For the last day of the convention, we were going to spend much of it at Invesco Field, aka Mile High Stadium, to hear Barack Obama accept the nomination of the Democratic Party for president of the United States.
But prior to attending the convention festivities, I took some time to interview Ira Feldman, a member of Obama’s energy and environment team. As you can see in this YouTube clip, I asked him more about the 5 million green-collar jobs, the position of the campaign toward clean coal technology, and his thoughts about Al Gore’s 10-year, 100% renewable energy goal.
The convention floor itself was electric. Delegates to the convention were treated as VIPs, and we were directed through a special entry line to an area of the stadium usually reserved for football players. Along the way we were greeted by celebrities, news personalities, and the like through this cavernous space under the stadium seating.
The Maryland delegation sat stage left of the massive podium structure that resembled Greek columns. It was no doubt a massive undertaking, and a totally different feeling than being up in the seats of the Pepsi Center. With the sound system in place, most of the inexperienced politicians ended up shouting into the microphone, which was a bit jarring for us on the ground, but that was nothing compared with the soaring voice of Jennifer Hudson when she sang the Star-Spangled Banner. Someone could write a dissertation on those acoustics alone!
Energy featured prominently again Thursday, with Al Gore (make that Nobel Peace Prize recipient and former vice president Al Gore) discussing the climate crisis. His speech was really the only time during the event when the raucous crowd settled down. His connecting our national security concerns to energy policy and the threat of global warming was compelling.
And just when you thought the speeches of Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton, Gore, Joe Biden, Ted Kennedy, Brian Schweitzer, and Bill Richardson couldn’t be topped, it was clear Thursday night why Obama was receiving the nomination.
It was also clear that Obama approaches energy, science, and environmental issues with the full force of his convictions. And while I still don’t agree with him on the use of so-called clean coal, Obama himself makes the most forceful and pragmatic argument for this in one of the highest points of his oratory. I also didn’t recognize or expect it at the time, but a huge cry of applause came for the clean coal position, which surprised everyone around me, until we turned to find the source was the West Virginia delegation.
From his remarks:
Washington’s been talking about our oil addiction for the last 30 years, and John McCain has been there for 26 of them. In that time, he’s said no to higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars, no to investments in renewable energy, no to renewable fuels. And today, we import triple the amount of oil as the day that Senator McCain took office.
Now is the time to end this addiction, and to understand that drilling is a stop-gap measure, not a long-term solution. Not even close.
As president, I will tap our natural gas reserves, invest in clean coal technology, and find ways to safely harness nuclear power. I’ll help our auto companies re-tool, so that the fuel-efficient cars of the future are built right here in America. I’ll make it easier for the American people to afford these new cars. And I’ll invest $150 billion over the next decade in affordable, renewable sources of energy – wind power and solar power and the next generation of biofuels; an investment that will lead to new industries and 5 million new jobs that pay well and can’t ever be outsourced.
Friday morning we learned that John McCain has chosen Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his vice president. In terms of politics, that may have been a shrewd maneuver. However, she is a committed advocate of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and her husband is an oil production operator on Alaska’s North Slope. http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/2 /palin.republican.vp.candidate/index.htm
The choice guarantees that science and especially energy will be major battlegrounds in the presidential campaign, and the Democrats have already framed the election as a fight they will win on the issues. Now we find out how the Republicans respond and how the American people judge our energy future.
Democrats convene in Denver, McCain surprises with VP choice — week of 24 August 2008
It was supposed to be the Democrats’ week, as Barack Obama and vice presidential nominee Senator Joe Biden headed off to the Democratic National Convention in Denver (see our earlier coverage for day 1, day 2, day 3, and day 4 of the convention). But Republican John McCain was not about to be drowned out by all the hoopla at what he derisively labeled the “temple of Obama” in the Mile High City. Less than a day after Obama’s acceptance speech, McCain introduced his surprise choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for his running mate. According to a McCain press release, Palin “has challenged the influence of the big oil companies while fighting for the development of new energy resources,” and “has been a leader in the fight to make America energy independent.”
During her successful campaign against former governor Tony Knowles in 2006, Palin, a conservative Christian, supported the teaching of creationism and intelligent design, though she later backpedaled some, saying only that they be discussed if they came up during the teaching of evolution.
Earlier in the week, and with the convention already into its third day, Obama was talking energy in Montana, telling veterans and military families that McCain has been “asleep at the switch” in promoting renewable energy. He hit McCain on his support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository in Nevada, saying “Not surprisingly, a whole bunch of people in Nevada were like ‘Hold on a second, John McCain is in favor of Yucca Mountain' except it turned out he didn’t want the stuff shipped through Arizona to get to Nevada.” He continued, "Somebody said we could have used some of his houses as - that wasn’t my joke, that was this gentleman right here, so I’m not gonna take credit for that one."
But while the Obama campaign has been running TV ads stoking up residents’ opposition to Yucca Mountain, Nevadans were telling pollsters that the issue isn’t as important to their votes as believed. In a statewide survey, 38% of voters said the candidates’ views on the waste dump would not sway their decision; but 28% said that it would and 37% said it would have some influence.
McCain, meanwhile, popped onto the media’s radar screen by calling for a delay of the retirement date for the space shuttles. McCain’s position came about as a response to heightened tensions with Russia. The GOP nominee-in-waiting was joined by fellow GOP senators Kay Bailey Hutchison and David Vitter in asking NASA to take no action over the next year that precludes the shuttles from flying past 2010, the date the agency has established for their permanent grounding. In their letter to NASA Administrator Michael Griffin, the three lawmakers fretted over NASA’s dependence on Russia for delivering crew to and from the International Space Station until a new US crew exploration vehicle and rocket are ready to fly in 2015.
However, an internal NASA email leaked to the Orlando Florida Sentinel yesterday highlights a request from Griffin to NASA employees to carry out a feasibility study of extending the shuttle program lifetime beyond 2010. McCain’s letter, and Obama’s space policy plan released some weeks ago that calls for one extra flight to the space station to deliver the Alpha Mass Spectrometer is clearly having some effect on the agency.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi attended the Maryland Democratic Party breakfast Wednesday morning. There was a reason for that: Baltimore is her birthplace, and she is the daughter of former Baltimore mayor Thomas D’Allesandro. She is also a much more compelling speaker in person than on camera, and she had some really tough words on our energy crisis.
She was unequivocal in saying, “ ‘Drill, drill, drill’ is the mantra of the handmaidens of big oil,” and “Offshore drilling is the biggest hoax perpetrated on the American public.” Personally I was pleased to hear that, because the national news had seemed to suggest that the Democrats may cave on the offshore drilling issue.
“Green-collar jobs” was also a phrase used in the breakfast talk. Because it was an unusual phrase, I looked it up on Google and found that I had missed hearing it in Hillary Clinton’s convention speech.
Time magazine also had a piece a while ago explaining what the phrase means to the candidates and what it tries to convey to the public. The main point by the Democrats seems to be that these are the jobs of the future and are the sort of jobs that cannot be shipped overseas.
But after digging into the Obama website to find out more specific details to account for the 5 million green-collar jobs mentioned in yesterday’s posting [add link], I was disappointed to find little in the way of specifics, and what I did find includes a reliance on clean coal technology to come up with the figure. I knew that Obama had supported so-called clean coal as a state legislator, but it figures more prominently in the 5 million total than I had expected. If carbon sequestration is ever perfected and we can mine coal without mountain-top removal or other monstrous degradation to the environment, then I might be for it. After all, the US is the “Saudi Arabia of coal.” Clean coal would certainly reduce our dependence on oil, but right now I see it as a distraction from developing renewable energy technologies.
From Obama’s website:
Create Millions of New Green Jobs
• Ensure 10% of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012 and 25% by 2025.
• Deploy the cheapest, cleanest, fastest energy source—energy efficiency.
Obama will set an aggressive energy efficiency goal—to reduce electricity demand 15% from projected levels by 2020.
• Weatherize one million homes annually.
Obama will make a national commitment to weatherize at least 1 million low-income homes each year for the next decade, which can reduce energy usage across the economy and help moderate energy prices for all.
• Develop and deploy clean coal technology.
Obama’s Department of Energy will enter into public–private partnerships to develop five “first-of-a-kind” commercial-scale coal-fired plants with clean carbon capture and sequestration technology.
• Prioritize the construction of the Alaska natural gas pipeline.
As president, Obama will work with stakeholders to facilitate construction of the pipeline. Not only is the pipeline critical to our energy security, it will create thousands of new jobs.
Words at the convention
Science and energy were not on the agenda at the convention Wednesday night, but did get brief mentions by John Kerry in his blistering attack on John McCain:
And “the assault on science” was mentioned in a dramatic speech by President Bill Clinton:
Meanwhile, a blog entry brings up the environmental views from Joe Biden’s old campaign website. Seems like a good addition to the ticket in that respect:
Denver’s clean energy mantra
Take a look at this short clip I created on YouTube. It is footage of a hybrid Prius taxi-cab on a Denver street, along with a demonstration GM fuel-cell vehicle in front of the Pepsi Center.
I can’t wait to see hybrid taxis in every major city and fuel cell vehicles for sale at the car lots!
Obama’s big acceptance speech happens Thursday night at the Mile-High Stadium, and former Vice President Al Gore should have some good words on climate and science issues before the presidential nominee takes the stage.
Maryland delegate Ryan Ewing reports for Physics Today Online on the science-related events at this week’s Democratic National Convention.
Energy Night
Energy was the theme of Tuesday evening, starting with the nightly “America’s Town Hall,” which aired late in the 6:00pm session during prime-time viewing hours.
Looking at the CSPAN video, the session actually plays much better to the television-watching audience then it did to the convention hall. There was a similar town-hall-style session the first night of the convention, and I recall thinking how awkward it was, since hardly anyone in the convention hall could focus on the discussion with all the background noise.
However, during one portion of the discussion, with Jerome Ringo, the head of the Apollo Alliance —a coalition of business, labor, environmental, and community leaders working to catalyze interest and investment in clean energy—I suddenly realized why Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm was leading this session:
“When we talk about the turbine and wind industry, someone must design a turbine, that is a job; someone must build that turbine, that is a job; somebody has to maintain that turbine, that is a job.”
This was all about creating US-based energy in a new energy economy that would replace jobs lost in manufacturing as production moves overseas. It is a clear winner in the party platform, and likely to have strong appeal for the public, as well as bond the labor and environmental wings of the Democratic Party with a common goal.
It soon became evident during the evening that the Democrats would use this issue of energy both to draw a clear distinction between the political parties in this election and as a bludgeon against Senator John McCain: The speakers who addressed the economy and clean energy got some of the largest applause.
Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who supports investing in renewable energy from the heartland (wind and ethanol), has a great quip about McCain and renewables:
The actual keynote speaker for the evening was former Virginia Governor Mark Warner, but surprisingly, applause was muted for his speech compared with the speech made by Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer. Schweitzer’s speech highlighted the energy issue and received some of the most thunderous applause of the night, short of Sen. Hillary Clinton’s speech. To get the complete effect this speech had on the convention, it should be viewed in its entirety. Schweitzer comes across as a jovial and entertaining man to watch; it looks like he is really enjoying himself up there, and I can’t believe we haven’t seen more of him before.
One of the only no-applause parts of Schweitzer’s speech was his suggestion that coal is part of an energy solution for America, which landed with a thud. But he quickly picked it up again, outlining each type of renewable energy that McCain has voted against.
Highlights of Schweitzer’s speech include the following: “We cannot drill our way to energy independence, if you drill everywhere, if you drill in all of John McCain’s backyards, even the ones he doesn’t know he has.”
“$4 billion in tax breaks for big oil: that’s a lot of change, but not the change we need.”
“Barack Obama understands the most important barrel of oil is the one you do not use.”
“America needs energy independence: the petrol-dictators will never own American wind and sunshine. And we should never again be beheld to their barrels of crude.”
And the theme reiterated is that the new renewable energy economy will create 5 million new green jobs. How these 5 million jobs will be created was not explained at the forum, but I hope to find out more details at a later date. Clearly new jobs in a growing industry is the message the party is trying to hammer home.
A green evening
After the convention proceedings, the Maryland Delegation met together for our second evening reception, this time at Gumbo’s restaurant. The reception was hosted by Maryland Attorney General Doug Gansler, a decidedly green elected official who has been working on various environmental issues in Maryland, particularly river and water quality. Greeting us at the door was US Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who was a leading contender for the vice-presidency, and whose father, the retired senator Birch Bayh, now lives in my hometown of Easton, Maryland.
But the real treat of the evening was Gansler’s connection to our special guest speaker, chairman of the Waterkeeper Alliance, Robert Kennedy Jr. While Kennedy did not speak specifically on science or environmental issues (he said he was shying away from that after a controversial recent appearance at a Poultry Summit on Maryland’s Eastern Shore), he was a compelling speaker nonetheless and continued the green theme for the evening.
Leaving the party early, a friend and I took the free shuttle service on Denver’s mile-long 16th Street pedestrian mall from one end to the other to see the band Death Cab for Cutie at the League of Conservation Voters’ “Concert for a Cool Climate.” This was at the Sherman Center, which appeared to be a large old church converted into a four-story venue. Since I work with the Maryland League, we got in with VIP passes to enjoy some local Denver microbrews and eats. Quite the nice way to wrap up such a green-oriented day at the convention.
A first-time visitor to the Denver International Airport or anyone who hasn’t been through it lately will be struck by the large solar array on the airport grounds. The acres of solar panels show a Denver that is committed to renewable energy, and they are in line with the theme of a “green” convention here in the Mile-High City.
According to the Associated Press, “9,200 panels cover 7 1/2 acres beside the main highway to and from the airport terminal. The photovoltaic system will generate over 3 million kilowatt hours of electricity a year. City officials say that will reduce carbon emissions by more than 6.3 million pounds a year.”
This is one of many efforts evident in Denver’s new sustainability trend. Denver mayor John Hickenlooper is the public voice for this and other environmental efforts, including a fleet of 1000 public bicycles available to visitors to help them reduce their carbon footprints. The Democratic Party itself has taken some visible steps at the convention, staffing each waste area with a recycling volunteer to inform folks that every tray or container used at the Pepsi Center is biodegradable. Individual state delegations also had the opportunity to offset the carbon footprint of their travel, and if they did so, they received a special “green” designation above their placards.
But as an individual delegate, what you first find in your convention materials is literally a mixed bag. Along with the typical swag is literature about greening the convention, an invitation to “Sun Fest” (an outdoor concert and solar power festival), and even a Bisphenol-A-free water bottle to discourage the use of disposable ones. However, just like coal in Christmas stockings, there is also a “stress reliever”–style piece of fake coal endorsing support for coal power.
Science on the Schedule
Although Monday night at the convention was compelling for television, most notably because of speeches by Senator Barack Obama’s wife, Michelle Obama, and Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), there was little in the way of science. Having sat through all the proceedings, from the 3pm gaveling-in of the convention through the 9pm adjournment, I heard only passing mention of sustainability by Mayor Hickenlooper in his welcoming address. There was a good swipe, however, by former Republican congressman Jim Leach of Iowa, who addressed the Democrats in his endorsement of Obama, saying that his party has abdicated its leadership on issues of conservation and fails to address the challenge of global warming.
Since this is my first convention, I didn’t realize that day 1 is spent passing through various resolutions and taking care of general business … so I missed the chance to attend a sustainability fair at Invesco Field with host Willie Nelson, as well as the corporate event “Bank of America Goes Green.”
Other events surrounding the convention schedule include a day-long symposium Tuesday, Energy and Climate Change at Space Theatre. For a $55 cover charge, the event could certainly enlighten and engage a regular attendee, although with all the delegation demands and conflicts, I wouldn’t be able to attend but a small portion of it. Hopefully, the town hall meeting for delegates at the Pepsi Center this evening will cover the highlights. However, in an obvious effort to get a climate message across to youth voters, I will attend a “concert for a cool climate” tonight, hosted by the League of Conservation Voters and headlined by the band Death Cab for Cutie.
On a visit to a Gulf of Mexico oil rig on Tuesday, Senator John McCain boldly, if improbably declared that the US will attain energy independence during his presidency, “by using every resource at our disposal to get the job done, including new offshore drilling.” McCain continued to tout his “all of the above” energy policy that highlights offshore drilling and the expansion of nuclear power, also calls for more renewables, clean coal and conservation. "Senator Obama says he wants energy independence, but he’s opposed to new drilling at home, he’s opposed to nuclear power," McCain told a town hall meeting a day later in New Mexico. “My friends, we have to have nuclear power. Nuclear power has got to be part of any way of us being energy independent.” McCain has called for 45 new US reactors to be built by 2030, and for the reprocessing of their spent fuel.
Obama, campaigning in New Mexico on Tuesday, was a bit more circumspect in his use of “energy independence,” but told an interviewer that the state’s national laboratories will be critical in helping the nation to develop alternative energy solutions. He promised more R&D investments at the labs, saying they would create jobs and spin off technologies. On Tuesday, Obama’s campaign began airing a second television spot in Nevada that criticizes McCain’s support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository. The ad cites Nevadans’ declarations that McCain would not back the waste dump if it were to be located in his home state.
Campaigning for McCain in Wisconsin, potential running mate Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty charged that Obama’s tepid support for nuclear and offshore drilling would “slam the door shut” on both potential options. Obama countered that McCain had dropped his longstanding opposition to offshore drilling only in recent months, when the public began clamoring for lawmakers to address soaring gasoline prices.
Support for NASA
Both presidential candidates, meanwhile, courted voters in the key swing state of Florida with pledges of support for NASA. Obama, fresh from vacation in Hawaii, released a position paper on Sunday calling for $2 billion in new funding to accelerate the space agency’s Constellation program to develop a replacement for the space shuttles. The Democrat also promised to add at least one additional flight before the shuttles’ 2010 retirement, a move that would allow NASA to transport the $1.5 billion Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer experimental device to the International Space Station.
NASA has told the international collaboration that built the nearly completed AMS that it lacks funding to ferry the instrument, and must use all remaining shuttle flights to finish ISS construction. The Obama policy also formalized the reversal of his December proposal to cut NASA’s budget to pay for increases to education programs. Meanwhile McCain, who had issued a less detailed space policy paper devoid of dollar figures the previous week, told a private meeting of business leaders in Cocoa Beach to be wary of Obama’s promises for NASA, saying that they reflected his opponent’s inexperience. But former NASA associate administrator Lori Garver told reporters in a conference call that McCain’s voting record did not indicate enthusiastic support for NASA. She pointed to the Arizonan’s opposition to a bill introduced last year that would add $1 billion to the Constellation program, compensating for costs that were incurred in the aftermath of the 2003 Columbia explosion.
McCain unveils plans for education, technology
McCain unveiled a revised education plan; highlights of interest to the science community include
● Preparing for “the 21st century in higher education” by removing regulatory barriers that (he claims) prevent institutions from using new ideas and by encouraging the government to support innovative approaches to education. “We must rise to the challenge and modernize our universities so that they retain their status as producers of the most skilled workforce in the world,” the plan reads.
McCain also released a technology platform that is heavy on corporate tax reductions, including permanent extension of the R&D credit, the pursuit of free and fair trade provisions, bolstering of global intellectual property protections, and promotion of universal access to a regulation-free internet. Some elements of the policy are of particular interest to science, including:
● Expand the number of H-1B visas to allow industry access to highly trained foreign workers.
● Fully fund last year’s America Competes Act, which authorized new programs to improve the teaching of science and mathematics in schools.
● Increasing the use of cooperative research and development agreements between government and industry to share the cost of solving problems and to accelerate the application of technology in the government. “This way the government is a leader of the technology revolution and not simply a beneficiary,” the policy explains.
● Employ more scientists in government. “As president. John McCain will be committed to bringing talented men and women of science into the federal government. He will strive to ensure that administration appointees across the government have adequate experience and understanding of science, technology and innovation in order to better serve the American people.”
Space and energy highlighted by candidates — week of 10 August 2008
The week started with energy remaining the top issue between the two candidates, and ended with the John McCain campaign focusing on events in Georgia, while Congress reconsiders NASA's relationship with Russia. Barack Obama took a vacation as the Olympics drowned out most political coverage. On Tuesday McCain released a new space policy document that calls for using the International Space Station as a laboratory. Both candidates pledged not to politicize science if they reach the White House.
Energy crisis? In a speech late on Friday in Jackson, Ohio, McCain called upon Congress to act. "In the face of a severe energy crisis, the Congress decides to go on a five-week vacation. When I'm president of the United States, I will call the Congress back into session and tell them to act and not to leave town, to take their vacation or their pay raise until they address this energy crisis," he said.
McCain claimed Obama opposes both storage and reprocessing of spent nuclear fuel: "He opposes offshore drilling immediately, and he's out of touch."
The speech did not refer to moves last week by Obama and the bipartisan "gang of 10" senators to compromise on offshore drilling, on the understanding of increased investment into renewable energy. The compromise legalization, however, is under threat from conservative Republicans as more Democrats sign on to the proposal.
McCain's speech was also slightly incorrect, said Obama's campaign headquarters, in that Obama does believe in nuclear waste storage, but he wants safety and security issues addressed first.
Calls that the US is in an energy crisis quieted during the week as the price of oil dropped to $114 for a barrel of crude and as the US dollar strengthened against other currencies. The topic is likely to become a bigger issue during the winter when consumers discover the high price of heating oil.
McCain's Senate votes became an issue to New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman who pointed out that McCain didn't attend a crucial vote on July 30 for S. 3335 that would have extended the investment tax credits for installing solar energy and the production tax credits for building wind turbines and other energy-efficiency systems. The renewable energy bill was defeated for the eighth time.
"In fact, John McCain has a perfect record on this renewable energy legislation. He has missed all eight votes over the last year — which effectively counts as a no vote each time. Once, he was even in the Senate and wouldn’t leave his office to vote," says Friedman. "Barack Obama did not vote on July 30 either but he did vote on three previous occasions in favor of the solar and wind credits."
Clean Coal
One of the few areas of job growth in Ohio over the last five years has been in the coal industry, so it was no surprise that in a speech in Lima, Ohio, McCain said that the future of energy was through the development of and investment in clean coal technology. "We can invest money in acquiring that technology, developing it, and creating thousands of jobs here in the heartland of America," he said.
Obama attacks McCain's record While McCain was in Ohio, Obama was giving a speech in Elkhart, Indiana. "Our dangerous dependence on foreign oil has been thirty years in the making, and was caused by the failure of politicians in Washington to think long-term about the future of the country. What Senator McCain neglected to mention was that during those thirty years, he was in Washington for twenty-six of them." Obama called for a million hybrids to be on the road in six years:
"But the truth is, [off-shore drilling] won't seriously reduce our energy dependence in the long-term. We simply cannot pretend, as Senator McCain does, that we can drill our way out of this problem. Breaking our oil addiction will take nothing less than a complete transformation of our economy. It will take an all-hands-on-deck effort from America--effort from our scientists and entrepreneurs; from businesses and from every American citizen."
"There are three major steps I'll take to achieve this goal. First, we'll commit ourselves to getting one million 150 mile-per-gallon plug-in hybrid cars on our roads within six years. And we'll make sure that the cars of tomorrow are built not just in Japan or China, but right here in the United States of America. Second, we'll double the amount of our energy that comes from renewable sources by the end of my first term. That means investing in renewables like wind and solar power, and we'll also invest in the next generation biofuels. Third, I will call on businesses, government, and the American people to meet the goal of reducing our demand for electricity 15% by the end of the next decade. This is by far the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to reduce our energy consumption -- and it will save us $130 billion on our energy bills."
"I won't pretend these goals aren't ambitious. They are. I won't pretend we can achieve them without cost, or without sacrifice, or without the contribution of almost every American citizen. We can't."
"In just a few years, we can watch cars that run on plug-in batteries come off our assembly lines. We can see shuttered factories open their doors to manufacturers that sell wind turbines and solar panels that will power our homes and our businesses. We can watch as millions of new jobs with good pay and good benefits are created for American workers, and we can take pride as the technologies, and discoveries, and industries of the future flourish in the United States of America. We can lead the world, secure our nation, and leave our children a planet that is safer and cleaner and healthier than the one we inherited."
Yucca Mountain On Saturday, the Obama campaign started airing television advertisements in Nevada that criticized John McCain for favoring the Yucca Mountain repository while not wanting any nuclear waste in his own home state. McCain's energy plan calls for 45 new nuclear reactors to be built over the coming decades, but does not clearly state what would happen to the nuclear waste generated by the new plants. Once opened, waste from the existing 103 reactors in the US will quickly fill the Yucca Mountain repository.
NASA woes and McCain's space policy The sudden attention on Russia's incursion into Georgia highlighted that when the space shuttle retires in 2010, NASA will be relying on Russia to supply the International Space Station (ISS). Congress is in the process of providing NASA a waiver to a 2000 law forbidding government contracts with nations that help Iran and North Korea with their nuclear programs, as Russia has done. NASA administrator Michael Griffin was hoping that the waiver would be passed by 30 September, when Griffin has to inform the Russian's how many Soyuz spacecraft NASA will need. It takes three years to build a Soyuz spacecraft and, with more delays to NASA's replacement to the shuttle, Ares I, the agency is running out of supply options to the ISS.
As NASA hasn't set a price with the Russians, the shorter the timeline to the shuttle's retirement, the higher the price Russia could charge for the supply missions. The chances that the waiver could pass looks slim says Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL.), which means the issue will likely end up on the desk of the next president.
Ensure that space exploration is top priority and that the U.S. remains a leader;
Commit to funding the NASA Constellation program to ensure it has the resources it needs to begin a new era of human space exploration
Review and explore all options to ensure US access to space by minimizing the gap between the termination of the Space Shuttle and the availability of its replacement vehicle
Ensure the national space workforce is maintained and fully utilized; complete construction of the ISS National Laboratory
Seek to maximize the research capability and commercialization possibilities of the ISS National Laboratory
Maintain infrastructure investments in Earth-monitoring satellites and support systems
Seek to maintain the nation's space infrastructure
Prevent wasteful earmarks from diverting precious resources from critical scientific research
Ensure adequate investments in aeronautics research.
How these policies would be implemented, and the cost involved, are not discussed in the document.
Drilling, energy efficiency, and nuclear power, where do the candidates stand? — week of 03 August 2008
Drill for oil offshore, drill for oil in Alaska’s nature reserves, inflate car tires to the proper pressure, build more nuclear power plants, use clean coal, and tap the US oil reserves. That more or less covers the positions of both presidential candidates as the quest for the White House moved into the first days of August. The week was filled with energy plans from both sides.
Andrew Revkin, in his “annotated” version of Barack Obama’s August 4 energy speech in the New York Times, provided excellent context and commentary on the Democrat’s call to develop alternative, renewable sources of energy, and ending US addiction to foreign oil. “Obama’s prime focus (in the speech) was a broad and sustained push for new energy technologies that could keep the country moving while sharply cutting petroleum use and carbon dioxide emissions,” Revkin wrote. “Getting there – given the hurdles in Congress, gaps in technology, and inertia built into century-old transportation and energy systems – will be a monumental task, but Obama insisted he can do the job.”
Revkin later notes that, “In essence, each candidate, and [former vice president] Al Gore, has recognized that human-caused climate change, on its own, is unlikely to capture Americans’ attention and must be bundled in a three-pronged package, with energy, security and national security.”
Nuclear Power
How the US will generate electricity is where Obama and John McCain diverge, says the Associated Press. McCain, touring the Enrico Fermi Nuclear Plant in Michigan, said, “I have proposed a plan to build additional nuclear plants [McCain proposes building 45 new nuclear plants by 2030]. That means new jobs, and that means new energy. If we want to enable the technologies of tomorrow like plug-in electric cars, we need electricity to plug into.”
Obama has been much less enthusiastic about nuclear power, but as McCain was preparing to leave Michigan for the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in South Dakota, an Obama spokesman came forward and said the Democrat “supports safe and secure nuclear energy.” The spokesman, Bill Burton, noted in a statement that, “It is unlikely that we can meet our aggressive climate goals if we eliminate nuclear power as an option. However, before an expansion of nuclear power is considered, Obama thinks key issues must be addressed including: security of nuclear fuel and waste, waste storage, and proliferation.”
One of the most comprehensive studies by scientists of the role nuclear power needs to play in the US energy future was done at MIT and concludes that nuclear power will be critical as the “green” carbon-free power source of a world threatened by global warming.
Twelve new reactors have been proposed by electrical utilities to start construction over the next five years. Yucca Mountain, the proposed home for storing nuclear reactor waste for the next few thousand years, is decades behind schedule. The decision regarding how long utilities will have to look after existing nuclear waste and who is liable to pay for looking after it is currently tied up in the federal court system. It will only be a matter of time before Yucca Mountain becomes a significant issue in the election, as Nevada is now considered to be a ”swing” state.
Oil Issues
On Monday Obama, in an apparent change of mind, said the US needs to tap the nation’s strategic oil reserve. He has opposed tapping the reserve in the past, but a campaign spokeswoman said he has reconsidered because he “recognizes that Americans are suffering.” The oil reserve is capable of releasing about 4 million barrels of oil per day onto the oil futures market.
“My interest is in making sure we’ve got the kind of comprehensive energy policy that can bring down gas prices,” Obama told a reporter. “If, in order to get that passed, we have to compromise in terms of a careful, well thought-out drilling strategy that was carefully circumscribed to avoid significant environmental damage – I don’t want to be so rigid that we can’t get something done.”
McCain earlier dropped his opposition to offshore drilling because of soaring gas prices.
And the two sides continued to expend a lot of energy attacking each other over video advertisements. Most of the controversy was over a McCain ad that showed Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, and then Obama. The video was about energy, but the message was that Obama is just a celebrity, not a leader. The Columbia Journalism Reviewreported the press coverage as “Celebrity status and race distract from campaign ads’ real message: energy and the economy.”
A flat tire
Back on the campaign trail, tire pressure quickly became the main talking point between Democrats and Republicans over the rest of the week. Obama noted in a speech that the US could save as much as 3 percent of the oil it consumes if drivers would simply inflate their car tires to the proper pressure.
Republicans, especially the right-wing radio talk shows, jumped all over the statement, and soon Republican activists were handing out “Obama energy plan” tire gauges. The Obama camp responded by noting that everyone from Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CT), a McCain supporter, to California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) , to the Department of Energy and NASCAR have encouraged Americans to keep their tires inflated properly to save energy. “It’s like these guys take pride in being ignorant,” Obama said of the Republicans who were making fun of him.
National Public Radio did segments on the “technology outlook” of each candidate. Obama is often seen using his cell phone or Blackberry, while McCain rarely uses e-mail or the internet. Obama wants a cabinet-level “chief technology officer.” McCain noted that the president doesn’t invent anything, but does have the responsibility to create the economic and social conditions that allow technology to thrive.
Energy, most specifically energy from oil, is turning into a major issue with the voters. With the U.S. Senate at an impasse on the energy debate and gas prices remaining painfully high, McCain called for a lifting of the ban on offshore drilling. He went further than that and, in a television advertisement, blamed Barack Obama for the high gasoline prices.
But according to the same CBS News story, the McCain camp sees energy as an issue where its candidate can finally gain some traction against Obama. McCain did a photo op in front of an oil pump in Bakersfield, California, during which he called Obama “the Dr. No of America’s energy future.”
President Bush tried to give McCain an assist during a speech to welders in Ohio. After nodding briefly toward energy conservation, Bush said there is a “bountiful supply of oil, perhaps as much as 10 years worth,” on the outer continental shelf. He didn’t mention the tens of thousands of acres the oil companies already have oil leases for but haven’t explored, nor the likelihood that it would take until 2017 before any oil from new offshore rigs would reach the consumer.
Obama’s camp responded to the Republican theme by noting its energy plan would “force the oil companies to drill in the areas they’ve already leased.” Obama issued a new ad saying he would crack down on oil speculators, raise mileage standards, and fast-track alternative fuels.
McCain admitted he isn’t a “tech freak” when it comes to computers, but he claims to “understand the importance of the computer” and of blogs. He noted that he is forcing himself to use the computer “more and more every day.” McCain has not advertised his real tech credentials of being on the Senate committee that helped develop the internet, e-commerce, and regulated the telecommunications says the San Francisco Chronicle.
Rep. Bill Foster, the newest physicist in Congress (there are three), appeared in a video urging that scientific reasoning be the starting point in policy debates. It is an unusual perspective given by the man who replaced staunch Republican and former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert in a special election.
The Democrats in Congress, led by Barbara Boxter (D-CA) called for the resignation of Stephen Johnson, the controversial head of the Environmental Protection Agency. Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), said, "We can no longer pretend that there was no political interference at the Environment Protection Agency when time and time again we see partisan politics prevailing over professionalism, and special interest spin prevailing over science.”
On the global warming issue, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program issued a surprising report saying that the sophisticated climate models scientists use to understand global warming are valid tools that work well in deciphering what is happening to Earth’s climate. The report also notes that the models indicate the warming of the last 20 years was caused by human activity
