I for one, would like Harry Reid to explain
just why the Yucca Mtn. project is so bad.

I know that to this point it has been unbelievably
expensive, but I would question that it's an
unsafe place to store nuke waste.

I rather suspect that the reasons are purely political and that Harry Reid is costing the
taxpayer a bundle of money.

The liquid fluoride thorium reactor burns plentiful thorium, but needs a start-up charge of fissile material, such as spent nuclear fuel from today's light water nuclear reactors. Thorium energy, cheaper than from coal, can dissuade all nations from burning coal and emitting CO2, without carbon taxes -- that developing nations wil never accept. We can dispose of 99% of the long-lived nuclear waste and check global warming.

A tutorial presentation is posted at
http://rethinkingnuclearpower.googlepages.com/aimhigh

Energy and Transportation should be separate line items in the Congressional Budget for the simple reason is that its too easy to mingle dollars when lumped together.

As for High Speed Light Rail - the other option would be to spend more dollars in the area of Urban-Suburban rail systems as opposed to Inter City rails systems. More fuel and energy is wasted moving a single car and occupant to and from work every day than what these Inter City rail services will save. If you consider the reality that a rail system between NY and Chicago can be replaced with 21st Century Lighter than Air craft which consume a fraction of the fuel that a standard jet aircraft uses and won't experience the same right of way fees and construction costs as rail will - can save the taxpayers a lot of money and deliver a solution faster and cheaper. A lighter than air aircraft can reach significant rates of speed just like rail systems and get the commuters to their destinations on a timely manner.

Obama's Carbon Reduction Plan actually reduces longevity of plant life on Earth.
540 million years ago CO2 was 7000ppm (when animals first started walking the Earth)
170 million years ago CO2 was 1700 ppm (when dinosaurs lived and life flourished)
250 years ago CO2 was 250ppm (after the Little Ice Age)
currently, because of man, CO2 is 385ppm (about 5% of what it was 540 years ago)

Plant life dies at 150-180ppm through asphyxiation.  What is our ecopolicians’ goal for CO2 sequestration?
CO2 is a finite resource. Nature has been sequestering it underground for 540 million years. At the rate of decrease over the last 170 million years, Earth would have hit 150ppm in about 10 million years . Odd as it may seem, man had inadvertently increased the life essential CO2 concentrations, and if we were to disappear today, the added CO2 probably adds another 10 million years to plant life on Earth. However, man is clever, and may find a way to bury CO2 and make it unavailable to nature at an accelerated rate.  This could be accomplished though genetic means, iron seeding in the oceans, CO2 injection into the Earth, or other proposed means. Thus, we may yet find a way to kill off most of the planet's plant life, thus ending the 3rd atmosphere.  Why isn’t anybody raising the threat?  Is it because most people don’t think 10 million years in the future?
                                        
And in regards to man’s effect on climate change, please consider:

N2O, is 296 times worse than CO2, and 3% of fertilizer for corn (used for ethanol) is emitted into the air as N2O. And yet N2O is not carbon based.  Will that be regulated? And if so, will the cost of food soar?

CH4 (methane) is emitted from rotting wood and is 22X worse than CO2. Will that be regulated? Termites create considerable methane, how will regulate that?   Will methane be treated equally as CO2 despite its unequal effect? 

H2 (hydrogen) in the atmosphere combines with hydroxyls (-OH) and removes that from the air. Hydroxyls normally combine with free methane to remove it. A hydrogen economy may actually increase the longevity of methane in the air, thus increasing Global Warming Gas effect. Will the EPA control that?  How will the politicians promote a hydrogen economy and yet balance a potential increasing of methane in the atmosphere?

Burning wood reduces the amount of methane released but increases CO2 over letting it rot which releases much more methane and less CO2. Methane oxidizes in about 9 years to CO2. Will the EPA promote burning scrap wood as a means of decreasing the overall GW effect?

The current policy doesn't actually use science in its decision making. What is at stake is that if the government controls CARBON it controls LIFE.

Meanwhile, I grow trees. Agricultural growth rate has increased over 30% because of the increase of CO2 in the past 250 years. What is the end game? Are we trying to reduce CO2 to preindustrial 250ppm? Do you realize that we would lose the 30% agricultural gain and thus cause massive starvation across the planet?  And do you know what happens when global concentrations drop to about 150ppm? Most life on Earth DIES.  Is this what we want to promote?

These are the taboo topics that only a courageous reporter dare cover.

As for Yucca Mountain storage, my wife was commissioned years ago by Sierra Magazine to write about nuclear vitrification.  She discussed it with 13 different groups including the two experts the Sierra Club had provided.  All were positive or neutral about the technology, and how it offered to solve the problems of waste storage. The magazine killed the article because, as the Executive Editor stated "As a matter of policy, they don't run any articles that puts nuclear power in a positive light".  The liberals don't want free speech, they want control.

This is a synthesis of the leadership advice President Obama and President Fernández need to get our countries out of the recession stronger and sooner. Avoid by all means the uncertain business as usual that induces short term financial capital and one time green jobs; call for the certainty of a well architected reform to induce long term production capital and permanent green jobs.

To learn the details of the synthesis, please hit the link embedded in the title of the EWPC article Permanent or One Time Green Jobs?

We should be spending money in the area of food science; if we find ways to efficiently grow corn and other crops then that will open up land to be used for bio-fuels crops; at the same time it would create food science jobs in the food science industries.