A Pro-Nuclear Argument...

...that I hadn't heard before. Something rather rare, to be honest, as I follow the issues quite avidly.

The idea is more efficient use of energy will reduce energy use. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out that way:

And when it comes to arguing the merits of energy efficiency, Lovins’s prime nemesis is a dead guy – William Stanley Jevons – a British economist who in 1865 determined that increased efficiency won’t cut energy use, it will raise it. “It is wholly a confusion of ideas to suppose that the economical use of fuels is equivalent to a diminished consumption. The very contrary is the truth.” And in the 142 years since Jevons put forth that thesis, now commonly known as the Jevons Paradox, he’s yet to be proven wrong.

It makes sense, once you think about it. More discussion of the concept is here at the Nuclear Notes blog. "Negawatts", for all their usefulness, do not yield megawatts. Now conservation, that is a different story. The comment thread discusses the difference between conservation and increased efficiency. I consider the best way to illustrate the distinction to be the resulting effect.

Increased efficiency means you use less energy for the same effect. This is the result of improved systems in the product. Conservation is where less energy is used for a lesser effect. This is the result of changing consumption behaviors. Think of lighting: installing compact fluorescent bulbs increases energy efficiency, while leaving the lights off conserves energy. Conservation can reduce energy usage, but to actually take it to the point of useful reductions, it would need to reduce individual and collective standards of living, That is about as close to a politic sre loser as could exist...

More in the series in defense of nuclear power here.

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Alternative Energy: Also good for cutting terror funding

One of the beneficial side effects of reducing our oil demand is that we reduce the income of major oil producing nations. (It's the simple result of the law of supply and demand) This is especially apparent in the Arab world, where the majority of their GNP is derived from oil. When you consider the backing many of these states provide for terrorism and insurgencies, it makes sense to deny them excessive funding. Israeli writer Yair Lapin lay it out here.

Initially I planned to sell myself an immediate holiday. Why should I bother the Israeli public with something that even I think is boring? Then I thought about it a little more and a little more and after two weeks I had an answer. I am a little reluctant here because honestly it’s not politically correct. The only way to sell environmental protection to the Israeli public is to explain the one advantage:

It’s a way of screwing the Arabs.

I want to make it clear I am not including in this, God forbid, those peace-loving Arabs who believe in coexistence with the State of Israel. I am talking about the other billion and a half or so for whom the whole issue of environmental protection was created in order to screw them. The only reason this has not been presented to you before is that most of the people who deal with Green activism are well meaning lefties and people who wear round glasses who have no desire to screw anyone. They prefer a quiet clean world where everyone wears white and listens to folk music. That’s very nice but it will never work in Israel. We’re not programmed that way. If we can’t screw someone then we are not interested.

But it is possible because in the larger context, environmental protection includes a subject no less important called "alternative sources of energy". Green activists will be happy to explain the details to you, but the bottom line is that burning oil releases soot and heat, contributes to the melting of the icebergs in Antarctica and sends pollution into the atmosphere of this wonderful planet of ours.

Crap, I fell asleep again.

For example, I would create a much more original environmental start up. I would carve up the Antarctica into shot-glass size ice cubes. The real reason we need to find alternative sources of energy is not the troubled environment but the fact that it's Arabs who sell most of the oil to the rest of the world. The sad outcome of this is that they have lot of money and we know where this money goes: To Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hizbullah, to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards as well as to the funding of terror worldwide much of which is directed at us.

It’s aggravating to think that every time we get into the car we are giving money to Hamas, and that is something we Israelis needs to seriously think about. Sixty percent of the country’s oil consumption goes to our vehicles. Wouldn’t it be nice if we were the first to use cars which don’t run on petrol. (The technology exists. It just keeps getting stonewalled by the big oil and automotive interests.) We have everything going for us: We’re smart, technologically savvy and when money is involved we’re pretty industrious. Besides, we are small enough for trials that could be carried out by the entire population and we are big enough to export the technology to the entire world. The Jewish intellect has changed the world in the past and there is no reason it can’t do it again in the future.

Fire up the nuclear reactors, crank out the biofuels, and conserve some oil. It's time to do our part in shutting down the money supply for Al Qaeda and IEDs. I'm ready for the new propaganda posters - "When you drive alone, you drive with Osama!"

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Water Vapor: Not a form of pollution

Water vapor is usually not thought of a form of pollution. In fact, it is a necessary part of the water cycle. When water vapor condenses into a suspension of water droplets, the puffy result is an often beautiful part of nature. However, conventional wisdom is less and less conventional. Don Surber reports:

The tax-exempt Environmental Integrity Project in Washington, D.C., issued its annual list of the 50 dirtiest power plants in America. This is illustrated by a photo showing steam — water vapor — escaping from a cooling tower. Sigh.

Sigh indeed. However, not satisfied with simple error, the EIP decided go head over heels into error.

Bill Hobbs unloads on the rest of the report. It proves to be alarmist distortion and dedicated pessimism. He states the following about the water tower:

As for the water vapor image, that’s not surprising. Some years ago when the environmentalist groups in Nashville decided to target the city’s innovative trash-to-steam plant, which provided steam for heating and cooling about three dozen downtown buildings and also helped the city process its garbage, the local alt-weekly illustrated its attack stories on the project with ominous-looking pictures that also really just showed steam rising from the plant’s cooling tower even though they knew that’s what they were doing.

This is a bit like a certain liberal journalist inferring that milbloggers are afraid to serve their country, despite having interviewed one of them. (See Blackfive for more details. ) It's just completely and deliberately wrong.

The environmental movement has developed a strong streak of alarmism, which is great for fund raising, but not so great for actually discussing an issue. It's a bad idea to exaggerate or portray something deceptively. What is missing in all of this worry over a declining rate of emissions is the increasing energy demand and the requirement for a usable method of meeting said demand. As Mr. Hobbs says:

I’ll be impressed with the Environmental Integrity Project when they have the integrity to either endorse expanded nuclear power, or admit that they don’t have a viable replacement for all the coal-generated power they want to shut down.

Same here. What has made the environmental movement decide to limit it's alternatives to energy sources hat are laughably inefficient in terms of money, unable to be applied to much of the Earth, and are about as reliable as a stopped clock. I call them complementary energy sources, for like complementary medicine, they cannot replace actual base load power sources. You want a real alternative? Try splitting atoms.

Hat tip: Pajamas Media

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