Comments (17)

While I would not bet against Buffet. Nuclear Power is still the most expensive way to boil water. Since the 1950's even the insurance industry said they would not insure a nuclear plant. So the government had to with the Price Anderson Act subsidy. Finally, not noticed by many is the FBI memo that Osama and Al Quida had plans to attack a U.S. nuclear plant. Making them effectively bombs in our backyard just like they turned commercial airliners into domestic cruise missles.
Meanwhile the sun hits the earth with more energy in fifteen minutes that the people of the world use in a year. While you think about where the future of energy is. I'm heading out to my electrically propeled sailboat which is recharged by a wind generator amd a solar panel. I have no need to go to a dock for fuel or to recharge. I live aboard all summer so I know these technologies work.

BCP
hyyp://beercanpolitics.blogspot.com

Nuclear power - more dangerous than what?
- Oil - 200,000 dead at minimum, Iraqis do count.
- Wind - frequent supply shortage.
- Solar - daily supply shortage.
- Biomass - Technology and supply shortage.
- Coal - Have you been to Beijing recently? Have you been to the Artic recently? Have you been in New Orleans recently?

Good grief, we accept 40,000 automible deaths a year, but I haven't heard anyone suggest we get rid of automobiles entirely. We have had 40 years of nuclear generation and as far as I know there have only been a handful of deaths using Western technology.

Please, get our fears in order.

Since when are we discussing NUKES again!!!! My god. They still create waste that is toxic and lasts- forever !!!!!

My God. And it costs a Gjillion Dollars!!!!

Die, Dinosaurs... die already !!!!

// dabrack wrote:
If this is what our public debate has sunk to, there is little hope for government by the people. //

Do you mean to say, now is the time to install Ross Perot in white house?

JeffRandom is right! By my count only about 5% of the posts have anything beyond the occasional reference to energy, much less unclear. If this is what our public debate has sunk to, there is little hope for government by the people.

ALANK21.
Wind power is certainly less polluting than say the coal burning plants in China. However, to say that wind power turbines produce the rated power 24/7 is far from accurate. This is only the case when a sufficient amount of wind is available. When the wind doesn't blow, no power at all is produced. Also, wind turbines have to be replaced at intervals of three to ten years. So that doesn't necessarily make them as economical as wind power advocates try to portray them being. So, wind cannot be relied upon to retire fossil fuel power plants in the manner that you describe. Wind power can help, but it can only be a part of the solution. Other elements MUST be included as well. This includes oil, clean coal, natural gas, biofuels, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar and yes, also nuclear power. Nuclear power has come a long ways from the days of Three Mile Island as well. Here's just one example:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2008/09/ceo-of-hyperion-power-generation.html

But let's not get all excited about wind power being the answer. For the US to maintain anything closely like standard of living that we currently have, wind power can only provide a relatively small percentage of our energy needs.

// JeffRandom wrote:
These posts are so weird I have to wonder if Post interns didn't come up with them Sunday at 3am after a long strung-out night in Adams Morgan. //

*****
Murphy's Laws On Love and Sex
*****

Size isn't important.

Mr Buffett is no fool when it comes to bring on-line large scale sources of electricity; this time with the benefit of wind energy.

The installed capacity of his TX installation alone = 2 540MegWatt nuclear power plants. In the states of Colorado and Washington, by 2010 another equivalent capacity of the same magnitude, and this just private investment.

There are contracts for 1000 more windturbines, 3rd generation that develop 2 megawatt/turbine instead of 1.2. Again all private investment.

All clean energy, 24 hrs a day, no pollution. This clean energy can then be traded to close down fossil fueled generation.

All over the US, large scale wind farms are being funded by states who want to not only supplement their capacity but to be used to retire coal and oil fired steam plants.

This will go a long way to reduce the US dependence of oil, not in 10 years but in 3. No more need to drill drill drill. No more need to import.

Its happening before our very eyes yet we are blinded by the rhetoric of the sound byte and the shallow reporting in our media markets. Perhaps EPRI and the REA (Electric Power Research Institute and Rural Electrification Act) need to do a better job showing off these sources.

I challenge the Wash Post reporters to get unglued from Google, and do some REAL reporting, including visiting these installations and seeing what actually is happening.

Zenhead wrote:
"If anyone thinks all of this can happen without a major tax increase, and I mean a 10% jump for everyone over present levels, they're smoking some pretty high quality hash." McCain asserts there will be no new taxes, yet you say that McCain is "prescient" and Obama is the b.s. dreamer? I want what you're smokin'.

As for the content of the article: yes, Buffett is a smart guy. He sees the nuclear writing on the wall.

Buffet is shrewd. And McCain is right.
In order to "get there from here," we WILL need to look at both nuclear energy and off-shore drilling. As far as I can tell, neither Katrina, nor Rita, nor Dolly, nor Ike unleashed massive oil spills in the Gulf. If the rigs are built for Cat V hurricanes, then the problem will most likely be the destruction of oil refineries.
As much as no one wants to suggest this, we need to look at construction of one brand new, mega refinery, at least 400 miles inland from the ocean or Gulf. We also need to study why France, Germany, Israel,Japan, Sweden and perhaps even the Netherlands have safe and secure nuclear reactors. Maybe not the Netherlands.
But the citizens of those countries are as stringent, if not more so, than we are about nuclear power. And before we can get biomass, geothermal, solar, tidal, wind, and massive conservation efforts can take us to a 30-40% level of alternative energy production, by, if we're lucky, 2030, we need to have a "bridge" to get there.
We are facing serious economic issues; the Russians are reviving the Cold War; we may have new problems in our hemisphere if we cannot talk some sense into Putin; if Obama is elected, a war with Pakistan is a forgone conclusion; the North Koreans are restarting uranium production; we have climate change and the increased damages of hurricanes; droughts; fires; tornados; and hell, maybe a major earthquake in New York City, or the New Madras Fault on the Mississippi, or the West Coast.
If anyone thinks all of this can happen without a major tax increase, and I mean a 10% jump for everyone over present levels, they're smoking some pretty high quality hash. It ain't gonna happen.
Dream on.
Not going to happen.
There are simply not enough Americans to see their taxes increase by at least 10%.
Buffet and McCain, sadly, are prescient. Obama is a dreamer and b.s.

This is funny, if in a sad way. The article was about the acquisition of a nuclear energy company. The comments concern (in order):

1) The rantings of someone on a bad acid trip.
2) An implication that Bill Gates isn't doing enough for people in straw huts. Hello, have you ever heard of the Gates Foundation? Y'know, the largest private charitable foundation in the world and its activities in Africa? The one that combines the estates of both Gates *and* Buffett himself? Guess not.
3) The spacewalk by China. Highly relevant to the purchase of a strugging US nuclear energy company, surely.
4) Giving props to clean coal (the only post that is even remotely related to the story, but even that is a stretch).
5) Another anti-oil rant. Hey, doesn't buying a nuclear power company kinda go along with your anit-oil kick?
6) Comments about the legacy of George Bush. What the relationship is to the article, only the author knows.

These posts are so weird I have to wonder if Post interns didn't come up with them Sunday at 3am after a long strung-out night in Adams Morgan. But it that would insult the interns, they can do better even with severe hangovers.

Bill Gates next mission - Lunar spacecrafts or two in each garage.

What abour people living in straw huts?

China is conducting a spacewalk. By the time NASA lauches its program to colonize moon, chinese will be there.

Time to privatize NASA, and let Warren Buffet own it too.

What the heck, if Buffet and Bill Gates can help China send its astronauts to moon, why can't they help our NASA too?

Did I hear someone mention rude guests?

China is conducting a spacewalk. By the time NASA lauches its program to colonize moon, chinese will be there.

Time to privatize NASA, and let Warren Buffet own it too.

What the heck, if Buffet and Bill Gates can help China send its astronauts to moon, why can they help our NASA too?

Did I hear someone mention rude guests?

I have yet to get the feeling that any politician understands the enormity of the electical energy used daily in the US. It takes about 800 1000 Megawatt plants, or the equivalent, to keep this country ticking over on a daily basis. Electrical demand increases by approximately 21/2% every year so we must build 20 1000MW plants every year just to keep up. Building 10,000 2MW windmills instead would not solve the problem as we would still have to build the 20 thermal plants to fill the gap when the wind doesn't blow. While I thought for the longest time that nuclear could save the day, it can't by itself. Clean coal could, if and when it becomes real. The coal plants already exist. One can only hope that it becomes economically and technically possible for them to be converted to clean coal in the not too distant furure.
Jim Greenwood.

The worldwide, but particularly American view of oil seems to be that it is endless. But it is not.

Recognized in the 1970's (or earlier) was that oil has three properties:

1. economic lubricant
2. polluting in all phases (extraction through use)
3. finite. It will run out. And soon

Despite the above, following a resurgence of oil exploration the price collapsed and people behaved as if property 2 and 3 did not exist. The automakers and the oil co's certainly behaved as if these properties did not exist. Ironically, the 'big 3' automakers and their employees have suffered immensely for their stupidity, while the oil co's have been lavishly rewarded for theirs.

A careless government (executive and congress) lapsed tragically in not improving CAFE rules during the 90's and early 00's. Driving preferences and habits changed. The minivan replaced the station wagon and the SUV replaced the muscle car. And all at ever higher gas consumption while mainly hiding outside the CAFE requirements.

Meanwhile, advances in engine performance were used to increase horsepower with stagnant mileage improvements. (The same advances could have resulted in similar horsepower at lowered consumption. Today's 6 cyl is yesterdays 8; todays 4 is yesterdays 6...). However, the big 3 (with big oil cheering) pushed power and brawn over consumption and brains. (And meanwhile Honda and Toyota fielded cars like the Insight and hugely successful and iconic Prius).

The stage above is set, if not in concrete then in highly immoveable scaffolding. Bush and other (so-called) conservatives push the agenda of exploration to fill future needs. (I'll refrain from comment on the current offshore drilling initiatives to solve todays problems even though same won't come on line for many years).

Immediate reductions in oil and gas consumption can come from conserving fuel. This means encouraging the trend to smaller vehicles (which will continue only as long as gas prices remain high). It means getting more homes and businesses to use passive solar heating (of water). (The southwest US, drenched in sunlight should hardly be using gas, oil or electricity to heat water when it can be heated for no recurring cost or carbon emissions.)

Oil has regrettably been treated like renewable commodities by most everyone from big oil to Washington to consumers to economists. Oil is not sugar or hog bellies, however, you cannot invest your way to more as it is consumed. There is always less to be found in ever more expensive places to find it.

These are emergency conditions that dwarf the current financial panic that is gripping the world. Really.

The world needs to stop bingeing on oil. Especially as the Chinese and Indians are merely whetting their appetite for it.

Yonkers, New York
27 September 2008

In what probably was a careless slip of his tongue, President Bush not long ago muttered with an air of confidence that history will "vindicate" him--as far as Iraq is ooncerned.

Since it is obvious that he invaded and occupied Iraq on blatantly false pretenses, he must have had other things on his mind as the real motive for attacking Iraq.

Somebody, a very high-profile and reliable persona, did give the American people and the whole world a clue to Mr. Bush's real motive for invading Iraq--no other than former Feds chairman Alan Greenspan, who matter-of-factly revealed publicly that Iraqi OIL was Mr. Bush's real motive!

That makes good sense, indeed.

But there is no way history will "vindicate" George W. Bush. While it is true that he succeeded in "helping" six major U.S. oil companies to secure NO-BID oil contracts in Iraq, just recently the Iraqi government summarily abrogated those no-bid contracts.

Mariano Patalinjug
MarPatalinjug@aol.com