The Heritage Foundation - Leadership for America

October 21, 2009 J.C. Hughes, Texas writes:

I’d be very interested in hearing about nuclear energy and its environmental impact as compared to other sources of conventional and alternative power generation. I’ll probably have to miss tomorrow’s discussion.

October 21, 2009 Liz, Salina, KS writes:

Do you have a position on the film Not Evil, Just Wrong? We didn’t feel comfortable stepping up to show it to our group as requested, because they asked that we agreed to show it WITHOUT viewing it first.

October 21, 2009 Mike Brownfield writes:

Liz,

The Heritage Foundation screened the film in its auditorium on October 18 and presented a panel discussion with its directors and others that can be viewed online. You can watch a recording of the event online here: http://www.heritage.org/press/events/ev101809a.cfm

I hope this helps.

Mike Brownfield
m.brownfield@heritage.org

October 22, 2009 Dan Adams, North Carolina writes:

Are you going to address the effects of signing the treaty on the sovereignty of the USA?

October 22, 2009 Bill Eger writes:

The skeptics have the truth. Just present it. And push for a debate. If the proponents continue to avoid debating and force Cap and Tax through; I see civil disobedience on the horizon…

October 22, 2009 James, Texas writes:

i read somewhere that when the Waxman-Markey Cap and trade bill were being written, with help of others, that both Waxman and Markey were investing heavily with companies that would benefit greatly when this bill gets signed into law… Talk about conflict of interest

October 22, 2009 ONTIME, USA writes:

This environmental legislation is such a sham and all this attempt for more control, and tax monies can be eliminated over a tolerable time if the present energy sources are incorporated in a logical manner to offset the new and upcoming methods of energy production. It is however the need of unscrupulous politicians to scam the public in order to pad their own nest and embellish their place in history, this kind of buffoonery will prevail in the presence of the most obvious logic and you as a citizen are the wall, you are all that can resist this chicanery by your consistent and constant right to object.

October 22, 2009 Nicolai Alatzas writes:

David,

Nuclear Power is only mentioned a handful of times because it is not part of the solution. It is an economic slippery slope at best.

Without a safe reliable way to manage waste there can be no new plants built. Our solution right now is to take all the spent nuclear waste and pack it into the Yucca Mountain geo­logic repository.

France is leading the way in regards to recycling spent fuel. Unfortunately it is horribly not cost effective. This only increases the cost dramatically to a failed economic experiment. Not only do Nuclear Power Plants not produce enough power to ever pay for themselves they are labor intensive and require an extreme amounts of monitoring equipment and resources to just keep them going. That doesn’t even include the environmental effects of mining for our new Uranium.

That brings me to the impacts of open pit mining and strip mining for new Uranium Sources. The current outlook of known Uranium sources in the world will power current production rates for about another 100 years. Then what? we get 150 years of electricity and a 500,000 year half life of the radiation. It is also ecologically devastating releasing tons of pollutants into the air and ground water.

Another great concern to people should be the movement of this nuclear waste. Almost every city in the country will see daily shipments of Nuclear waste moving through your cities. City’s near the Yucca Mountain geo­logic repository could see a dozen a day. Now to there credit they have moved thousands of shipments already and have had no accidents. But if there is one thing about humans if we can fail we probably will. Whether that failure comes in the form of a Terrorist Attack, a terrible road accident that spills fuel and burns the tanks beyond the 1200 degree rating they have or in just longer health effects of this waste reaching our water ways.

I will not ever support any new Nuclear Power projects in my lifetime. There is no need with abundant amounts of Renewable, Sustainable Resources that surround us you would have to be a fool to buy into these programs that are heavily subsidized by the Government and huge Tax liabilities to the people. EPA is saying the Yucca Mountain geo­logic repository is safe for 1,000,000 years dig deep for that one folks we are all going to be paying for it well beyond our lifetime.

October 22, 2009 Walter Selover writes:

What on earth is getting in our way of begining to producing massive sun panel collectors throughout our nation? We would expect that major construction and installation will probably cost more than it will generate, but we know that fast and major design changes can and will bring solar energy into practical and profitable production very quickly as our learning matures.
Wind and other natural recurring phenomina, (water and wave powers) can be developed to produce electricity. It is all there waiting to be developed. Some will require significant investment to get underway. But our understanding of practical physics is certainly competent to reach practical energy generation. With in 20 years, we should no longer have any use for petroleum as a source of power for any reason. What a change in our world for the better they will bring. And those who accomplish them will be lavishly rewarded. Let’s get on with them. We need that energy economically, and politically, to eliminate our outside energy sources.

October 24, 2009 Donna - Virginia writes:

And, all of this is based on what? Climate control gurus like Al Gore that are making billions of dollars and using our education system to brain wash our kids?

While I agree that we need to find alternatives to fossil fuels, but, not because of “dangerous” emissions they “supposedly” emit, but, because they will run out of fossil fuels. I honestly believe the research for such is already being done in the private sectors - oil companies, for one.

I truly think, that with the technology we have already that contributes to “cleaner” productions of fossil fuels, that we should UTILIZE our own fuels (oil, natural gas, clean coal) by allowing more freedom for those companies to provide us with the energy we need and using those profits to support research for alternatives.

France is doing well with nuclear energy, so, what’s wrong with us using it as a future alternative? While we are using our own fossil fuels, we could take that time to build more nuclear plants.

October 29, 2009 Where in the World is Global Warming a Priority? | Conservative Principles Now writes:

[...] David Kreutzer mentions in his Politico chat wrap, there much faster and much less expensive ways to adapt to climate change [...]

October 30, 2009 Nicolai Alatzas writes:

Walter,

There are some new large scale parabolic solar systems that are producing electricity on a huge scale. Take a look at this 330 million dollar plant that was built in Spain. Andasol produces some 180 Gigawatt hours of electricity annually.

http://www.solarmillennium.de/Technologie/Referenzprojekte/Andasol/Die_Andasol_Kraftwerke_entstehen_,lang2,109,155.html

Great energy production source as well as cost effective energy storage incorporated directly into the systems mechanics.