I’m watching Morning Joe on CNBC — the joys of having a baby who wakes up at 6:30 am — and a guy from Time magazine is discussing their major forthcoming cover story that has a picture of the soldiers raising the flag on Iwo Jima, but now they are raising a tree.
Kudos to Time for making the clear analogy to World War II — that is the only way we are going to beat 450 ppm.
Yes, the journalists wonder why global warming is not a bigger subject of the debates [Note to journalists: Uhh, maybe because you don't ask any questions on global warming.]
Tim Russert did inform listeners that McCain is an environmentalist [Note to Russert: McCain has a League of Conservation Voters rating of ZERO.]
I’ll blog more on this when the article comes out.
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IF President Bush had unveiled his goals for reductions in greenhouse gas emissions at the beginning of his administration instead of in its waning months, he might have actually played a role in linking the United States to global efforts to curb climate change. But the proposals he made yesterday, which in 2001 could have been a starting point for negotiations with advocates of stronger action in Congress, are now too belated and too weak to be more than a historical footnote. All three remaining presidential candidates are committed to much more stringent, mandatory reductions in carbon dioxide.
The effort of World War II is probably accurate. The problem is there is no human drama.
The number of movies of World War I and World War II number about 200. There’s a life and death struggle, loss, struggle, conflict and bravery. There never will be a movie about putting up a windturbine, although I did read that someone died in Washington state sometime last year on one.
The global warming effort is more like educating all children or putting in waste disposal systems in all buildings, necessary, but oh so boring. Now if could just get a story about half a town trying to put up a windturbine and the other half trying to tear it down and the windturbine falls on all of them and the town dies. That would get some interest.
The way to win the war against global warming the quickest and most effectively is to replace coal-burning electrical power plants with nuclear power plants. The coal plant already has all the electrical distribution routed to that location, and so a nuclear power plant can simply assume the load, which will be from 800-3000 MW. Conventional light-water nuclear power plants can’t simply be built at or near current coal plants because of the restrictions involving evacuation zones and forth, also because a typical light-water reactor will consume more coolant water than a coal plant.
A liquid-fluoride thorium reactor, on the other hand, can be built much smaller than a light-water reactor. Its inherent safety removes the need for evacuation zones, and its high-temperature operation means that it can be economically air-cooled (even though it will achieve higher efficiency if water-cooled). The low-pressure operation of the reactor and its non-reactive fuel form means that small, tight-fitting containments can be built that don’t require huge pressure vessel forgings like LWRs do.
These reactors can be economically mass-produced and then floated to coal plant locations, where they can assume the load of the coal plant and enable them to be shut down.
Shut down coal and you’ve shut off about 40% of the US CO2 emission. Thorium can stop global warming by striking right at the base of the tree. To the public the effect will be transparent–they still get power, they just get it without making CO2.
Ronald said: “The effort of World War II is probably accurate. The problem is there is no human drama.”
You want human drama? Just wait a few more years.
Trouble is, by the time there is sufficient human drama it will be much too late for us to do anything to stop the train wreck.