god is Dead

In April 1966 the headline on Time Magazine's front cover read "God is Dead." The accompanying article concerned a movement in American theology that arose in the 1960s known as the "death of God". The proponents of this movement believed that man had outgrown God and that man would achieve meaning through his own morality and accomplishment in a post-monotheistic world.

To those of you who know know me personally, or through my blog, I can assure you that God is alive and god (little g) is dead. In the late 1960's the environmental movement was born and over time spawned the belief in the actuality of man-made global warming. To many the protection of "mother earth" has become their god.

In 2006, former Vice President Al Gore's documentary An Inconvenient Truth championed "the science" supporting climate change. In 2007, Al Gore and Rajendra Pachauri the head of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change garnered the Nobel Peace prize.

Soon anyone who was anyone in Hollywood assured us as to the inevitable climatic catastrophe which awaited us if immediate action was not taken. Scientists who did not agree with their peers were ostracized and blackballed. Politicians who expressed disbelief were labeled as being tools of big oil.

The reduction of carbon dioxide became a potential source of revenue to cash strapped governments through cap and trade legislation. The United Kingdom has adopted such legislation and recently a steel mill in the UK was purchased by the Indian conglomerate for which Mr. Pachauri works. The mill was shut down and 2000 employees lost their jobs as the mill's carbon credits were sold for several million dollars. And you thought they only wanted to save the planet?

As most of you who follow my blog know, one of my main rants is the complicity of the old media with the liberal establishment in not reporting or under-reporting certain news stories.
One such story is "Climate Gate" which deals with the publishing of hacked emails from scientists who did not agree with the concept of global warming and inferred manipulation of data used in scientific papers. This news story and its fallout until recently have received very little coverage in the USA but is front page news in UK and Canadian Newspapers.

Following are two links. The first outlines the recent fallout in a chronological order. The second one is frankly disorganized but contains the latest " hot off the press news" concerning Climate Gate

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-234092--.html

http://www.climatedepot.com/


It looks like god is dead in Canada and the UK. It is only a matter of time till he is dead in the USA.

A Voice in the Wilderness

Then again there are some fundamentalists out there who will cling to their superstitions.

These people are really scary!

It took Nixon to go to China

In 1972 President Richard Nixon went to China. The event was historic not only in opening relations with what essentially had been a closed society for 30 years but also in the fact that Nixon, who was famous for his anti communist rhetoric in the 1950s, was leading the way.

Now, this posting has nothing to do with China or Nixon. It has to deal with a major announcement this week that the US government is providing a nine billion dollar loan that guarantees the construction of the first nuclear power plants in the US in 30 years. This announcement was made by none other than President Barack Obama.

The US nuclear power industry went into a living rigor mortise after the near-nuclear meltdown at Three Mile island in 1979. In 1983 I worked as junior rookie flunky field engineer on the construction of the 950 mega watt Clinton Nuclear Plant in Illinois. ( See picture above) That project started in 1969 and went into full operation in 1985. Following is a little history on why no new nuclear plants have started construction for the last 30 years.

Following Three Mile island, the US Atomic Energy Commission, whose job was to promote the peaceful use of atomic energy was replaced with the Nuclear Regulatory Agency whose job well ....was to regulate. The NRC became the Men In Black at nuclear construction sites. They became famous for asking what if questions such as "What if giant chipmunks hurl 9000 pound nuts at the reactor? Will the reactor remain intact?" The codes on plants which were being constructed at that time were changed due to the NRC and massive amounts of completed work had to be removed and replaced.

The new world of the NRC also required massive amounts of paper quality control documentation . The plant I worked on had 2000 construction workers and 4000 supervisors and ended up costing 3.3 billion dollars. Why so much money you ask? Do you remember in school when they told you that if they removed all the rat hairs out of a box of cereal then the cereal would become cost prohibitive? Nuclear construction became construction without rat hairs. Utility rate payers rightfully squealed as construction costs skyrocketed.

There is a second reason that power plant construction (not just nuclear) stopped in the mid-1980s and it's not one the GOP or the Democrats will own up to. The truth is the only reason to construct new power plants is rising power demand. The main source of rising power demand after WWII was heavy industry. If you are old enough to remember that steel mills, chemical plants and manufacturing operations were relocated overseas in the 1970s as they were considered " too dirty". It was proclaimed that the US was eventually to become a "service economy" The high paying jobs that heavy industry provided left and the rust belt was created. The rate payers continued screaming as expensive plants were being built whose power was no longer needed.

There is also is a third reason that no new plants have been built. Despite the fact that there have been operating nuclear plants in this country for over 50 years ( my father worked on the first plant in Shippingport, PA in the 1950s), we still do not have a national storage facility for nuclear wastes. The only facility we had ,the Yucca Mountain storage facility in Nevada was recently shut down by the Obama administration. Like many other issues such as Social Security, the government always puts off unpleasant choices to the future. For now, all nuclear waste is stored at nuclear plants whether operational or mothballed.

The fourth and most important reason has been the perceived lack of safety of nuclear power and a growing sense of nimbyism ( not in my backyard )in this country. Homer Simpson has been the face of nuclear energy for the last 20 years.

For those of us seeking energy independence, nuclear power represents a good option to reduce our dependency on foreign oil. For those seeking to stimulate the economy the construction of nuclear plants represents real green jobs. The kind that pay in green paper with dead Presidents on it. The support given by the Obama administration on nuclear plant construction represents a massive change in the energy policy of the United States and is not one that a Republican President could have made. In many ways it is similar to Nixon going to China.

A Voice in the Wilderness

Epilogue: I hope I am correct about my opinions above but over the last year I have developed an acute case of cynicism . For the past 30 years I have been able to judge a persons personal political inclinations simply by understanding their support or opposition to nuclear power.
In the 1980s many nuclear plants were partially constructed but never operated. I would hate to see billions of dollars spent on construction of new plants which may never operate with the taxpayers left picking up the bill. Last week Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller quoted that Obama was " Not believable" in matters concerning coal energy policy. Will he prove "believable" on nuclear energy?

PANTS ON THE GROUND

Last week there was a primary election in Illinois. Somewhere between the cold weather and voter apathy a massive 30% of registered voters showed up. The tales of voter discontent and anger must obviously be overstated. We have just added one point nine trillion dollars more of public debt, continue to have two war fronts raging, and just lost four million more jobs. Hey, things are great. Didn't the government just announce that the unemployment rate actually went down!??

In the word's of that cat eating alien Alf" "No problem!!!"

The political machines of both parties, more or less, got their way in Illinois and at the end of the day an elephant and a donkey were spotted at a bar toasting each other that the status quo was pretty much being preserved. Last week can serve as a lesson learned on what happens when we the voters allow ourselves to be uninformed, keep our wallets in our pockets and let the political parties pick our candidates instead of us.

The primaries are coming in many other states much sooner than anyone can imagine. Do you know who is running for office and what that candidate actually stands for? Or are you just a fool with your pants on the ground?

Pants on the ground. Pants on the ground. Looking like a fool with our pants on the ground.


A Voice In the Wilderness