[Sustain] Nuke power advocate on biofuels

[Don Eichelberger]

"The fact is that someday, the world will run out of oil, gas, and 
coal. The fact is that solar, wind, geothermal, and hydroelectric 
have scalability and geographic limitations. The fact is that there 
is no free hydrogen gas on earth, it must be manufactured with an 
input of energy.

"The other often talked about alternative, biofuels, such as ethanol 
and biodiesel, have a hidden darkside. They are great products in 
some situations. The darkside appears when production of biofuels is 
increased to the levels necessary to replace oil and other fossil 
fuels. Without massive and unprecedented investment into water 
projects to bring water to the deserts (which incidently would cause 
the earth to absorb more heat from the sun, and hence cause the globe to warm).

"The price of food and fuel will no longer be loosely coupled as it 
is today. It will become strongly coupled. Food prices will soar. 
That is not a big problem for the developed world, but in the third 
world, people will necessarily starve. Just giving them money to buy 
food does not increase the supply of food because the price of fuel 
and food will simultaneously increase. Filling up one's gas tank may 
cost $100. But that $100 represents maybe $50 of food that will not 
be grown. To people living on less than $1 per day, that is a problem."

-Assemblyman Chuck DeVore (R-Irvine)

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The above quote is from Chuck DeVore's blog 
<http://www.ocblog.net/ocblog/2007/04/more_nuclear_po.html>http://www.ocblog.net/ocblog/2007/04/more_nuclear_po.html

His blog is quite revealing and says quite a bit, like the above, 
that I can agree with.  Of course, taking us down nuclear lane is a 
severe wrong turn.

He obviously needs to come to terms with the waste issue, and not 
much said about the terrorist magnet that is nuclear power.  In part 
of his post, he lays out to the tenth of a cent how much we'll save 
with a nuclear economy.  He presupposes no accidents, presupposes no 
increases in the cost of a never-ending supply of nuclear fuel.  This 
despite the 1000% increase in uranium yellowcake prices just since 2001.

I just hope there is enough held in common that we can find ways to 
bridge differences between us, and begin to pattern a politics of 
cooperation instead of division.

Idealistic but not hopeful,

Don