Author: Captain Obvious

Our son suggested we attend the Comic Con parade in Atlanta about 8 years ago, so we and a bunch of our employees all agreed to meet along the parade route and then grab dinner at an area restaurant.  It was pretty wild and it showed me how much people will spend pretending to be a character.  Perhaps most impressive were those who were dressed up as Star Wars soldiers.  Those white plastic armor suits looked identical to the ones on movie sets.

I guess this is all innocent fun on so many levels… that is until and unless it becomes the life these individuals really believe they are leading.  When I hear people talking of the Metaverse or about the time wasted in videogame play I do worry whether we are headed nowhere good.

The title of this blog comes from an article called The Great Carbon Con Is Coming to an End: No more fluffy climate goals and emissions offsets. Businesses will soon be expected to show real progress.

As I read it, I felt redeemed for all the blogs I have written trying to warn people of the greenwashing and blatant lies being offered as corporate testimonies on ESG initiatives.  It seems that the charade is going to be called into accountability and the emperors shown to be nude and ugly.  One can hope.

The problem with this of course is that the last thing we all need is more proof that what we are being told by government and industry leaders can’t be trusted.  We all want to believe that actions today can lead to a healthier and prosperous tomorrow.

But, we are also in the perfect storm of technology that is sure to confound the process.  We have deep fakes that can automatically produce “proof” that people say this or that.  We have AI powered script and video generation that can flood our digital channels with misinformation, and we have ample proof that all too many of our leaders are corrupt.

Perhaps that is why so many of us want to entertain ourselves with magical creatures and other worlds we can live in.  These all seem oh so much better than the one we must live in today.

Perhaps we all do live in that matrix pointed to by the movie series of that name.  When I hear how many people attended the big meetings on climate change I am reminded of the wise words Joe Collier spoke when he keynoted one of the early meetings on cogeneration and said, “I just hope those of you who think you are going to make a lot of money promoting cogeneration projects have wives who work.  Seems like such an inappropriate remark today, now doesn’t it.

That year the meeting was dominated by entrepreneurs and industry participants.  Within two years it was dominated by lawyers looking for information to sue the snake oil sales companies that dominated the business.

You do see the parallels, right?  We are now in the entertainment phase of Carbon Con.  Enjoy!

I still remember when I was asked to talk about renewables back when they were first being considered in the energy source portfolio.  I warned about bird strikes with wind and the challenges of backing up both wind and solar.  Back then batteries were much more costly.

One of the topics I raised was the curious inclusion of wood waste as a renewable source for power.  I understood the idea of scraps off the forest floors, but what was emerging was the largescale destruction of trees with the idea that burning them was less harmful than letting them rot on the forest floor for decades.  My wife Susan and I had observed the burning of fields for the same reason in New Zealand.  The idea was burning the brush was better than letting it produce methane since methane does have a large global warming potential compared to carbon dioxide.

However, as I said back then, burning wood in seconds releases an enormous amount of carbon dioxide plus huge amounts of other pollutants.  Anyone who travels in the northeast will note the lovely smell of wood being burnt in the communities.  Yes, it does smell good, but that is not good for the environment.

As the article below shows, Australia has put an end to this and Europe may be following quickly once they get past this winter.  The war in Ukraine of course tempers purist perspectives.

Read the Mongabay article here.

But, does anyone in the US realize how big the biomass industry is?  Once again, watch the movie Planet of the Humans to get the inside scoop here.

Worse yet, we are all paying subsidies to produce this devastation.

We need a full scale review of all of these ideas which include corn based ethanol as gasoline additives, biofuels of all types, as well as the full cradle to grave footprints of solar cells and EV batteries.

If you think the EVs are good for the environment, read this New York Times article. 

So, is it now obvious we are on the wrong track?

I just watched a NRECA podcast on small modular nuclear reactors.  It was well done, and given my background in nuclear power plant design, I decided to investigate where we are on this concept.  To my delight, they are not reaching for the moon with the design.  After all, we built these to power the Navy and I am intimately familiar with those realities.  Yes, these designs work.  And, by the way, these designs do a decent job of load following … unlike their historical land-based relatives.

In addition, there is government money flowing so the economics of the first units may be acceptable.  And public opinion might make some of these acceptable … the key word here is might.  There are also some places like Alaska where these are probably the only realistic idea over the long haul, but that is a key feature everyone is forgetting.  The cost to get this idea through the NRC is estimated at over $500 million … that is not equipment costs … that is only the cost of regulatory proceedings.  Then, there is the question of when you could actually get one built and operational in the United States.  They are saying around 2030 now.

I love nuclear, so don’t get me wrong … I want to see it reemerge as an energy supply for new construction and to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels.  But I am reminded of several acronyms that apply here that you may remember:  NIMBY, BANANA, and NOPE.  They apply to any power plants, but especially to nuclear.

NIMBY: Not In MY Backyard

BANANA: Building Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone

NOPE: Not on planet earth

One thing is for sure.  The aspirational goal will fund a huge business in trying to make this work.  Once again we encounter WASTE: Welfare Act for Scientists, Technology, and Engineers.

I can’t remember the professor who suggested this to me, but I think it is pretty profound.  When it comes to things that you believe are real, it is always a good guideline to think that must be real if it already exists.  So, now that we have been told by our governmental researchers, they can produce fusion (the same energy source as the sun), perhaps we shouldn’t be celebrating just yet.

You all know that our sun is not unique.  All of those bright, shiny objects in the sky use the same energy production methods, so we KNOW fusion works and produces an enormous amount of energy, and for a long time.  On so many levels, the research is impressive for sure, but perhaps we are not asking the truly important questions.

Go ahead and ask any science teachers you know or any theoretical physicists.  They will all admit they do not know how these bright objects were created in the first place.  Yes, you read that correctly … go and check it out for yourself.  Even though we have almost countless examples of this in our universe, we simply have no idea how they were formed.  Yes, we have theories. But no one can explain this … and my next statements should give us pause.  You do remember Madame Curie learned the hard way that radioactivity was harmful and exposure will kill you?

Now, read all the press on fusion and tell me whether this idea is safe and practical.  These suns are not contained to provide energy in a controlled way.  Nothing can exist close to them.  Oh, and by the way, why isn’t anyone talking about the size issue here.  Our sun is a relatively small star and is so big that its gravitational force holds our solar system together.  Why isn’t anyone talking about the scale issue?

Here is a nice summary from the New York Times:

Why is this result such a big deal? As a clean source of energy, nuclear fusion could help replace polluting fossil fuels and overcome climate change. And if the remaining challenges — of which there are many — are figured out, nuclear fusion could produce more energy than today’s technologies are capable of.

Serious barriers remain before that potential future, experts caution. Can scientists reliably replicate what they’ve done only once? Can it be done more efficiently and more quickly? Can it be scaled up? All these questions are serious enough that, if not overcome, the announcement may ultimately amount to little.

Do you remember when Einstein and others worried that the atomic bomb was a bad idea.  Yes, it was the beginning of a nuclear age with wonderful examples of power plants in our world.  But, it is also the basis of our greatest fears since this same energy source can wipe us out.

What is clear is that we are about to be asked to pay dearly to follow this path … but no one is asking where that path really leads.

The climate scientists are all predicting that wind strength is going to diminish.  This means that the wind farms will produce less and less power … and of course all of this while the needs for electricity will continue to increase.  See for yourself: We’re in the middle of a wind drought – and a ‘global stilling’ is coming (msn.com)

As if that wasn’t enough, take a look at the catastrophic results of hail hitting solar panels:  U.S. insurers are expected to pay out more than $300 million in claims due to wind and hailstorms in Texas this year, according to GCube. In 2019, more than 400,000 out of 685,000 solar modules were damaged or destroyed at a single West Texas solar farm due to a massive hailstorm, resulting in $70 million of insured losses.

Where is the critical thinking of a resilient and reliable portfolio of energy supply.  Are we going to find these solar panels sitting in a local warehouse somewhere?  Do we really believe we can get new ones quickly?  How on earth are we going to keep the lights on and keep homes heated during the coldest days of the winter when that is precisely when the wind dies off?  Oh, are you going to run solar panels at night to make up the difference?  And, to make matters worse, you do remember that batteries perform the worst during cold weather don’t you?

It amazes me that I am the only one writing about this insanity?  I can only explain the silence by assuming the others who know what is happening are simply complicit.

Sad … very sad … and very irresponsible.