Archive for the ‘Energy Commissions’ Category

When the smoke clears after the November mid-term elections, probably the most divisive battle between the entrenched Obama Administration and the party crashing Tea Partiers will be fought over the EPA’s plans to regulate carbon emissions in January. Ironically, the right is now being led by liberal Democrat Jay Rockefeller, of West Virginia, who is urging coal miners in his state to “get mad” over EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson’s unilateral effort to enforce a national climate plan. 

A forerunner of this pending drama could be seen this week as the Obama Administration once again postponed its effort to tighten Bush Administration standards on ozone in an obvious attempt to avoid election blowback. Even as the administration shuffles its feet, Republicans are charging hard, with Sen. James Inhofe of Oklahoma, the top Republican on the Environment and Public Works Committee, calling the ozone review part of the President’s "anti-industrial policy" and top Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee listing it as one of the costliest new regulations being issued under the Clean Air Act. 

The battle over ozone is nothing compared to what carbon regulations are going to inspire. Implementation plans are usually drawn up by the states but the EPA has already pre-empted this by saying it will substitute its own plans in those states that have not come up with anything yet. Texas is suing, saying that the law gives them three years to comply.

If EPA prevails, any new building projects will require extensive review to make sure they are not adding to a state’s “carbon footprint.”  Whole state economies may be at stake. Meanwhile, Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski is leading a bi-partisan effort in the Senate to postpone the EPA effort. But Murkowski is locked in a bitter write-in campaign election after being defeated as too moderate by a Tea Party rival in the Republican primary. 

As one nuclear energy observer opined:  "Just think, all this could be avoided with nuclear energy, which promises clean air, adequate power and economic prosperity all at once. Instead we’ll have to wait to see the carbon debate blow up after the election."

Read more about it at the New York Times

Having spent less than a year working out the details, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is getting ready to impose widespread rules on carbon emissions across the entire economy beginning January 1.

The issue promises to be wildly contentious – particularly if the Republicans get control of either branch of Congress in November. The bipartisan opposition is already being led by several coal state Democrats, most prominently Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, one of the most reliable liberal voices in the Senate. Almost 90 percent of the electricity in the Midwest comes from coal and no new construction projects will be allowed to go ahead if reductions in emissions are not made. Whole state economies are at stake.

The confusion that is likely to prevail is evident in this morning’s Politico article, which refers constantly to the question of carbon emissions as “pollution controls.”  “The Obama administration has said it will limit its regulations to only the biggest sources at first, but it’s still unclear exactly what pollution controls will be required,” says the article. “[G]uidance [from the EPA] has been stalled indefinitely at the White House, where officials are sparring over the costs of installing pollution controls.”

But carbon emissions are not “pollution” in the classic sense of a “resource out of place.”  They are the unavoidable by-product of combustion. There is no way to “control” them except by cutting back on fossil fuels or replacing them with something else – like nuclear power.

Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal carried an editorial charging that EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson is breaking the law by not allowing the states three years to come up with their implementation plans for enforcing the new EPA regulations, as specified by the Clean Air Act.

It’s going to get interesting after the first of the year.
 

Read more at Politico

Did Milton Shaw, a 1970s member of the Atomic Energy Commission, try to subvert the fast breeder reactor and close down Oak Ridge?  Was thorium a better route toward nuclear?  Was Alvin Weinberg the victim of all this?

Charles Barton reviews the whole subject in a lengthy blog post, “Milton Shaw and the Road to Energy Failure.”  Much of it is old and forgotten arguments, but it is certainly interesting to hear President Richard Nixon telling Congress:  “Our best hope today for meeting the Nation's growing demand for economical clean energy lies with the fast breeder reactor.”

It’s hard to tell whether this kind of soul searching moves the ball forward. What’s done is done and it’s hard to go back and pinpoint a particular moment in time or individual and say this is where things went wrong. President Jimmy Carter’s canceling of fuel reprocessing was probably the most fateful decision in the long history of nuclear, but we still managed to complete more than fifty reactors after 1976 and we may get the chance to revisit reprocessing yet.

The important thing is the Nuclear Renaissance is moving forward. Rather than the “road to energy failure” we should be talking about the road to energy success.

Read more at Nuclear Green

Then come back to Nuclear Townhall and tell us your thoughts

- William Tucker