Jonathan Cloud :: Life, Examined

Jonathan Cloud

After all the literature and public policy discussion and decision-making of the past 50+ years, it is hard to believe that there is still an industry – and a lobby – advocating for the expenditure of vast sums of money for the use of “controlled” nuclear reactions anywhere on this planet, let alone in the densely-populated Northeast.

But nuclear advocates have found new hope in the argument that nuclear power is “carbon-free.” New organizations have been formed to promote nuclear as “clean, affordable, and safe.”

As Environment NJ’s Matt Elliott has noted, “Recently, Exelon Corp. funded the creation of a group with the misleading name of Affordable, Clean, Reliable Energy (ACRE) Coalition. The group is little more than a front for the nuclear industry.”  (Philadelphia Inquirer – 2007-09-17)

And I was alarmed to hear the Deputy Speaker of the NJ Assembly say the other day that a new nuclear plant in New Jersey was “inevitable,” and could be approved as early as 2015. He based this in part on the delays in getting massive amounts of renewables in place – as called for in the state’s new Energy Master Plan – to meet the goals of the Renewable Portfolio Standard. In his view, and that of many others, the implementation of the state’s energy policy goals was hopelessly inadequate, and would fall so far short of these goals as to make nuclear inevitable.

For all these reasons, it’s important to state why nuclear energy is still a bad idea – for New Jersey, for America, and for the world:

• To start with, it’s not renewable. Uranium is a fossil fuel, that has to be extracted through mining, and there is a limited amount of it that is accessible and likely to be recoverable on a cost-effective basis. The IAEA report, “Uranium 2005: Resources, Production and Demand- also called the “Red Book” – estimates the total identified amount of conventional uranium stock, which can be mined for less than USD 130 per kg, to be about 4.7 million tonnes. Based on the 2004 nuclear electricity generation rate of demand the amount is sufficient for 85 years, the study states.” (Global Uranium Resources to Meet Projected Demand, 2 June 2006.) While this may not be a limiting factor immediately, the way peak oil appears to be, the same arguments will ultimately apply: this is not a sustainable source of energy.
• It is also not “clean.” While no greenhouse gases are emitted in the reaction cycle, nuclear power plants are massive construction projects, requiring huge quantities of cement and other materials; and the process of mining uranium is itself very energy-intensive and damaging to the environment. 

• Nuclear energy is not cheap. Massive subsidies to the nuclear industry are now widely understood as “hidden costs” that give the lie to the idea that nuclear electricity can be generated for as little as 3¢ a kilowatt hour. It is not even possible to fully account for the “externalities” involved in producing electricity, because the final costs of disposing of wastes, decommissioning power plants, cleaning up accidents, protecting plants from terrorist attacks, etc. cannot be known.
• The storage problem remains unresolved. Despite technological advances that may allow for the re-processing of spent fuels (for something other than making nuclear weapons), the ultimate disposal problem remains.
• Public opinion is now firmly against the development of more nuclear, and is likely to prevent siting of  nuclear plants near dense population centers (where the energy is needed), leading to even higher costs or the need to site plants far enough away to require an even-more massive upgrading of the grid.
• Nuclear power is more “centralized” energy production, rather than distributed generation.

• Climate Change , Economics , Energy , Events , Reflections Original created June 14th, 2009 Comments(1)

Jonathan Cloud

The Green Economy appears to be gaining ground worldwide, but is already starting to be opposed by some free-market ideologues. The news is full of reports on green jobs and green economy initiatives, both in the U.S. and elsewhere, but spokesmen for some conservative think-tanks are already falling over themselves to warn of dire consequences.

Max Schulz, a senior fellow at the impressive-sounding Manhattan Institute’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment, warns that “Inefficient eco-friendly technologies destroy more jobs than they create” (The Green-Jobs Engine That Can’t, City Journal Winter 2009). The Manhattan Institute’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment “advances ideas about the practical application of free-market economic principles to address today’s energy issues.” According to their web site, they are “leading an effort to show how a pro-growth, supply-side energy policy can be harmonized with a concern for the environment.” But others argue this is very much the philosophy that got us into the present crisis.

The central issue is whether sustainable initiatives are viable unless the market already supports them. Traditional economists argue that they are not, and some even dispute the concept of “market failure,” claiming there can be no such thing in a capitalist system. Even many sustainability advocates are inclined to push conservation and other measures on the grounds that they will result in cost savings as well as reducing environmental and social harm. But the deeper problem is that the market only recognizes near-term economic costs and benefits to individual participants, and fails to include “externalities” and systemic variables. The most obvious evidence for this is the current financial meltdown, which apparently took most analysts as well as most private investors by surprise. The “market” failed to factor in the systemic risks that snowballed when individual institutions pushed the limits on financial instruments that were, initially, designed to spread risk and minimize loss.

While there is plenty of room for debate as to the “causes” of the present crisis, there is no doubt that it is deep, global, and likely to be prolonged – not only by all the usual economic factors, but also by the fact that no one knows what it really means to “get the economy back on track.” It seems unlikely that we can return to anything like the previous pattern of “economic growth” without rapidly increasing fuel prices, significantly altered consumption patterns, rebuilding much of our infrastructure, and most of the other “radical” changes being sought by the Obama Administration – many if not all of which are likely to be resisted by the conservatives in Congress. The possibility of finding a new, interrelated solution is to a large extent what our 2009 Green Ventures Conference is about.

As author Jonathan Schell notes,

“The contemporary crises are interwoven, forming a kind of Gordian knot. The world does not have the luxury of dealing with them seriatim. Consider the relationship of the collapsing economy to the collapsing environment. Joseph Stiglitz has noted that economists are wondering if the graph of the economic crisis will eventually prove to be V-shaped or U-shaped; but he argues that it will prove to be L-shaped. Indeed, there can be neither a V, a U or any other upward-turning graph if the remedy does not include a green revolution and a sustainable-energy program. A dirty recovery, even if possible, would be worse than no recovery. It would be the quickest path to a bigger bust. The upturn cannot in truth be “re-” anything – short of revolution – for the just-crashed “successful” economy, excellent as it was in producing cheap goods, was also producing environmental catastrophe. (Paradoxically, the recession, by cutting back on fossil-fuel use, may have done more to ease global warming than electric cars or solar panels could have done in a comparable period.) Environmentalists have long observed that if China tries to reach Western standards of living along the automotive, carbon-gushing Western path, the planet will be cooked to a cinder in short order. Now we are all in a sense in the Chinese boat. China can’t have the economy we so recently had, and we can’t have it again either. We’ll all have to have something quite different.”

–Jonathan Schell, Obama and the Return of the Real, The Nation, February 9, 2009.

If we don’t use this crisis to make fundamental changes, then the opportunity it represents for real reform may be lost for another decade, a decade which – according to many scientists – may be the last one we have in which to avoid planetary catastrophe. As Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners Magazine, stated at Davos – “if this crisis doesn’t change us, then all the pain and all the misery it will create will be in vain” – but this remains at this point still a minority view. The news media, and apparently many in the Congress, continue to see “restoring the economy” as separate from “reforming the healthcare system” or “transitioning to renewable energy,” and are currently debating whether the President can achieve “all of these things” at once. But the reality, as Schell points out, is that they are interrelated. It’s hard to believe that the $150/barrel oil, which caused gasoline prices to go beyond $4 a gallon and shifted a trillion dollars out of the hands of US consumers, had nothing to do with the slowdown in consumer spending, the growing number of mortgage defaults and foreclosures, and the collapse of the entire house of cards built on sub-prime mortgages, complex derivatives, and credit default swaps.

There’s a lot more I’d like to say about this, and I hope to do so in the coming days and weeks leading up to our May conference.

(Crossposted at http://GreenVenturesConference.org)

• General Original created March 6th, 2009 Comments(0)

Jonathan Cloud

Here are my thoughts on the Good Jobs, Green Jobs conference I just attended in Washington, DC. (February 4-6, 2009 – GreenJobsConference.com).

• General Original created February 7th, 2009 Comments(0)

Jonathan Cloud

There is no doubt that the world faces a daunting prospect in the 21st century, which is to make a transition from an unsustainable to a sustainable way of life. Whether we humans can manage such a transition for our species, and for the web of life on which we depend, is very much an open question.

Let us be very clear about this. The “planet” is not in danger. The natural environment can tolerate an enormous amount of what we are calling “greenhouse gases,” temperatures can soar, oceans can rise, and the weather can become vastly more unstable. This has in fact occurred during the planet’s history. It’s simply that human existence may not be possible under such circumstances, and indeed many of the species that currently exist may become extinct – while others flourish. The age of the dinosaurs was much different from ours, and the ages that preceded it even more so. There was a time when oxygen was merely a trace element in the atmosphere. But what we call – presumptively, it now seems – “intelligent” life, simply did not exist under these circumstances. So the issue is not “saving the planet.” It’s saving ourselves.

The planet, frankly, does not need us. If we prove to be too bellicose to survive, and launch nuclear missiles at each other, we may in fact make the planet “uninhabitable,” but that just means “uninhabitable for us.” If we prove to be indifferent to the welfare of the whole, we will eradicate ourselves by destroying the foundation on which we depend. This may seem extreme, but it is not. The conditions necessary for human existence occur within a very narrow range. Exceeding that range is not just something we might do – as was the case during the era of nuclear confrontation – it is something that is inevitable if we do not change course.

There is almost total scientific consensus around this, and the “global warming skeptics” have now become an increasingly irrelevant fringe. But we hardly need science to prove that human development is on course to exceed the planet’s carrying capacity; it is simply a matter of recognizing that our way of life cannot be continued indefinitely, and indeed parts of it must change now if human development is to continue and to come into balance with nature. This seems so obvious that it almost goes without saying. But it needs to be our starting point in every serious conversation going forward: virtually everything in our economy and our society needs to be reexamined in the light of whether it contributes to a sustainable (and indeed restorative) way of life – or not.

• General Original created February 1st, 2009 Comments(0)

Jonathan Cloud

Additional Tax Benefits For Clean Energy in 2009?
(December 26th, 2008, also posted at Sustainablebusinessincubator.com)

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• General Original created December 29th, 2008 Comments(0)

Jonathan Cloud

If we think about the challenges facing the new Obama Administration, at the top of the list has to be prioritizing the actions that are desperately needed, in so many different areas, and integrating them into a coherent strategy that will put the country back on track, that will get the economy going again, and will once again inspire both sacrifice and greatness.

Should the administration move first on health care, or on the environment, or on housing, or on the economy? Clearly the answer is that it has to do all of these. The question most often asked in the media, though, is how to pay for it.

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• Climate Change , Economics , General , Policy , Sustainability Original created November 13th, 2008 Comments(3)

Jonathan Cloud

I’ve just returned from a five-day workshop in Hohenwald, TN, a remarkable and inspiring event that sought to provide both an introduction to “financial permaculture” and the launch of several new enterprises – including a green incubator – in rural Lewis County (population <15,000).

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• Conferences , Economics , Events , Projects , Sustainability Original created November 3rd, 2008 Comments(0)

Jonathan Cloud

There’s not much good news in the slow-motion global market crash we’ve witnessed over the past couple of weeks, but what is positive is the growing recognition that what matters is not the mostly fictitious Wall Street economy of credit default swaps and mortgage-backed securities but the “real” economy and the disastrous consequences of deregulation for the folks on Main Street. The fact is, as NYU economist Nouriel Roubini has pointed out, ordinary people have pretty much run out of money, stopped buying cars and homes, watched their retirement savings get cut in half, and begun to pull whatever they have left out of the stock market. We are witnessing a worldwide panic that will not be halted by Wall Street bailouts or technical manipulations of the money supply; we need fundamental reform of the economic system, and a reinvestment in infrastructure, jobs, and sustainable energy and other technologies.

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• Economics , Events , Reflections , Sustainability Original created October 12th, 2008 Comments(0)

Jonathan Cloud

We are currently living through the worst financial crisis since the great depression. This is a result not so much of a failure on Wall Street as a failure on Main Street in terms of the subprime mortgage mess. Mortgage brokers, many of them very local businesses, wrote no-doc loans for eager buyers and placed them with banks and finance companies, who in turn re-sold them to other lenders and institutional investors in “bundles,” which these lenders resold to private investors in the form of fractional securities.

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• Economics , Events Original created October 1st, 2008 Comments(0)

Jonathan Cloud

Weaving together the state’s policies on energy, the environment, land use, and the economy, especially in the context of the state’s ongoing budget problems, is no easy task.

Over the past several weeks I have attended a half-dozen conferences on these topics, including sessions on the Energy Master Plan, the New Jersey Utilities Association Conference (where I moderated a panel), and PlanSmart NJ’s spring conference, as well as hosting my own event at Fairleigh Dickinson University on “growing the next generation of green ventures.” I’m left with the sense that we need a new dialogue, that connects the dots and provides an effective pathway to sustainability.

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• Climate Change , Conferences , General , Global Warming , Sustainability Original created August 31st, 2008 Comments(0)