Tag: water

While bloggers spend in incessant amount of time politicing this and politicing that, the country is crumbling before our very eyes. The backbone of any nation-state is its infrastructure. While other countries have made huge advancements in their transportation and energy grid, our basic utilities are falling back to pre-industrial standards.

We all know about the bridge collapses, the zeitgeist of last summer. When that was no longer a great political football to kick around, it was largely forgotten. And of course, in true American fashion, nothing was done, except some well-lit photo ops of elected leaders pretending to give a damn.

What is more striking though, is not how our energy policy is archaic, but that our most basic need of all is about to fall into utter disrepair. We can go on forever without our horseless carriages, but we can’t live a few days without water.

Yes, water. Our entire national water grid is cracked, weathered and falling apart. All across the country the nation’s cities have aging delivery systems that are in need of desperate repairs. Most of these pipes and tunnels were built in the 1800s and have long passed even the most generous of life spans.

And we have done nothing, or saved up money, to correct this issue.

Again, we are taking about water. Not some frill or excess of the American Dream. Basic drinking water.

On January 12, 2008, I posted a piece titled Smarter Parts: Improving Efficient Energy Use and Demand? that touched upon an experimental program sponsored out of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). The essence of the program was to create a home energy system that could respond to changing prices and peak demand loads by dialing back energy consumption. The system would be accessible via the internet so homeowners could make changes in absentia. An update to the story included another article indicating that in 2009, California regulators may have direct access to homeowner thermostats via radio-controlled devices in new or substantially modified houses and buildings to manage electricity shortages — a plan cooked up by the California Energy Commission (CEC).

I opened a discussion thread for the piece in a few places, including several Delphi forums. In one thread,¹ some energy and water efficiency ideas came up. One in particular spawned the short poll that you’re about to see. Please read on, and take the poll; results will be published at the end of next week and included in another piece that I will cross-post in all areas where this appears.

I posted this yesterday at Daily Kos – under a different title “Nuclear is Not the Answer”.  The pro- nuke shills immediately descended upon the diary and I’m only now coming up for breath.  Maybe some folks here will read it for what it’s about – our current (and future) shortage of cool water is a major problem for nuclear plants.

Here’s the diary:

Nuclear power is not the answer to global climate change. Other than the safety issues connected to nuclear waste, which are pretty well-publicized, there is a major problem with thermal load, which is not so well known.

Nuclear plants need cool water for cooling.  Hotter water temperatures in the Tennessee River this summer caused TVA to suspend operations at their Browns Ferry Plant.  Browns Ferry is downstream from 3 other TVA nukes which had already heated up the river to a point to prohibit further heating.

France and Germany have had the same problem – in the 2003 heat wave.  The rivers on which their nuclear plants were built were heating up beyond their environmental agenies’ standards for aquatic life. A choice had to be made between nuclear power and the health of their rivers and aquatic life. 

As folks who read the great diary this weekend on Atlanta’s water shortage must recognize, with climate change and rising temps, the cool water necessary for nuke plants will be a scarcity