Skip to main content

Rod Adams Confronts Amory Lovins on Nuclear Energy

Long-time readers know that NEI Nuclear Notes has an ongoing concern with Amory Lovins of the Rocky Mountain Institute and what he has to say about nuclear energy. That's a concern that our friend Rod Adams shares as well, and it was one that he took to the source last night as he attended a lecture by Lovins just outside Washington, D.C.:
Essentially Lovins told the audience that there are free lunches, Santa Clauses, and Fairy Godmothers just waiting to provide us with all of the energy services that we need if we would just invest more into "ultralighting" our vehicle fleets, insulating our tents, and using dispersed energy sources like natural gas cogeneration, wind and solar. He talked about space age composites, plug in hybrids, and driving at reduced speeds to improve fuel economy.

He also spent about 15-20 minutes telling us that we should get rid of all of the world's nuclear power plants in order to ensure that there is no potential for hiding a weapons program in a peaceful nuclear energy program. He also implied that we should somehow exorcise nuclear knowledge so that no one has the knowhow for building weapons any more.
There's more, including a couple of gratuitous shots at the commercial nuclear industry:
[H]e described his respect for the culture of the Navy Nuclear Propulsion program. He then said it was too bad that that culture had not spread into the commercial nuclear power industry.

He then got me even more fired up by condescending expressing a belief that it was too bad that so many smart and dedicated people had wasted their lives on learning about a dead end technology.
Like Rod later mentions, I guess Lovins has never heard of INPO. I think I should repeat that nobody at NEI has anything personal against Lovins. From the very start, we've laid out a case that we disagree with his conclusions and the methodology he's used to come to those conclusions. For more, I suggest you read the following posts from our archives:

Rod Adams vs. Amory Lovins
Bad Data Leads to Bad Conclusions
More Bad Data From Amory Lovins
Revisiting RMI's Bad Data
Revisiting RMI and Amory Lovins
AECL CEO Takes on Lovins

Here's more from Rod's archive:

Lovins math continues to confuse me
Are these examples of the "micro" power that Lovins likes?
Amory Lovins' Academic Career

Technorati tags: , , , , Carbon Emissions, ,

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fluor Invests in NuScale

You know, it’s kind of sad that no one is willing to invest in nuclear energy anymore. Wait, what? NuScale Power celebrated the news of its company-saving $30 million investment from Fluor Corp. Thursday morning with a press conference in Washington, D.C. Fluor is a design, engineering and construction company involved with some 20 plants in the 70s and 80s, but it has not held interest in a nuclear energy company until now. Fluor, which has deep roots in the nuclear industry, is betting big on small-scale nuclear energy with its NuScale investment. "It's become a serious contender in the last decade or so," John Hopkins, [Fluor’s group president in charge of new ventures], said. And that brings us to NuScale, which had run into some dark days – maybe not as dark as, say, Solyndra, but dire enough : Earlier this year, the Securities Exchange Commission filed an action against NuScale's lead investor, The Michael Kenwood Group. The firm "misap

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Wednesday Update

From NEI’s Japan micro-site: NRC, Industry Concur on Many Post-Fukushima Actions Industry/Regulatory/Political Issues • There is a “great deal of alignment” between the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and the industry on initial steps to take at America’s nuclear energy facilities in response to the nuclear accident in Japan, Charles Pardee, the chief operating officer of Exelon Generation Co., said at an agency briefing today. The briefing gave stakeholders an opportunity to discuss staff recommendations for near-term actions the agency may take at U.S. facilities. PowerPoint slides from the meeting are on the NRC website. • The International Atomic Energy Agency board has approved a plan that calls for inspectors to evaluate reactor safety at nuclear energy facilities every three years. Governments may opt out of having their country’s facilities inspected. Also approved were plans to maintain a rapid response team of experts ready to assist facility operators recoverin