I also reckon that you reckon that what you reckon about me is the issue here.
I don't know how many times I have been told that the issue is
me.
I note that
you are often inclined to read my hotheaded posts and to comment on them, not necessarily about the topic - whether the release of 1.5 liters of slightly radioactive water is a world shaking event, say, in comparison to daily release of millions of tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste in Japan - but about whether or not I am an asshole.
Some people think I'm an asshole. They say as much frequently. Good enough.
So be it.
In all of the time you've been musing about
me, you have been unable to show one annual exajoule of solar energy or for that matter, wind energy. Neither have you been able to produce one case of a person being injured by the storage of so called "dangerous nuclear waste." Neither have you been able to produce an example of one case of a person who has been killed by a dangerous "nuclear accident" in commercial nuclear operations in this country. You cannot show me a permanent repository for annual tens of billion ton quantities for dangerous fossil fuel waste. You cannot demonstrate an example of a twenty year old optimistic prediction about renewable energy that has proved to be true. You cannot show me an example of a third world country that has entered the first or second world by use of renewable energy. You cannot demonstrate an example of an impoverished country where deforestation has been halted and poverty reduced using renewable energy.
You cannot show a program now under way to phase out
any fossil fuel with renewable energy.
If I were you, and were unable to produce
any support for my position, I might be inclined to discuss something that distracts from the fact that my position is insupportable. I'd start saying, "NNadir is an asshole," or "Look, there goes a rabbit!" or "Don't you just love peach ice cream!"
I write about energy and exajoules, almost always with respect to nuclear energy, the most unjustly maligned form of energy there is, our only
real hope, if a small hope. In my writings around the web, I have worked to examine in great detail various aspects of nuclear energy, and have compared them public perceptions. I have in this context, discussed everything from the chemistry of technetium to the molecular structure of soot to the curious biochemistry of iodine. My work has not been easy and I have often been greeted with vituperation and criticism. I can do no more than bear it. Still I soldier on, as difficult as it all is.
Why?
Many people have written me over the years to tell me that I have changed their minds on this subject I most frequently raise. I don't care whether or not you believe it, and in any case, I'm not really very impressed by your system of beliefs. I am perfectly content to think in a completely different way.
You call yourself the "Boreal Avenger," but as far as I can tell, no forests have been avenged by you. Around the world they are being burned, sometimes in cook stoves, as "renewable" energy - as in Cameroon - and sometimes in out of control blazes, as in the United States, Australia and other places. Some people, not you maybe, think that the issue involved here is something called <em>climate change</em>. While you are "avenging forests" by focusing on a
harmless leak of 1.5 kg of water, the forests are
still burning.
Here is what is happening while you are outraged by me and my position on 1.5 liters of water leaking after a
major earthquake that killed hundreds of people, zero of them at the nuclear power plant:
The annual national totals for forest-fire burns has topped 8 million acres only three times since 1960: in 2004, 2005 and 2006. The early 2007 fire toll—1.6 million acres so far—is already running well ahead of last year, when a record 9.9 million acres burned. And the season is just getting underway in the West; drought in the region has primed the Southwest, California and the northern Rockies to be torched. In California, record-low rainfall in Los Angeles and an unusually low snow pack in the Sierra Nevada range have already led to an unusual number of fires. “We’ve been very busy for this early,” marvels Linda Naill, a dispatcher at the air-tanker base in Minden, Nev., which services 10 million acres in Nevada and California. “We had 180 fires before June 1, which is sort of the start of our fire season. It’s usually just a handful.”
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19487117/site/newsweek/Think something just might, maybe, sort of, after a fashion, in some way, kind of like
be wrong?.
No?
Oh I see, your real problem is that I'm not nice.
Maybe you think I am supposed to be "nice" about my opinion of your priorities. I disagree. I'm not inclined to put on a happy face.
In the last 30 years, I have seen untold destruction to the atmosphere and a lot of other things because people were willing to
ignore ignorance to avoid being rude. I decided to try a
different strategy. I have no idea if my approach is
popular. I do know that people write me privately and publicly to say I have changed their thinking. If I have changed ten minds on the subject, that's pretty damn good. It's a
big and
difficult subject that requires considerable sophistication to apprehend.
It's not like I can drive to a solar energy festival in Ohio and dance around with my co-religionists, saying how wonderful things will be in 2050. I am more serious than that.
It's pretty funny. A lot of people are really upset when Democrats like say, Nancy Pelosi, are not aggressive. They get real furious about it, jump up and down and throw really loud tantrums. On the other hand when they actually encounter a Democrat who is forceful, unyielding and aggressive - and who happens to disagree with them - suddenly they're whining "You're not polite!"
Guess what? This is one Democrat who takes climate change
seriously, so seriously that I am not going to lay down for a bunch of namby pamby wishful thinking in the face of what may be the greatest tragedy in human history - a tragedy resulting from the production of considerably more than 430 exajoules of primary energy from burning dangerous fossil fuels.
I hope you feel that you have "avenged" yourself by giving an estimation of my readership. It may be that only 28 people who read my writings - and lately my detractors are quite obsessed with who my readers are - but on the other hand, the number of reactors in process is now 280, about 20 annual exajoules worth, more than half of the current fleet in numbers of reactors, and about 2/3 of the current annual output of primary nuclear energy that we now enjoy. These reactors will not stop climate change - not even close - but on the other hand, they will do more in that direction than a brazillion people driving around to solar shows and starting solar websites. I have learned much from my readers - the rational ones anyway -
Four years ago, when I first started writing here, my opponents were confidently predicting that nuclear power would whither away, much as Karl Marx predicted government would whither away. I will not claim any responsibility for the happy turn of events under which nuclear energy has become the most powerful tool both in current use and on the drawing boards to fight climate change, but on the other hand, it would seem that
my ideas have gained currency nonetheless.
I have nothing against cute little solar energy shows and websites, even though the websites probably consume more energy than solar energy produces, just as people driving to contemplate the Maine Solar House consume more energy that the Maine Solar House will ever produce. I only note, with more sadness than you can possibly know, that solar PV energy would need to expand by a factor of 500 to reach 50 exajoules. Even if it did so, it would barely represent 10% of world energy demand. But it won't. In ten years it will still be
mostly talk, much as it was mostly talk ten years ago.
Not so long ago, even though solar has not reached one exajoule, a huge shortage of solar materials cropped up.
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives/2006/09/chronicle_polys.php Some reports have it taking more than 5 years to be relieved.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/e50784ea-78cb-11db-8743-0000779e2340.htmlLet me tell you what five years is: It's almost 120 billion tons of carbon dioxide.
I have shown elsewhere recently - and I wasn't
nice about it - that while we've been talking solar about half a trillion tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste, chiefly carbon dioxide, have been indiscriminately dumped in the atmosphere. And when did we start talking solar? Here's a 1982 paper entitled: Solar Energy: When, How When?
http://pdf.aiaa.org/jaPreview/JE/1982/PVJAPRE62596.pdfThat's right big guy, 25 years ago, 500 billion metric tons of dangerous fossil fuel waste dumping ago.
Actually the topic was being discussed long before that, since the first solar satellite was launched in 1958.
I suspect, though, you couldn't care less. You'd rather talk about my personality and oh yes, let's not forget, the 1.5 liters of slightly radioactive water.
Excuse me if I feel inclined to express contempt.