| Read the articles. In short, they make largely economic arguments for why nuclear power in the U.S. should go down from about 20% now to around 10% in a future compatible with limiting greenhouse gas emissions. To that end, we should emphasize the most affordable and effective measures first, resorting to nuclear power only as a last, well planned, and well executed resort. I agree with that in the Texas Plan.
Another excellent post in Climate Progress discusses the McKinsey Report on stabilizing greenhouse gas emissions at 450 ppm at zero net cost.
 As an economist, I have to say that this all strikes me as a sound, comprehensive framework for resolving a wide range of energy policy issues around scientific concepts of economic and energy efficiency.
As a Texan and a Democrat, I have some practical and political concerns or ... quibbles, if you will:
Prioritize water conservation and job creation
Any kind of boiler, nuclear or carbon, used to generate electricity efficiently poses a problem of condensing steam by warming air ("cooling towers") or water ("cooling ponds. Our tropical climate here in Texas is not great for wind-turbines designed for the North Atlantic or for cooling towers or ponds of any sort. The capital cost of any sort of plant generating power from steam is going to be higher, the thermal efficiency lower, here than in the extreme latitudes.
This is why we need to focus on using wind-power to pump fluids and implementing photo-voltaic power on direct-current micro-grids. We also need to salvage solar and waste heat for refrigeration. Both of these reduce the need for our ever-larger and less reliable transmission grid - a Texas-sized toaster oven.
Getting these things right entails (i) maximizing the scale of modular component technologies as sophisticated as micro-chips and nano-machines or as mundane as building materials, (ii) minimizing the scale of component assembly to small shops and sites, and (iii) optimizing the scope of system integration for middle-class job creation. Texas could do all of this, could lead the way, in fact. But, the CAP study is somewhat parochial in focusing almost exclusively on capital costs and, indeed, considering them in a strictly conventional, now highly compromised, framework of rather dubious financial institutions. CAP operates in the Washington-centric lobby-world, so that is understandable.
Texas will have to make its way in the real world where we have to compete for capital and jobs.
Re-engineer the carbon-cycle as we bomb and borrow our way past Peak Oil
Actually, hydrocarbons are an excellent means of storing energy from solar energy, whether for a short-time as renewable fuels or a long-time as fossil fuel. Pricing the carbon right is necessary but not sufficient to achieve across-the-board reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
But, given that, Texas can also lead the world in re-engineering carbon-based fuels and prime-movers. I favor di-methyl ether, a synthetic fuel for diesel or gas-turbine engines.Such fuels can be increasingly derived from biomass or synthesized from what would otherwise be fossil fuel burned directly.
Transitional fuel policy takes Willie Nelson, of course, but also ending a religious war between those as seem to advocate organic farming in an adversarial relationship with organic chemistry. The key to peace on the prairie here, I suspect, is marginalizing the symbiosis between environmental plaintiff and defense attorneys. They take gun-battles and freak-shows into courtrooms. "Good on them," as Molly would say. But, that is not the way or the place to re-engineer and re-tool the political economy of Texas generally or to create middle-class jobs.
Stabilize our public finances
Where CAP goes wrong, I think, is demonizing turn-key projects. To be sure, public financing for turn-key power-generation projects decades ago produced perfectly awful examples of how to do nuclear power. More of the same would be worse. And, actually, all that just gets worse and worse in Texas as the Godforsaken Public Utilities Commission goes about "green-washing" business as usual by "sticking a windmill on it".
That could be compounded, if McKinsey and bubble-headed politicians try to create a "dot-com" boom in ... greenish "intellectual property", also known as Ponzi schemes.
The fact is that our national institutions of large-scale and small-scale finance are not functioning. Our state institutions, ... never mind.
Oh, and that can get much worse if and as "merchant banks" - money launderers, drugs, and arms peddlers - come into play with "offset" and barter schemes.
Seriously, folks, there is engineering, and there is financial engineering. We cannot apply scientific, engineering, or economic principles to energy policy so long as the formulation and execution of such policy is utterly dominated by fools and knaves, at best, what John LeCarré calls "the worst people in the world", otherwise. Oh, and don't get me started on "bond-lawyers", in between the other two catgories.
The CAP studies pre-date our current financial crisis and reduce the terms of reference to domestic lobby-world. They are not the last word by a long-shot. But, as an advocate for nuclear power in Texas, I have no trouble starting with this ground work and hoping to work within the hope/change agenda of our new Administration. I just hope they fix our financial institutions in my lifetime.
There is a case for nuclear in Texas. But, there is no point making that case (a) if it is confused with junk being peddled before the TPUC today or, (b) if it does not follow generally sound principles for conserving water, creating jobs, re-engineering the heavy chemical industry we already have, and stabilizing our public finances generally.
I will make that case later, if anybody is still interested. But, I may or may not agree with CAP that the electricity generated on and sent across a public grid should go down to 10% of what should and could be much more robustly engineered sources and uses of power in the future of Texas. |
The Center for American Progress (CAP), headed by Obama and Clinton insider John Podesta, has released a pretty definitive case against nuclear power:
