Atoms and Ashes

Nuclear power has been a bête noire of mine for decades.  When I was a kid, I thought this was the future – power “too cheap to meter” as the high priests of the cult of the atom told us.  But a book came out in 1971 by two veterans of the American nuclear project that was an epiphany for me:  Poisoned Power.  Long before Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, it made a convincing case against nuclear power.  In the half century since, I have seen virtually nothing that has made me rethink my opposition.  A brilliant new book, Atoms and Ashes – A Global History of Nuclear Disasters, has further deepened my convictions – not that they really needed any deepening, as my posts here will attest. Continue reading


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Nuclear Power Today

I read Poisoned Power in the early 1970s.  It was written by two seasoned veterans of the nuclear power research establishment.  John Gofman did extensive research on the harmful effects of radiation and became an ardent opponent of nuclear power, founding the Committee For Nuclear Responsibility in 1971.  Arthur Tamplin was a biophysicist and an expert on radiation.  Their book was an eye-opener for me and, to a certain extent, jump started my environmental activism.  After the Three Mile Island accident in 1979, they issued an update.  (Fun fact:  At the time of the accident, I was working on a surveying crew on a power plant construction project – not a nuke – and I went to see the movie, The China Syndrome, the night before the accident at TMI.  Driving to work in the morning, I thought at first that Continue reading


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World Energy Outlook 2017

I went to a talk last night at the Council on Foreign Relations:  Dr. Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency IEA), sat down with Amy Myers Jaffe, the Council’s senior fellow for energy and the environment, for an interesting discussion.  (The video is here, along with a transcript.)  The IEA was founded in 1974 to help the world’s major economies respond to the Arab oil shocks of that time.  It has since become a well of knowledge about the world’s energy resources, now and for the future, and many of the critical aspects of our energy production and use, not the least of which are climate change, pollution, and energy poverty.  This year’s World Energy Outlook, in fact, contains an important report on the outlook for energy access for those billion of our fellow world citizens who have no modern energy services. Continue reading


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China’s Nuclear Boondoggle

china-nuclear-plants

According to the IAEA here, there are 31 operational nuclear power reactors in China, and 24 more under construction.  But, according to the excellent “World Nuclear Industry Status Report 2015,” there is a deep slowdown underway in the planning for more new plants. Continue reading


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Breakthrough! US – China Climate Targets

11_12_14_BK_TopEmittersin2013_1050_822_s_c1_c_cHere are the world’s four largest emitters of CO2 from fossil fuel combustion and cement production.  In 2013, China accounted for twice of America’s carbon dioxide output.  Collectively, the world blasted 36 billion tons of CO2 into the climate system – nearly ¾ of the total global burden of greenhouse gases. Continue reading


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A Nice, Thoughtful Review of ANW

EagleNeb2ANW is, if you hadn’t guessed, my shorthand for A Newer World.  The erudite Christopher P. Winter put a nice review of the book out there on the net recently at his interesting website, To Open The Sky.

The review notes that “…things can be done about climate change because, as this book thoroughly documents, things are being done about it.”  Describing me, Winter goes on to say Continue reading


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Nero’s Still Fiddling

no need for nuclear

(graphic from The Ecologist)

I can’t really say it often enough:  nuclear power is a scandal.  It’s squandered trillions of dollars, generated waste that will be lethal for hundreds of thousands of years, blighted vast areas of Japan and the Ukraine – and is still an accident waiting to happen.  But, you say, in this age of warming, we need clean nuclear power to cut our greenhouse gas emissions.  Utter, unadulterated, dangerously stupid bullshit!  Okay?  Can it be said any more clearly than that?  Part of the extraordinary tragedy of commercial nuclear power is the fact that while the planet is truly burning, the Nukefists are fiddling away time, money, expertise and political will with this proven outrage of a technology. Continue reading


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