surface of the earth, it makes such a mess!

There is no way to avoid creating radioactive 'fission products' either when exploding a bomb or operating a commercial power reactor.
It is in the nature of the beast.
Containment of these wastes is key.
If only we could contain them, we'd be home free.
We might over look that in the alien mothership case, but not really anywhere else.

Analyzing and addressing design flaws in nuclear containment systems was the most interesting thing I did in nuclear.
It taught me that things in nature are interrelated.
Wacked-out, stoned hippies figured this out as well - without taking fluid dynamics or differertial equations.

Do I feel cheated?
No.
I'm happy to have done what I did.
Because I did as well as I could.
When I stopped doing better.
I stopped altogether.

OoH! A rhyme!

So what's my point?

I need a point?
Can't make your own point?
After all these idealets?

Yeah. It's tough.

Let's Reorganize the Department of Energy!

When faced with the challenge of 9/11, what did we do? We reorganized our government! Today, suddenly faced with the spectre of a sinister societal addiction to oil, our first response must be to reorganize! But reorganize what? The Department of Energy comes to mind.

It's doubtful anyone really knows the organizational structure of the U.S. Department of Energy, but whatever it is, it's got to be screwed up. What else could explain the hopeless energy mess we're in? It's D.O.E.'s job, after all, to keep exactly such a mess from ever happening! So obviously, some sort of reform, if not outright reorganizing needs to happen here.

So let's do it. Let's Reorganize the Department of Energy!

OK, how about "zero-sum" reorganizing. Start from scratch. Don't conform to what we've got, but rather to what we'd like to have as if we were starting out all over again.

So what do we have here . . . the Department of Energy . . .

OK, it seems like the first cut would be a "Supply" Division and a "Demand" Division. Like this:

The U.S Department of Energy

Supply Division ---------------- Demand Division

Of course, these two divisions would get equal funding, since in the end they have to be equal. If they weren't equal, then we'd be violating The Law of Supply and Demand, and we can't do that, now can we? But wait a minute. What's going to keep them equal? Market Forces? Adam Smith's Invisible Hand? These govenrment entities tend to grow unpredictably on their own accord. Maybe we need a thrid division here.

Let's add an Invisible Division. The Invisible Division wouldn't have much to do, and even if it did, we'd never know it since it was invisible. So maybe it wouldn't even need much of a budget. But we better keep it in there, just in case. So now we have:

The U.S Department of Energy

Supply Division --------- Invisible Division --------- Demand Division

Next, we probably need to split each of these into rational Sub-Divisions.

The Supply Division would be split according to the basic energy sources of Solar, Tidal, Geothermal, and Nuclear. Solar includes fossil fuels, hydro, wind, waves, ocean currents and thermal stratification, biomass, visible daylight, photovoltaics and solar thermal. Tidal energy comes from the gravitational interaction of the moon, sun and oceans. Geothermal draws upon the heat of the interior of the earth, and nuclear comes from busting up or slamming together atomic nuclei. These would not be equally funded since Solar is so much bigger than the others. We might rely on the Invisible Division to do the balancing here, but that's just a detail.

The Demand Divsion can be split into a Needs subdivision, and a Wants subdivision. The Invisible Division would take care of balancing these. Both the Needs and Wants sub divisions need Efficiency sub-sub-divisions, since efficiency is always a concern. It wouldn't be adviseable to have Conservation sub- or sub-sub divisions since we'd then have to balance it with a Liberation Division to achieve political parity. We might also consider a few sub or sub sub divisions in there somewhere designed to deal with how "demanding" the demand is . . . as is in Now or Later. The "Now" Sub-Division of the Demand Division of the Department of Energy would include electricity and daylight, the ones that are really instant, while the "Later" Sub-Division would encompass everything else, like and all the various sort of fuels that you can store for a while before you use.

So our stucture now is:

The U.S Department of Energy

Supply Division --------- Invisible Division --------- Demand Division

Solar - Tidal - Geothermal - Nuclear --- ???????? --- Efficiency - Needs - Wants -Now - Later

There's no law that says that all these sub divisions have equal funding, so maybe we could trust Congress to decide and periodically adjust the relative proportions. On second thought, we better give that task to the Invisible Division and just have Congress appropriate one big fat lump sum each year in proportion to how important energy is to our economy. For starters, let's say 25% of GNP. That's a lot, but energy is actually a very big deal.

How about let's start with:

Supply Division Funding

• 75% Solar
• 2% Tidal
• 8% Geothermal
• 10% Nuclear
  

Demand Division Funding

• 80% Efficiency
• 10% Needs
• 10% Wants
• 10% Now
• 10% Later
  

OK, that should be enough to get started. All we need now is someone to head this thing and make it all work. Dick Cheney already has a job, so he's out. There's Michael Brown or Michael Moore, or somebody.

Getting back to the Supply Division. . . there'd be no sense including nuclear weapons research and development in the Nuclear Sub-Division of the Supply Division of the Energy Department, Nuclear weapons are, after all, such a clear and colossal waste of energy. This is the Energy Department we're talking about here, not the Waste-of-Energy Department. All that bomb stuff really ought to be in the Department of Defense, which could be split into the sub department of actual defense, and the sub department of actual nonosense. This way, we don't have to lay off so many people. But that's a whole different reorganizational thing!

So I feel better already.

There is No Doubt

There is no doubt that the sun is the only energy source which can possibly work in the long run. It is the biggest, the most reliable, and by far the easiest to use. Nothing else comes close. Not tidal, not geothermal, not nuclear.

Now if that's not solar fundamentalism, I don't know what is!

The Four Spheres of Energy

There are only four energy sources available to us. The sun, the earth, the moon, and the atom.

They are each spherical, more or less.

The amount of energy available from each is roughly proportional to their physical sizes. The relative cost (to us) of that energy may well be inversely proportional to their sizes.

How cool is that!

A Drop in the Bucket

The California PUC's action to channel $3 billion toward solar energy development is great, but it is just a drop in the bucket compared to what we really need to invest in solar to turn around the horrible energy fix we're in today. By we, I don't just mean we in California, I mean we in the U.S., and in fact, we in the world.

Demand for Solar Cat Aircraft Carriers Exceeds Supply!

A recent order for a Solar Cat Aircraft Carrier has completely outstripped the ability of the International Solar Cat Society's industrial aircraft carrier production facility to keep up with demand! Nobody knows what to do! Employees and managers alike are running in circles chasing their tails!

Truth be told however, receipt of the required down payment has not yet been received, however the mere suggestion that such a thing could happen, even if the check were later to bounce, has resulted in hissy fits of heretofore unheard of proportions!

Stay tuned.