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It is a good time to have a look at nuclear power. James Delingpole posts in the Telegraph Blogs, UK.
… We seemed to have just reached the point where civil nuclear power was acceptable in polite society again, as decades on the fears that accompanied Three Mile Island and Chernobyl abated, CO2 emissions fears placed environmental advocacy groups in a cleft stick of nuclear versus global warming, and increasing demand for energy, and energy security concerns drive government policy. The UK has plans to replace its ageing fleet of reactors, the US likewise, and China is already building new nuclear power stations, even green Germany has extended the life of its nuclear generating capacity.
Now we have an earthquake in Japan, possibly causing meltdown at a number of nuclear reactors, whose safety systems seem not to be working too well, and we may be back to square one.
So, how dangerous is it, either when there is massive operator error, like Chernobyl, or an exogenous event, like the earthquake in Japan? We don’t know yet about Japan, although most expert commentary seems reasonably relaxed about the radiation risks in the event of core melt-down. What do we know about Chernobyl?
Well, aren’t we lucky? We have an almost perfect test case of the hazards of civil nuclear power, Chernobyl 1986. 25 years on we have an excellent view of the lives lost, environment despoiled, cancer rates, societal impacts, ecosystems, and so on, caused by the worst civil nuclear disaster ever. …
Craig Pirrong in Streetwise Professor reacts to the sanctions against Libya.
… As usual, the gap between words and deeds is vast. Yammering about sanctions gives the impression of doing something, while actually doing absolutely nothing; that’s actually worse than saying nothing at all, because it would actually take some courage to say that he doesn’t believe that what could be gained by an intervention that could actually achieve something is worth the cost and risk to the US. That would be cold, but it would have the virtue of honesty.
I’m not saying the choices are easy; it will take military force to stop Khadafy, and the amount of force and the consequences of its use are very difficult to predict. What and who follows Khadafy are unlikely to be any prizes. So the case for military involvement is hardly clear-cut.
But I can say with near metaphysical certainty that sanctions will have no effect whatsoever, and that even to suggest that they would have the slightest possibility of forcing Khadafy’s ouster, or preventing a bloodbath is either a lie or a delusion, and a mockery of the people who will be on the receiving end of Khadafy’s wrath. This is just more moral preening intended to disguise a complete abdication of leadership. It would be leadership to send in the Marines. It would be leadership to say, frankly, it’s not in America’s interest. It’s the inversion of leadership to pretend you’re taking strong action when you are in fact doing nothing that will have the slightest impact.
I’ll bet Khadafy and his thuggish sons are having a great big laugh right now. ”Sanctions! Stop it Barry, you’re killing me! No, actually, we’re doing the killing here–but still, you’re a riot, kid! Keep it up!”
Outside of the Khadafy compound, though, it’s not funny. It’s sad and pathetic.
Bill Clinton lays a blast against the administration’s drilling delays. Ed Morrissey has the story.
… Both former Presidents (W too) agreed that one of the main issues in clearing offshore permits was getting workers back on the job. And yet, as Jazz Shaw noted yesterday after Obama’s press conference, the number of operating rigs has dwindled sharply since the Deepwater Horizon failure almost a year ago. We’ve dropped from 55 working rotary rigs in April 2010 to just 25 today. The permitorium imposed by the Obama administration is the chief reason for the drop, and yet despite a court order, the White House continues to block efforts to get oil workers back on the job of producing American oil for American consumers.
I’ve been missing George Bush for more than two years. Who knew I’d be missing Bill Clinton by this time? Let’s hope we don’t get to the point where we’re missing …. Jimmy Carter.
Anybody say Jimmy Carter? Well yes, Chris Matthews showed his Freudian slip this weekend calling Obama President Carter. NewsBusters has a link.
… CHRIS MATTHEWS: If the Republicans get a real opportunity next year because President Carter, President – there’s a mistake – President uh, uh, Obama doesn’t seem to have a grip on it, he doesn’t seem to be able to pull the economy back. He’s not, it’s not working. Who would be the best to exploit that situation? Because that’s the person who would win. …
Anybody around here want oil to be more expensive? Debra Saunders remembers why the energy secretary was picked.
… There always has been a corner of Obamaland that doesn’t appreciate the job-creating properties of cheap fuel. Now Energy Secretary Steven Chu told the Wall Street Journal, “Somehow we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe.” Chu said that in September 2008 – and still Obama picked him for the slot.
Then again, if you think there are a lot of Americans cruising Main Street in gas-guzzling monstrosities, you probably wouldn’t even notice the high price of gasoline – until your approval ratings started to approach, well, Jimmy Carter levels.
Anybody say oil? Joel Kotkin writes for WSJ on the boom in North Dakota.
Living on the harsh, wind-swept northern Great Plains, North Dakotans lean towards the practical in economic development. Finding themselves sitting on prodigious pools of oil—estimated by the state’s Department of Mineral Resources at least 4.3 billion barrels—they are out drilling like mad. And the state is booming.
Unemployment is 3.8%, and according to a Gallup survey last month, North Dakota has the best job market in the country. Its economy “sticks out like a diamond in a bowl of cherry pits,” says Ron Wirtz, editor of the Minneapolis Fed’s newspaper, fedgazette. The state’s population, slightly more than 672,000, is up nearly 5% since 2000.
The biggest impetus for the good times lies with energy development. Around 650 wells were drilled last year in North Dakota, and the state Department of Mineral Resources envisions another 5,500 new wells over the next two decades. Between 2005 and 2009, oil industry revenues have tripled to $12.7 billion from $4.2 billion, creating more than 13,000 jobs.
Already fourth in oil production behind Texas, Alaska and California, the state is positioned to advance on its competitors. Drilling in both Alaska and the Gulf, for example, is currently being restrained by Washington-imposed regulations. And progressives in California—which sits on its own prodigious oil supplies—abhor drilling, promising green jobs while suffering double-digit unemployment, higher utility rates and the prospect of mind-numbing new regulations that are designed to combat global warming and are all but certain to depress future growth. In North Dakota, by contrast, even the state’s Democrats—such as Sen. Kent Conrad and former Sen. Byron Dorgan—tend to be pro-oil. The industry services the old-fashioned liberal goal of making middle-class constituents wealthier. …
Toby Harnden has NPR thoughts.
If proof were needed that some people at the top of National Public Radio despise the public then it was provided last week. In a delicious sting carried out by the young conservative troublemaker James O’Keefe, Americans were offered a glimpse of the different planet a certain class of liberal inhabits.
For the uninitiated, NPR (officially, they’ve actually dropped the radio bit as they pursue digital expansion) is viewed a little bit like the BBC is in Britain, only much more so: Left-leaning, worthy and a more than a little self-satisfied. Stereotypically, it’s preferred by those who munch granola, sip lattes and seldom shave – especially the men.
Until recently, NPR seemed to be moving away from the stereotype. Then, it fired Juan Williams, a black commentator who professed to be a liberal but regularly expressed fairly conservative views on Fox News. When he said that he got “nervous” when he saw people wearing “Muslim garb” on an aeroplane, NPR pronounced that this “undermined his credibility as a news analyst” and canned him.
But Williams had the last laugh, immediately securing a multi-million dollar new contract with Fox, where he has happily denounced his former employer ever since. …