Government Based Upon Natural Law - (Part 11) - Global Warming

What is global warming, anyway?

It is the warming of the lower atmosphere over the entire Earth, averaged over a long period – at least a few decades. The Earth always warms in some areas and cools in others, even when no global warming or cooling is occurring. Thus it is important to realize that to say that global warming is occurring, it must be a warming of the entire Earth.

What are the causes of global warming or global cooling?

There are many factors that can cause the Earth to warm or cool, and it has done so throughout its history. From the amount of radiation given off by the Sun (which can vary) to volcanoes, to cloud cover, to eccentricities in Earth's rotation and orbit, many factors contribute to the Earth's temperature.

There are gasses called greenhouse gasses because they keep some of the Sun's energy from leaving the Earth. These can cause global warming. The main greenhouse gas is water vapor (the invisible water in the Earth's atmosphere). It has been estimated that without water vapor and clouds in our atmosphere, the Earth's temperature would be 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit cooler than it is now. (All temperatures given here are in degrees Fahrenheit). Carbon dioxide, methane, and some other gasses also cause global warming. The greenhouse gas that humans emit when burning fossil fuels that has the most significant effect on global warming is carbon dioxide.

What is anthropogenic (man-made) global warming (AGW)?

This refers to the amount of global warming that is the result of human activities. Since the mid part of the 20^th century, humans have burned fossil fuels for energy, and this has increased steadily. It is now especially increasing due to the emergence of developing countries, and developing countries are expected to contribute most of the future increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. For instance, since 2006, China has been the main contributor of CO2, and China is building about one coal-burning plant per week! Aside from the burning of fossil fuels for energy, the cutting down of trees in the Amazon has been cited as a major reason for increased CO2 in the atmosphere, because all green plants and trees take in CO2 to "breathe." They convert CO2, water and sunlight into carbohydrates and oxygen, a process we know as photosynthesis. Animals then eat these plants because they can digest carbohydrates, and along with the oxygen they breathe, produce energy for their bodies, and then breathing out carbon dioxide. This is the oxygen cycle that we read about in school.

Another major contribution humans make to additional CO2 in the atmosphere is the result of out-of-control coal fires. Not infrequently, when we attempt to mine coal, it catches fire. Developing countries frequently do not have the ability to put them out, and coal fires are very hard to put out. It has been estimated that in China alone, coal fires give off about the same amount of CO2 as the U.S. does from our burning of fossil fuels.

What evidence do we have the humans are a cause of at least some global warming?

At the rate we are adding CO2 to the atmosphere, it is expected that the CO2 concentration will double from 325 parts-per-million (ppm) to 650 ppm by around 2060, mostly as a result of human burning of fossil fuels. Because CO2 is a greenhouse gas, this gives us reason to suspect that humans are contributing to global warming.

How much global warming has occurred until now?

During the 20^th century, it's estimated that the Earth's average temperature increased 1 to 1.5 degrees, and that sea level rose about a foot. Satellite measurements of temperature for the 30 year period from 1979 to 2009 show that the Earth warmed about an average of 1 degree over that period.

How much global warming and sea-level rise does the evidence suggest will occur during the 21^st century?

Extrapolating upon the warming trends given above, the Earth would warm from 2 to 4 degrees during the 21^st century. A number of climatologists think that an increase of 3 degrees in global temperature will have a net positive effect on humanity, although there will be some negative effects in some areas. So if current trends continue, global warming is not likely to cause significant harm. For instance, if the Earth were to warm an average of 3 degrees, the U.S. Midwest, and Canada would have a longer growing seasons, as would Russia. This would contribute to the world food supply. Sea level is rising at a rate that would indicate a 1 to 2 foot increase during the 21^st century. This is also not likely to cause significant harm.

If this is true, why is there so much concern over global warming?

As is well known, the media tends to fixate upon news that exaggerates the negative, and tend to report on stories that are alarmist, and ignore stories that are not. So, the scientific studies that show that global warming may not be a disaster tend to be under-reported. Have you noticed that the term, "climate change", has replaced "global warming" in many articles? Part of the reason for this is that the Earth has not warmed from 1997 to 2013, and this may go on longer. This is not to say that global warming will not occur – I believe that the evidence shows that it is occurring, just not at a rate that is cause for alarm.

What do climate models predict about global warming?

Climatologists have come up with many climate models in an attempt to predict how much global warming will occur. Most of these models predict temperatures will increase anywhere from 1 to 11 degrees during the 21^st century, according to the United Nations' International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) final report. This is an enormous range of uncertainty, but such uncertainty is called for since these climate models have not been verified. Also, climate is a non-linear system, and is determined by many factors; climatologists are not certain how these factors interact. It may be that, like weather, we may be unable to predict climate decades into the future. (Due to the mathematically chaotic factors that produce our weather, it is impossible to predict it more than 10 or so days in advance. And that's not going to change with faster computers or more knowledge, because of the nature of scientifically chaotic systems. This may be the case with climate as well).

Could the Earth actually warm near the top end of the predictions?

Yes, it is possible. First, we know little about how to predict climate. Second, we know from past evidence that climate can change quickly, so an increase of 9 to 11 degrees over the next century cannot be ruled out.

What is the best way to mitigate the negative effects on humans if significant global warming does occur?

Cost-effective ways to reduce or even stop global warming will be given below. But it is very important to understand that if global warming occurs to a significant extent, then, just as when other disasters happen, the most prosperous countries fare much better than the poorest countries.

The lesson of the 2010 disastrous earthquake in Haiti was that it wasn't the earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, it was poverty. Haiti did not have buildings or roads or the various types of infrastructure able to handle a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. In 1989, San Francisco had an almost identical earthquake, and around 60 people were killed.

Prosperity matters a great deal, when it comes to dealing with any kind of disaster. Prosperous countries will be in the best position to deal with whatever negative effects there might be due to global warming. Not only will these countries suffer less if significant global warming occurs, they will suffer less if any disaster occurs. In addition, prosperous countries rarely go to war with each other. It is easier just to trade with each other than to go to war.

What are the best ways to make a country prosperous? The answer to that is beyond the scope of this monograph, but I've given a number of answers in my Political Platform Based Upon Natural Law series. The one-sentence answer is that the most prosperous countries are those that are closest to being free-market, constitutional democracies.

So what are some cost-effective ways that will stop any significant global warming this century?

There are a number of inexpensive solutions to global warming that will work even if warming is not man-made. I'll give two of the more promising ones. For more solutions or more details about the solutions I'll give below, get Steward Brand's Whole Earth Discipline. He is the author of The Whole Earth Catalog, one of the seminal environmental books of the 20^th century.

The first choice of most climatologists involves employing stratospheric sulfates. The reason this is the first choice is that it is already known to work. In 1991, in the Philippines, Mount Pinatubo erupted, sending millions of tons of sulfur dioxide twenty miles up into the stratosphere. This soon created tiny sulfate droplets that absorbed and reflected sunlight. The next year, the entire planet cooled by about 1 degree!

After a 1998 presentation by Lowell Wood at a climate conference about this, climate modeler Ken Caldeira created some models to determine if a stratospheric-sulfate scheme would work, and the models suggested that it could work very well. His models indicated that if we would inject 10 gallons of sulfates per second into the stratosphere, we would be protected from global warming for the entire century. This is a relatively small amount since we are putting 100 million tons of sulfur dioxide per year into the atmosphere right now, and should have little or no negative side effects. And if we find after a while that it's not needed, we can stop and within a few years, things will be back to normal.

And what is the cost of this scheme? Estimates are around $30 billion dollars per year – almost an insignificant amount. By comparison, the U.S. federal government's budget was about $3.5 trillion in 2009, which is the same as 3,500 billion dollars, in a single year.

How can we be sure that the model's predictions are correct? We could inject a small amount of sulfur into the stratosphere in the Arctic, where warming is occurring now. Then we could measure the impact. If it works, we can ramp up the experiment until we're convinced that it is a viable solution.

One other solution to near-term global warming involves the idea of having a fleet of oceangoing cloud machines. There would be an estimated 1,500 unmanned ships that would spray sea-water droplets up into the clouds at a rate of 500 gallons per minute. This increase in cloud volume would be enough to reflect sufficient sunlight away from the Earth to offset a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere. The cost to build the ships: around $3 billion dollars. And the amount of the spray could be easily adjusted to accommodate however much warming is actually occurring.

The above geo-engineering solutions don't reduce global warming gasses, even though they will reduce or stop global warming.  What are some cost-effective ways that will stop global warming in the long run?

In my previous post I gave an environmental policy for the United States that will reduce pollution and CO2 emissions by at least 90% by 2060. And the surprising news about this is that it will create prosperity at the same time. This is about the most anyone could ask for.

The bad news is that the U.S. is unlikely to adopt these policies quickly enough, even though the policies are quite practical. The main part of the policy is to build natural gas power plants for the next 20 years or so, and then build nuclear power plants whenever we need more energy.

The better news is that nuclear power is growing very quickly world-wide. There are about 30 countries that are currently using nuclear power, and over 50 are planning on using it. Because of modern reactor design and the prevalence of uranium and thorium, as well as the development of cost-effective solar energy, it is likely that by the end of the century, very little pollution or human-caused CO2 will be given off.

The upshot of this is that by the next century there will be little or no greenhouse gasses given off.

Conclusion

The current evidence shows the Earth will warm about 3 degrees this century. If that turns out to be the case, it will likely be a net benefit to humanity. If we then follow the environmental policies that I've given in a previous post, humans will be contributing very little to whatever global warming may occur next century, and we will prosper at the same time.

And if global warming occurs at a rate that would lead to more than a 3 degree increase this century, there are a number of very inexpensive ways to deal with it, as I've given above. Therefore, with good policies, global warming should not be a significant problem. And with these same good policies, the people of the world will benefit greatly.
______________________________________

Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.
______________________________________

Government Based Upon Natural Law - (Part 9) - Environmental Policy

Rational Environmentalism

Everyone wants clean air and water - who wants pollution?  The reality is that there will always be pollution, man-made or not.  Humans certainly pollute, but so do volcanoes and animals.

What distinguishes rational environmentalism from the usual brand of environmentalism?

When rational environmentalists make decisions with regard to the environment, they take into account all of the costs of that decision.  For example, we humans give off a lot of carbon dioxide when we burn fossil fuels (Carbon dioxide is a minor greenhouse gas, the major one being water vapor). I and others would like us to give off little or no CO2 from burning fossil fuels. Some environmentalists wish to implement a 'carbon tax' that would tax each ton of CO2 that our energy industries give off. But this is an irrational policy. Such a policy would have an insignificant effect on the amount of CO2 the world emits, but it would raise the price of energy, which creates poverty, because the cost of almost everything increases when energy costs increase.

Rational Environmental Policies

Because the Earth was made for us by our Creator and His Helpers, we are to be good stewards of it and all that the Earth offers us. Consequently, we wish to minimize the waste of natural resources; minimize energy waste; use more renewable energy sources; and reduce pollution.  To this effect, I propose a cost-effective plan that would likely have the United States obtain 90% of its energy from renewable sources within 40 years.  As a result of this, the quantity of pollutants given off should be also be reduced by 90% within 40 years.  Furthermore, during this period, the amount of energy used per person should decrease by at least two-thirds, due to conservation efforts.

Not only will this plan be cost-effective, it will be better than cost-effective – it will save us money, all without any government subsidies.

The Secret to Improving our Environmental and Saving Money at the Same Time

Here is the one-word reason as to why we can save money and improve our environment: Prosperity. 

This may seem counter-intuitive, but it is the most prosperous countries that have least amount of pollution.  And this is because they can afford pollution controls on cars, industrial production, etc.  Thus, one of the most important parts of an environmental policy is to have a good government that protects freedoms, especially economic freedom so that its citizens can prosper and therefore afford environmental controls.  If you doubt this, go to Moscow, Mexico City, Beijing, or any large city that has not had in place a free-market Constitutional democracy for very long, and then take a deep breath. 

I cannot think of one prosperous country that does not have a free-market Constitutional democracy.  No socialist/communist country has ever been prosperous.  (By “socialist/communist”, I’m referring to countries in which the governments own the means of production and produce the goods of the country.  I am not referring to countries that have private markets but have higher taxes than the U.S., some of which are quite prosperous).  Have you ever bought a product made by the government of any country?  Have you ever bought a car made by the government of China, or a phone made by India, or a computer made by Mexico?  Even people living in those countries don’t want to buy products made by their governments.  They’d rather have a Toyota.

So it is essential that in our efforts to improve our environment that we also increase our prosperity, and set an example so that other countries can see how prosperity is invaluable to improving their environment.

The Single Most Important Product in Having a Prosperous Country

If you had to pick one product that results in prosperity it would be this: inexpensive energy.  Inexpensive electricity and gasoline makes life easier for the middle class and poor, both directly, by having low electricity bills and gasoline costs, and indirectly, in that almost every product has energy costs associated with it.  So lower energy costs result in lower costs for just about everything, and increase the prosperity of all.

There are a number of well-intentioned people who believe that higher energy costs will benefit us in the long run, since it would “force” us to become more energy efficient, and find more sustainable ways of generating electricity, as well as lessening our dependence on foreign oil.  These people are wrong.  Higher energy prices will just create more poverty.  Neither Bill Gates nor Ross Perot nor Al Gore is inconvenienced by high energy prices, but you and I are, and the poor are even worse off.

A Clean Environment and a Prosperous Country

The wonderful thing now is that because of technological advances, we can have all of the following AND save money in a very short period of time:

1)   Inexpensive energy, both as electricity and for transportation.

2)   Lower prices for almost everything else (because inexpensive energy means the prices of almost everything will go down, and thus will increase our prosperity).

3)   Reduced pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.

4)   Energy conservation.

5)   Be less dependent on or even independent of foreign oil.

How can we accomplish this?

A Clean and Safe Environmental Policy that will also make us more Prosperous

Here’s an outline for an environmental policy that will accomplish the above goals:

1) Whenever we need more energy plants in the next 20 years or so, we would build natural gas power plants. Natural gas plants give off very little pollution, and are very inexpensive.  After about 20 years, we should have 4th generation nuclear plants, which give off no pollution and no greenhouse gasses. (For more details about these newer nuclear plants, see my post on nuclear energy).

2) In about 10 years, we'll likely have cost-effective electric cars which can be charged at home.  Once these cars predominate, we'll have almost no pollution caused by transportation.  (An important ramification of this is that because the U.S. demand for oil will go down dramatically, the cost of oil will decline, making gasoline cheaper for developing countries, thus accelerating their movement toward prosperity).

3) Also in about 10 years, solar energy will be cost-effective (without subsidies) in many areas of the world.

4) Again, in about 10 years, conservation advances, such as Argon windows which are 95% efficient, excellent insulation for homes, geo-thermal heat and air-conditioning systems, hot-water heaters that are insulated so that they lose little heat, and appliances that use much less energy than they do now, will allow us to build “net zero” homes.  This means that the amount of energy they generate is about the same as the amount of energy they consume.  Such a home would typically have no energy bill to pay.  And the extra cost to build in these conservation measures would be more than offset by not having to pay for energy.

These are the major components of the environmental plan.  For those of you who like a bit more detail, read on.

5) Here’s another technological advancement that will likely be cost-effective in about 10 years: self-driving cars.  Currently in the United States over 35,000 people per year are killed in car accidents and many more are injured by them.  Advanced self-driving cars will virtually eliminate this, especially once most cars on the road are self-driving.  Such cars have sensors all the way around them, and can sense light, use radar, and sense infra-red light, which humans can’t see.  They don’t get drunk, and don’t lose their concentration.  They can communicate with each other almost instantaneously.  For instance, if a car senses that a child has just hidden behind a tree close to the street, the car can immediately communicate this to the other cars around it, so they can slow down, or move away from where the child might run to.

Self-driving cars can travel safely with about 3 times the road density that is safe for humans, because of their millisecond reaction times.  So current roads would be able to handle at least 3 times as much traffic as they do now.  Not having to build new roads would save money, time, and pollution.

How about this?  Taxi companies would be able to charge much less that they do now, because there would be no driver.  So most of us could avoid owning a car, and just use taxis.  One could come, pick you up, drop you off at work, and go on to the next person who needs it.  Furthermore, if you will be the only one in the car, it will send a car designed to fit one person comfortably, thus reducing your cost, which will depend on the number of miles driven as well as the weight of the vehicle.

You’ll have no car insurance payments, no car repairs, no car payments, no parking problems, no filling it up with gas, etc.  And they will have cars that can transport those with various handicaps, as well as those too young or too old to drive.

Eat, drink, and be merry while you get to your destination.

6) We could offer to build, run, supply fuel for, and dispose of the waste from nuclear reactors in developing countries.  They would still pay us, but it would be cheaper than any other alternative they have, and would stop deforestation caused by people burning wood for fuel.  And with inexpensive, non-polluting energy, these countries can achieve prosperity much more quickly than they would otherwise, thus benefiting from all the advantages that prosperity confers.

One very nice side effect: prosperous countries rarely go to war with each other.  Rather, they trade with one another, which again will increase prosperity.

7) Trucks, airplanes, boats and other large vehicles would still need a fossil-fuel-based energy source for a few decades, but as time goes on, the amount of fossil-fuel energy would be a very small fraction of what we use now, and we'd have enough to provide our own, and not depend on the oil cartels. Scientists are working on alternative fuels for large vehicles, but it is too early to predict what they might be.

8) With advances in robotics, robots could be used to go through landfills, junk yards, etc., and recover materials we were not previously able to do inexpensively.  Keep in mind that aside from fossil fuels that we’ve already used, our other natural resources are still here.  By recycling them, we’ll never run out.

9) With respect to global warming, the policies given here will reduce global warming gasses by more than any treaty or international conference has suggested so far.

Conclusion

By following the “no regrets” environmental policies given above, we could reach a goal that not long ago would have been unthinkable – at least an 90% reduction in pollution (and greenhouse gasses) by around 2050, AND we’ll be more prosperous while we're at it.  The Earth’s Population is expected to top out at around 9 billion people.  If we do this right, there will be enough energy and other resources for everyone on Earth to be prosperous.  It could and should to be a great century!

______________________________________

Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.
______________________________________

Government Based Upon Natural Law - (Part 10) - Nuclear Power to the People

I Have a Dream

I have a dream that we will someday have an energy source that is inexpensive, safe, non-polluting, and virtually infinite. There will be more than enough of such energy for all the people of the world.

Guess what? I can wake up now because my dream is a reality. And it is a reality because of nuclear power. How so? Keep reading.

A Clean Environment and a Prosperous Country

In my post about Environmental Policy, the main point was that countries that are prosperous have the cleanest environments. And that being a prosperous country is closely related to having inexpensive energy. (Having a good government that protects the life, liberty and property of its citizens is also essential, but that’s another story). Prosperous countries can afford pollution controls. They can afford to do research into more efficient ways of obtaining and providing energy, and they can afford to conserve natural resources.

The single most important technological component in the prosperous maintenance of human life is inexpensive, abundant energy.

Current Situation 

Expensive energy contributes to poverty. Many people around the world still burn wood for their major source of energy. This is inefficient, and causes a lot of pollution. Also, reducing the number of trees on our planted reduces the ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

Expensive energy also contributes indirectly to pollution. For instance, the cement factories in Texas produce a significant amount of pollutants, including mercury, lead, and sulfur dioxide. Inexpensive energy would make it more affordable for cement factories (and other industries) to invest in technologies that would reduce their emissions.

Finally, expensive energy adds to the production costs of almost everything we make. This not only lowers our standard of living, but it makes our products less competitive than foreign goods.

What about Solar Energy? 

Solar energy will be a good, inexpensive source of energy – eventually. It has a few difficult hurdles to overcome. First, solar energy is not concentrated; a square foot of earth receives only a very small amount of energy. Therefore, to become a major source of energy, huge areas will need to capture it. Second, it is not constant. There is less solar energy when clouds are out and no solar energy at all at night. We need a constant base load of energy, and solar energy cannot provide that now or in the near future. Related to this, if a number of volcanoes went off at the same time, much of the Earth might not see the Sun for months or years. If we were completely dependent on solar energy, this would be a disaster. So no matter how inexpensive and wide spread solar energy becomes, it should not be our only source of energy.

Why Nuclear Energy is the solution

Nuclear energy is the only current way in which we can provide a constant base load of safe, relatively inexpensive, non-polluting energy. The reasons for these are detailed below.

What is Nuclear Energy, anyway?

Nuclear energy obtained by the fissioning (breaking up) of heavy atomic nuclei, such as uranium and thorium, as a result of a neutron hitting such a nucleus. This fissioning releases very large amounts of energy that can be harnessed by heating water to turn it into steam that turns turbines to create electricity. Each nucleus that fissions gives off neutrons that can then strike another nucleus, so that the process continues.

How safe is Nuclear Energy?

It’s hard to get much safer. Not a single American has died as a result of radiation from a commercial nuclear reactor. Literally, zero Americans have died in over 50 years of commercial nuclear power use.

France gets over 75% of its energy from nuclear power, has the cleanest air in Europe, has the cheapest energy in Europe, exports $8 billion worth of energy to Germany and England, and has shut down its last coal plant in 2004, all because they started using nuclear energy in the 1970s. And it takes them only about 3 years to build a new plant.

To be efficient, they basically use the same plant design for a long time so that they know the plant will be safe, and how to build it inexpensively. They do research into new generation plants, and when they find one they like, they approve it and go with that in the future.

It costs France about 3 to 4 cents to generate a KWH of energy. (I’m paying 10 cents per KWH now). No one in France has been killed from nuclear power radiation in over 50 years of use.

What happened to the United States? We got scared. A partial meltdown did happen at Three Mile Island, but no one was killed or injured; and then we heard about the Chernobyl disaster. This really scared many of us, even though Chernobyl was built by and run by Communists, who hardly ever did anything right. The Chernobly reactor incident had nothing to do with our nuclear reactors. 

But those scientists who knew the most, and especially nuclear engineers, knew how great nuclear power could be. Unfortnately, a tsunami hit Japan in 2011 and caused over 15,000 deaths.  It also caused a number of its 40-year-old nuclear reactors to melt down. Guess how many deaths or injuries were caused by nuclear radiation? None. Hard to believe? Check it out for yourself.

(As of September 2018, Japan said that a worker died from lung cancer due to the radiation from the Fukushima meltdowns in 2011.

This is unlikely to be true. What actually happened is the government decided last week that the worker’s family should be paid compensation. Just like what happens a lot in the United States. We just don’t want to fight it - it looks bad. Which is fine. It’s a wonderful thing to give grieving people compensation.

The man, who was in his 50s, died from lung cancer that was diagnosed in 2016. There is no evidence it happened because of Fukushima. Instead, it appears the compensation was awarded just because he was a career nuclear worker. Who worked at Fukushima a couple of times. Who got cancer.)

(First, lung cancer is not the type of cancer caused by nuclear accidents, and certainly not this soon after exposure or because of such doses. It took decades for lung cancer to appear in the atomic bomb survivors, and those were at much higher doses than this worker received. By all accounts, this worker was diligent in his protocols and in wearing the appropriate protective gear.)

Current power plant designs eliminate the possibility of a melt-down, and no design can result in a nuclear explosion. And nuclear plants are designed so that even if a jet were to crash into one, the nuclear fuel would still be contained.

How much energy can we get from Nuclear Power?

Right now nuclear power in the U.S. accounts for about 20% of our electricity.

Kirk Sorenson from NASA said, “Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors gives many options for inherently-safe, proliferation resistant, economic nuclear power that can last for thousands if not millions of years.

“This technology offers real-options for solving long-term issues surrounding spent nuclear fuel.” This is because such reactors can get rid of spent nuclear fuel by extracting energy from it.

How efficient is Nuclear Power?

A single pound of highly-enriched uranium used to power a nuclear submarine is equal to about a million gallons of gasoline.

The nuclear waste created per person-lifetime could fit in the size of a Coke can, and then can be controlled (by storing it), whereas a coal plant produces 130,000 pounds of waste products in addition to 77 tons of CO2 per person-lifetime.

On a large plant scale, a 1 billion watt (giga-watt or GW) coal plant burns 3,000,000 tons of coal a year, but an equivalent nuclear power plant uses only 20 tons of uranium per year.

What about the waste products?

The radioactive waste products from a nuclear plant can be safely dealt with in a number of ways.

Currently, the United States stores its wastes underground in casings that prevent any leakage at the nuclear reactor site. A jet crashing into such a storage facility would not affect the casings. Furthermore, even completely exposed casings that have been hit by trucks, trains and jets (in experiments!) have not been compromised.

Canada's plan is to safely store the wastes for 175 years (but can be retrieved before then if desired). During that 175 years, the overall radioactivity of the used fuel drops to one-billionth of the level from when it removed from the reactor. At that time, the future Canadians can deal with it in some manner that we cannot currently foresee.

There’s an excellent book called, Whole Earth Discipline, by Stewart Brand. He was also the author of The Whole Earth Catalog, written in 1969, which is one of the most famous books in the world. Steve Jobs compared The Whole Earth Catalog to the Internet search engine Google in his 2005 Stanford University commencement speech. Brand is an ecologist and futurist and says he sees everything in terms of a solvable design problem.

Steward Brand said that he had been against nuclear power because of passing on nuclear wastes to future generations. Then in 2002 he went to Yucca Mountain and talked to a group called "Long Now". They told Brand that is was folly to think about having to store the waste for 10,000 years or more since we have no idea what technical advancements will occur. They said we should put it in a safe place and in 50 to 100 years, "we will be taking it out and using it as a valuable energy resource." This is because spent nuclear fuel still has 95% of its energy. We just need to find ways to extract the energy from it in an inexpensive way. (As we’ll see later, with thorium plants coming, it may not take even that long before we can extract energy from current wastes, and leave only short lived wastes that can easily be dealt with).

Surprisingly, nuclear energy has done more to eliminate existing nuclear weapons from the world than any other activity. There’s a joint U.S. – Russian program to convert warheads into fuel, called, “Megatons to Megawatts.” As a result of this, about 10% of the electricity that Americans use comes from Russian missiles and bombs. What an amazing development!

What’s coming up in the near future with Nuclear Power?

Our current nuclear reactors all use uranium as a fuel. The modern ones (called Generation III reactors) are very, very good.

Many people, such as NASA’s James Hansen, are very excited about the up-and-coming Generation IV reactors such as Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors. (It will take about 20 years to make them commercially viable and as inexpensive as natural gas powered plants). Here's what Hansen has to say about them. They have:

- a practically unlimited supply of fuel (there's more thorium than either lead or tin in the Earth's crust)

- lower construction and operating costs

- super-high fuel efficiency

- greatly reduced waste

- much shorter radioactive life in the waste (a few hundred years)

- create a high temperature that can be used to produce hydrogen from water, or even cheaply desalinate water

- can burn existing nuclear waste (and generate energy from them), and well as burn existing weapons grade uranium and plutonium that we have as a result of the various nuclear weapons reduction treaties

There is even a plan to have a thorium reactor that is buried deep underground, and will generate electricity for 50 years with no maintenance! After that it can just left in the ground in its robust casing that can easily store the small amount or remaining waste until it is no longer radioactive. These would be very inexpensive and safe, and can be used close to wherever they are needed. These would be especially useful in developing countries that do not have an extensive power grid network.

What’s happening now in the United States with respect to Nuclear Power?

Not long ago, NASA's James Hansen, who is very concerned about global warming, wrote an open letter to President Obama. In it he said that how bad coal is and asked for, "urgent R&D on 4th-generation nuclear power with international cooperation. The danger is that the minority of vehement anti-nuclear 'environmentalists' (his quotes) could cause the development of advanced safe nuclear power to be slowed such that utilities are forced to continue coal-burning in order to keep the lights on."

Hansen’s letter may be one reason that President Obama’s proposed budget included increased research on nuclear energy as well as loan guarantees for utilities that build a nuclear power plant.

President Obama announced (in February, 2010) loan guarantees to build the first U.S. nuclear power plants in three decades. There are 13 applications at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Committee (NRC) for new plants. The earliest they could be approved would be late 2014 to 2015, but it's a start. President Obama is strongly pushing for the United States to generate much of its electricity from nuclear power, and he should be loudly applauded for it.

The feds will allow up to a three-year period for hearings, addressing any concerns, etc. This will minimize delays once the NRC has approved the site (which the state must also approve) and the reactor design, which the NRC has already done. For example, Westinghouse's AP1000 reactor has already been approved, and a number of other reactors are in the process of receiving approval. In the past, lawsuits from certain environmental groups have prevented the construction of nuclear power plants, but the hearing process mentioned above will presumably stop these groups from doing this.  Fortunately, many environmental groups whe were previously against nuclear power are now for it.

At least three thorium-related bills are making their way through the Capitol, including the Senate’s Thorium Energy Independence and Security Act, cosponsored by Orrin Hatch of Utah and Harry Reid of Nevada, which would provide $250 million for research at the Department of Energy. “I don’t know of anything more beneficial to the country, as far as environmentally sound power, than nuclear energy powered by thorium,” Hatch says.”

Intellectual Ventures, LLC, which is partially backed by Bill Gates, has a team of 30 scientists and engineers working on concepts for better thorium nuclear reactors, among many other things.

There are about 50 countries that have, or are planning to build nuclear power plants. The number of countries as well as the number of proposed plants is increasing as people become aware of the advantages of generating inexpensive, safe, virtually infinite, non-polluting nuclear energy. And the United States is now, once again, ready to jump back onto the nuclear-energy bandwagon.

If you’re interested in some of the technical details about the Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactor, there's a video called, "What Fusion Wanted to Be", presented at one of the Google Tech Talks.

What else can the U.S. do with nuclear power to help developing countries?

We could build and help to run nuclear power plants as well as provide the fuel for them, and dispose of any wastes produced. (They would pay us to do this so U.S. taxpayers would not be paying for other’s energy). Then developing countries would also have inexpensive, non-polluting energy, which would assist them in becoming prosperous.

The lesson of Haiti was that it wasn't the earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent people, it was poverty. If we implement the suggestions I've given above, we will do more to increase prosperity and decrease pollution than any carbon tax will do. And it doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out that prosperous countries rarely, if ever, go to war with each other.

Conclusion

Nuclear power to the people!

And as Mister Spock would say: “Carbon free and prosper.”
______________________________________

Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.

______________________________________

Why Liberals Should be Liberal

What is Liberalism, anyway?

We can’t have an edifying discussion about liberals and liberalism without defining these terms, otherwise confusion could result. So I’ve looked up a couple of terms from a number of sources, and here are some definitions that I’ll use:

Liberalism (from the Latin liberalis, "of freedom") is the belief in the importance of individual liberty.

Classical liberalism refers to a political philosophy that is committed to liberalism: to the ideas of limited government and liberty of individuals including freedom of religion, speech, press, and assembly, and free markets.

Liberal refers to a person who believes in liberalism.

These definitions fit well together. Liberalism is a belief, and classical liberalism is a political philosophy that reflects this belief. A liberal is a person who believes in liberalism, and would seemingly embrace classical liberalism as a political philosophy. But some people who consider themselves to be liberals do not embrace the political philosophy of classical liberalism. The purpose of this post is to convince them to do so.

Just to be up front about it, using these definitions I am a liberal. And my political philosophy is that of classical liberalism. Today, the term libertarianism is more often used than classical liberalism.

Also, it is very important to note that individual liberty does not mean that a person can do anything he or she wants to do. Rather it means that a person can think what he wants, and can do what he wants as long as this action does not infringe on the individual liberty of others. Usually, this means that actions that cause another person harm are not part of the concept of liberty. To put it another way, liberty implies that actions that affect others be voluntary and informed. So murder, rape, theft, and assault are not voluntary, and so violate liberty. Similarly, fraud, patent violations, and incomplete disclosure of relevant issues are a form of theft, and thus also violate liberty. On the other hand, playing football in the NFL may well cause harm, but players are playing the game voluntarily, so this would not violate liberty.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is that many people in America, who call themselves liberal, are, in many ways, not liberal. That is to say, they do not seem to foster individual liberty.

To give some examples, let’s first consider public education. There are two components to public education and it is important to distinguish between them. One component is that government subsidizes education. The other component is the government decides how students are to be educated. These are quite different, but frequently this difference is not made explicit.

Most of us agree that the government should subsidize education.

On the other hand, it seems to me that anyone who calls themselves a liberal would allow this government-subsidy of education to be controlled by the parents of the child getting the education. They are responsible for their children, and should be free to choose whatever school they wish for their child using this subsidy. It would be a substantial violation of liberty for a government to only subsidize the schools that it runs, for then it can teach whatever it feels is best, even if some of what is taught violates the beliefs of the parents.

One can argue that if parents don’t like their public school, they can send their child to a private school. But this is only possible if the parents have enough money to do so. In practice, this means that the well-off get to choose their child’s school, but the not-so-well-off don’t. And since we all pay for schools, all parents should be free to choose how their children get educated.

This is not the place discuss the details as to how this would be implemented, but one thing I would do would be to take all of the education money a state has collected (in Texas this is around $9,000 per student) and give parents an educational voucher worth this amount for each school-aged child they have. They can use this voucher to send their child to any accredited public, private or parochial school of their choice. The freedom to educate one’s child as parents see fit ought to be the foundation of liberalism.

//////////////////////////

Another example has to do with government spending. Virtually everyone wants government, and everyone wants government to pass laws that protect individual liberty – the right of individuals to lead their lives as they wish, as long as they allow others to do the same. At the same time, most of us do not want government to pass laws controlling what we think, we our religion should be, where we work, etc. This can be summarized by saying that we wish a limited government that protects our right to be free. And our Constitution (which includes all of the amendments to it) does this by enumerating the powers of Congress and the President.

Unfortunately, the part of the Constitution that limits what Congress can do has received scant attention for decades now. From Social Security to Medicare to laws that prohibit the use of certain drugs, the Constitution does not give Congress the right to implement these. For instance, Social Security was passed in 1935 during FDR’s administration as part of a package we call the “New Deal.” In 1937, the Supreme Court struck down many of the provisions of this package as being unconstitutional, because no authority was given to Congress to pass such laws. FDR threatened to pack the court with more Justices that he would pick, and eventually the Court ruled, in a 5-4 decision, that the New Deal package was constitutional. If the gentle reader is in doubt about whether these items are permissible according the Constitution, I invite him to read the enumerated powers and see if any of these are there.

This started a trend, which has been increasingly exacerbated over the decades, such that Congress essentially ignores the enumerated powers clause. For instance, you are probably aware that the Constitution was amended to prohibit the sale and use of alcohol, commonly called prohibition. Amending the Constitution was the right thing to do since Congress had no constitutional authority to prohibit the use of alcohol. It was a terrible amendment, and was repealed, of course, but at least they didn’t ignore the Constitution. Since then, Congress has passed many laws prohibiting the use of many substances. Do you remember when the Constitution was amended to allow them to do so? Neither do I.

So what are some of the results of these extra-constitutional incursions? For one, it is estimated that Social Security and Medicare are underfunded by around 50 to 70 trillion dollars! This means that the money we are currently paying for them, the FICA taxes, are not enough to cover the promised benefits by this amount. Worse, these entitlement programs, along with the interest on the national debt are expected to consume the entire federal budget within a few decades unless some drastic steps are taken. This would leave no money for the things like defense or anything else that are actually authorized by the Constitution.

Just the interest on the national debt in fiscal year 2009 was about $3,500 per family. In 2010 it is expected to be over $4,000 per family, and will keep growing each year for the foreseeable future.

What does this have to do with liberalism? To be a liberal means to believe in freedom. And you can’t be free without money. With the astounding growth of the federal government, more and more of the money we earn is being taken, and more and more is used just to pay for entitlement programs and interest on the national debt. This means that each year we are less and less free to live as we wish. The solution? Amend the Constitution to require Congress to balance the budget, and to limit its spending to, say, 20% of Gross Domestic Product. It would take time to get to do this, but once we do, we’d start being more prosperous, and thus freer than we have been for a long time.

//////////////////////

A final example of what it would mean to be a liberal has to do with the United States becoming the world’s policemen. We have over 360,000 troops stationed in over 150 countries. I can’t even name 150 countries, but go to one of them and you’ll find American troops. What does this have to do with liberalism? It is not our duty or right to police the world. It creates enmity toward us, and likely doubles the cost of our military. We could bring our troops home, reduce their number, protect our ports and borders, train them in disaster management and emergency medical care, and give them a raise. The result is a more protected country, less enmity from others, and less defense expenditures. We would still have the best military in the world by far, and would likely be safer than we are, since many of our enemies don’t like us in their countries. At a far lesser cost, we could just do intelligence gathering overseas in order to attempt to root out those who intend to harm us. Less cost and a safer country means more freedom for us.

/////////////////////

Those are just a few examples of what we liberals should want. One could fill a 100 gigabyte hard drive with other examples, but mine is only 80 gigabyes.

“Power to the people” is what a true liberal wants. “Power to the government” is what the communists want. And we know where that leads.

______________________________________

Tim Farage is a Senior Lecturer in the Computer Science Department at The University of Texas at Dallas. You are welcome to comment upon this blog entry and/or to contact him at tfarage@hotmail.com.

______________________________________