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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4629239.stm
What is all this nonsense about what 'we' are going to do about new energy sources? What is the most that 'we' are ever going to do--vote for a new 'Energy Czar' to head-up our worldwide Centrally Planned Economy, and then sit back while the Czar establishes 'our' new Energy Policy? What ARE people smoking when they say these things?
I hate to say this total banality, because saying it implies that it is a science, and that it is peopled with scientists who run experiments and push levers and so on, but economics is the only thing that is going to drive 'our' energy policy in the future. There will be other forces that impede our energy policy--like, politics, as well as the naive belief that politicians can master economics for any reason other than providing a voodoo ritual dance at the base of the volcano, complete with promises about next years harvest, but it will have only one driver; the costs of the possible alternatives, including, alternatives that are possible but not developed yet.
We stopped building nukes in the 70s.[*OK; we stopped planning to build new nukes in the 70s; they take a long time to come on line after inception; the pipeline was filled for maybe the better part of the decade of the 80s, while nukes continued to come on line. But, the pipeline pretty much went dry in the late 70s. The lesson is, the pipeline is not going to spring to life soon, even if we changed our Energy policy today.]
Which means, we've also done a good job of strangling our domestic infrastructure for building nukes in the future. Industries do not sit on a shelf waiting for 30 years for that next order, nor can we expect to scale up military propulsion infrastructure as if we were turning on a tap of some kind. 30 years is more than a career in any modern technology.
France has had no such qualms, is and has been civilly nuked to the gills. So, God forbid, when the international consortium of pseudo governmental entities that claim to be building the Next Big Thing in Fusion and actually agree on where to turn over the first shovel of dirt after years of bureacratic political haggling, a nation like France will be in prime shape to make the transition from fission to fusion.
Gee; how DID the frogs keep their nutcase commie crunchies in check?
Hmmmm.
Possibility 1] The crunchies don't give a rat's ass about the environment in France.
Possibility 2] The worldwide ecological/environmental movement was only about keeping nukes from being built in the US.
Head in the sand? How do we explain the facts of a fully nuclear France? Are the French less environmentally aware than the average American?
I'll bet if we sniff, we'll find a different balance of those two competing forces; the driver of economics, and the impediment of politics.
Well, guess which one screwed us over?
What is all this nonsense about what 'we' are going to do about new energy sources? What is the most that 'we' are ever going to do--vote for a new 'Energy Czar' to head-up our worldwide Centrally Planned Economy, and then sit back while the Czar establishes 'our' new Energy Policy? What ARE people smoking when they say these things?
I hate to say this total banality, because saying it implies that it is a science, and that it is peopled with scientists who run experiments and push levers and so on, but economics is the only thing that is going to drive 'our' energy policy in the future. There will be other forces that impede our energy policy--like, politics, as well as the naive belief that politicians can master economics for any reason other than providing a voodoo ritual dance at the base of the volcano, complete with promises about next years harvest, but it will have only one driver; the costs of the possible alternatives, including, alternatives that are possible but not developed yet.
We stopped building nukes in the 70s.[*OK; we stopped planning to build new nukes in the 70s; they take a long time to come on line after inception; the pipeline was filled for maybe the better part of the decade of the 80s, while nukes continued to come on line. But, the pipeline pretty much went dry in the late 70s. The lesson is, the pipeline is not going to spring to life soon, even if we changed our Energy policy today.]
Which means, we've also done a good job of strangling our domestic infrastructure for building nukes in the future. Industries do not sit on a shelf waiting for 30 years for that next order, nor can we expect to scale up military propulsion infrastructure as if we were turning on a tap of some kind. 30 years is more than a career in any modern technology.
France has had no such qualms, is and has been civilly nuked to the gills. So, God forbid, when the international consortium of pseudo governmental entities that claim to be building the Next Big Thing in Fusion and actually agree on where to turn over the first shovel of dirt after years of bureacratic political haggling, a nation like France will be in prime shape to make the transition from fission to fusion.
Gee; how DID the frogs keep their nutcase commie crunchies in check?
Hmmmm.
Possibility 1] The crunchies don't give a rat's ass about the environment in France.
Possibility 2] The worldwide ecological/environmental movement was only about keeping nukes from being built in the US.
Head in the sand? How do we explain the facts of a fully nuclear France? Are the French less environmentally aware than the average American?
I'll bet if we sniff, we'll find a different balance of those two competing forces; the driver of economics, and the impediment of politics.
Well, guess which one screwed us over?
