I got it. Stan, the levels were really low. I could barely hear you. We'll see if we can use it.

I still have the text if you want me to try it by phone. No biggie. I hope the phone things allows multiple tries...I usually blow a word or two the first time.

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.
If not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?

and www.newsgator.com

lists all of Clark Casts on their free account readers page ... every time.

 Hello I'm the answering machine. Obviously you have bad timing nobody is home.

if you go to 'podcasts' and click on 'update' in the upper right corner, it updates all podcasts that you're subscribed to.

Yes.  I can go to the iTunes page and get the most recent Clarkcast, but what I was wanting to learn about were alerts that a new one had come in. 

That's why I was hoping that WesPac might send out an e-mail alert, as a prompt to check out the new podcast.  I found out because I check out this site relatively often.  I'm interested in how these podcasts might help engage that much larger group who have expressed enough interest in Clark to subscribe to the WesPac e-mail list, or even to the Clarkcasts, but don't regularly stop by.  I would imagine that a simple alert that a new one is available would be quite helpful.

Is there something that I'm missing?  Is there an alert that comes out via iTunes?

When you open iTunes (not the iTunes store, just the software), the iTunes program will look at the ClarkCast feed to see if there is a new file. It will then automatically download a new podcast when it is released. You don't have to do anything. It's automatic.

As far as release schedule, we try to do a new podcast every week, and it is released on Mondays. If there is an alert, like the Dem radio address, that just happens whenever it comes up.

If you're online, and your iTunes is open, it will pull down a ClarkCast if it's new. 

Okay, that does answer my question: there is no alert to a new Clarkcast outside of one's own initiative to open up iTunes (and seeing the news by visiting this site). 

Therefore, I would like to make the suggestion of sending out an e-mail alert to folks that a new Clarkcast is available, hopefully helping to engage some of those folks who are not regular iTunes users or who do not regularly check the WesPac site, but still may be potentially interested...

We've got enough messages we need to send out on a regular basis that there is no way we can send an email every week for the podcast alone.

How about something simple like attaching a link onto the other e-mails you're already sending out that says something like "and check out this week's Clarkcast."

It's not always simple. I promise you.

is working on technology to put it right in our brains, but until then we have to settle for this.

(don't remember how I did it, but it was easy) with my.yahoo and they automatically come on to my homepage.

Once in a while you get shown the light, In the strangest of places if you look at it right. - Hunter/Garcia

I agree, and we've had this discussion in other blogs and groups. I think that we have to use nuclear energy to generate electricity, leaving fossil fuels for what they do best: lubricate and fuel airplanes. Nuclear-generated electricity can power vehicles, trains, and provide heat.

We should also eliminate plastic packaging, both for environmental reasons and to reduce the use of oil.

The best nuclear engineers should design a safe, environmentally-friendly, secure nuclear plant and then cookie-cutter them all over the place. It's a little silly (and very expensive) to design each plant from scratch.

Also the best scientists should go to work on the nuclear waste problem.

At the same time, the use of wind, waves, and renewable sources should start to fold into the mix.

The Federal government has to provide the leadership and much of the funding for the research and initial development for these projects.

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.
If not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?

who know the energy policy the global warming problem... maybe someone will be moved to answer your comment... I'd like to see that nuclear power discussion

 Hello I'm the answering machine. Obviously you have bad timing nobody is home.

There are two big problems with the nuclear alternative. First, it takes 15 years for a new nuclear plant to come online. If we start plans today. I reckon it will take several years to get approval (even if the public supports it strongly), then 15 years to get up and running ... we couldn't really expect any additional power from nukes until, say, 2020 at the earliest. In my opinion, that's not nearly soon enough.

Second, there are tremendous safety issues. This includes accidents (the greatest likely cause of which is human error), unanticipated design flaws, security, and disposal of the nuclear waste. These problems are not trivial!

I'm not saying nuclear power isn't an option. But I am saying, it's both dangerous and time-consuming to convert to nuclear power. Think twice before jumping on the nuclear bandwagon.

What I am for is:

#1 MAXIMIZING the use of alternative energy (non-nuclear)

#2 Developing safe (understanding nothing in life is ever 100% risk-free) nuclear power following a "cookie-cutter" model...not designing each plant from scratch.

Either you are for greatly reducing C02 emissions, or you are against nuclear power. Doesn't seem to me there is a 3rd option, even if we maximize our use of alternative energy sources and conservation. We need to begin reducing Co2 emissions as much as possible NOW, imo, because global warming is a greater threat than nuclear waste.

"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson

Nuclear waste is less of an issue than CO2, but it's still a concern. The Manhattan Project and the Moon Mission proved that if we allocate the resources, we can do anything. We can settle for 20th century nuclear power because it's a small improvement over 19th century fossil fuels, but then we're stuck with it and we still won't get the 21st century alternative energy that we really need.

Maybe I'm a little ignorant on the issues, but what about uranium running out, from what I understand isn't there like only 2 to 3 million tonnes of exploitable uranium globally, and we are already using 68,000 tonnes a year and half of that comes from stock piles and the decommisioning of nuclear weapons.

I even heard somewhere that in order to power the world on nuclear energy we'd have to build on the order of one 1 gigawatt nuclear plant every other day to meet demand, isn't that going to eat up uranium faster than we can dig it out of the ground, a kind of peak uranium situation?

I do think we may need more nuclear power, particuraly to make sure we have a high enough base load capacity to aviod black out and brown outs in times of low energy yeild due to low wind speeds and cloudiness. But it does require uranium fuel so I don't think we should count on it to bail us out by more than 10% of our fossil fuel use, or 5% if we switch from fossil fuel cars and trains to ones powered by electricity.

Here's an article that discusses several things regarding some of the downside of nuclear energy, including what you mention, James.

I haven't read from this site before, though, so I don't have much to say in support or not in support of it...

Here are a few excerpts from the article:

"Nuclear energy, which not so long ago seemed an obvious dead-end to most people concerned about the environment, has seen its fortunes rise a bit lately as concerns over climate change (or climate chaos, as the latest buzzphrase goes) intensify.

The argument, as made by people like James Lovelock and the Wired crowd, goes something like this: we must make drastic cuts in our greenhouse emissions; renewable energy is not yet ready for prime time and efficiency improvements alone won't work; nuclear energy is safer than it was and is zero-carbon in operation; therefore, climate chaos demands a massive program of building nuclear reactors.

There are numerous problems with this argument. First and most pressingly, a massive global nuclear program raises massive unanswered questions about the realism of safely operating (and storing the radioactive waste from) so many reactors in so many places. Second, while more research needs to be done, it appears that nuclear energy is not all that climate-safe after all:

[N]uclear power stations may produce less carbon dioxide pollution than those burning coal and gas, but analysis of the carbon footprint of nuclear, from extraction, through to decommissioning and waste storage, shows it to be more carbon-emitting than initially apparent.

What's more, as this discussion at RealClimate points out, mining the uranium ore to run these new reactors is a high-impact activity, and that with a massive growth in the number of reactors, nuclear carbon impacts would likely worsen, as poorer-quality ores are used and/or more distant deposits mined."

The full article is here:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004300.html#more

(Also by way of energybulletin.net)

Also, we'd have to share the uranium with countries that we don't want to have it.

I see a dramatic increase in the use of nuclear energy as about a 50-year stop-gap. Yes, the uranium supply will deplete just like fossil fuels are.

The 50-year stop-gap will provide the time to develop and bring to market other energy sources, of two types: the kinds that are inexhaustible (wind, solar, and wave action) and the renewable such as biofuels that can be farmed.

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.
If not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?

That article that I excerpted above goes on to argue against seeing nuclear as a good stop-gap.  Again, I personally haven't spent much time studying the nuclear power as alternative issue, just posting the following as part of the discussion:

"Given the long lag-times involved in building new plants, and the hidden costs involved, many are saying that renewables are in fact far more economically competitive, and that with a comparable level of subsidy (and the elimation of subsidies for fossil fuels), wind, solar, hydro and wave energy could in fact deliver a clean-energy future more cheaply and on a quicker timeframe, without any of the attendant security or health risks.

Indeed, the worm seems to have turned on the Nukes-against-Greenhouse argument, politically. More and more scientists are questioning the validity of the pro-nuclear argument, while the campaign to green nuclear power seems to have made little headway in convincing the voters in most developed world countries. Just this week, forty of the U.K.'s leading climate and energy scientists have gone public with their opposition to Blair's nuclear proposals, while Blair's support on the issue within his own party has been described as weak. In the U.S. Germany and Canada, polls show consistant large-opposition to nuclear power, while Sweden already has a nuclear phase-out program."

From this article, mentioned above:

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/004300.html#more

Ah, now having read the article referenced by the one above about the scientists who have jointly come out against Blair's proposals, I see that that is a helpful one, in and of itself, to add to this discussion:

from The Sunday Herald

a few excerpts:

"TONY Blair’s plan to resurrect nuclear power is going to be dealt a damaging blow by 40 of Britain’s leading energy and climate scientists, the Sunday Herald can reveal.

Engineers, experts and academics from Glasgow, Edinburgh, London, Oxford and Cambridge will forcibly tell the Prime Minister this week that building more nuclear reactors is not the solution to global warming.

Nuclear power is “a limited, inflexible, expensive and potentially dangerous energy source which creates unique problems”, they say. Alternatives including greater energy efficiency and renewable sources are more likely to deliver safe, secure and climate-friendly energy..."

....

"Barnham pointed out that it will take at least 10 years to build a new nuclear reactor. 'We need to act now to stop global warming,' he said. 'Germany already has more wind power capacity than all the UK nuclear reactors together, and in five years will have installed as much solar electricity.'"

....

"...The joint letter was co-ordinated by Scientists for Global Responsibility, an independent, 850-strong group concerned about social justice and environmental sustainability. It is anxious to dispel the notion that scientists are all pro-nuclear.

Stuart Parkinson, the group’s executive director, said: 'There’s a perception that all scientists and engineers think new nuclear power is the way to go to tackle climate change and improve energy security, but this is not true.

'Many are sceptical of nuclear [energy] and believe that other measures such as controlling energy demand, improving energy efficiency and expanding renewable energy are superior options.'

....

"Another prominent signatory to the letter is Nottingham University professor Mark Whitby, a former president of the Institution of Civil Engineers. He criticised the construction industry for lobbying strongly behind the scenes in favour of a new nuclear programme.

...

'Nuclear power would not be a low emitter of climate-wrecking carbon pollution, either, Whitby argued, because of the high energy costs of extracting low-grade uranium ores in the future.

'Nuclear power is very expensive compared to other technologies,' he said. 'It has gone bankrupt on a number of occasions. It is not cheap to build, to run or to decommission.'

The letter was also signed by Dr Katherine Begg, an energy and climate policy analyst from Edinburgh University. She said she was worried about the implications for the spread of nuclear weapons, and the costs: 'The money spent so far on promoting and implementing alternatives is increasing, but is a drop in the ocean compared to that required to build new nuclear stations and support them.'

Other signatories include Dr Marion Hersh, a senior lecturer in electrical engineering at Glasgow University; Roy Butterfield, emeritus professor of civil engineering at Southampton University; Dr Sarah Darby, an environmental scientist from Oxford University; Dr Tim Foxon, a climate scientist from Cambridge University; and Dr Frank Barnaby, a nuclear scientist from the Oxford Research Group..."

For the full article:

http://www.sundayherald.com/55029 

These are interesting. I'm not sure I understand why a well-designed plant takes 10 years to get online, however.

Nuclear shouldn't be the only thing happening, but I still think it's part of the answer. Wind, hydro, wave, and even solar sources don't fit in some locales.

I'll have to know more about bio. If you still have to burn something to generate electricity, the warming problem may continue.

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.
If not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?

If people invest their money into the plants, they won't develop the alternative energy. It'll be no different than the oil industry is now.

Are based on current demand and supply, we are already digging into stockpiles and using leftovers from decommissioning atom bombs to meet half of demand. Now that may just be economics because it is cheaper to use pre mined and pre enriched Uranium, or we may have a real supply problem.

Either way the 10 trillion dollar question is can we find economical new uranium supplies in the volumes require fast enough to meet the expected surge in demand that a nuclear power boom would entail. I am personally doubtful that we can, it's just too much growth in demand too fast, if production isn't meeting demand there is a reason.

Just as with oil the laws of economics dictate that we will go after the cheap readily accessible resources first, then we begin to use other uranium resources that while they are larger in volume, they may be more difficult and costly to extract.

There is no doubt we have far, far more uranium in the Earth's crust than 3 million tonnes, the question is how much of it is economically extractable. There could potentially be vast reserves of untapped oil under the Arctic ice sheet and in Antarctica, however the financial costs involved in bringing that oil to market are astronomically higher than pumping it out of the ground for a dollar a barrel in Iraq.

In my humble opinion Nuclear power could never provide any more than 30% of electricity in a sustainable economical manner on a global scale barring some kind of ocean refining system that would cost vast sums of money not to mention vast sums of energy to operate, or space mining which given current technology is impossible.

If demand growth continues to outstrip production growth like it has for the past decade then we have a big problem, prices will go through the roof, same thing is happening to oil right now. Then Nuclear power becomes a lot more expensive solution.

Right now we use 14991433 pounds of uranium ore at 40 dollars a pound. Now multiply that times a factor of 10 to get nuclear power to 100% of world electrical market share and to account for economic growth. Now multiply by ten again to get the cost of sea water extraction and then multiply by two to account for increased use of electricity to power cars commercial trucks, trains etc, the price tag for yearly uranium demand globally.. 119931464000. Sounds pretty cheap compared to oil, but then we have to calculate another cost.. protecting a vast global uranium supply chain against every and any terrorist attack, we all know the danger involved should a terrorist group acquire highly enriched uranium. And there is the considerable cost of opening new mines funding exploration and constructing more uranium mining and processing and disposal equipment.

And we have competition from China and others because there isn't enough for everyone, in the end someone has to lose the bidding war, and whoever loses won't be happy..

Also another issue is the fossil fuels required to extract uranium from the Earth's surface and bring it to market not mention the storage of nuclear waste. And we are going to have vast security costs to pay to protect all these nuclear plants from terrorist attack, so far several security drills at nuclear plants have failed.

I wouldn't be so adamant in my opinion except for the fact that we've only got one shot to get this right, if we put our money and resources into a mostly nuclear solution and it doesn't work for reason of economics or supply issues we don't get to go back and try again.

The choices that are made in the next 4 to 6 years will determine whether or not we will be an industrial society 50 years from now, if we make the wrong choice the results will be catastrophic.

I live on the other side of those same hills and know what you mean.  When I first moved here, I used the hills as my compass for which way was North so I wouldn't get too lost.  You can tell by that I moved here decades ago!  Some days, after monsoon type rains that go on for days, you can see the snow on Mt. Baldy in the distance and multiple mountain ranges... I always imagine that's what it must have looked like for the early Los Angelenos.  How beautiful it must've been then....

The new CO2 regulations are supposed to be enforced by 2010 to reduce emissions by half.  I read that many of the energy / utility companies are not enacting the needed implementations - trying to squeeze out the last bucks beforehand.  The "smokestack scrubbers" they need to install will take minimum one year to put into place, yet no movement is seen.  If they delay long enough and are late, I imagine they will simply apply for an extension and who would deny them that in this current corp. friendly climate?

There is a new-ish magazine out called "SEED" that covers these issues well.  Plus it's a beautiful magazine - on all things science/ environment.  Recommended reading!

The "smokestack scrubbers" would be a screaming "mod" to existing plants as you said in your title.

I'm not familiar with the new CO2 regulations, but I find it hard to believe that they call for reducing emissions by half by 2010. Are they talking about emissions, or "emissions intensity"?

I do know that one of the key Bush administration strategies has been to define new measures which make their actions seem more valuable than they really are. One of the most heinous practices is that the Bush administration only talks about greenhous gas intensity. Intensity is not emissions, it's emissions per dollar GDP. Hence it's possible for "intensity" to be lower (because GDP increases), even 'though actual emissions (the amount of CO2 thrown into the atmosphere) is higher! Of course, the global climate doesn't care about intensity; it's emissions that count.

One of the most underappreciated points is that it takes time for the climate system to respond to increased greenhouse gases. In fact, we haven't yet seen all the temperature increase due to the CO2 which is already in our atmosphere. Even if the entire world dropped emissions to zero today, we still have a good deal of global warming to contend with. This problem is going to get worse before it gets better, no matter what we do.

Another point I'd recommend in the discussion of methane released from melting of permafrost, is that methane is of special concern because it, too, is a greenhouse gas. In fact, it's 24 times more potent, per molecule, than CO2. It doesn't stay in the atmosphere as long; the persistence lifetime of atmospheric methane is 9-12 years. But when it does break down, it breaks down (through reaction with atmospheric HO) into: CO2! So, releasing a single molecule of methane creates 9-12 years of 24x the warming of CO2, then the carbon is morphed into CO2. It's like extra CO2, with a 24x potency, 9-12 year bonus warming.

Read the new issue of Forbes for more on the futures markets of pollution credits -- fascinating story.  Big money being made on utility companies selling off their pollution permits to other companies-- permits have like a 40 year term.

Have to run now, but check it out if you get a chance-- that's where I read about the 2010 regulation. But it's sulfur dioxide, not carbon. Or S, not C!  Oops--

 "Electric utilities will be scrambling to meet a 2010 deadline for the halving of emitted SO2 which causes acid rain"

They say it will be "throttled back to 5.3 million tons a year"...

When I used to fly through or to Denver in the 70s and early 80s, a perpetual brown cloud hung over the city. I'd fly down the eastern slope of the Rockies all the way from Calgary to Denver, admiring the pristine mountains. Then you could see the muck over Denver for miles and miles.

Now that I live in Denver, I haven't seen the brown cloud since I've been here, and I moved out here in 1991.

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.
If not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?

Framing a debate as a national security issue, as oppose to an environmental issue, would certainly provoke a greater sense of action by our leaders, which is the theme of his address.  We must consider that approximately 50% of our population lives along the coast, where much of the pollution is generated, yet everyone is impacted regardless what region of the country we live in. 

So I think this frame or theme, puts into context, what we face from human-caused global warming; what consequences and impact that global climate change would on our society and culture; and what we expect from out leaders, here and abroad, who must implement a strategy to address these problems for our future.

Knight.you said "We must consider that approximately 50% of our population lives along the coast, where much of the pollution is generated, yet everyone is impacted regardless what region of the country we live in. " However upon doing some fast research I found that the top 10 polluters were from AK,AZ,NV,UT,TX,IN. not exactly coastal areas. Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/dchc3

 How great must our failure be until we turn in panic and disgrace to a Man of Honor? - Quigley

thanks cate, I bookmarked that site.  I guess that I meant carbon-based fuel emissions.  Toxic waste and chemicals, in contrast, are certainly a major environmental issue, ..erh or "environmental hazard."

But I got to admit it's pretty hard to ignore the national security implications of Major Hurricanes as far north as Boston and ocean levels rising enough to put most of Manhattan under water. It's long over due that someone considered the threat serious enough to consider it a national security issue.

The way I see it as long as it is framed as an environmental issue it'll be ignored by Republicans who will continue that put unsustainable economic growth ahead of long term environmental security, it's how they sunk Kyoto, they'd do it again given a chance.

But when framed as a national security issue and we start talking about the possibility of losing Miami, Houston, Savannah and New York the way we lost New Orleans people might just begin to wake up and begin to comprehend how big an issue this really is and realize we are saving dollars as well as lives by stopping global warming.

Also I think the environmental angle to some degree bypasses dealing with the realities of what we have already done. Most of what I've seen and read says that even if we turned off everything that ran on fossil fuels tomorrow we'd still have global warming issues.

The national security angle I think tackles the issues of how do we maintain stability and saftey in a world where Katrina isn't a once in 100 year event but a once in five year event. We need a lot more resources and better management in FEMA, better investment in flood defense's changes in building codes and zoning and most of all a civilian reserve.

from as many angles as possible to get everyone to listen. Personally, I don't think "Save the Planet" really says it. "Save Ourselves" is more like it. The planet will be just fine. In fact, it'll be better off without us.

Wasn't Wes involved in a "green technology" bicycle back in 2002? I know he knows a lot about green technology and was surprised he didn't mention that as a solution to both the global warming and our economic position in the world. I wish he would talk about US innovation and science and math education under the global warming topic as well. Now that I'm fully frightened I would like to hear more specific solutions from the man who is "scary smart."

WaveCrest invented a little electrical engine to power bicycles.

Stan Davis
Lakewood, CO
BE THE CHANGE you wish to see in the world.
If not us, WHO? If not now, WHEN?

Thanks for this information!  :)

Unitary Executive Theory is NOT a theory anymore!

Now, how do you sell that idea to the folks who's bottom lines depend on peddling oil to hapless Americans?

"COUNTRY before Party!" -- Wes Clark

From Oil to Green Sustainable Energy? Actually several of the oil companies are now doing R&D on alternative energies. They know that their revenue source is NOT sustainable.The car manufacturers also know there is a huge market for fuel efficient cars and it's going to grow. Frankly I think there is going to be a booming economy for any nation that comes up with fossil-free energy that can be mass produced.

Let's just hope it's not the current group of Corporate thieves who end up controlling it.