Finally, the energy literate on the Left understand that politically correct energies for electricity (wind and solar–not nuclear and hydro) are little recipe for anthropogenic greenhouse-gas mitigation. Embedded energy awaiting a payback, small scale, and intermittency/fossil-fuel fill-in leaves a very skinny contribution.
And to the extent that the climate movement is more successful at closing nuclear plants than erecting wind farms and installing solar panels, the alleged problem of climate change is worsened.
James Hansen led the charge on this very issue, and now an organization and movement is mobilizing at this very late date to save a handful of running nuclear dinosaurs from extinction.
Are the climate alarmists bluffing about their cause? Because if they really believed, they would have embraced, before now, the one major emission-free source of central-station electricity: nuclear power.…
“DOE and its environmental allies are trying their best bypass the adaptation of full fuel-cycle analyses through their jihad against carbon; which includes natural gas, or at least its direct use. Apparently, natural gas is still considered to be “clean,” but only if burned in electric power plants.”
MR: Tell us about your interest in the energy efficiency debate from a natural gas perspective.
MEK: When I was a medic during Vietnam, I saw the crucial need for reliable and affordable energy in third-world countries I served in, such as vaccines for refrigeration. So researched and became aware of the term “appropriate technologies,” and I began reading works by Dr. Ernst Friedrich “Fritz” Schumacher. One book was Small is Beautiful.
While Schumacher wasn’t exactly advocating free markets, his writings certainly endorsed free, locally directed, choices as opposed to the imposition of central government dictation of energy programs.…
“We support your effort to ensure meaningful and effective measures to control climate change, an immediate challenge facing the United States and the world today. Please don’t postpone the earth. If we fail to act now, it is scientifically irrefutable that there will be catastrophic and irreversible consequences for humanity and our planet.”
– Donald Trump, signatory letter/advertisement in the New York Times, December 6, 2009.
“A Trump Administration will focus on real environmental challenges, not phony ones …. We’ll solve real environmental problems in our communities like the need for clean and safe drinking water.”
– Donald Trump, “An America First Energy Plan.” May 26, 2016.
Consider it corrected.
It does not take a climate scientist to understand the intellectual weaknesses of climate alarm. And it does not take a political scientist or political economist to see the problems of any one-world solution, much less a domestic one, to this alleged international problem.…