by publius
China doesn’t care much for Roy Blunt’s theories of economic stimulus. It announced this week that it would spend over half a trillion on public infrastructure projects such as highways and railroads. More broadly, the whole thing provides yet another example of the institutional GOP’s poverty of thought on domestic policy.
The theory of infrastructure-as-stimulus makes a lot of sense. And the WSJ provides a good overview of the benefits China expects to reap. First, infrastructure projects help fuel growth, particularly in downturns:
[D]omestic investment contributes far more to growth [than exports]. In recent years, spending on everything from public works to housing to factory equipment has accounted for about four to six percentage points of China’s 10% average annual growth rate.
More importantly, building better infrastructure is a long-term investment that creates numerous ancillary benefits – or positive externalities if you prefer.
Just as the U.S. Interstate Highway System radically altered the American economy, China’s new expressways are starting to change lives in ways big and small. Roads have cut transport times, driven down costs in some places and made industry more competitive. Migration is easier, allowing people to look for opportunities elsewhere. Disparate local markets for goods and services are being knit together into regional and national markets.
In short, better roads create new and better markets. And better rail-roads would achieve this goal while simultaneously helping the environment.
The GOP, however, seems opposed to using public infrastructure as a stimulus. Somewhat maddeningly, economic guru Roy Blunt (R-MO) has offered support for a stimulus, but only so long as it doesn’t work very well: ““But let’s not use the stimulus package as an excuse to do what Democrats have wanted to do from day one of this Congress, which is a huge public works plan.”
Yeah, that would be terrible.
There are a couple of ways of explaining Blunt’s opposition – one cynical, one more ideological. The cynical explanation is that the institutional GOP sees stimulus plans as a way to funnel more money to preferred corporate constituencies. That’s why their “stimulus” plans usually consist of tax breaks on business such as accelerated depreciation.
The cynical explanation is actually reassuring though, in that it shows the GOP is at least acting rationally with respect to its interest groups. The ideological opposition is more troubling, largely because it’s factually divorced from reality.
The more extreme ideological argument is simply a flat opposition to any sort of government spending – the whole “government will make us serfs” argument. But most conservatives have reconciled themselves to the idea that government has at least some role to play in stimulus.
And that’s what makes Blunt’s position so annoying. Once you accept the idea that government has an important role to play, it follows that you should try to get the most bang for your buck. And Democratic priorities – infrastructure, unemployment extension, etc. – have proven to be the most efficient stimulus tactics.
The GOP, however, seems averse to these tactics, not because they have proven ineffective, but because of some vague and abstract ideological aversion that has little connection to the facts on the ground.
A few less Heritage Foundation seminars would probably do the GOP caucus some good.
For a price of $1 billion, we can give 30,000 workers a salary of $30,000 and improve roads, bridges, schools, etc. $1 billion is a drop in the bucket (it’s less than “earmarks”, isn’t it?), especially when we get something tangible from it.
I’m going to suggeast this at change.gov
Hear, hear Publius.
This almost seems to be within the penumbra of a theological argument. Simply put – the GOP doesn’t want the government doing anything that might make middle class and working folks start to believe that government can directly be a source of good in their lives. After all, with their theology, the only valid purpose of government is to transfer more of the wealth of the country to the richest 1%.
Or, as Philip Agre once said, Conservatism is the domination of society by an aristocracy.
For a minute there I thought you meant Roy Blount the writer, but then I realized he’s smarter than that.
I’ve yet to see a coherent argument that “the nation’s crumbling infrastructure” doesn’t need a significant overhaul of the sort a public works plan could effect. But it seems members of congress lose out if that plan is coordinated at the federal level, rather than having the money for it meted out in the form of pork. Of course, the only way for the plan to be comprehensive and efficient is for it to be based in one policy-maker that will avoid the crazy quilt that would result if every district started asking for its pet projects. If a critical mass of members can trade on the sort of fears raised by the Minnesota bridge collapse, as well as the jobs that could be created by the plan, then maybe they’ll overwhelm the Blunts on the hill. But it is asking them to vote against their short term self interest, I think.
The GOP will not be convinced by this wimpy stuff. This is no time for Field of Dreams, we need Dr. Strangelove.
We must not have an infrastructure gap!
The infrastructure takes too long to be help in economic recovery. Any large scale project will require an Environmental Impact Statement that will take years to complete. In large scale project will also have to work its way through the courts and takes more years. Unless the left wants to repel the National Envrionmental Protectiona Act, large scale projects cannot happen fast enough. Even Hoosver Dam was in the planning stages before the Depression and did not have to complete an EIS before starting.
Second, since American does not have a consumer good manufacturing base, the idea that borrwing money from China to pay Americans for make work so that they can afford to buy consumer good manufactured in China probably is not going to work. In addition, is the money is used for construction jobs, most of the jobs will go to illegal aliens anyway with the money sent outside the U.S.
You cannot have tough environmental laws coupled with open borders and hope to improve things with infrastructure stimulus.
@superdestroyer: For one, why would they need to be large scale projects? A program of numerous smaller projects would, it seems to me, be more valuable than a few Hoover Dam-type undertakings, not least because it could be spread across the country. While those projects start rolling, you can work on the impact statements for the power grid to transmit electricity from T. Boone Pickens’s wind farm to population centers.
Everyday, here in the PNW, I am reminded of the FDR era, from the beautiful bridge that arcs high above my bay (and most of the others on the Oregon coast), to the highway, 101, that his admin pushed to construct (for a long time, it was called the Roosevelt Highway. For better or worse (worse if you are a salmon) the damns on the Columbia drainage supply power and irrigation. And even the aesthetics of our national park architecture from Crater Lake to Timberline Lodge are part of that.
The coast benefitted mightily from those public works. I think, left to the ideas of the GOP, we’d still be using an old ferry to cross each river on 101.
Better roads, yes, more roads, no.
Better and more railroads, yes.
Any large scale project will require an Environmental Impact Statement that will take years to complete.
If it were started from scratch, that’s true. But there are plenty of projects that have been run through those early phases but haven’t been started or completed because of lack of funding. A good example is the high speed rail line that Californians just approved. It’s gone through the planning stages, and it’s just about to be started, but it still needs funding to be completed. It could certainly benefit from some federal infrastructure money.
Not thinking like totalitarian oligarchs running a command economy is an example of “the institutional GOP’s poverty of thought on domestic policy”?
May I make a modest request? Every time you hear about how the Chinese economy is going gangbusters, think back to how the USSR’s economy was supposedly doing the same… right up until the moment it imploded.
We’re not talking about the world leaders in institutional transparency here, after all.
Brett, I’m no economist, but your comparison between the Soviet secret/command economy, and Chinese capitalism, run largely by private enterprise, with a heavy dose of state interference, is nuts. While the latter is hardly completely transparent, the stock exchanges are a huge part of it, as is foreign investment, and it’s overwhelmingly capitalism in general, if with cronyistic aspects (as is every form of capitalism as actually practiced).
Moreover, thinking like Thomas Jefferson about “internal improvements” is hardly thinking like “totalitarian oligarchs.”
This is the problem with extremists of every type: only seeing everything they disagree with in extremes. In your case, you’re an extremist libertarian, so for you, anything that comes close to Teddy Roosevelt’s capitalism is indistinguishable from Maoism. (Just as for a Maoist or Stalinist, FDR is indistinguishable from Hayek.)
Phoebe, I like roads. If we can get electric cars powered by solar energy-fed grids, I’m all for more roads or at least bigger roads.
From a piece that dropped into my mailbox a couple of weeks ago (i.e., before the election) on the necessity of a stimulus package and how to make it work right:
“A sensible package would include a mix of infrastructure spending, aid to state and local governments, direct help to displaced workers, and tax cuts as well as other benefits for households with high spending propensities.”
That last bit, of course, is bloodless econ jargon meaning “people who are short of money”.
The source of this very sensible, Democratic approach?
Goldman Sachs.
Goldman Sachs is not your friend any more than the enemy of my enemy is my friend; in both cases, what you’ve got is a useful ally for the moment, while your interests align. But the front for Republican idology is not united so long as some people are clear-eyed about needing to save capitalism.
There sis a split here, like the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal (feel-good stuff for the rich right-wing subscribers) and the news pages (accurate news that the subscribers need to know in order to get rich and stay that way).
Crafty Trilobite: If we can get electric cars powered by solar energy-fed grids, I’m all for more roads or at least bigger roads.
How do you feel about revamping the entire power grid here in the US?
These actions would impose new demands on a transmission system that was never designed for large power transfers over extremely long distances.
The group also said that the carbon emission rules could increase reliance on natural gas, making power generation vulnerable to supply interruptions.
Carbon emission initiatives are the “No. 1 emerging issue” for the grid, according to Rick Sergel, president and chief executive of the group, which is based in Princeton, N.J. Renewable energy can form a larger portion of electricity supplies without reducing reliability, Mr. Sergel said, but not without investments in transmission.
…
The report was based on information from 50 utilities, power generators and other electric system participants. It quotes Kenneth W. Farmer, executive director of the Beauregard Electric Cooperative, of DeRidder, La., saying, “It appears that greenhouse gas issues and electric utility reliability are on a collision course.”
The report calls for construction of new power lines, which has become more difficult in some regions because of the diminished clout of utilities and the growing strength of preservationists trying to protect rural areas. Building new lines to reach distant areas with great potential for power generation will take a new approach to planning, the report said.
I’m all for full speed ahead on the development of alternate energy sources. But the bottom line is that the power grid is inadequate even right now. Improving it should be a top priority and it’s an infrastructure project I would support. But I have to side with superdestroyer here. Most of the new infrastructure projects that would be a prerequisite for us to actually make any progress towards “going green” (new transmission lines, rail lines, nuke plants) as well as the actual implementation of alternate energy (tens of thousands of acres of solar panels, wind turbines dotting the horizon all over the country) will be fought tooth and nail by the very same environmental groups demanding that we do go green. Some of these folks truly want it both ways.
And the public will generally support carbon emission/renewable energy initiatives – right up until they start experiencing brownouts or even blackouts on a regular basis. Then you’ll see public opinion change so fast it will cause whiplash… Reduce the reliability of John and Jane McPublic’s heat and hot water in the winter or their AC in the summer and you’ll see them swing from supporting green initiatives to demanding we invade SA and steal their oil.
Fortunately, OCSteve, we actually have an administration about to take over that actually thinks things through and would consider almost everything you speak about.
I’m all for a new power grid. In fact, I am for just about every thing you mentioned except the nuke plants. And all of it can be don in a envirnmentally sound way without all the backlash to which you refer.
Oh, and BTW, I know very few groups, right or left, that don’t want their cake and eat it too.
John: Oh, and BTW, I know very few groups, right or left, that don’t want their cake and eat it too.
Well, I don’t either to be fair. And it’s tough for groups to change their mind. It has to start with individuals I think.
Just to be clear, I don’t see anyway to move forward (in any significant way) without some individual supporters compromising on other parts of their agenda. You can’t proceed with clean distributed power production (solar, wind) without improving the grid and running new transmission lines. You can’t push for wind farms and at the same time take a stand against Seagull julienne. You can’t push for a reduction in carbon emissions and fight against new nuclear plants. You can’t demand all these things and then say NIMBY… Well, you can of course – I just think it’s pretty much self defeating.
I’m supporting alternate energy production even when it’s in my back yard, and even when it runs contrary to some of my other beliefs (eminent domain). I also don’t think you can support it half-a** and I’ll push back against politicians like these guys:
“We don’t want to see them,” Mayor Rick Meehan said at the work session on Tuesday. “Standing on the beach, we don’t want to see them.”
Councilman Jim Hall agreed, saying the project could be more popular if the turbines were invisible from land.
“If you can’t see it,” Hall said, “then you can add acres and acres of wind farms. I think people are going to eat it up.”
None of this “we support it but”. We support it but we’ll make it prohibitively expensive to the point it’s less likely to happen. We support it but we don’t want to actually have to see it:
Lanard said pushing the turbines farther out to sea makes the project more expensive — it costs $1,000 for every foot of cable connecting the wind farm to the shore. There will be four such cables, Lanard said, stretching 12 miles each, at a cost of about $253 million.
If Bluewater installed turbines at the three-mile minimum, where federal waters begin, the cable would cost about $63 million.
I’m a states/local rights kind of guy. But here I’ll support the federal government saying that anyone who wants to build an offshore wind farm can do so at the three mile minimum.
Even as a GW skeptic I’m a bigger (well, less hypocritical) supporter of alternate energy than the likes of Ted Kennedy. I won’t say NIMBY and I’ll compromise on some of my core beliefs to see it actually happen. I don’t get that same impression from some of the most ardent supporters who are actually in positions of power (or soon will be) to make things happen.
You can’t push for a reduction in carbon emissions and fight against new nuclear plants.
Nuclear power is only ever viable with massive government incentives and supports, and when the communities who have them get to turn the generated waste into an externality for others; one more nimbyism you hope to ignore while castigating others for succumbing to it.
“Nuclear power is only ever viable with massive government incentives and supports….”
Same for large bridges, dams, highways, and all sorts of other large-scale infrastructure projects, including a “Manhattan-style project” on alternative energy, isn’t it?
Same for large bridges, dams, highways, and all sorts of other large-scale infrastructure projects, including a “Manhattan-style project” on alternative energy, isn’t it?
I think this is very confused. First, one can build a highway or bridge without massive government incentives; there are a number of very successful private highways. Dams are another story, but government control of water resources makes them very different. I haven’t seen a very good argument for a massive Manhattan project push for renewable energy development. Perhaps you’d like to make one, but without specifying one, I feel disinclined to defend it.
in any event, many opponents of further giveaways to the nuclear power industry are not opposed to nuclear power per se but rather to ineffective give aways period. Price carbon properly and if nuclear power is a good idea, there will be no need for the vast number of incentives we’ve showered upon the nuclear industry.
Most of the new infrastructure projects that would be a prerequisite for us to actually make any progress towards “going green” (new transmission lines, rail lines, nuke plants) as well as the actual implementation of alternate energy (tens of thousands of acres of solar panels, wind turbines dotting the horizon all over the country) will be fought tooth and nail by the very same environmental groups demanding that we do go green. Some of these folks truly want it both ways.
I like this argument because it is impossible to prove right or wrong. No doubt that’s a mere coincidence 😉
I’m not aware of any major environmental group that has opposed new rail initiatives. Nor am I aware of any that have opposed power grid changes. I thought that the major obstacles to grid improvements involved right of way issues and angry homeowners not wanting live in sight of trunk lines. If you can show me a major national environmental group (like the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the Audubon Society, etc.) that opposed rail or grid projects, I’d appreciate it.
I’ll cop to a lot of environmental pushback against nuclear power. However, I will note that there are real concerns about whether there exists enough high density uranium deposits for large scale nuclear power on this planet. When last I brought the subject up with you, you were unwilling to affirm that this is the case. In light of that, I think you can be a bit more charitable to environmental groups that are skeptical of nuclear power as the answer.
Finally, I’d like to look at one test case to see how well your theory pans out. Consider the Cape Wind farm project off the coast of MA. Local environmental groups are supporting the project. Groups opposing it are fishermen and waterfront property owners. The Democratic governor supported it in his campaign against a Republican candidate who opposed it. Public opinion polls show 80-90% of the people in MA supporting the project. These numbers are extraordinary: you can’t get that many people to agree on just about anything. Greenpeace and the Audubon Society of MA have endorsed the project as well.
Given how things have actually played out in reality, I don’t think your belief that environmentalists will balk at any major project is credible. And while I’m sure there are some crazy environmentalists, there are some crazy people of every stripe; there’s no reason to think that the fraction of environmentalists that are crazy is large enough to care about. Unless you just like denigrating environmentalists.
“Moreover, thinking like Thomas Jefferson about “internal improvements” is hardly thinking like “totalitarian oligarchs.””
But the Chinese government IS run by totalitarian oligarchs, with a gloss of phony democracy for them to hide a little behind. Why should we pretend otherwise? Can’t find examples of policy you like that’s not being implemented by one of the nastier governments on the face of the Earth?
And the Chinese economy is a hell of a lot further from a free market than you want to think, what with massive portions of the economy tied up in government run businesses, and the ‘private sector’ businesses having approximately zero security from government demands.
“However, I will note that there are real concerns about whether there exists enough high density uranium deposits for large scale nuclear power on this planet.”
No, there are phony concerns. If you look at the real numbers, there’s enough fertile and fissile elements in coal that the average 1 Gw coal plant is putting enough nuclear fuel out with it’s fly ash to run 6 GW worth of nuclear plants. And you don’t need “high density” uranium deposits, the fuel costs for nuclear are a tiny fraction of the cost of running the plants, even every poor ore would be economic. Heck, the Japanese have demonstrated a process for extracting Uranium from sea water which would produce it at a sufficiently low price to be useable!
We’re awash in nuclear fuel, if we need it.
No, there are phony concerns.
Ah, the civility for which Brett is so well known for.
there’s enough fertile and fissile elements in coal that the average 1 Gw coal plant is putting enough nuclear fuel out with it’s fly ash to run 6 GW worth of nuclear plants.
Cite?
And you don’t need “high density” uranium deposits
You do if you want your nuclear plants to be both energy efficient and to avoid contributing significant amounts of greenhouse gases.
Heck, the Japanese have demonstrated a process for extracting Uranium from sea water which would produce it at a sufficiently low price to be useable!
I’ve read papers about that process. It has been talked about for decades and as of today, it is still nowhere near being economically feasible. Do you have a cite for a company that is actually using that technology? If not, maybe you shouldn’t be writing about “phony concerns”.
Heck, the Japanese have demonstrated a process for extracting Uranium from sea water which would produce it at a sufficiently low price to be useable!
Which is why the Japanese have not given up the idea of creating a fast breeder reactor. Really, Brett, wikipedia links are not the best place to go for proof that theoretical processes can be made cost effective.
I think, left to the ideas of the GOP, we’d still be using an old ferry to cross each river on 101.
Actually there would be about five bridges at each crossing. They would have been built by private builders as competing entities.
Since only one bridge per crossing is actually needed, four would have been unable to fund their own operation and maintenance, and would have been abandoned. They’d now be rusting away, cannibalized by scrap pirates and occasionally dropping debris into the river.
There would be an ongoing lawsuit between their builders and the state to decide who was going to pay for tearing them down.
The one remaining bridge at each crossing would charge you $10.00 a carload to pass. $20.00 for vans.
The infrastructure takes too long to be help in economic recovery.
I don’t know this for sure, but I’d bet good money that there is a years-long backlog of public infrastructure tasks that have been scoped out, spec’ed out, vetted environmentally, and perhaps even let out for bid, that are ready to rock and roll as soon as somebody, somewhere has some $$$$ to throw at them.
Just add that green water and go.
Thanks –
Germany found a way to extract gold from sea water to deal with the war reparations after WW1 (no joke, it included nobel prize winners disguised as pursers on transoceanic liners to take water samples without drawing allied attention). Turned out to be less than a easy goldmine. And gold is imo easier to extract from water than uranium.
In their book Break Through, long time environmentalists Schellenberger and Nordhaus devote an entire chapter to NIMBY problems in the environmental movement. They certainly believe that it has been a significant obstacle to progress, but let us hope that the tide is turning.
Highly recommended reading, by the way. Their arguments about the myriad ways in which environmentalists have been self-defeating are well reasoned and thought provoking. I believe it’s worthwhile to take a good, hard look at why the environmental movement hasn’t made greater inroads into mainstream thinking.
“I believe it’s worthwhile to take a good, hard look at why the environmental movement hasn’t made greater inroads into mainstream thinking.”
Seems to me that the environmental movement has made tremendous inroads into mainstream thinking over the last 40 years.
In their book Break Through, long time environmentalists Schellenberger and Nordhaus devote an entire chapter to NIMBY problems in the environmental movement.
Just out of curiosity, is there any reason to believe that NIMBYism is a more significant problem among environmentalists than it is among the general population?
Gary,
I agree, but we still have a long way to go. Schellenberger and Nordhaus point out that climate change regularly ranks near the bottom of voters’ concerns. It’s worth examining why this is so and how the environmental movement can change it.
Even when perusing progressive blogs, I often feel that energy policy gets too little attention. It does get mentioned, but not in proportion to its importance, in my opinion. Given the huge challenges and the huge stakes, I would expect it to be front and center.
Obama does seem to understand its importance, however. I remain hopeful that he will exercise firm leadership in this area.
Just out of curiosity, is there any reason to believe that NIMBYism is a more significant problem among environmentalists than it is among the general population?
Not at all — the problem needs to be addressed at the societal level. But it doesn’t hurt if environmentalists start by getting their own house in order. (And that includes me, by the way. I’m as prone to this tendency as anyone.)
But it doesn’t hurt if environmentalists start by getting their own house in order. (And that includes me, by the way.
Actually it might. If environmentalists make up a small fraction of the population, then spending a lot of effort to purge NIMBYism from their ranks will accomplish…what exactly? It won’t change public sentiment since most people are not environmentalists and no cares if environmentalists exhibit NIMBYism at the same rate as the general population, so what are the benefits? In contrast, spending time and money doing this does mean that there are real costs; it means that more legitimate programs won’t get funded and staffed. You can say “it won’t hurt” if you live in a world where environmental groups have more time and money than they know what to do with, but that has no resemblance to the real world.
So I’ve come to the conclusion that (i) the financial industry is in much worse shape than is known publicly; (ii) in fact, they are in such bad shape that they cannot be saved; (iii) the folks at Treasury know this; (iv) the bail out plan is thus a way of shoving enough public funds out the door and into the hands of the financial industry as possible before it implodes; (v) that this will be enough to keep the industry going until, oh 1/20/09; (vi) at that time or soon thereafter everything will come crashing down; and (vii) President Obama takes the blame.
Turbulence,
If environmental activists sometimes sabotage their own broader agenda because of overly local concerns, it seems to me that this merits some reflection and conversation within the community. I wasn’t suggesting a “purge” or an expensive program.
Marshall, can you explain how this sabotage works? Or cite any examples? Maybe I’m just not clear on what you’re talking about here….
For that matter, can you explain what specific changes you want to see happen?
So I’ve come to the conclusion that (i) the financial industry is in much worse shape than is known publicly…
That’s how it looks to me, too.
Everybody I know has some story or other about how all of this stuff is kicking them in the rear end.
My wife was looking forward to something like semi-retirement in a couple of years, that’s probably not going to happen. She’s been saving her nickels like a very good girl for quite a while to make that happen. It’s not all gone, by a long shot, but “early” retirement (after about 40 years of working) is out of the question at this point.
But you can bet your behind that we aren’t complaining, because (knock on wood) we both still have jobs, and unless something really bad happens we’ll be basically OK.
We’re really lucky.
All of the tradesmen I know in my area are losing work because nobody has any money to spend. Nobody’s eating out. Nobody’s buying appliances or other big ticket items. Nobody’s buying cars.
Everybody that has a few bucks to spare is buying down their plastic and hoping they make it through.
Everybody else is white-knuckling it.
Blah blah blah. It sucks.
Here’s what the underlying problem looks like to me.
A bunch of guys in the financial industry got themselves leveraged to the point where a downturn in the housing market made the whole damned house of cards fall down.
The reason they got themselves into that position was because they thought they’d make themselves and their investors a whole lot of money. It didn’t freaking work out that way.
Is it time to seriously consider whether the free market ideology of the last 30 years is really just a load of crap?
Or should we go around this particular mulberry bush a few more times first?
I’m figuring that I’m working until I’m 70. I hope I can find something that somebody will pay me for for that long.
Thanks –
Schellenberger and Nordhaus were the authors of the NR piece The death of Environmentalism and a later NR Piece dissected here. Without having read S&N more closely, they sound like they are following the Lomborg model
(v) that this will be enough to keep the industry going until, oh 1/20/09; (vi) at that time or soon thereafter everything will come crashing down
I’m not sure it will wait even that long for the house of credit cards to collapse on our heads. I’d say the first week of January is more like it.
Somebody needs to call up Bill O’Reilly and explain to him that this is what a real “War on Christmas” looks like.
For example:
Upping the ante on JPMorgan’s CEO Dimon and Merrill’s CEO Thain (see previous post), former Goldman Sachs chairman John Whitehead is quoted as saying the current slump will be worse than the Great Depression!
TLTIA: I’m not sure it will wait even that long for the house of credit cards to collapse on our heads.
Could be.
“Ah, the civility for which Brett is so well known for.”
Look, I’m an engineer, and this is a matter of objective fact, not opinion. You can stuff your civility in the same place as your fantasies about nuclear fuel running out in less than thousands of years. The people peddling this notion of a shortage of nuclear fuel are ignorant, where they’re not worse.
You want a cite? I did the math myself, you can google the composition of fly ash, and the fuel requirements of nuclear plants, and duplicate the numbers. Or maybe this is a good place to start.
You think low grade ore would be too energy expensive to use? Right… when coal has many times more nuclear energy in it than chemical energy, that would lead to the conclusion that coal plants must use more energy to mine THEIR fuel than they get by burning it.
And of course the Japanese process isn’t economically feasible right now. Nobody climbs to the top of the tree when the low hanging fruit isn’t exausted yet. It WILL eventually be economically feasible. But not while the concentrated stuff is still around.
And of course the Japanese are working on breeder reactors. Why wouldn’t you want to use all the fuel you’re digging up, instead of a fraction of a percent of it. Thorium breeder reactors would play a role, too.
Look, there may be reasons not to use nuclear; I think we’ll probably have affordable solar before we can overcome the political obstacles to building huge numbers of nuke plants in this country.
But running out of fuel is not one of them. And anybody who says so is either a fool or a liar.
Sorry, lack of sleep speaking. But I stand by the gist of it.
running out of fuel
does not equal
However, I will note that there are real concerns about whether there exists enough high density uranium deposits for large scale nuclear power on this planet.
Turbulence,
The primary example used by Shellenberger and Nordhaus is Robert Kennedy Jr.’s opposition to Cape Wind. Though he was a senior attorney with NRDC and a self-avowed wind power advocate, Kennedy used environmental arguments to oppose the construction of a wind farm in the Cape. S&N pick apart his arguments and then examine some of the deeper issues illustrated by this example. Their argument is fairly subtle, so I can’t really do it justice in a few words.
According to S&N, Greenpeace pushed for the development of Cape Wind, but other national environmental agencies (NRDC, Environmental Defense, Sierra Club) were remarkably silent about it.
S&N say that this is not an isolated example. I’m not an environmental activist, so I can’t speak to the truth of their claim. (They do mention some other examples in passing, and they are both involved in the field, so I assume that they don’t make the claim lightly.) Anyway, I found their discussion interesting because it challenges some of my own prejudices and tendencies regarding environmentalism and the politics of place.
If large scale nuclear actually required high density deposits, that might be relevant. It doesn’t, we use them because we’ve got them, and they’re convenient.
And this:
It took just under 100 years, since its creation in 1913, for the Federal Reserve to accumulate about $800 Billion in assets. It’s taken just two months to nearly double it.
Schellenberger and Nordhaus were the authors of the NR piece The death of Environmentalism and a later NR Piece dissected here. Without having read S&N more closely, they sound like they are following the Lomborg model
From a quick perusal of that Wikipedia page, this doesn’t seem right to me. They never mention Lomborg in their book. They speak approvingly of the Stern Review, which the Wikipedia article says is at odds with Lomborg’s work.
The “death of environmentalism” is a bit of provocation. S&N are critical of certain aspects of old-school environmentalism, and they propose significant changes in priorities and methods. They take the climate change threat very seriously, and they believe that what worked for previous environmental challenges will not be sufficient to meet this new challenge. Whether one agrees with their arguments or not, it makes for interesting reading. It’s actually more a philosophical work than a nuts-and-bolts book. They rely fairly heavily on Maslow’s hierarchy of values.
“It’s taken just two months to nearly double it.”
George W. Bush: biggest socialist President evah!
November 12, 2008
To the investment community:
Ugh Industries, Inc., is an important source of funding for U.S. companies, industries and consumers. Through the recent credit crisis, Ugh Industries has continued to provide critical financing for U.S. infrastructure projects, municipalities and industries. Some examples include financial support for airlines, hospitals, utilities, and many middle market sectors. Ugh Industries has also been a leader in aiding U.S. companies in restructuring as the number one provider of debtor in possession (DIP) and bankruptcy lending.
Today, Ugh Industries are pleased to announce that we will become the fourth* largest Bank Holding Company in the United States and will be regulated by the Federal Reserve. We understand that the market views oversight by the Federal Reserve and the ability to source insured bank deposits as providing a greater degree of safety and soundness. We also understand that such oversight will allow us to borrow money from the Federal Reserve like there is no tomorrow, bitches.
Please feel free to call with questions.
Thank you.
Ugh
President and CEO of Ugh Industries, Inc.
*Fourth = 4,000,000,000,000,000th
By following the Lomborg model, I meant reveling in being iconoclastic rather than looking at solutions. As you note, their first article was provocative. Perhaps Breakthrough is less provocative and more thoughtful, but the title suggests otherwise. It seems a lot like the anecdote about Obama during the debate prep
I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, ‘You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.’ So when Brian Williams is asking me about what’s a personal thing that you’ve done [that’s green], and I say, you know, ‘Well, I planted a bunch of trees.’ And he says, ‘I’m talking about personal.’ What I’m thinking in my head is, ‘Well, the truth is, Brian, we can’t solve global warming because I f—ing changed light bulbs in my house. It’s because of something collective’.”
focusing on the hypocrisy is precisely like that, denying the attempts at collective action because of flaws that, as has been pointed out, all of us have.
The primary example used by Shellenberger and Nordhaus is Robert Kennedy Jr.’s opposition to Cape Wind. Though he was a senior attorney with NRDC and a self-avowed wind power advocate, Kennedy used environmental arguments to oppose the construction of a wind farm in the Cape.
Kennedy would be the prototypical example of a nutty environmentalist. He’s one guy, not a movement. Yes, he’s done some work for environmental groups, but it seems that his opposition to Cape Wind has a lot more to do with his personal coastal view than with his general environmental beliefs. There are lots of environmentalists in the country: do you expect every single one of them to agree on any one question? I don’t. You’ve found one lawyer who works for an environmental organization who is against Cape Wind. One staff attorney does not a movement make. In fact, one staff attorney does not a movement direct or control.
According to S&N, Greenpeace pushed for the development of Cape Wind, but other national environmental agencies (NRDC, Environmental Defense, Sierra Club) were remarkably silent about it.
Greenpeace was for it. Audubon Society of MA was for it. NRDC is for it. Sierra Club of MA is for it. I can’t find any statements by Environmental Defense Fund either for or against it.
Look, the Cape Wind project is going to be huge; nothing on this scale has ever been done before. Some of these groups had specific concerns about how the farm would affect avian and marine life. But they didn’t just say “No, never ever will we tolerate this abomination” — they said “let’s do a bit of research on our concerns and if the science proves them groundless, then full steam ahead”. In other words, they wanted to follow the law. A bunch of research was done confirming that danger to wild life was minimal and now they’re endorsing the project. I look at this behavior and I don’t see any problem at all. Do you? Seriously, what was it that you think these groups should have done differently? Do you think they should have shown absolutely zero interest in the danger to wildlife even before various scientific studies had been done? Do you think they should have funded the project? Do you think the national organizations should have taken the issue from their local state organization’s portfolios?
Just to back up: OCSteve’s original claim was that environmental groups would fight tooth and nail against these sorts of projects. I’ve pointed to a bunch of environmental groups that strongly supported this project. You’ve pointed to one group that has taken no position on it.
The reason they got themselves into that position was because they thought they’d make themselves and their investors a whole lot of money. It didn’t freaking work out that way.
Um, no. The reason they got themselves in the position was because they were working in a system that goes something like this. Convince someone to give you millions of dollars of capital. Leverage it 30 or 40 times. Then make a risky bet. If the bet pays off, take your management fee from the profits and repeat. You’re rich! If the bet doesn’t pay off…oh well. Sorry. Be more prudent with your investments next time, mmkay?
Better yet, make the same risky bet as everyone else is making. That way you have plausible deniability, and you can use your “experience” as a qualification to get your next round of sucker’s money.
I’m mocking, but if people gave me money to do that, I’d do it. Give me $1 million. Let me borrow another $49 million. I’ll bet it all on “red” and if I win, I only want a measly 10% of the profit. You would do it too. Who wouldn’t?
Is it time to seriously consider whether the free market ideology of the last 30 years is really just a load of crap?
Hahaha. Last 30 years? This is capitalism. We’ve been doing this crap in the US for over 150 years. Read about some of the scams they pulled in the late 1800s, it’s like reading last week’s FT. Look at how people try to blame the CRA for the subprime blowup. It doesn’t make a bit of sense, is contradicted by the facts of the situation, but hell, if it keeps the game going, no lie is too big, is it?
No, it is not yet time. As long as the mass media can publish “information” asserting something like CRA was responsible for the subprime blowup, we still have a ways to go before we “seriously” consider anything.
I’m figuring that I’m working until I’m 70. I hope I can find something that somebody will pay me for for that long.
I’m happy as a clam. I buy equities for the long term. I plan to live off the dividends someday. During the great depression, the markets went down 90% and dividend payments went down 11%. The stuff I buy now that we’ve got a wonderful bear market going will pay off handsomely in the medium term.
If you don’t have a medium term left to wait things out….bummer. Blame the socialists.
Turbulence,
I think there may be some misunderstanding here. I wasn’t trying to endorse OCSteve’s more extreme view on environmental NIMBYism, though in retrospect I can understand how it might have seemed that way. I was simply sharing a perspective I’d read about, from two guys who together have worked for 20 years in environmental organizations. They obviously feel (rightly or wrongly) that NIMBY has been a factor in some environmental battles. I don’t claim to be an expert in these matters, and I apologize if it came off that way. I was simply interested in their perspective on this and thought I’d pass it on.
These guys were involved in the fight to keep Cape Wind alive. They clearly believe that the project might have died were it not for the efforts of Greenpeace and grassroots environmentalists who spoke out for it at the time (circa 2005). When they speak of the silence of the national environmental organizations, they’re talking about that time period; for example, Sierra Club declared itself “actively neutral” in Summer 2005. I don’t know enough to adjudicate S&N’s claims, but I’m not inclined to dismiss them out of hand either. It’s certainly encouraging that the major environmental organizations are supporting the project now — thanks for the information.
By following the Lomborg model, I meant reveling in being iconoclastic rather than looking at solutions. As you note, their first article was provocative. Perhaps Breakthrough is less provocative and more thoughtful, but the title suggests otherwise.
I haven’t read their essay, so I can’t comment on that directly. My understanding is that they had both worked for the environmental lobbies, and they were frustrated by the lack of progress on climate change. They apparently used the provocative approach in their essay, which angered a lot of people and might have been counterproductive. Their book actually strikes me as quite thoughtful and well-argued. Some of their ideas might be provocative, but they explore the reasoning behind these ideas in considerable depth.
Oh, and they’re very interested in solutions, though this book isn’t about the nuts and bolts of those solutions. It’s more about how to frame the issues so that the solutions can gain enough popular support to succeed.
Hey Marshall,
I appreciate you laying things out, and I’m going to take a bit of the opposite side, not because I want to start a fight, but because I find myself becoming more of a ‘trust but verify’ kind of person. This isn’t to say that I am disbelieving you, but some googling has me bring up some points that raise some questions for me.
You say that “My understanding is that they had both worked for the environmental lobbies, and they were frustrated by the lack of progress on climate change.”, but when I look them up at sourcewatch.org (I’m not providing the links because there is a 4 link limit in the comments) it has Shellenberger as an MA in cultural anthro and Nordhaus has a BA in history, and all of their experience with the environmental movement is in polling and public relations. I don’t think this is a bad thing, but the outfit they are with now, American Environics seems more interested in altering the environmental movement to fit social values than vice versa. Here’s a discussion about some of the conclusions that Environics makes and here is some criticism (with links to the previous discussion) about Environics conclusions as presented by Garance Franke-Ruta (the link is in the above link) that I clip here
The data contradicted the slew of polls that show Americans to be strong supporters of Democratic issue positions, such as universal health care, despite voting habits that have made Republicans the dominant political actors. Instead, American Environics’ extensive plumbing of Americans’ attitudes laid out a darker, more nuanced vision of what the nation actually believes. Far from being a purely dour assessment, though, in it can be found the seeds of a new understanding of the interrelationship of culture, the economy, and politics — broadly defined — that should give progressives hope.
Again, not trying to bust you, but after the recent election, I think that the notion that we should be pessimistic about the nature of the American people to be a bit off.
I hasten to add that I haven’t read the book, and you said that the content was not easy to summarize. and I only remember the earlier discussion when I started googling. But looking over the previous essay, I do get a whiff of that iconoclasm that often is less concerned with getting things done and more concerned with positioning.
Um, no. The reason they got themselves in the position was because they were working in a system that goes something like this.
Yeah, that’s actually what I was trying to say. You’ve said it better.
I’m mocking, but if people gave me money to do that, I’d do it.
Many folks would.
I mean no personal slight to anyone here who works in the financial industry, but IMVHO it’s an industry full of folks who would, if told they could have $100M if they would run their own mother down on Main St, would reply without hesitation “Where are the keys?”.
People that play games with other people’s money need to be on the shortest, strongest, tightest leash we can devise. Because if they’re not, they will happily blow the whole game up if it means they have a shot at ridiculous personal wealth.
Don’t think so? What planet are you on?
Hahaha. Last 30 years? This is capitalism. We’ve been doing this crap in the US for over 150 years.
Yes, but for the first half of the last century the trend was toward keeping a lid on it through regulation.
The “last 30 years” thing refers to the consistent opposite trend beginning with Reagan and continuing to now.
All of that said, I agree with your point.
I’m happy as a clam. I buy equities for the long term. I plan to live off the dividends someday.
Me too. Not the “happy as a clam” part, but the buy-and-hold investment strategy part.
If you don’t have a medium term left to wait things out….bummer. Blame the socialists.
I’m not sure what counts as “medium term”.
I’m 52. If it turns around in 10 years, I’ll be a happy guy. If it doesn’t, I’ll be working until I’m 70.
I’m not really that interested in blame. Or, at least, not in punishment. I’m interested in (1) stopping the bleeding and (2) putting a stake through the heart of the “free market” death cult.
Put these greedy m*f*rs on a leash. I’m not asking that they be boiled in oil, or tarred and feathered, or given daily public beatings. All I’m asking is that they be kept on a tight, strong leash.
Because they clearly have no sense of responsibility to anybody else.
Also, thanks to all for the thoughtful comments on environmental issues etc.
I second lj’s comment concerning personal foibles and hypocritical inconsistencies vs the need to get a concerted public effort in gear.
Thanks –
liberal japonicus,
I hear your concerns. First of all, let me make one thing clear: I am not saying that I agree with everything S&N wrote in their book, much less with everything they have ever written or said. What I did say is that I found their book thought-provoking and well-argued. It’s beyond my purview to defend S&N generally, or to defend writings or views that they’ve expressed elsewhere.
When I read the book (about six months ago), my sense was that they were looking for ways to garner widespread acceptance for massive action on climate change. If you read the book, you might come to a different conclusion. Nothing wrong with that.
I have no idea whether Obama has read S&N’s book, but he does seem to be following one key piece of advice: he is focusing on the optimistic aspects of energy policy — creation of jobs, long-term energy security, and a lessening of our dependence on unstable regions — rather than harping on the ecological disaster that will follow if we don’t act. Now, I believe that the threat of this disaster is very real, and so do S&N (and so probably does Obama), but they point out that apocalyptic warnings typically don’t motivate people to engage in aggressive, long-term action; instead, they often cause people to hunker down. This fits with my observations of human nature. We need to be aware of the negative consequences of inaction, absolutely, and I believe that cap-and-trade needs to be part of the policy. It’s a matter of emphasis and how you sell the plan, and it was interesting to notice that Obama rarely mentioned it during the general election. He framed energy policy in a very positive way, which fits with N&S’s recommendations. We’ll see whether he continues to do that during the legislative phase, and whether it will be enough to get bills passed that include cap-and-trade.
This post is kind of confusing. Saying that something isn’t economic stimulus isn’t the same as saying that it is a bad idea.
Roy Blunt is talking about economic stimulus in the technical sense of one of the possible macroeconomic governmental responses to a recession or depression which is supposed to get things going again.
The link to China is about governmental infrastructure investment. It is absolutely a fact that infrastructure investment projects are too slow to be effectively stimulative to help snap the economy out of a recession.
That doesn’t mean that infrastructure investment is a BAD thing. Just that it isn’t economic stimulus. Depending on the project, infrastructure investment could be a great thing, with all sorts of payoffs in the long run.
I’m not entirely sure that there is an economic consensus on the issue, but I would suspect that the best time for infrastructure investment is during good times, because during bad times it is using money which could be used on stimulus. But I’m sure there are lots of side factors which might make that intial impression incorrect.
Look, I’m an engineer, and this is a matter of objective fact, not opinion.
That’s nice. I’m an engineer. My wife is an engineer. My parents are both engineers. And I don’t find your arguments persuasive.
If large scale nuclear actually required high density deposits, that might be relevant.
You can make nuclear power work no matter how little uranium is in your ore, but past a certain point, you end up expending more energy extracting Uranium than you get from the fuel cycle. So ore density and accessibility matter very much.
Of course, we’re not talking about a massive nuclear power plant buildout for our health: we’re talking about nuclear power as way to produce energy while reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If your ores are insufficiently dense or too difficult to access, you can reach the point where the you’re producing more greenhouse gases over the lifetime of the fuel cycle than you would if you just burned a corresponding quantity of coal. We’ll reach that point long before we reach the point of negative energy returns.
You can stuff your civility in the same place as your fantasies about nuclear fuel running out in less than thousands of years. The people peddling this notion of a shortage of nuclear fuel are ignorant, where they’re not worse.
Here’s another fantasy from one of those ignorant people that lack your wisdom and qualifications:
I’m sure you won’t find my cite persuasive given that it lacks the children’s cartoon drawings found accompanying your cite.
You want a cite? I did the math myself, you can google the composition of fly ash, and the fuel requirements of nuclear plants, and duplicate the numbers. Or maybe this is a good place to start.
Fly ash cannot be used directly as nuclear fuel in a reactor. The Uranium in fly ash could be assuming that you have an energy efficient separation and purification process. So far, you have done nothing to suggest that such a process exists or how much energy it would consume. If you don’t care about the practical energy cost of processing Uranium, I don’t see why you should waste your time talking about fly ash. There is a near infinite amount of Uranium in dirt everywhere, so we should be fine as long we procure magical reactors that don’t require enriched Uranium. This is patently ridiculous.
You think low grade ore would be too energy expensive to use? Right… when coal has many times more nuclear energy in it than chemical energy, that would lead to the conclusion that coal plants must use more energy to mine THEIR fuel than they get by burning it.
To be fair, a number of experts think that as well. See graphs 8-10 of van Leeuwen and Smith’s report. They write:
You don’t seem to understand that Uranium in rocks and dirt and ash cannot be used to generate electricity. It must be separated from the other stuff and enriched because the common isotopes are not useful in reactors. These processes are both difficult and energy intensive. You can’t just ignore them. Uranium as we find it in nature is of as much use to a reactor as salt water is to a shipwreck survivor.
And of course the Japanese process isn’t economically feasible right now. Nobody climbs to the top of the tree when the low hanging fruit isn’t exausted yet. It WILL eventually be economically feasible. But not while the concentrated stuff is still around.
Technological development does not work that way. Many technical challenges cannot be solved no matter how much time and money you invest in them. For example, consider anti-gravity technology and immortality technology. You can proclaim that with sufficient investment, we’ll make progress on sea water extraction, but absent results, there’s just no reason to believe that.
And of course the Japanese are working on breeder reactors. Why wouldn’t you want to use all the fuel you’re digging up, instead of a fraction of a percent of it. Thorium breeder reactors would play a role, too.
Breeder reactor technology has been discussed for decades. In that time, we have never even gotten close to a commercial breeder reactor. The theoretical underpinnings of breeder reactors are elegant and intriguing but actually building one requires the solution of a vast array of messy technical problems for which we have no good solutions. And I’m completely ignoring the proliferation aspect, which only makes the assessment more dour.
The Japanese breeder reactor is a good case in point: construction began in 1984, the reactor went online in 1994, it suffered a serious accident in 1995 and has been offline since. This track record…does not inspire confidence.
Of course, people who know what they’re talking about don’t expect breeder reactors to contribute anything anytime soon. The MIT study on the future of nuclear power concluded that breeder reactors were unlikely to enter operation over the next three decades.
Again, the issue isn’t that people don’t want to use up more of the nuclear fuel that is mined: the issue is that we don’t know how to make reactors that can do that in a reliable manner. Just like we don’t know how to make jet cars and rocket packs that can be used by everyone.
Look, there may be reasons not to use nuclear; I think we’ll probably have affordable solar before we can overcome the political obstacles to building huge numbers of nuke plants in this country.
Political obstacles don’t just appear out of nowhere: they are related to real world problems like the decades long failure of nuclear power proponents to make good on their promises.
But running out of fuel is not one of them. And anybody who says so is either a fool or a liar.
As LJ pointed out, no one has made this claim. If you’re going to burn straw men, shouldn’t you do so with nuclear bombardment rather than mere chemical oxidation?
Here’s something from the dopes (I kid) at the IAEA on the world Uranium suppy (Analysis of Uranium Supply to 2050). It doesn’t say things like “We’ll run out of Uranium on January 15th, 2046”, but it projects Uranium costs based on various supply and demand assumptions. But the long-term future of nuclear is unclear. (You only have to switch two letters.)
Oh, yeah. I’m an engineer, too. Thanks!
So am I* but I do not claim to be an expert on things nuclear. One thing I never understood is: if heat emission is such a problem with nuclear waste storage, why can’t it be used for (low grade) steam production?**
*chemical
**no, I don’t want to claim that this is a solution for the energy crisis. It’s just a technical question (Iirc I read numbers of 400°C in high radioactive waste containers).
“One thing I never understood is: if heat emission is such a problem with nuclear waste storage, why can’t it be used for (low grade) steam production?”
It probably could be, once we have enough waste on hand for it to be worth exploiting.
“The nuclear industry knows this, and plans to use a combination of uranium from spent uranium fuel and plutonium dioxide (MOX fuel to power future nuclear reactors.”
In other words, this fantasy relies on deliberately refusing to exploit almost all of the energy in the fuel, by avoiding both reprocessing and breeding. Yes, I will agree that the long term prospects of nuclear power are bleak if we make this choice. If we make this choice we are deliberately chosing for nuclear to be infeasible, when it doesn’t have to be.
And there are people, with way too much clout, who’d like to make that choice. Which is the chief reason why a lot of otherwise advanced countries are getting nowhere with nuclear.
Yes, the nuclear future relies on advances in technology. So does the solar future. I don’t see why one gets to assume relatively minor advances, and the other doesn’t.
Now, if you’d wanted to claim that there wasn’t enough nuclear fuel for the long haul without reprocessing and breeding, I never would have called it a fantasy. But just say that there isn’t enough fuel, and leave it at that? THAT is simply not true.
No, there IS enough fuel, if we don’t make deliberately bad choices.
I don’t see why one gets to assume relatively minor advances, and the other doesn’t.
I generally grant people the ability to assume relatively minor advances when they don’t build straw men to demonize other people’s arguments, but, of course, MMV.
Of course, the possibility for advances is going to be greater in areas that haven’t been as deeply explored, and given the existence of Moore’s law, which suggests that problems involving computing (such as determining optimal locations and making minute adjustments) are going to be more tractable. The problems of nuclear power are not ones that involve computing, they involve extracting and processing fuel, which do not lend themselves to improvement thru greater computing power.
Why exactly are we even concerned about what Roy Blunt thinks about infrastructure, with a big fat majority in the House and 57-59/60 Senators?
Oh, me too! Electrical, concentration in controls.
I’m an expert! Just ask me!
Brett,
For the sake of brevity right now, I’m going to ignore reprocessing. Do you have any comment at all on what I said about breeder reactors?
Aaargh, the great outing! This blog is frequented mainly by engineers and lawyers 😉