The "Nuclear Rennaisance" is over

As the Middle East has destabilized and British Petroleum dumped thousands of tons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico, nuclear-power advocates were seeing a sudden rise in interest in building new, safer power plants. The idea was that modern Nuclear Power was far safer than the days of 3 Mile Island or Chernobyl, so America could power herself without Mideast Oil and without fear of Meltdown. But news of as many as 6 reactors failing in post-tsunami Japan including one which is probably in the middle of a partial meltdown has likely doomed this nascent movement toward energy independence. After all, what politician or regulator is going to approve a new power plant (even a modern, safer one) with smoking radioactive ruins across the Pacific Ocean?

Update 6:02 am: A good summary of worst-case scenarios and an explanation of why Japan was unprepared for this nuclear crisis.

Russia vs Ukraine on Gas

Much has been made about how energy markets have distorted world politics. But what happens when energy markets come up against a resurgent Russian Republic eager to return to Empire? We may soon learn as Ukraine and Russia are at loggerheads over gas shipments over a Russian pipeline that passes thru Ukraine to get gas to Europe for sale.

Ukraine -- long at odds with the Kremlin over its ambition to join NATO -- accused Moscow of deliberately cutting flows to Europe and said the bloc needed to send a signal to the Kremlin that it cannot bully its pro-Western neighbors.
"If Europe ... does not help us get out of this situation, then it can expect a more aggressive position from Russia on gas and other issues," Oleksander Shlapak, a senior Ukrainian presidential aide, told Reuters.
Russian gas export monopoly Gazprom blamed Ukraine for siphoning off or blocking deliveries of gas equivalent to one sixth of the total Russian supply to Europe, and said it was increasing exports to make up some of the shortfall.

First step toward Replicators

One of the cooler technologies of Star Trek: The Next Generation is "replicators" - devices capable of producing nearly any food, material, or device from pure energy. In the mythology of Trek, these devices have essentially ended the laws of supply and demand by providing any material item, providing there is enough energy available. For the first time, scientists have taken a first step toward such technology by creating a primitive form of matter out of a beam of light.

It is only a first step, but who knows where it may lead?

Solar ban reprieve

The Bureau of Land Management have decided to reverse their decision to ban solar development on public lands. This is a good move that I'm sure Nomad is happy about!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

The danger of CFLs

The house we live in came with lots of energy efficient lighting. I used to have an attitude of "well, it's not quite as great as a regular bulb, but at least it lasts five years." Then I heard about the dangers of if one breaks and how you should throw out anything that it touches. I recently heard about someone who had one break over their bed and is now out a set of bedding. Rep. Ted Poe of Texas speaks out some more on the dangers and inconveniences of CFLs.

Another view of the Energy Crisis

300K barrels of our Oil Reserve go missing

In an era of volatile oil prices and energy supplies, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is a critical tool in ensuring an enemy can not hamstring the USA by impeding oil shipping. As the oil supply is increasingly under threat by unstable governments (Iraq, Iran, etc.), under control of hostile governments (Venezuela, etc.), and under the pressure of rising demand (India, China, etc.), you would think that the Reserve would be under a microscope by policymakers. Apparently, this is not so. A recent audit found over 300,000 barrels of oil were unaccounted for in the government's books.

This is unacceptable and yet more evidence that a coherent Energy Policy is critical for whoever wants to be our next president/

Greenpeace Co-Founder Advocates Nuclear Power

Although Patrick Moore left Greenpeace in the 80's, he was one of the co-founders of the organization. Now, he is working on the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition and is advocating switching the nation to as much as 50% nuclear power by the end of the century. Instead of banking on high cost alternatives, he feels that we should work on better disposal of the nuclear waste.

Newt calls war on terror 'phony'

In a speech the other day, Newt Gingrich said that we are waging a phony war on terror. His point was not that there is not a war to be waged on terror groups, but that the way we have been approaching it has not been realistic.

"We've been engaged in a phony war," said Gingrich. "The only people who have been taking this seriously are the combat military."

I think that this is a serious critique of the way the war has been run - as opposed to when Edwards called it a bumper sticker war and totally discounted that it needed to be waged. Gingrich's point on the other hand was that if we want to win then we need to take out those things that support terror groups - namely monetary support, of which a large part comes from middle east oil. Energy independence was where he was going. I think he made a good point, though I think that the use of the word 'phony' might have been over stating the case - surely used for dramatic effect, he knew what he was doing.

I know there are some ethical concerns about him as a presidential candidate, but when listening to him work out a lot of the current issues in American politics makes me wonder if he really is the best person for the job. Granted right now he gets to work in general political theory and not actually have to work with others on the issues. At the very least he would make political debates interesting.

The Return of Cold Fusion?

When I was in high school, Ponns and Fleishman announced their infamous Cold Fusion results which appeared to show that fusion was possble using relatively cheap and simple technology, at room temperatures, on a tabletop. The world went wild. "The biggest scientific news in a generation!" "Cheap energy for all!" "The end of the Oil monopolies!" As a high school student fascinated with physics, it could not come at a better time. I read everything I could find on the subject, and even was thinking about how I could try and reproduce the experiment. And then came the bad news. The results could NOT be replicated... and there were even signals that the original results may have been tweaked to look more promising than they were. Cold fusion was debunked, and few reputable scientists could get funding to investigate further.

Since then, the "hot fusion" scientists working with high-energy plasmas have still not managed to even reach a break-even point in almost 20 years, and largely the world is looking to sunlight, wind power, ethanol, etc. to meet the growing energy appetite of a technology saturated world. It seems like Cold Fusion might still be worth looking into. It turns out the Navy never gave up hope. And they claim to have results! I hope they are right.