Does the Democratic leadership under Barack Obama expect current electric power plants to provide all the huge electricity requirements to recharge and power all the new hybrid and electric cars that will be coming on line. There will have to be new power plants built and these plants will be nuclear plants. If Democrats think that wind or solar will recharge all of these new cars, they have to be joking because the wind does not blow all the time. The new sources of additional electricity to charge up all these cars will have to come from nuclear energy.
Why is there such an ingrained irrational paranoia about nuclear energy and waste disposal among some Americans especially the Democratic leadership under the direction of Barack Obama. Importantly also why is it somehow okay for hundreds of thousands of Navy sailors to have served for nearly thirty-five years aboard nuclear power American aircraft carriers and nuclear powered submarines and air force personnel to handle nuclear bombs but Democratic leadership under Barack Obama will not consider to even remotely assume any risks involved with nuclear power. Is it okay for our servicemen to be exposed to alleged risks but not the Democratic leadership who oppose nuclear power. This paranoia is particular evident with the Democrats acceptance of risks that are associated with other aspects of modern American living. Forty thousand people die every year in the United States in auto accidents but there is no outcry to ban all automobiles in the United States. Bridges have collapsed recently in Minnesota and tunnels ceilings in Boston have fallen but there is no consensus on eliminating bridges or tunnels. There have been airplane crashes that have also involved injuries on the ground but there is no outcry to ban air travel. There have been repeated rail and ship accidents but no outcry to ban railroads or ship travel. The irrational fear involving nuclear power and waste disposal has no justification. American people undergo multiple medical and dental xrays and CT scans yearly and have no fear. TSA airport screeners and medical staff work daily around xray equipment, fluoroscopes, and CT machines and do not experience adverse health consequences as a result of their work exposure. There were no documented adverse health events associated with the Three Mile Island release of minor radiation in the 1970s and no payments for health losses were ever made involving lawsuits related to that accident. The containment vessel held at Three Mile Island. In light of most Americans acceptance of risks associated with automobiles, trains, planes, and ships, the fear on the part of the Democratic leadership of nuclear power can not be viewed as rational. John McCain's proposals to build 45 new nuclear power plants along with his other energy proposals on conservation and renewable energy will help America achieve relative energy independence in the near term and long term.
PROJECT GREEN
Evan Thomas
You Say You Want a Revolution
If America's serious about going green, some tradeoffs will have to be made.
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Jane and Michael Hoffman are not exactly your average, everyday couple. Jane was New York City consumer affairs commissioner in the Giuliani administration and Michael is a wealthy investor whose holdings, at one point, included a coal-fired power plant. One day, Jane served her husband, Michael, his favorite, tuna fish, for lunch. "The tuna looked too fresh at the market to pass up," she said. "Too bad we can't have it more than once a week. I guess we have you to thank for that."
Jane was making a point about how mercury emissions from coal settle in the water, where they poison the fish. Michael got the point. He sold the power plant and now runs the world's largest investment fund in renewable energy.
It's not as though you, too, can make the world a greener place quite in the way the Hoffmans do. But as they argue in their new book, "Green: Your Place in the New Energy Revolution," there are any number of fairly simple things that individuals can do that actually do make a difference. Like turning off your computer at night and using more efficient light bulbs, or using paper bags instead of plastic. All of that is important. But the larger issue raised by their book (praised truthfully, if a little back-handedly, by Publisher's Weekly as "surprisingly entertaining") is whether there is the public will to get America off polluting fossil fuels and onto renewable energy.
As a Wall Street type, Michael Hoffman has faith in the power of the marketplace. The Hoffmans' book estimates that about 85 percent of the switch over to a green economy can come from private funds. That sounds great, but it still requires the federal government, i.e., the taxpayers, to contribute many hundreds of billions, and therein lies the rub.
Congress, dominated by lobbyists, is fine at providing subsidies for oil companies and politically powerful corn growers. But there is only a weak lobby for renewables like wind power and solar. And there is almost no political support for a carbon tax to pay for the transition to a cleaner future. That's not going to change any time soon. It will require a great—I would say stupendous—act of political leadership to create the right circumstances for a political deal.
Here's the political reality that most fans of going green don't want to embrace and the Hoffmans don't directly confront: Congress will require a massive horse trade. The only way to get votes for subsidizing renewable energy on the large scale we need is to let the old fossil-fuel boys have their way on drilling. That means drilling in Alaska, on public lands and off the coasts of California and Florida and anywhere else oil is found. If you take drilling off the table, the votes for a mega-deal on energy won't be there. Barack Obama likes to talk about "new politics," getting away from the special interests, and John McCain has taken a virtuous delight in trying to stop favored industries from acquiring and protecting tax breaks. Sounds good, but what will be required is a deal-maker on the scale of Lyndon Johnson, who can twist arms in the back room and force the pols to give a little to get a little. (To his credit, Obama seems to recognize that deal-making is required: Last week he dropped his opposition to offshore drilling if it was made part of a grander bargain to get an energy bill through Congress.)
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