Joe, how come we never have any comments from women on the blog?

[JR: My asst., Kari, blogs here. I’ve asked others, but frankly, most people of either gender aren’t writers and don’t accept my invitation.]

This post once again reinforces my belief that you care more about politics than you do about energy. It looks to me like Mr. DesChamps has a solid technical education and real world experience with making energy systems work, Mr. Holtz-Eakin has a strong economic background, and Raidt and Woolsey have broad backgrounds that allow them to understand the implications of the recommendations. They probably all have wide and deep information sources.

Coming up with ideas and policies that just might work to solve our current energy supply situation is not about meeting any particular agendas or belief systems in “clean technologies” or government efforts to promote them.

From my experience in government, when appointed leaders push the professionals to promote particular technologies, the real motive is to lift the economic boat of the major corporations that use traditional political, lobbying and marketing techniques to convince us all that buying their products will help the world. (GE - have you watched the Olympics and GE’s incredible set of ads, Siemens, ADM, BP, DuPont, etc.)

[JR: This comment convinces me you are part of the old-school conservative mindset that has brought us to the brink of energy and climate catastrophe. I certainly agree that if you don’t want strong government action to solve our problems then McCain is your man and his team is first-rate. I will be writing a long article on the subject this week so I’ll leave it at that for now.]

With Clinton out Garver is now on Obama’s policy team. Obama now has a new space policy that makes a lot more sense, covers a lot more details, and for the most part is good policy. It addresses a lot of important issues like ITAR reform, Operationally Responsive space, commercial space, and of course climate change (Obama’s original space policy also addressed climate change).

So, I wonder how much Obama’s energy and climate team has grown in numbers and experience from recent additions from Clinton’s team?

Incidentally, Lori represented Obama recently in a space policy debate with Apollo astronaut Walt Cunningham representing McCain. Again I’d say she won. Walt had a recent article on global change in Launch magazine I’m sure most readers here will disagree with if they get your hands on it.

[JR: This comment convinces me you are part of the old-school conservative mindset that has brought us to the brink of energy and climate catastrophe. I certainly agree that if you don’t want strong government action to solve our problems then McCain is your man and his team is first-rate. I will be writing a long article on the subject this week so I’ll leave it at that for now.]

You either did not read my comment, or you are falling into the trap of considering energy issues to be typical “liberal versus conservative” or “Republican versus Democrat”.

I did not say that I oppose efforts to fight climate change and to change our energy paradigm. In fact, I have dedicated a good portion of my life to just those two challenges. I simply believe that you - with your oceanography degree - have done a reasonable job at diagnosing the illness, but with your lack of any real world energy production experience have done a very poor job of prescribing the cure.

We have had this discussion before, but I will remind you - I served as the Engineer Officer of a nuclear submarine, so I am very familiar with technology that uses no oil, coal or gas, produces enormous amounts of reliable energy, and can do it while holding its breath almost forever. Mr. DesChamps has a resume that tells me he knows a good bit about that almost magical energy source as well.

Uranium and thorium do not come out of unstable countries, they are sourced from places like the US, Canada, and Australia. Fully 10% of the electricity produced in the US in the past 15 years has come as a result of a program to destroy nuclear weapons by turning their active material into electricity - pretty good swords to plowshares technique there and one that was championed by Sam Nunn - surely not a big conservative.

When it comes to energy security, there is nothing like having a power plant that can operate for 33 years without new fuel. The technology not only exists, but it is in operation today.

You might be very surprised to learn that my friends consider me quite left leaning - I am the son of an NEA member, I sent both of my children through public school and spent some time in the classroom myself, I successfully increased the wages at the factory that I managed over the objections of the owner, and I am a huge believer in removing the income cap on FICA payments.

If you could remove your nuclear blind spot, you might find that we agree on a number of issues - though I still believe that energy choices have to be made with solid technical advice, not through marketing, lobbying, or political maneuvering.

[JR: I read your comment. Not sure you did. “Coming up with ideas and policies that just might work to solve our current energy supply situation is not about meeting any particular agendas or belief systems in “clean technologies” or government efforts to promote them.” Classic conservative spin.]

My comment alluded to the following in your initial blog:

“Like his boss, he doesn’t believe in clean technologies and he doesn’t believe in government efforts to promote them”

In engineering, we rarely ask people to “believe in” any technologies. Belief is something private between a person and whatever higher power he or she addresses in prayer.

Technology is driven by facts, analysis, and decision making.

I also do not agree that it is the government’s proper role to promote technologies, especially those being marketed by enormous corporations like the ones that I listed in my original comment. They can do their own technology promoting and marketing.

It is certainly not classic conservative spin to desire a government that does not bend to the highest bidder in campaign contributions.

[JR: They ain’t engineers. Fine, replace “believe in” with “understand.”]

You also wrote Fine, replace “believe in” with “understand”. Sorry if I frustrate you with splitting hairs, but words are important to me. There is a huge difference between “belief” and “knowledge”.