I know less than enough about nuclear power plants but what I do know makes me think it’s a viable alternative.

I am concerned with nuclear waste. Except for the waste issue, nuclear power generation is a mature technology. Chernobyl was on-the-cheap technology which was long-rejected in the West. Three Mile Island was a plumbing problem. And I think, generally speaking, plumbing is a pretty mature technology, too.

But if there’s enough energy to kill people, why isn’t there technology that can deal with spent fuel? Is it not possible? Or just not profitable? So far…

I still have concerns about what might happen at Wolf Creek if it were to get a Greensburg-type direct hit from a tornado. Maybe the Neosho River would glow in the dark for 10,000 years. I dunno.

I think we could probably be energy-independent in America for a century with nuclear power (especially if we didn’t spend that money in Iraq, as McCain suggests) But by that time, there seems there should be some better way of dealing with nuclear waste than burying it in a hole like cavemen.

But…

It would involve a huge change in how society works.

A nuclear/wind/solar/etc (essentially a non-carbon-based) energy system), people would have to deal with electricity-based technologies. Put your Mustang in a museum. If you’re going from Wichita to El Dorado, you might take your plug-in electric car. But if you’re going to Kansas City, you’ll take the magnetic super-train.

And the thing is: no country is better equipped than the USA to develop those needed technologies (although India is getting close) if only people would get over their addiction to the internal combustion engine.

We’ve come a long way since the days of “What’s good for General Motors is good for America.” As it’s worked out, what’s good for General Motors is how we got into this mess. Energy, Climate Change, the Middle East, the price of fuel, the price of food… think about it.

About ten years ago I had a series of meetings with some brilliant researchers who were trying to work out the technology of a global electrical grid. The briefest way to explain it is to compare it to the Trans-Atlantic telegraph cable of the 19th Century.

Think about it:

Most people sleep at night, and don’t use a lot of electricity. On the other side of the planet, the sun is shining somewhere (and the wind’s always blowing in Kansas.

If we could harness more of the solar energy (in all its forms: solar, wind, tidal, — okay, that’s “lunar” energy — there’s plenty of ways to power civilization other than burning dead dinosaurs.

Turns out, there are a lot of technological problems that make the international electrical grid more complex than the Trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. But no one I talked to thought those couldn’t be overcome.

One of them cited the “Ice Cream” metaphor. If you are starving and have a gallon of ice cream, it’s tempting to dive into the ice cream. But if you can buy some cones you can sell your ice cream and earn enough to afford protein.

America chooses to eat the ice cream.

For example, first of all, Ben do you favor investigating this alternative? Do various organizations who support protecting our Kansas air and water quality favor building/expanding nuclear electrical power production facilities?

I wonder about the water usage again. I wonder how much new water is used annually by Wolf Creek facility and how much green house gases it emits?

I suspect it’s time to look seriously at nuclear as an alternative to the coal-fired plants that I think are now dead in the legislature.

Or is it possible that expanding our wind generation capabilities can provide all the power we need in Kansas? In answer to the persistent objection that “the wind doesn’t blow all the time,” the wind probably does blow all the time somewhere in Kansas.

Or are there other alternatives to consider?

Homeless, Homeless on the Range,
Where the steers and wind roam free,
Why’d I ever listen to Bob,
That dude cost me my job,
And, now I’ve nowhere to stay!

Oh there’s littl chance,
Sunflower will buy me that ranch,
Don’t matter I sold my soul,
so they could burn coal
And, the skies could be smoggy all day.

Otto is as wingnut as they come and has had opposition in both his Republic Party primaries; traditional Nancy Kassabaum moderates for a moderate against the “baboon” Republicans. A Democrat ran a good race against Otto in 2006; close but no cigar.

Kansas… as red assed as you think!

Kansas… as close to a baboon’s ass as you think?

Sounds like a thread topic to me!

A new GOP symbol??

“Who are your going to vote for?”

“Why, I’m going to vote as red as a baboon’s ass! I live in Kansass”

???

melvin neufeld as speaker

This is an off year and she isnt running for anything. I wonder if the KDP will do any better in legislative races this year?

Not unless they at least TRY!

WTF is the KDP doing to defeat these guys? They just concede the western half of the state to these hillbilly wingnuts and refuse to build any infrastructure out here to recruit and support decent candidates.

I mean, most days I think a yellow DOG could represent the interests of the west better than these mossbacks who go back year after year by default because the KDP doesnt GIVE a rat’s ass about getting them gone.

How’s that worked in THIS legislative session?

Talk all ya want about kansas being less red. Until there are changes made in the composition of the legislature, we are still as red as a baboon’s ass.

And we are about as accomplished…

I bet Virginia Beamer runs unopposed. Again.

And tim peterson will tilt another windmill and run against ralph.

Kansas Republicans have really been scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with some of these people in state office.