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Yes, those most familiar with war are usually the ones most interested in stopping it. Only the sociopaths in the military go to war hoping for there to be anot

by mpyne 13y ago

Yes, those most familiar with war are usually the ones most interested in stopping it. Only the sociopaths in the military go to war hoping for there to be another one they can participate in. And so Adm. Rickover's message: 'I couldn't stop war – what I could do is make it less destructive to us, so I did, grudgingly.' So it is with civilian power. Nuclear power proponents don't say that nuclear should be used at the exclusion of all other sources of power. They say it should be used to the exclusion of worse sources of power. You could paraphrase Rickover's entire excerpt here for coal, and oil, and even gas generation; all of which produce horrible things that will wreck the human race (via climate change). On that beautiful day when it's actually achievable to power the whole world by renewable energy and energy storage that doesn't involve widespread chemical waste and destruction of entire areas then you'll find nuclear power advocates telling Congress to "sink them all" too. In the meantime, we generate electrical power with the means we have available, not the means we thought we'd have, or wished we'd have.

dredmorbius 13y ago
climate change In fairness to Rickover, though atmospheric greenhouse warming from human CO2 emissions was known in his time (the first published account of it I'm aware of came from the US Naval Research Lab in 1932, the tie between CO2 and greenhouse effects goes back further), I'm not aware of it being a significant general concern until the mid 1980s or so. Then again, Rickover was well aware of peak oil in the 1950s and could very well have been aware of the greenhouse gas / global warming issue, though I can't find any evidence of this. Some prefer to describe the situation concerning energy and sustainability not as a "problem" (to which there is a solution), but a "predicament", to which there is an outcome, though not one which returns the system to the status quo ante.
- mpyne 13y ago
  > Some prefer to describe the situation concerning energy and sustainability not as a "problem" (to which there is a solution), but a "predicament", to which there is an outcome, though not one which returns the system to the status quo ante. Well you could probably count me in that camp. There's no perfect answer (though the various forms of solar are pretty close at least as far as energy generation goes). Instead there's a suite of options to get us to "least bad".
  - dredmorbius 13y ago
    There's a sizable contingent which feels that high-tech (e.g., electric generating) solar, wind, etc., aren't generally viable. I suspect that long-term, the amount of energy available via renewables will likely be a minority fraction of what's presently consumed in the US, on either a per-capita or absolute level. Which suggests a future in which we're looking at, say, 25 quads (1 billion joules / 300 TWh) or less total annual energy. What that suggests in terms of energy-based services and goods available becomes an interesting exercise.

by mpyne 13y ago

dredmorbius 13y ago

climate change In fairness to Rickover, though atmospheric greenhouse warming from human CO2 emissions was known in his time (the first published account of it I'm aware of came from the US Naval Research Lab in 1932, the tie between CO2 and greenhouse effects goes back further), I'm not aware of it being a significant general concern until the mid 1980s or so. Then again, Rickover was well aware of peak oil in the 1950s and could very well have been aware of the greenhouse gas / global warming issue, though I can't find any evidence of this. Some prefer to describe the situation concerning energy and sustainability not as a "problem" (to which there is a solution), but a "predicament", to which there is an outcome, though not one which returns the system to the status quo ante.

mpyne 13y ago
> Some prefer to describe the situation concerning energy and sustainability not as a "problem" (to which there is a solution), but a "predicament", to which there is an outcome, though not one which returns the system to the status quo ante. Well you could probably count me in that camp. There's no perfect answer (though the various forms of solar are pretty close at least as far as energy generation goes). Instead there's a suite of options to get us to "least bad".
- dredmorbius 13y ago
  There's a sizable contingent which feels that high-tech (e.g., electric generating) solar, wind, etc., aren't generally viable. I suspect that long-term, the amount of energy available via renewables will likely be a minority fraction of what's presently consumed in the US, on either a per-capita or absolute level. Which suggests a future in which we're looking at, say, 25 quads (1 billion joules / 300 TWh) or less total annual energy. What that suggests in terms of energy-based services and goods available becomes an interesting exercise.