[Marxism] Future of Nuclear Power and John Holdren

[nada <dwaltersMIA@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think Sukla you miss the point.

I've been following the blog discussions on various environmental web 
sites (Gristmill, etc). There seems to be an obvious 'consensus' taking 
place.

Basically, Obama, again, is fulfilling promise based on his stated 
program. What is this? Basically he catered to everyone, either by 
conviction or by opportunism (I think the later since he knows only a 
little about climate change, energy, etc).

This means he's for putting money into "clean" coal, solar, wind, 
ethanol (which he does know something about as a leading eth.advocate 
from his corn state of Illinois). So, he is surrounding himself with 
scientists who share the wide belief that climate change is serious and 
something has to be done about it. I think he means this as far as that 
goes from a personal POV on the subject. He will probably have any 
anti-climate change fossil shills cleaned out of Interior and Energy, 
maybe even Commerce.

What he has done is to bring in scientists and elevate science to a 
relatively more serious place in his administration than the notably 
anti-science Bush crowed of pro-Creationist, anti-science folks that 
were scraping knuckles around Washington for the last 8 years.

Part of this is his choosing of two people who under stand climate 
change but have different approaches to addressing the issue and, both 
of whom will not look at the fundamental class issues of profit and 
capitalism. There will be no discussion of that, of course, in the Obama 
energy and climate discussions.

Holden represents the sort of  climate perspectives that are 
generally...'generally' anti-nuclear or don't see nuclear as a viable 
solution to lowering emissions. Steve Chu does, obviously. Holden with 
be an 'adviser', Chu will actually make the decisions. But both come 
from almost strictly science backgrounds, not political ones which is 
why I think if anything happens, the level of scientific discourse will 
inevitably increase as they try to address problems and solutions to 
climate change...within the straight-jacket of Democratic and capitalist 
politics.

I actually think nuclear will get a new lease on life during this period 
as will more R&D for all sorts of other solutions, not deemed strictly 
"market oriented". That's on the R&D side not the implementation of 
policies, a whole different ball of wax.

Those of us who are pro-nuclear activists have generally welcomed the 
Chu nomination. One of the problems with the Bush orientation on nuclear 
was the sort of knee-jerk almost childlike "build 'em! build 'em! with 
no science discussed. The idea of developing *advanced* "Generation IV" 
reactors (the kind India, France, Japan, China and Russia are 
developing) was given almost no R&D funds whatsoever. Chu, like Dr. Jim 
Hansen more recently, IS for more R&D to these kinds of low-waste 
producing, inherently safe, cheaper advanced nuclear energy generators. 
Bush starved the program because, well, there was no short term "profit" 
potential involved. Hopefully this will change.

I suspect, given Obama's stated positions on energy, that basically he 
will *continue* the actual 'action' side of Bush's program...I don't 
discern a difference on the Production Tax Credit (the only thing that 
keeps all these big corporations going in terms of wind and solar).

David

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