Discussion Board

Well, I have no doubt that eating as Dr. McDougall suggests will, to some extent, produce less global warming than eating a typical SAD diet.
Having said that, what is lost in the minds of most, during this recent media blitz about global warming, is that such tiny steps in altering your habits will only ever so slightly slow down that enormous growth in greenhouse gas emmissions.
What the media has failed to do is to "quantify" the amounts of CO2 involved in various habits we and the world have AND the enormous growth that is going on elsewhere. China and India in particular.
The public also fails to understand the incredible amounts of greenhouse gases that burning coal for power produces.
Everything else pales in comparison to burning coal.
Increasing our auto fuel standards from perhaps 22 mpg to 32 mpg is like a drop in the bucket as long as more and increasingly more coal is burned in China and India. CO2 moves in the wind, its global.

From the NY Times:
"Already, China uses more coal than the United States, the European Union and Japan combined. And it has increased coal consumption 14 percent in each of the past two years in the broadest industrialization ever. Every week to 10 days, another coal-fired power plant opens somewhere in China that is big enough to serve all the households in Dallas or San Diego.
To make matters worse, India is right behind China in stepping up its construction of coal-fired power plants — and has a population expected to outstrip China's by 2030."

Thats right, China is adding a huge new coal plant almost every single week, that creates more CO2 emmissions than all the "savings" that a state the size of California will save by increasing auto fuel economy.
And they are opening a new plant every single week....
Like adding another Dallas fully reliant on coal.......EVERY SINGLE WEEK"

The media fails to educate the public about this huge growth and foolish, almost religious like nuts in the environmental community say any attempt to slow this growth of coal burning by going to nuclear is an abomination.
So either global warming is a real problem, as they would suggest, or it isn't. If it is as bad as the fears would have us believe then real alternatives are needed. In the real world, nuclear power is about the only alternative that can possibly supply massive amounts of 24/7 electric power. It may not be perfect, although France seems to think it is, but it is miles and miles and miles ahead of a massive increase in the burning of the most filthy power via coal.

So its time to get real. If global warming is real, then realistic solutions are needed on a massive scale. Solar, hydro, wind, and bio-fuels are decades and decades away from supplying more than 20% of our energy needs. Coal, natural gas, oil all create more CO2.
The worlds power needs are growing very quickly. They will burn coal.
That is their plan. Coal is cheap and plentiful. They will burn coal in amounts that make their low animal diet pale in comparison with what they do in energy growth via coal.

You must understand the "magnitude" of the numbers involved rather than falling prey to silly television news stories about some guy powering his Volkswagon with french fry oil.
And you must understand that that local college or city hall with all those new solar cells is only able to do that with a massive subsidy from the government (taxes from you and me). Solar power is about the most expensive power around to produce and it only provides energy when the sun shines.

OK......thats all. My point is that you get only about 10% of the true story on the evening news.......and the reality about "magnitude" is hidden by most of the Sierra Club/ Friends of the Earth.......bype organizations, because they simply can't admit that large scale growth via nuclear power may be one of the few alternatives.
They are like George Bush in Iraq. Their mind is made up and facts are of little consequence. Fanatics have a hard time reversing their ideas. Environmentalists are no different.

What you say about coal plants in China is true, and it is a mess. However, per capita they are still insignificant in their energy use, compared to us. The U.S. has less than 5% of the world's population but we use 25% of the world's energy AND we contribute 35% of the world's greenhouse gasses. Plus, don't forget that our energy use is constantly increasing also! We are a wealthy 300 million compared to a poor 1.2 Billion in China. Any reductions we can make will help, and any technological advances we come up with can be exported to the developing world. For example, many villages in India that are "off the grid" are now installing small solar plants for local electrical power--this wouldn't have been possible a few years ago.

Furthermore, the argument you cite from the NYTimes, that China is polluting worse than we are, is the same argument that the POWERFUL oil, gas and coal industries have been making for years to prevent us from making any advances here in our energy efficiency. We have lost decades because of this mindset.

Now, regarding nuclear power, thanks to my in-house physicist I have some information about that--he says it is the single most expensive way to produce power known to man. Aside from the issue of hazards (which is an important issue), the only reason we can run a nuclear power plant at all is because it is hugely subsidized by the government, thru defense needs (we use the plutonium for bombs). Every single nuclear plant in this country has a 19 billion dollar insurance waiver--if something goes wrong you and I will have to pay for it from taxes. Nuclear power would be viable, if and only if it could produce enough energy to pay for itself, including the cost of insurance and waste disposal, but it is not efficient enough to do that (that's the physics part).

Here's a way to compare energy efficiency--look at the estimated lifetime of the power plant, and compare the number of years it takes to earn back that cost in energy terms.
A hydroelectric plant: 70 years est. life, 20 years to recover cost.
A coal-burning plant: 40 years life, 3 years to recover cost
A nuclear plant: 35 years life, 28 years to recover cost.
Hypothetically, if you built a solar plant, you'd expect 80 years life, and at current efficiencies 7 years to recover the cost.

Returning to Dr. McDougall's (and the United Nations') concern about livestock emissions, one estimate is that if everybody in this country went vegan, we'd reduce our national greenhouse gasses by 25%. Which would be a very, very big slice of the world's total greenhouse gasses. Reducing U.S. meat consumption by half, which realistically for SAD eaters would just mean smaller portions and/or a couple of meatless days in the week, would still make a very large dent, without causing Depression-era lifestyle changes.

Remember, I think this is in the bible somewhere, "It is better to light an LED flashlight with rechargeable battery than to curse the darkness." We must get to work on this. We can't wallow in fatalism.

--Anna

p.s. I would be cautious about calling anyone "fanatic" because they oppose nuclear power. You will find good, detailed information on the Union of Concerned Scientists website and on the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists website about the problems of going the nuclear route. The membership of both organizations (UCS=60,000 scientists, B.A.S. 100,000 scientists) opposes nuclear power and there aren't many treehuggers among them. They have more facts about this than anyone. No namecalling, please.

Anna, thanks for the post. I'd say you were true a few years ago, but the rate of change is happening so quickly that all the old arguments of the environmental crowd, including those who promoted Kyoto, have or are being overtaken by current events...
Coal is so many times more dirty and full of CO2 than any other method of producing power. Again from the "hardly right-wing" NY Times...

http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2006/ ... APHIC.html

If......if you still insist on thinking the way you do in terms of 2003 or 2007, then certainly you can't still hold with your ideas about the future.
The arguments regarding global warming are all about future projections.
Take a look at China's postion in just 18 short years (2025) My gosh, I was in China for 3 months back in 1984.....and the change from then until now is beyond belief. The growth is, if anything, accelerating faster now.
Even back then, the pollution in places like Bejing was beyond what you can imagine. I would go out for a day and by the time I got back home it was as though my hair had been sprayed with Aqua-Net because of all the grit and grime that had been deposited. And that was in 1984 before the expansion began.




Look, I am not anti-environmentalist. In fact, I dare say I have a smaller CO2 footprint than perhaps anyone you know....
A few facts which I dare 90% of environmentalists to match.
1. My total gas+eletric bill is under $360..... No, not for January, but for the entire 2006 year.....12 full months. Average less than $30 a month.
2. I drive less than half the miles I move under my own power (biking and walking)
3. I air dry about 9 out of 10 wash loads....
4. I eat mostly McDougall (not perfect)

Life is not perfect. All the choices we have to choose from are imperfect in one way or another. But, with the growing realizations about global warming we have to make some decisions about the best future course.
In doing so we need to reexamine all our old opinions about nuclear power against the very real reality we face and the dangers of continuing to rely on many pie in the sky belief about where are energy will come from.
For several decades nuclear has been a dirty word. Much of the commonly held information is not only out of date but has been over taken by newer technologies such as those in use in France and Japan.
The French are hardly ugly dirty folks who care nothing about their nation, yet they are heading to nearly 90% of their electric power from nuclear.
In fact they export power to Germany which is still on the anti nuke bandwagon. Funny how Germany is more than willing to use the power, but not produce it....even though any "accident" would surely cross borders with the wind. The "Greens" in Germany are much more powerful than in France. This importing of "bad" power is not unlike California which won't allow any new coal plants, yet is making long term contracts for power from "planned" new coal plants being built in other states. In other words, the plants are being built on the basis that California will be buying the power..... Really NIMBY to excess.

So we here in California prohibit coal plants, knowing full well the coal will have to be burned in another state.
Have you ever thought about how much coal has to be burned to keep one 100 watt light bulb burning for one year. Thanks to the internet site "HowStuffWorks" some one has....
OK one typical GE bulb...100 watts.......365 days all day long.

1. 714 pounds of coal
2. 5 pounds sulfer dioxide (acid rain)
3. 5.1 pounds nitrous oxide (smog)
4. 1852 pounds of carbon dioxide (yes, thats not a misprint)

http://science.howstuffworks.com/question481.htm

But we're green in California because we have no coal plants.
About 20 percent of the state's electricity comes from coal plants in Nevada, Wyoming, Utah and other Western states.
BTW, nearly another 20% of California's power comes from two nuclear power plants, without which we'd have been in continous brownouts for decades. And we get about 15% of our power from hydro which, yes, the enviromentalists refuse to allow any more of.
So as you can see, we get 55% of our power from sources the environmental community refuses to allow any growth in. NIMBY
Heck just East of where I live they are protesting wind power because its killing too many birds.
So you tell me whats going to happen as California grows a million people per year and each generation uses more and more power.
BTW, the Sierra Club refuses to take any position on any aspect of immigration legal or illegal.......which now accounts for 100% of our net population growth.

OK......No nuclear....... What do we do? Solar and wind? How about during January after dark? NO power? Get a down sleeping bag buddy.
Need oxygen assistance (generated by power) Mr. Senior Citizen.......
Just get your grandson to man the pumps.

Oh yes, and don't worry about all those millions of pounds of radiation that come along with buring billions of tons of coal.....because its spread out so eveningly in the atmosphere no one will notice...
And those 7,000 Chinese miners who die annually in China's coal mines.....Well just tell them to keep digging so we won't have to use that "dangerous" nuclear power.

OK......thats all. I've made up my mind that there are actually things worse than the scare stories about nuclear power ( some valid and some wildly over inflated)
I just wish with all the media chatter about global warming that the enviromental groups would come up with some realistic solutions that will provide actual massive power needs for billions of people 24/7....
The people are comming.........the power use is rising.....Only wishfull thinking will prevent global warming given the alternatives the environemental purests will allow us to consider.

Thanks for reading....

OH yes.......PS.........Please, when you evaluate any proposals.....do the reality check with math about how it works when it involves a billion houses instead of some handyman with a few solar panels on his roof and a large stack of lead-acid batteries fuming in the garage.
Now off to the living room to fire up the furnace, turn on the 60 inch HiDef Television, and and settle in for another night at home after a hard day on the freeway in my Cadallic Escalade.... Ah thats living the American Way.......

OH!! I had to laugh about the last paragraph!!! YOu have a great sense of humour! Keep it coming! *L*

--Li

Okay, I ain't no scientist, but I took a physics class in college back in 1973...

The instructor said back then there was no excuse, technologically speaking, for us not powering up with solar, wind, hydro and getting off the coal and staying away from nuclear.

He said diesel was meant to run on vegetable oil, and fossil-derived diesel fuels were introduced later on.

This prof thought we were going the wrong direction in the face of the technology that existed back in 1973, before micorwave oven, computers, cell phones and all the techie stuff we've got today.

Sooo...what went wrong????? Why are we sucking/exploding/drilling/digging fossil fuels almost 35 years later? Was our physics prof in LA-LA Land...or are we lookin' at bold-faced, obstinate greed???? I don't care how edumucated you are...nuclear power is just too risky to take chances with it, let alone whatever logistical problems exist.

Oh yeah...how come the plug-in vehicles were all ripped from their owners and smashed in the dessert, never to be replaced????? How come the solar panels Jimmy Carter had installed at the White House were removed and destroyed???? How come the CORN STOVE...a common sense heating stove...how come those, introduced into America in the early '70's, were never given any opportunity to catch on?

Okay...groundhog(g) comin' down from her high horsie for now ! That felt good, though, especially with this being National Road Rage Day and all... at least it SEEMED that way drivin' in to work this moring ! Now I got a chance to get some of it out of me. Whew!

I love it! Healthy righteous indignation.
--Li

Puddy: I thought a lot about what you wrote and tried to decide why it provoked such a strong reaction in me. One thing I don't like about the internet is that I'm not as good as reading tone in writing as in person. So I believe a lot of your writing contained anger, but I'm not clear on why. Is it that you don't believe in global warming, even though you have taken steps to inform yourself on greenhouse gases and taken pains to inform us about the personal steps you have taken to reduce your foodprint? Is it that you believe and care greatly about this earth, but you are overwhelmed with fear and react by being angry? I couldn't quite decide about your motivation. And since my personality finds that important to know how to respond, I just let it be.

And then it came to me: it doesn't matter. Bird 'flu is going to handle all the problems attributed to excess population anyway.

BTW, since I am not a nuclear physicist and am in no imminent danger of becoming one, I don't find it particularly helpful to enter a debate about nuclear (or is that nucular?) vs wind etc. I guess you could accuse me of NIMBY syndome, but honestly, a whole nuclear power plant really wouldn't fit in my back yard. I think that sidetracks the issue which, is for me, how can I as one person do my part to limit greenhouse gases.

It is fortunate that people like Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks and Gandhi didn't get too overwhelmed by the enormity of their causes and just took one baby step at a time to effect what change they could.

(Yes, I am an idealist too. That is part of my psych profile. )

I'm discouraged about continuing a discussion with someone who has already "made up their mind" but nonetheless, a couple of points:

On coal, the FACT is that we still have more coal plants than China and we are still the dirtiest country in the world. That has to be dealt with, aside from fears for the future.

On nuclear, unfortunately the efficiency of nuclear power has not improved and it is still not a viable way to provide the world's energy, looking at it from the point of view of the physics (energy in/energy out).

Yes, France has widespread use of nuclear breeder reactors that provide much of their electricity, but at a cost that is not widely publicized. The reactors are supported by the defense department and produce a lot more bomb-making material. They are exporting their nuclear waste to other countries, and illegally dumping some of it in Africa. The reactors are a security nightmare, vulnerable to attack and impossible to protect. Fissile materials (suitable for dirty bombs) are being stolen in a similar way that they've been stolen from Russian sites after the fall of the Soviet Union, which is an international crisis. If every country got their energy this way... well I don't have time to say more. See the International Atomic Energy Authority's website for more on this. You can't fantasize that somehow nuclear is viable because wishing won't make it so.

Finally, on environmentalists, you can't blame 'environmentalists' for the fact that we don't have viable alternatives to fossil fuels. Groundhogg is exactly right (above) in implying that it's all about money. Coal, hydro and nuclear work to the extent they do because of INVESTMENT of massive financial resources.

Who made those decisions to invest in those technologies?? (rhetorical question). If we took even part of those resources and applied them to solar, wind power, cogeneration technologies, we'd see dramatic changes very fast. From what I hear from scientists working in these fields, we are a lot further along than the media realizes in terms of the science and technology of alternative power. (By the way, the New York Times is notoriously bad on their science reporting. Which McDougallers can see for themselves--when has the NYT ever published the truth about diet and health?) What is lacking is the will and the determination to go against the powerful industries and put the money into better approaches.

Can we do it? Who knows. But we should try.
--Anna

AnnaS: Would it be inappropriate to say that there are a few posters here I am in love with?

Oh Hope you are too cute!!! BUt, oh so right!

hope101--How sweet! But I was thinking the same thing, because I liked what you said about King, Parks, Gandhi. Those idealists are good role models!

Hi, Hope--Did you mean to address this post to Puddy or Purdy? I usually don't pay much attention to things like that, but in this case, I'd hope to not have Puddy mistaken for Purdy, if that was not your intent. I don't see a post from Puddy in this thread, unless you were referring to something else...?

Oops! My bad. Thanks, Clary. Puddy, I definitely meant to be posting to Purdy.

You're welcome, Hope.
Thanks for the clarification.

Look, perhaps you misunderstand me. I'd prefer solar and wind over nuclear. As I said, I do my part on limiting my use of energy. I'm one of the few whose current low power consumption might allow for getting by on some solar panels IF they could ever solve the battery problem with all its "lead acid" waste problems.
But I am not the typical consumer household nor am I the typical 15,000 mile per year driver.
Reality enters this picture. California and world population reality also enters the picture. Unless some amazing breakthrough happens in solar production as well as the all important battery technology, then solar is not going to produce even 10% of the projected growth in power needs.
Those are facts which all the best intentions and wishful thinking doesn't change.
Electric vehicles need electric power produces somewhere. Hydrogen vehicles need hydrogen, which some people fail to realize need vast amounts of electric power to produce. It takes more power to produce the hydrogen than you derive from the hydrogen when you put it into a automobile. Once again, the need for fast amounts of 24 HOUR power.
Solar does not produce power 24 hours per day. Wind does not produce power 24 hours per day.
ALL the known environmental groups are against any more dams in California. Most of the environmental groups are fighting against new wind farms in California. Back east even the Kennedys are fighting against wind farms off the coast from the Kennedy compound.
NIMBY is everywhere.

So we are left with some difficult problems. Do you force people to abandond air conditioners in the summer and heating in the winter.
If that kind of regulation is not enforceable then WHERE do you get the projected power growth everyone says is happening as we speak.
Like I said, California is growing a million people per year.
The Sierra Club etc. are unwilling to take any stance that would limit that growth.

So we come back to that pesky math problem. Where are you going to get reliable 24/7 power over the next few decades.
Natural gas? Thats more greenhouse gases. Coal, the dirtyest and largest source of greenhouse gases. Fuel oil......from the oh so safe, Middle East, along with more Greenhouse gases..

Bottom line, is the recent rise in talk about Global Warming real?
If the answer is yes, then some hard choices are gonna have to be made. Those choices may have to include options that were previously objectionable.

A few years ago, during California's energy crunch and brownouts, I was in charge of the care of a elderly person. We had to contact the fire department and set up special provisons such that during the brownouts the person would not be at risk do to lack of power for their life sustaining electronics, including oxygen generation other emergency assistance.
Brown outs are not a option as a method to address lack of power.
Reality set in. Silicon wafer factories cannot operate with power interruptions. It ruins millions of dollars of product when they lose power.

This is not just about folks running their radio, computer and TV from a few solar panels. It is not about a perfect world where the perfect choice exists.
All I ask is that people get out a simple $5 calculator and do the real math involved when someone suggest we can all drive down the road on biodiesel and power our TV with $3,000 of solar panels and $2,000 of lead-acid batteries. Now multiply that set-up by 10,000,000 houses in California....... Lets see, thats 200 million lead-acid batteries needing disposal every few years... Hmmm.....lead........now is that good stuff?

Magnitude.....math........real calculations. Reality

7 year pay backs on solar power. Oh sure, I believe that. Why its right here in the brochure the Solar Power company gave to me.
OH, you mean thats for a 1,000 sq ft house in the Arizona desert with a 50% government subsidy (we pay).....and OH, you mean thats the payback of the money assuming we don't count interest, and that we don't ever have to either buy or replace batteries?
Oh, you mean no batteries because we will only use the power during the daylight.......and then we'll just hook up to the grid for the night?
Solar reality, when done by fair minded accountant types, comes up with paybacks of close to 15 years, and that does not include the "cost of money"......meaning it doesn't account for what that same money would have earned invested elsewhere.

So you are right. Nuclear is not a perfect solution. Not even close.
But IF...........and its a big IF...........If the dire warnings about Global Warming are indeed true, then we need to choose among the REAL, VIABLE.......methods to produce massive 24/7 power.
Among those choices, many environmentalists aren now comming to the shocking realization that nuclear power may be one of our better choices.
We can't wish the future away. We can't stop population growth or the growth of the new Asian power hungry societies.
China's power consumption is growing by 14% per year. That equals a doubling every 5.5 years. They are powering it by coal.

To your point about the USA having more coal plants than China.
According to the World Coal Institute
Top Ten Hard Coal Producers (2005e)
PR China 2226 Mt
USA 951 Mt
Australia 301 Mt
South Africa 240 Mt
Russia 222 Mt

It would appear both from the World Coal Institute and from the NY Times article, that China not only passed the USA several years ago, but is growing at many times the rate of coal consumption that the USA is.
The USA is replacing old coal plants a few per year. China is building "additional" coal plants at the rate of 1 per week.

As I said in another thread. The projected (by the Chinese Govt.) increase in coal use in China from 2004 until 2020 will be from 1.9 billion tons to 2.9 billion tons annual usage.
Putting that annual 1.0 billion ton "increase" into perspective in terms of additional CO2 gases...
That is the same as adding 3.0 "billion" additional Ford Expeditions to the USA roads.......EACH driving 15,000 miles per year.
Currently we have only about 60 million SUVs. So Chinas burning of coal will be like adding 50 times all the SUV's we currently have.

I know.......sounds like made up figures. Massive exaggeration huh?
Thats what I first believed when I read this example in Forbes magazine.
I thought even though the article was not about global warming, that this must have been some convoluded right wing propaganda to do something. But the article was about the bright prospects of a certain coal company in China. The global warming aspect was only included to inject some problems that may occur with this company's prospects.
In other words......it was a warning about the economic prospects of the company being allowed to continue its current growth.
So the fact about the 3.0 billion SUV's was essentially true.
I checked the basic math from other sources....

Coal is so amazingly dirty and CO2 producing that even hardened enviromentalists are having to rethink the future.

OK........enough facts for now.
The PollyAnna's (I don't mean you) of the environmental movement are getting cold buckets of water (coal) poured over there heads as reality bites back.
Its time to bite teh bullet and choose the best "bad" choice.
Thats why I and many other environmentally responsible people are coming around to newer nuclear technology.
The other choices or non-choices are just too scary.

Thanks for listening

BTW, the founder of Greenpeace is one of those who have changed their mind. Many other examples. Public polls in California are also begining to favor nuclear although the multiple "enviro" pressure groups still have the politicians ears.