Power elites, Media narritives and the energy future

What do Bill Clinton, former Clinton CIA director R. James Woolsey, New York Governor George Pataki, Sustainable South Bronx’s Majora Carter, Wal-Mart Chairman Rob Walton, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, Sun Microsystems Co-founder Bill Joy, Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard, and News Corporation crowned Prince, James Murdoch all have in common? They all showed up to help Amory Lovins celebrate the 25th adversity of his Rocky Mountain Institute.

Woolsey who was the energy policy advisor to John McCain's Presidential campaign, is married too Suzanne H. Woolsey a former Chief Operating Officer of the National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council during the Clinton administration. Suzanna Woolsey sits on the board of Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute. The Woolseys can only be described as a power couple. Suzanna Woolsey sits on the board of The Council for Excellence in Governmen, along with George H.W. Bush, Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Former Congressman Lee H. Hamilton, former "Shrub" Administration Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neil, Former Reagan Administration Secretary of State. George P. Shultz. She also has unusual access to the leadership of the United States Military through her membership on the board of the Institute for Defense Analyses. James Woolsey sits on the advisory board of the American Counsel on Renewable Energy, along with former Reagan administration National Security Advisor, Robert C. (Bud) McFarlane, Amory Lovins, National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) Director, Daniel Arvizu, Former Clinton Administration Senior White House Staffer, Roger S. Ballentine, Former Clinton Administration Assistant Secretary of Energy, Christine Ervin, and German Green Party politician Dr. Hermann Scheer.

Bill Clinton recently described Lovins and sometimes co-author Paul Hawken as:.

Really smart energy thinkers ... people who have been doing this for 30 years - what they've always known, before this ever became a serious debate, is, you couldn't sell a clean green future unless you could prove it was good economics.

Clinton's views on Hawken and Lovins were by no means shared by energy researcher Malcolm Slesser, but this is beside the point, Sissler, who no doubt made far fewer errors of fact and logic, than Hawken and Lovins, had far less standing with American power elites than Lovins has.

It is a measure of Lovins standing with some power elites that Amory Lovins, who is not a transportation specialist. was once considered a potential secretary of Transportation for a then future Obama administration.

My intent here is to begin to document the predominate American Elites consensus on new energy, and how that consensus is transmitted to the American people by national elites. There is, I believe, not a single power elite, rather there are power elites, nexuses of individuals and related institutions, who control most wealth, power and influence, in the United States. I say power elites rather than elites, because elite network can and do come into strong conflict with each other, and complete for dominance over the public consciousness. In the philosophical tradition of Wittgenstein I will argue that eliteness is a fuzzy concept, and that what constitutes eliteness, is family resemblance. Individuals enter "elite" groupings and leave them, and may be elite in some respects and not in others. The concept of elite is so broad, that anyone who has wealth, power, celebrity, and influence, can be considered a member of an elite. There is no such thing as "the elite," and even elite consensuses manifest no more than an agreement among many power elites about what constitutes facts, and well crafted arguments. Unfortunately power elites have no more understanding of how to determine facts, and to identified logical arguments, than ordinary people do, and thus power elites are just as likely to make cognitive mistakes, as any group of inmates at a local prison. The primary difference being that the cognitive errors of inmates are likely to cause far less pain and suffering than the cognitive errors of power elites.

Elites have an interest in continuing their power into the future. Who are the Elites? In his classic study "The Power Elite," C. Wright Mills tell us,

The power elite is composed of men whose positions enable them to transcend the ordinary environments of ordinary men and women; they are in positions to make decisions having major consequences. Whether they do or do not make such decisions is less important than the fact that they do occupy such pivotal positions: their failure to act, their failure to make decisions, is itself an act that is often of greater consequence than the decisions they do make. For they are in command of the major hierarchies and organizations of modern society. They rule the big corporations. They run the machinery of the state and claim its prerogatives. They direct the military establishment. They occupy the strategic command posts of the social structure, in which are now centered the effective means of the power and the wealth and the celebrity which they enjoy.

The power elite are not solitary rulers. Advisers and consultants, spokesmen and opinion-makers are often the captains of their higher thought and decision. Immediately below the elite are the professional politicians of the middle levels of power, in the Congress and in the pressure groups, as well as among the new and old upper classes of town and city and region. Mingling with them, in curious ways which we shall explore, are those professional celebrities who live by being continually displayed but are never, so long as they remain celebrities, displayed enough If such celebrities are not at the head of any dominating hierarchy, they do often have the power to distract the attention of the public or afford sensations to the masses, or, more directly, to gain the ear of those who do occupy positions of direct power. More or less unattached, as critics of morality and technicians of power, as spokesmen of God and creators of mass sensibility, such celebrities and consultants are part of the immediate scene in which the drama of the elite is enacted. But that drama itself is centered in the command posts of the major institutional hierarchies.

The very fact that there is an elite that exercises direct and indirect influence on the public narrative about energy is of course not even slightly surprising. The fact that this elite support to a questionable authority such as Amory Lovins is, however, suprising.

Were he alive today, I suspect that C. Wright Mills would have been fascinated by the role which national elites have played the organization of public perception of energy issues through the control of energy narratives in the media. He would not be shocked by the blindness of the elite, the media or the public to the dangers which energy issues pose for the future of American Society.

Mark Z. Jacobson is Credible as a Scientist?

I have criticized Mark Z, Jacobon's research in the past. Other critics, including Barry Brook, Brian Wang and Bill Hannahan have pointed to numerous and serious flaws in Jacobson's research. In addition a series of critical comments on one of Jacobson's papers appeared in the December 2008 in response to a publication by Renewable Energy World.com of a Stanford press release on Mark Z. Jacobson's paper, "Review of solutions to global warming, air pollution, and energy security." Jacobson failed to respond to those comments. Again following the publication of a Jacobson coauthored paper in the January 2009 Scientific American, numerous critical online comments were offered by Scientific American readers. Again Jacobson failed to respond. Further, when Bill Hannahan charges that when he attempted to publish a critical review of a Jacobson paper, Jaconson blocked its publication by failure to cooperate with the vetting process. Jacobson has not responded to any of my critical posts, nor did he responds to Brian Wang. Jacobson offered one response to Barry Brook, but failed to defend his response when critics pointed out numerous flaws in it.

Criticism is normal in science, and scientists must be prepared to defend their work from criticism. If scientists are unwilling or unable to defend their work, then they have limited recourse. They must retract undefended or indefensible statements or be discredited as scientists. To date Jacobson has failed to retract numerous statements and claims that have received unanswered criticisms. Yet he continues to claim their truth. While he is free to do so as a human being, he damages his credibility as a scientist if he brings his scientific cradentials to the table.

Jacobson published a comment on nuclear power recently on the CNN Opinion page. In his comment Jacobson made a number of questionable comments. First he claims,

First, it's not carbon-free, no matter what the advocates tell you. Vast amounts of fossil fuels must be burned to mine, transport and enrich uranium and to build the nuclear plant.

In fact many researchers have concluded that the lifecycle CO2 emissions from nuclear power and wind are both quite small compared to CO2 emissions from any form of electrical generation from fossil fuel, and most research suggests that CO2 emissions from wind and nuclear are about the same. So ambiguous words like "vast amounts" are in fact ambiguous and are not used in scientific reports, and hide from readers the fact that nuclear is a reliable source of low carbon electricity.

Jascobson claims that it takes

"10 to 19 years . . . to plan and build a nuclear plant. (A wind farm typically takes two to five years.

In fact, it takes far less, although in the United States far more time is devoted to the licensing process than to actual nuclear plant construction. Asian nuclear plants require far less time, for example Chines reactors are expected to take about 5 years to build. However Nuclear manufacturers such as Babcock & Wilcox expect shorten reactor construction time to only 2 years, by building reactors in factories rather than on site.

Jacobson claims

The on-the-ground footprint of nuclear power, through its plants and uranium mines, is about 1,000 times larger than it is for wind.

This claim has been questions. First, Jacobson only considered the size of wind generator base in estimated the land, but wind mills are built from materials that come from mines, and were he to be consistent, he would also include the size of those mines in his estimate. Secondly Jaconson failed to consider the visual impact of wind generators, and that the visually impacted area would easily cover tens of thousands of square miles. Jacobson further neglected to consider the environmental impact of wind related construction and service roads, which are by now thousands of miles long. Finally Jacobson failed to consider the environmental impact of thousands of miles of power lines, which must be built in order to transmit electricity from wind generators to electrical customers.

Jacobson correctly acknowledges that the world has abundant renewable energy resources, but what he fails to add is that it is more expensive to supply a given amount of power for a year from wind and solar power generating facilities than it is to supply that power from nuclear power plants.

Jacobson states,

Nuclear proponents also argue that nuclear energy production is constant, unlike fickle winds and sunshine. But worldwide, nuclear plants are down 15 percent of the time, and when a plant goes down, so does a large fraction of the grid.

But nuclear plants in the United States are only down 8% of the time and most of that time is for refueling and repairs that have been planned in advance. Since nuclear plant operators can control the time of the shut down, they often take advantage of predictable periods of low power demand for their shutdowns. In contrast, wind generators produce little electricity during periods of maximim consumer demand, such as hot summer days. Solar generators, of course shut down at twilight, and don't start generating again until after dawn no matter how much consumers demand electricity. The shutdowns of nuclear plants are simply not comprable.

Jacobson claims,

Connecting wind farms over large areas through transmission lines smoothes power supply.

In fact, this system requires the building of many thousands of miles of expensive electrical transmission lines to connect widely dispersed wind generators, and requires the building of wind generators with five times the generation capacity of a nuclear power plant to even begin to approach the reliability of nuclear power plants. Even then in Texas the system that Jacobson describes is expected to deliver no more than 10% of its rated capacity on hot summer days, and sometimes it will deliver much less. The gap is expected to be filled by burning fossil fuels. Such smoothness comes at a very steep price.

So what would Jacobson do about all of those Texas air conditioners that are demanding power on hot summer days." He tells us,

storing energy (with concentrated solar) and giving people incentives to reduce demand. It is not rocket science to match power demand. It merely requires thinking out of the box.

Storing energy is another expensive solution to the problems of wind and solar. Incentive to reduce demand means high energy price, which of ourse you will have if you are dependent on expensive wind generators, and the wond stops blowing in Texas on hot summer days. People, even Texans, can always be forced to turn off their airconditioners, if the electricity costs too much. Thinking out of the box may cost people, it may hurt people, it may even kill them, but it does not solve the probl;em of wind and solar unreliability.

Finally Jacobson claims,

Combining geothermal with wind (whose power potential often peaks at night) and solar (which peaks by day), and using hydroelectricity to fill in gaps, would almost always match demand.

In the United States right now, hydro provides 6% of the electricity, and most cost effective hydro dams have already been built. So Hydro is not going to fill in the gap on windless nights. Geothermal power plants are typically built in volcanic areas, and while they are reliable, there are not enough volcanic areas in California to provide night time power to that state, and California has more volcanos than most of the country. A recent attempt to build a geothermal plant in a none volcanic area of Europe is believed to have cause an earth quake. Surely Jacobson knows about the earthquake problem. If he doesn't he is a very bad researcher. If he does, he is hiding it from his readers as he makes the highly unlikely suggestion that hydro and geothermal can make up for the failures of wind and solar.

Thus we see that only a few of Mark Jacobson's statements about nuclear power and renewables are true. We also see that he hides information, if it does not support the case he is arguing. That he uses ambiguous, unscientific language, and that he suggests unrealistic solutions to the problem of living without nuclear power if we run out of fossil fuels or choose to dispence with them. We also see that Jacobson has repeatedly avoided answer criticisms of his work, and even has blocked the publication of a critical review of one of his papers. Thus it is legitimate to as the question is Mark Jacobson credible as a scientist?

International Panel on Fissile Materials Report Interesting but Still a Fizzle.

A new report from the so called International Panel on Fissile Materials appears to be directed against the Integral Fast Reactor, Barry Brook's favorite energy toy. The White Paper, titled Fast Breeder Reactor Programs: History and Status, offers a one sided account of Sodium Cooled Fast Breeders, their history and prognosis. One of the reports writer's Frank von Hippel, is a controversial nuclear proliferation talking head. Alex De Volpe who also worked with the Soviets on practical nuclear disarmament issues notes:

Frank von Hippel and Amory Lovins are two prominent outspoken opponents of plutonium demilitarization. Examination of their papers and presentations reveals that both tend to omit evidence and citations that contradict their position on the supposed weaponization qualities of reactor and demilitarized grades of plutonium. While short in relevant credentials, each has been actively impeding arms-control and nonproliferation measures described below.

De Volpe often claims the authority of Los Alamos weapons designer J. Carson Marks for his contention that so called Reactor Grade Plutonium mis weaponizable. De Volpi points to a 1990 paper by J. Carson Marks that stated:

Taking “weapon” to signify an object suitable for stockpile by a military organization, then heavily irradiated reactor plutonium would not be attractive for an arsenal of pure fission devices

De Volpe comment's

In Mark’s terminology, “pure fission devices” included essentially any type of nuclear weapon that proliferant nations might seek to develop. His phrase “heavily irradiated reactor plutonium” corresponded to what is now called “reactor-grade plutonium.” (During private, one-on-one discussions with Mark, he confirmed his defining 1990 conclusion, and he didn’t know how or why it was omitted in the 1993 version.)

Mark’s defining syllogism for a “weapon” was as specific as possible. By his criteria, reactor-grade plutonium is not a viable constituent in military stockpiles. In contrast to an ad-hoc group, national military organizations have high standards for an extraordinarily devastating weapon designed to be safely stored during peacetime and reliably delivered under wartime conditions. Mark distinctly advises that national arsenals would not be made out of inferior materials (and no nation is known to have militarily exploited substandard fissile substances).

De Volpi also reported:

Mark wrote a paper, “Reactor-Grade Plutonium’s Explosive Properties,” a definitive description of the topic published in 1990 by the Nuclear Control Institute.[1] At the behest of the Department of Energy, a revised version, “Explosive Properties of Reactor-Grade Plutonium,” was published in a 1993 issue of Science and Global Security (Vol. 4, pp. 111-129), which includes an “Appendix: Probabilities of Different Yields” by Frank von Hippel and Edwin Lyman. [2]

It is instructive to compare the 1990 and 1993 papers which are essentially the same except for a curious, but important difference: Missing from the 1993 version is Mark’s carefully defined term “weapon” as “an object suitable for a stockpile by a military organization.” No explanation for this obvious and crucial omission is supplied with the published revision. My personal interviews and conversations with Mark before 1993 confirmed the intended significance of his 1990 definition.

While reprints of the 1993 paper designate J. Carson Mark as the sole author, the Princeton University website index for Science and Global Security credits the revised paper to “Mark, J.C., von Hippel, F.N., Lyman, E.” The revised version acknowledges that “This article is adapted from an earlier paper” (a reference back to Mark’s original 1990 article).

Reading in between the lines of De Volpi's accounts, there is an unacknowledged and unanswered question about von Hipple's role in the disappearance of the inconvenient sentence from the 1993 version of the Marks' paper. De Volpi adds a long quotation to a 2000 National Academy of Science report

If it is assumed that proliferators in all categories will ultimately be capable of obtaining reasonably pure plutonium metal starting from the dispositioned forms — as we believe to be the case — then the main intrinsic barriers in this category are those associated with deviation of the plutonium’s isotopic composition from “weapons grade.”

De Volpi has noted the unfortunate consequences of von Hippel's reinterpretation of J. Carson Marks' views.

Some individuals have chosen to interpret Mark’s conclusion differently, arguing that because it is possible to make nuclear explosives out of “heavily irradiated reactor plutonium,” nations would actually undertake an expensive and clandestine development program using materials that would lead to uncertain results. Such a suggestion defies engineering logic and historical experience.

Von Hippel has persistently overstated the supposed weaponization qualities of reactor and demilitarized grades of plutonium. Although deficient in direct experience — particularly with nuclear engineering, nuclear weaponization, quality control, and military organizations — he has cavalierly reinterpreted and widely exploited his interpretation of Carson Mark’s published conclusion. Von Hippel has assumed that lack of attractiveness implies that the fissile composition is based on some undefined convenience factor rather than meaningful military standards.

Even with ample analytical experience, and presumably access to some classified information while serving briefly in a government bureaucracy, Von Hippel has persistently underrated the fundamental complexity of nuclear-weapons physics and engineering. He and his acolytes rely on second-hand assurances instead of fundamental specifics about the difficulties in weaponizing degraded plutonium. Von Hippel has employed poorly substantiated “worst-case” methodology to exaggerate the weaponizability of reactor-grade and degraded plutonium. This has lead him to support flawed and overly expensive propositions for less-effective options than offered by the U.S. Department of Energy to demilitarize and salvage the latent energy and economic value of surplus plutonium.

Unfortunately Von Hippel continues to ignore De Volpi's critique of his claims about the weapons use of reactor grade plutonium. In Fast Breeder Reactor Progress, von Hippel states.

The mission of the IPFM is to analyze the technical basis for practical and achievable policy initiatives to secure, consolidate, and reduce stockpiles of highly enriched uranium and plutonium. These fissile materials are the key ingredients in nuclear weapons, and their control is critical to nuclear disarmament, halting the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and ensuring that terrorists do not acquire nuclear weapons.

Both military and civilian stocks of fissile materials have to be addressed. The nuclear weapon states still have enough fissile materials in their weapon stockpiles for tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. On the civilian side, enough plutonium has been separated to make a similarly large number of weapons. Highly enriched uranium is used in civilian reactor fuel in more than one hundred locations. The total amount used for this purpose is sufficient to make about one thousand Hiroshima-type bombs, a design potentially within the capabilities of terrorist groups.

Given the limitations on the explosive potential of Reactor Grade Plutonium devices, the notion that a Hiroshima type device could be built from RGP is highly unlikely, and the notion that terrorists would be capable of building one from RGP traverses well into the realm of the absurd. Von Hippel is trying to frighten the children, with Brothers Grim type stories.

Thus the reader of "Fast Breeder Reactor Programs", should take note that Von Hippel and quite possibly other report writers have agenda's that might in some instances override their obligation to tell the whole truth.

In particular FBRPs is predisposed to recount each of the many LMFBR program failures, while ignoring their successes. The FBRP report fails to assess hard won progress towards program goals, and fails to note that not all of the the program delays reported were due to technical problems. This is fair, but the merit of a research program lies not in the problems that it encountered, but in what was learned and in the success in overcoming those problems. Here FBRP offers no assessment. A problem is simply viewed as a failure, and reactor research is not understood as a learning process.

A further flaw is the failure give proper weight to success. For example, FBRP briefly notes the life history of theExperimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) , which it describes as

arguably the most successful of the U.S. fast reactors . . .

No mishaps are noted in the report, and indeed, there were none. What was learned about future fast reactor design? American scientists believed that they learned a lot, but FBRP ignores this, for to acknowledge a fully positive outcome is also to acknowledge progress, and to suggest that the project in question might succeed.

Despite its flaws, FBPR has numerous strong points. It does recount histories of experimental fast breeder projects, and offers descriptions of their problems It offers many interesting and useful facts. For example, a table comparing India Fast Breeder Reactors and Pressurized Heavy water reactors. which shows that the nominal levelized of electricity from a single PFBR (500 MWe) was higher than the levelized cost of electricity from indian 700 MWe PHWRs. The case is actually worse than M. V. Ramana presents, because FBPR construction costs are probably going to be above 1 billion dollars, rather than the $648 million he estimates. Ramana's table will show that fuel reprocessing adds significantly to FBPR levelized costs. The lifecycle fuel costs for a single 700 MW PHWR costs less than 1/4th the lifecycle cost of the reprocessed FBPR fuel. The Levelized cost of power from PHWRs is estimated to be, 3.5 cents per kWh, while the FBPR levelized power costs will run, to over 6.3 cents per kWh.

Still even given the higher levelized cost figure for the FBPR, the levelized cost of power from it will be more than competitive with post carbon power costs from nuclear or renewables, in the United States or in Europe. Thus the cost argument does not suggest that India's projected FBR program will handicap the Indian economy. Ramana rargues that for indian Fast Breeders

a capacity factor of 50 percent might well be more plausible. This would result in a levelised cost of 8.35 cents/kilowatt hours (kWh), 139 percent more expensive than PHWRs.

But this assumes no progress on FBR reliability between now and 2050, and even with the higher levelized cost, the Indian economy would still have a competitive advantage in electrical costs. Ramana conclusion might be taken as invalidating the theory offered by FBRP, namely that fast breeder reactors will add to the world supply of weaponizable plutonium:

A more careful calculation that takes into account the plutonium flow constraints shows that the capacity for MFBRs based on plutonium from the DAE’s heavy water reactor fleet will drop from the projected 199 GWe to 78 GWe by 2052.56 If the out-of-pile time were projected to be a more realistic three years, the MFBR capacity in 2052 based on plutonium from PHWRs will drop to 34 GWe.
While these figures may seem large compared to India’s current nuclear capacity of only 4.1 GWe, they should be viewed in relation to the projected requirements, under business-as-usual conditions, of approximately 1300 GWe total generating capacity by mid-century. Further, the only constraint assumed here is fissile material availability. It assumes that there will be no delays due to infrastructure and manufacturing problems, economic disincentives due to the high cost of breeder electricity, or accidents. All of these are realistic constraints and render

Of course, India might shop for RGP on a future international market, or switch to Thorium breeding Molten Salt Reactors (LFTRs) before 2050.

Of the issues raised by FBRP. the most telling is the cost issue. Both the cost of FBR construction, and the cost of fuel reprocessing with fast breeders may block long term implementation in the United States. While FBR technology might be economically justified in India, China and other Asian countries, it might be far to expensive to implement in Europe and North America. What ever FBRP conclusions that might be applied to localized implementations of FBR technology, those conclusions should not be applied to the future costs and value of LFTR technology.

We need a carbon-mitigation cost index

We need a carbon-mitigation cost index. The index should measure the cost of eliminating the emissions of a ton of CO2, or of eliminating a ton of CO2 from the atmosphere. Without a carbon emission cost index, there is no measure of the potential effectiveness of policy options designed to prevent carbon emissions, or to decrease atmospheric carbon content.

The existence of a carbon mitigation index can serve as an effective counter to propaganda campaigns in favor of in opposition to various energy forms.

Recently a collition of anti-nuclear organizations including WECF ( Women in Europe for a Common Future), The International Forum on Globalization, WISE (World Information Service on Energy), Friends of the Earth International, and Nuclear Information & Resource Service published a statement that asserted:

Nuclear power steals “time and money” that would be better invested in energy efficiency and renewable technologies

This claim is not supported by any detailed analysis of the relative costs and benefits of carbon mitigation with nuclear and renewables. In fact the capital costs associated with renewables are higher per unit of electrical output, and since renewable tend to replace low carbon emission emitting combined cycle gas turbines, while nuclear displaces high carbon emission coal fired power units, nuclear appears to be 3.5 times more cost effective than onshore as a carbon mitigation tool, and even more cost effective than off shore wind and all forms of solar.

The effectiveness of nuclear power as a carbon mitigation tool can be illustrated with a map and two list. First the map showing the states where nuclear power plants are located:
Here is the EIA's list of Nuclear power plants by state:

U.S. Nuclear Power Plants by State	Plants
Alabama	Browns Ferry
	Farley (Joseph M. Farley)
Arizona	Palo Verde
Arkansas	Arkansas Nuclear One
California	Diablo Canyon
	San Onofre
Connecticut	Millstone
Florida	Crystal River 3
	St Lucie
	Turkey Point
Georgia	Hatch (Edwin I. Hatch)
	Vogtle
Illinois	Braidwood
	Byron
	Clinton
	Dresden
	LaSalle County
	Quad Cities
Iowa	Duane Arnold
Kansas	Wolf Creek
Louisiana	River Bend
	Waterford
Maryland	CalvertCliff
Massachusetts	Pilgrim
Michigan	Donald C. Cook
	Enrico Fermi (Fermi)
	Palisades
Minnesota	Monticello
	Prairie Island
Mississippi	Grand Gulf
Missouri	Callaway
Nebraska	Cooper
	Fort Calhoun
New Hampshire	Seabrook
New Jersey	Hope Creek
	Oyster Creek
	Salem Creek
New York	Fitzpatrick (James A. Fitzpatrick)
	Indian Point
	Nile Mile Point
	R.E. Ginna (Ginna, or Robert E. Ginna)
North Carolina	Brunswick
	McGuire
	Shearon-Harris(Harris)
Ohio	Davis-Besse
	Perry
Pennsylvania	Beaver Valley
	Limerick
	Peach Bottom
	Susquehanna
	Three Mile Island
South Carolina	Catawba
	H.B. Robinson
	Oconee
	Virgil C. Summer (Summer)
Tennessee	Sequoyah
	Watts Bar
Texas	Comanche Peak
	South Texas
Vermont	Vermont Yankee
Virginia	North Anna
	Surry
Washington	Columbia Generating Station
Wisconsin	Kewaunee
	Point Beach

The effectiveness of nuclear power in carbon mitigation can be demonstrated by comparing the map and the above state list with the states listed in Table A-2 found in "The Near-Term Impacts of Carbon Mitigation Policies on Manufacturing Industries", a 2002 study of carbon emission issues for industry:

Carbon emission per million kwh electricity generated by States (metric tons per million kwh)

We consider electricity carbon emissions from three fossil fuels -- coal, petroleum and gas. The physical quantities of coal, petroleum and gas used by states to generate electricity are obtained from Electric Power Monthly (EIA, 1993). The individual fuel quantities are converted to energy using conversion factors from Manufacturing Energy Consumption Survey 1991. This energy consumption is multiplied by carbon emission coefficients (from Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States, EIA 1996) to obtain carbon emissions by state by aggregating carbonemissions from coal, petroleum and gas. Carbon emissions per unit of electricity generated (metric tons per million kWh) are calculated by dividing state carbon emissions with state net electricity generation. In Table A-2, we present the electricity carbon emissions for the US and individual states. The average carbon emission from electricity generation is about 180.9 metric tons per million kWh. The range is from 0 (Idaho) to 462 (N. Dakota). A state with a high coefficient means it uses a high share of fossil fuel to generate electricity. A smaller coefficient indicates a higher use of hydro or nuclear power.

Table A-2. Electricity Carbon Emissions by State
State	Total ElectricityCarbon Emissions (1000 metric tons)	Net Electricity Generation (Million Kwh)	Emission coeff. (Metric Tons per Million Kwh)
Alabama	10857.6	68374.0	158.8
Alaska	492.1	2980.0	165.1
Arizona	7629.8	52722.0	144.7
Arkansas	5419.2	27541.0	196.8
California	6233.6	89701.0	69.5
Colorado	6879.0	23983.0	286.8
Connecticut	1206.7	19308.0	62.5
Delaware	1103.4	4941.0	223.3
District of Columbia	29.9	74.0	403.6
Florida	17847.4	103809.0	171.9
Georgia	10379.8	68908.0	150.6
Hawaii	1161.4	5301.0	219.1
Idaho	0.0	4993.0	0.0
Illinois	11308.0	93424.0	121.0
Indiana	19893.9	71633.0	277.7
Iowa	6741.0	22219.0	303.4
Kansas	6223.3	23606.0	263.6
Kentucky	13500.7	57209.0	236.0
Louisiana	8793.1	43072.0	204.1
Maine	239.3	6021.0	39.7
Maryland	4554.5	29109.0	156.5
Massachusetts	4174.0	25254.0	165.3
Michigan	12424.0	62171.0	199.8
Minnesota	6629.7	29038.0	228.3
Mississippi	2348.9	16187.0	145.1
Missouri	10161.1	41586.0	244.3
Montana	4484.3	18521.0	242.1
Nebraska	3482.1	16510.0	210.9
Nevada	3804.0	16153.0	235.5
New Hampshire	727.3	10853.0	67.0
New Jersey	1550.5	22562.0	68.7
New Mexico	6458.8	20369.0	317.1
New York	9873.3	84002.0	117.5
North Carolina	9306.1	63030.0	147.6
North Dakota	9744.3	21060.0	462.7
Ohio	21933.0	102417.0	214.2
Oklahoma	8806.1	35114.0	250.8
Oregon	979.6	31099.0	31.5
Pennsylvania	18139.9	127446.0	142.3
Rhode Island	26.2	101.0	259.3
South Carolina	4102.6	53597.0	76.5
South Dakota	971.5	4879.0	199.1
Tennessee	9151.4	57253.0	159.8
Texas	49010.9	185738.0	263.9
Utah	5902.6	24461.0	241.3
Vermont	10.6	3365.0	3.1
Virginia	4255.3	37051.0	114.8
Washington	2637.2	63174.0	41.7
West Virginia	11867.8	53339.0	222.5
Wisconsin	7700.7	34386.0	223.9
Wyoming	10580.0	30898.0	342.4
U.S.	381737.6	2110542.0	180.9

Amory Lovins has repeatedly stated:

I do think we need to allocate capital judiciously and take opportunity costs seriously.

This statement is of course true. Lovins also states,

I do not think you can make an empirically based business case that the existing nuclear power plant fleet has been economically worthwhile (counting all externalities at zero), nor that there is any business case for building more. This is of course an empirical question.

I have provided just sort of case in my numerous analyses of the relative costs of renewables and nuclear power. But I believe that far more work needs to be done, and this work, rather than renewables advocacy should be the proper role of a Nationals Renewable Energy Laboratory. Lovins argues that nuclear power is not a cost effective carbon mitigation tool, without assessing the true cost of carbon mitigation with renewables, and without exploring the potentials for lowering nuclear costs. There is real potential for lowering cost by altering nuclear manufacturing techniques, changing siting criteria, and in other innovative approach to nuclear cost issues. In addition there is probable cause to believe that adopting alternative nuclear technologies could lower nuclear costs in a dramatic fashion, while increasing nuclear safety, resolving the issue of nuclear waste and not encouraging nuclear proliferation.

It is clear then that the claim that nuclear power does not mttigate carbon emissions can be shown to be false, and the claim that nuclear power. The question posed by Amory Lovins thus becomes, "is it cost effective to build more nuclear plants as a cost mitigation tool?" My arguments to date tend to demonstrate that it is, but we need more research, and more research tools. We need a carbon-mitigation cost index.