U.S. 77-year-old Climate Czar former Secretary of State John Kerry was deliberately noncommittal and ambiguous on when the U.S. would stop using coal-fired power plants, currently about 19.3% of total U.S. electricity production. U.S. did not join 40 other countries at Glasgow’s COP26 Climate Summit, committed to ending coal-fired plants by 2030s or 2040s. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (R-N.Y.), who touts her Green New Deal of using renewable forms of energy like wind, solar and hydroelectric to replace coal and methane-fired plants, says 78-year-old President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Plan should end the U.S. dependence of fossil fuels. Kerry and Ocasio-Cortex mention nothing about the expected major investment by the Biden administration into nuclear energy. Kerry and Ocasio-Cortez have a problem with carbon emissions but not nuclear meltdowns and waste.
Whatever the new breed of so-called Small Modular Reactors [SMRs], they still, like all nuclear reactors, produce nuclear waste which must be buried underground to prevent radioactivity from seeping in ground water and the atmosphere. Yet when it comes to Biden’s Build Back Better plan, at least $600 billion of the total $1.75 trillion, about 40%, will go to the nuclear power industry. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel committed Germany to ending its dependence on nuclear fuel because the inherent dangers seen in the 2011 Fukushima-Daiichi meltdown. Kerry and Ocasio-Cortez deliberately minimize or conceal Biden’s Build Back Better plan that plans to use nuclear power to replace coal and methane-fired power plants. Nuclear power accounts for 19.7% of U.S. electricity production, something the Biden administration wants increased to reduce carbon emissions.
If the Biden administration gets its way, it would put all its eggs into the nuclear power industry, something that’s fallen into disrepute by most scientists around the globe because of the dangers of more meltdowns and nuclear waste. Kerry and Ocasio-Cortez say nothing about what happens when the lion’s share of power plants go nuclear. Glasgow’s COP26 Climate Conference has whipped the press into a frenzy over the dangers of carbon emissions, blaming it on adverse climate events. At no time in world history, has the climate accommodated humans, without adverse events like earthquakes, fires, typhoons that lead to famine and disease, killing off the animal and human species. Demonizing carbon emissions creates the kind of panic that leads of bad decision-making, like shifting worldwide power production to nuclear. Biden and Kerry have deliberately minimized nuclear energy.
Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, former Michigan governor, has been selling COP26 attendees on the new breed of Small Modular Nuclear Reactors [SMRs], claiming they’re the “gold standard” for creating carbon-free energy. But when it comes to the possibility of future meltdowns or nuclear waste, Granholm and others in the Biden administration, drink the Cool-Aid from the nuclear power industry, like Westinghouse, that insists the old problems of meltdowns and nuclear waste aren’t part of the new breed of SMR reactors. Granholm talks a lot about “baseload,” a term used by the nuclear power industry to provide enough energy necessary to run communities, cities and states. When it comes to renewables, the nuclear power industry insists that wind and solar farms can’t produce “baseload” energy. Whatever the argument, it’s sheer lunacy to think there are not problems with nuclear energy.
No scientist at Glasgow can say how to stop the carbon pollution, other than draconic efforts by zealots like teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, seeking to ban all fossil fuels, forcing trains, planes and automobiles off the planet. Thunberg thinks if the world could turn back the clock on the Industrial Revolution that started in 1740, the planet could protect polar bears and preserve the polar ice caps. But Thunberg doesn’t want to admit that going off fossil fuels would create the world’s biggest famine and plagues, wiping out millions, may billions of humans. But to climate zealots it’s only about eliminating carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to save the planet. No COP26 scientist can say with certainty that if the world went nuclear the planet would be better of creating massive amounts of nuclear waste, not to mention the potential for nuclear meltdowns and radiation leaks.
Kerry and other Biden administration officials aren’t leveling with the U.S. public that they’re planning, like in the 1950s, to go nuclear with energy production. “By 2030 in the United States, we won’t have coal,” Kerry said. “We’re saying we’re going to be carbon free in the power sector by 2035.” “I think that’s leadership. I think that’s indicative of what we can do,” mentioning nothing of how he plans to replace coal and methane-fired electricity plants with nuclear plants. Kerry likes to focus on the coal industry but he doesn’t want to talk about the Biden administration’s plan to spend untold billions on nuclear energy production. Nuclear energy was tried for the last 60 years but it proved unsafe and deadly, especially disposing of nuclear waste that can’t be degraded for generations, if ever. Biden officials have whipped the world into a frenzy over carbon emissions, not realizing that nuclear is far more dangerous.
