Energy & Power Generation

And one more thing …

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It is inconceivable to me that if the much-reviled Gov. Sarah Palin had been POTUS when this oil spill occurred that she would not have done a much better job than the pathetic, flailing, clueless response we have seen from our Chief Executive, Mr. Obama. For one thing, she would have grasped the difference between stopping an ongoing disaster and suing for damages after all the damage has already been done. Mr. Obama is like a person standing on the sidewalk as a fire is spreading through a building, and people are screaming for him to do whatever it takes to put it out, and he stands there as the flames spread and the smoke plumes into the sky, and he says, “I will sue the person who caused the fire.” It is flabbergasting that the man seems not to even grasp the existence of the executive function. All he knows, all he is even aware exists, is assigning blame, and clutching at money in response.

Michael Barone wrote somewhere that the American people do not want the President to be a nice man. They want him to aggressively use the powers of his office to secure their well being.

Mr. Obama, faced with his first serious test, has shown himself to be a miserable failure on that score.

I knew he’d be bad. I had no idea how bad.

We can do better.

The Cure For Spills, Peaks, and Crazy Foreigners…

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Howard Bloom argues that America needs a space vision. Like solar power…FROM OUTER SPACE!

Space Solar
Space Solar

Bloom argues that space solar power is the solution to America’s energy needs. With space solar power, this nation would put satellites in orbit around the Earth. These satellites would collect the plentiful   solar power in space that’s just sitting there unused, ready to reduce your power bill, convert it into healthy radiation, and beam that radiation back to the Earth where it can be converted into power. Space solar power would have no problem with spills, weather, eminent domain, NIMBY, waste, Indian attack, pollution, or allergies. Other than the small technology, engineering, and financial hurdles, Bloom faces one massive hurdle in convincing the American people that this is the vision for them: the term solar power.

When the average red-blooded American hears the term solar power, they think of one thing:

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This Is Just Sad

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Instapundit links to a glowing article about “Swarm Power” which had “the potential to stir up the electricity market.”

Their great idea? Every building will have its own electricity generator based on “automotive” technology. Wow, what an insight. I wonder what else we could call these gadgets?

How about “a diesel backup generator just like every major building has had for the last 80 years.”

Guess that isn’t as catchy as “Swarm Power”.

This isn’t advancement.

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The Sun in Spain, continued

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A couple of weeks ago, I posted about the economic problems with Spain’s alternative-energy programs, and the apparent unwillingness of the Obama administration and its congressional allies to learn from that experience. Comes now a leaked Spanish government report on alternative energy progress and problems. From the PJ Media summary:

Unsurprisingly for a governmental take on a flagship program, the report takes pains to minimize the extent of the economic harm. Yet despite the soft-pedaling, the document reveals exactly why electricity rates “necessarily skyrocketed” in Spain, as did the public debt needed to underwrite the disaster. This internal assessment preceded the Zapatero administration’s recent acknowledgement that the “green economy” stunt must be abandoned, lest the experiment risk Spain becoming Greece.

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How the Oil Spill Impacts Nuclear Power

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The world is watching the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the struggles of the oil industry to contain the spill.

The financial markets are watching as well… this article explains how BP lost over 20% of its market value in the days following the incident that happened on April 20th, moving from $60 / share to $46 / share as of May 14.

The stock market is attempting to determine the impact of this incident on BP’s share price, which includes the immediate costs to clean up the spill, but also a general loss of corporate credibility and a negative pall over the offshore drilling industry that BP was counting on for future growth. While only the furthest left are calling for an abandonment of deep-water drilling off the coast of the USA, you can be certain that heavy new governmental controls and costs will burden future projects, to the extent that they can get approval at all.

While it may not seem like there is a connection between this environmental event and the nuclear industry, it is conceptually close to what occurred after Three Mile Island in 1979. While this incident did not “shut down” the nuclear power industry in the United States, it effectively stopped new, incremental construction and the electrical utility industry just managed to complete the bulk of their in-progress projects before the industry went into a state of hibernation on new construction that (mostly) continues to this day.

Nuclear power projects rest on a shaky foundation of public and governmental support; any sort of environmental event, whether minor or major, contained or not, will likely cause public opinion to turn which will cause the government to turn on the companies. There is a vast crew of environmentalists just waiting for this event to turn on the spin machine, and they will put out a full court press across all media to attack the industry.

The fact that EVERYTHING has to go right, in the US and abroad, for nuclear power to be successful in the United States makes these investments extremely risky. In prior posts I discussed the dis-incentives in terms of regulatory structure in most states in the US (there are some exceptions, such as South Carolina, which are the few areas going forward with nuclear projects), the fact that most generators aren’t sufficiently capitalized to make the massive investments in new generating capacity, but I really didn’t touch on the fragile level of public support for nuclear power among the general population.

You can bet that the financial officers of companies considering to invest in nuclear generation are watching the market capitalization of BP very carefully, thinking that it only would take a nuclear event anywhere in the US (or outside of the US, if it was major like Chernobyl) for not only their company but the entire industry to take a beat-down in the stock market. Remember, too, that most top officers of these companies have heavy stock-based incentives; it isn’t just the shareholders that would suffer, too – they would also feel it in their pocketbook.

Cross posted at LITGM