The Pandemic Has Been the Best Thing That Ever Happened for Many Americans

 

Generation X, the oft-overlooked demographic group squeezed between the Baby Boomers and Millennials, has experienced a wealth boom in the U.S. since Covid-19 was declared a national emergency…..

As of June this year, Generation X held 28.6% of the nation’s wealth, up 3.9 percentage points from the first quarter of 2020, according to Fed data. In dollar value, that translates into a 50% gain in their aggregate net worth — the difference between a household’s assets and debts…. 

In five quarters, equity assets owned by Gen X households more than doubled to $10.5 trillion, according to the Fed data. That amount is now more than 10 times the stock holdings of Millennials — yet only about half Boomers’ equity holdings.

Bloomberg

Bitcoin and Nuclear Power

The Wall Street Journal reports that bitcoin miners are turning to nuclear power plants to make their huge energy use appear to be less damaging to the environment.  The article “Bitcoin Miners Eye Nuclear Power as Environmental Criticism Mounts,” says that bitcoin miners in the US are setting up mining facilities the size of several football fields near nuclear power plants to take advantage of the fact that nuclear power does not emit greenhouse gases. 

By design the number of Bitcoins is limited and it becomes more and more difficult, and more energy intensive, to mine additional Bitcoins.  Using so much energy has made Bitcoin environmentally unpopular. If Bitcoins had not become so valuable, it would probably be uneconomic to mine them using any kind of commercial energy.

The article details the growing problems with nuclear power. Nuclear power has become less competitive as fracking has made natural gas less and less expensive. Fear of nuclear power has meant that few new nuclear plants are being built in the US. Almost all nuclear plants are old and are on the verge of being retired.  According to Wikipedia, between 2000 and 2020, the amount of electric power produced by nuclear energy in the United States has remained almost constant at about 20%.  Meanwhile during the same period, the percentage produced by coal dropped from about 50% to 20%; the natural gas percentage rose from 16% to 40%, and the renewable percentage rose from 10% to 20%. For renewables, the biggest change was in wind energy production, which rose from almost nothing in 2000 to over 8% in 2020. The big drop in coal usage has largely been replaced by natural gas, with some contribution from wind energy.

Producing electricity with natural gas produces less greenhouse gas than with coal, but the result of burning gas is still carbon dioxide. If there were a real carbon tax, producing electricity with natural gas would become more expensive. Nuclear plants do not emit carbon dioxide, which is why Bitcoin miners are turning to it to improve their public image.

The Breeder Reactor Arugment

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists published a lengthy article about the problems of using plutonium in nuclear power reactors, essentially an argument against breeder reactors.  It is based on a book by Frank von Hippel, Plutonium: How Nuclear Power’s Dream Fuel Became a Nightmare. It is essentially an argument against TerraPower, a new type of reactor proposed by Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and others, including some funding from the US Department of Energy. 

The Bulletin article argues against any use of plutonium for power generation because of two downsides:

•     Potential use of plutonium in a nuclear weapon;  
•      The danger of serious nuclear accident;  
•      A related problem is the disposal of dangerous nuclear waste. 

India’s use of civilian-produced plutonium in its first test nuclear explosion in 1974 illustrated the weapon proliferation dangers.  The US government turned against the use of plutonium in power reactors, but Britain and France continued to pursue the technology.  Separating plutonium from spent nuclear fuel is called reprocessing, which is an essential process for creating plutonium for weapons.  The US agreed not to oppose reprocessing in certain countries, including the UK, France, Japan and Germany.  The Soviet Union of course had its own reprocessing plants for military or civilian plutonium.  The book then discusses how most of the countries that started reprocessing largely abandoned the technique, except for France, which relies on nuclear power for much of its electricity.  Beside France, reprocessing continues in India, Russia, Japan and China. 

According to Wikipedia, TerraPower’s fuel cycle plan does not involve reprocessing nuclear fuel to produce plutonium.  The plutonium would remain in the reactor.  As the uranium fuel in the reactor center core is used up, the plutonium produced in outside layers around the core who take over as the fuel. All the waste would remain in the reactor until it was decommissioned.  Of course, this still leaves the problem of waste disposal in the future, although it reduced the proliferation problem. 

According to The Guardian, the first reactor of this type may be built in Wyoming. 

Rise of Muslims after 9/11

 

Watching the analysis of the 20^th anniversary of 9/11, I was stuck by how many of the talking heads were Muslims.  It looked like 9/11 and Osama bin Laden were the best things that ever happened to American Muslims.  Twenty years ago, you seldom saw women wearing head scarfs; now you see them everywhere. 

It was a rough few years for Muslims immediately after 9/11 as suspicious minds tended to believe that all Muslims were terrorists.  But then the reaction set in.  American media and academia defended and supported Muslims as good, ordinary people.  As a result Muslims and Islamic ideas have become much more important to American politics and thinking.  America has become more Islamic and less Christian. 

Islamists not only won the war in Afghanistan, they won the war for minds in America.  Osama bin Laden did not “win,” but he should be proud of what he accomplished in terms of promoting Islam. 

In 2001, there were no Muslims in the American Congress; today there are three.  More and more Muslims are running for office and assuming more important positions around the country.  The Los Angeles Times reports that Muslims are becoming more politically active, particularly in Michigan which has a large Muslim community.  The PBS NewsHour, under Muslim Amna Nawaz’s leadership, has been particularly active in lobbying for and promoting Muslims and Islam in the US.   

Before 9/11 the Democratic Party was unified in its support for Israel; today many Democrats sympathize with the Arabs who oppose Israel, rather than with Israel. Before 9/11 the Democratic Party was unified in its support for Israel; today many Democrats sympathize with the Arabs who oppose Israel, rather than with Israel.