If recovery is going to come sooner rather than later to the American Economy it my well come through the energy sector. It is not likely to come through the consumer sector, the housing sector, or the financial sector. Baby boomers have just lost a huge amount of money in the collapse of the housing bubble, and the stock market collapse, they are going to have to defer their retirement plans, and will be saving money like crazy to make up for the losses. Don't count on them to spend us out of recessions.
The banks are not just broke, they are bankrupt, and Wall Street is not only broke and bankrupt, it is a disgraced center of mega criminal activity. No one who is sane trusts Wall Street. It will take years to work through the housing surplus.
Finally recovery will not come from the renewable energy sector, because the renewables are the little engine that can't when the sun is down and the wind stops blowing.
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China, Russia, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and the Middle-East are investing in a massive expansion of nuclear energy. They know what to do. Every new nuclear power plant creates thousands of jobs during their construction and hundreds of permanent high paying jobs that last a lifetime once they are completed. And we need at least a thousand new reactors in the US.
Its fine for the Obama administration to have good intentions. But if we want to get the job done as far as mitigating climate change and global sea rise and becoming energy independent then we're going to have to invest in nuclear power in this country on a massive scale.
Marcel F. Williams
http://newpapyrusmagazine.blogspot.com/
Marcel, China, Russia, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, and the Middle-East, all have the same problem. They do not have the Amory Lovins to advise their business and political leadership. The leadership of these countries have unfortunately had to rely on the advice of real scientists and engineers, instead of college drop outs. Immagin how bad things are going to be for all of those people, while we are getting our electricity from windmills, or in the midst of windless nights from solar cells drawing on light from Alpha Centauri.
Part of the problem is the way our legislative bodies are organized. Though most coal states are sparsely populated each one still has two senators. And guess what. Many of those same states are also wind tunnels. That is why wind energy and clean coal, if there will ever be such a thing, are such priorities in Washington.
Our nuclear industry by contrast gets most of its uranium from Canada and Australia and the last time I check they have no senators in Washington DC.
I doubt the vast majority of our legislators take Amory Levins seriously but he talks a good game and his agenda fits nicely with their agenda.
Now Charles, our Premier up here in Ontario, Canada is promising us that renewable energy will create 50,000 green jobs and will revitalize our waning manufacturing sector. I believe the Governor of Michigan is saying the same thing. Are you saying that they are wrong and life isn't going to be all sunshine and lollipops? Why the Ontario government is going to do us a big favour and get rid of all those nasty NIMBYs who object to 400 foot wind turbines too close to their homes, or those misguided energy professionals who are whining that wind energy is unreliabe, intermittent and a waste of resources. He plans to stip municipalities of the right to object to green projects, except on safety or environmental grounds, and of course the government gets to decide what those are so.... I don't believe there was a single electical engineer in the group that advised our government on this Green Energy Act. Facts and science just muddy the water, you see.
Ontario capacity factors run to 40% in the winter and under 20% in the summer. You would think that a politician could take 15 minutes to educate himself about such things., before they impose foolishness on the public. Politicians are all of the ilk of William Jennings Bryant of whom it was said, "he is like the Platt River, an inch deep, and a mile wide at the mouth."
If you want to learn the disturbing truth behind the push for renewables in Ontario, go to the National Post and read Terrence Corcoran's new article entitled "Ontario's War on Carbon". It's the best piece of investigative reporting on the money behind "green" that I have seen for a while. Discouraging at the very least and guaranteed to raise the old blood pressure.
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