Nuclear Power

 In its effort to control global warming and the resulting climate change, the world should not ignore nuclear power.  Nuclear power produces no greenhouse gases.  Many environmentalists oppose nuclear power because they fear an accident.  They would rather freeze in the dark than build another nuclear power plant to keep the heat and lights on.  Dealing with climate change would be easier if the it did not require giving up creature comforts like heat, light, the internet, electric cars, and all the other things that run on electricity.  We can produce electricity without producing greenhouse gases.  We should not turn out backs to that option. 

With current technology, it appears unlikely that the US can replace all carbon-fueled electric generation plants with renewable sources of electricity.  Wind and solar can produce significant amounts of electricity, but neither can be depended on to produce the needed amount 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.  Hydroelectric power from dams has been a long-time important source of electricity, but a water shortage is seriously limiting power production in the western US.  Storage technologies like batteries and hydrogen can help fill gaps when solar or wind power are unavailable, but so far is incapable to supporting the entire US power grid, leaving the job of picking up the slack to carbon-fueled plants that emit greenhouse gases.  Nuclear could pick up the slack easily without emitting greenhouse gases. 

Accidents at nuclear plants are a hazard.  There have been serious nuclear accidents, such as Chernobyl and Fukushima, but others, such as Three Mile Island, caused little lasting harm.  Compared to the disasters that climate change may bring, even the serious accidents may be less harmful than climate change.  The affect many people, but are localized, while climate change affects the whole world, bringing drought, crop failures, starvation, mass migration, hurricanes, rising sea levels, flooding cities.  Climate change is more likely to destroy several major cities than nuclear power is. 

Evidence of the fact that nuclear power is relatively safe is the fact that the average age of the 94 nuclear reactors operating at the 56 nuclear power plants in the US is 39 years old, according to the US Energy Information Agency.  Twenty-three nuclear reactors are shut down and being decommissioned.  These reactors produce about 20 percent of the electric power in the US.  The Energy Information Agency projects that because nuclear plants are old and are not being replaced, nuclear power will have less generating capacity in 2050 than it had in 2020.  This will be bad for global warming. 

 

Intel's Opening

When Satya Nadella took over as boss of Microsoft in 2014 he started by opening Windows. Unlike his predecessors, who had kept the software giant’s crown jewel hermetically sealed from the outside world, he exposed the operating system (os) to the breeze of competition. The firm’s other programs, which used to run almost exclusively on Windows, could now operate on other oss, including Linux, an “open-source” rival which Microsoft had previously called a “cancer”. The manoeuvre both broadened the market for Microsoft’s software and improved Windows by forcing it to compete with rival oss on more equal terms. In the process, it shook up Microsoft’s culture, helped it shed its reputation as a nasty monopolist and paved the way for a stunning revival that saw its market value soar above $2trn.

Now the other half of the once almighty “Wintel” arrangement, whereby pcs would run on Windows software and chips made by Intel, wants to throw the windows open. The American semiconductor giant has long guarded its core chipmaking business as jealously as Microsoft did its os. After years of product delays, misplaced technology bets and changing management, it is ready for some fresh air. “Our processes, our manufacturing, our intellectual property through our foundry services [producing processors for other chipmakers]: all will now be available to the world,” professes Pat Gelsinger (pictured), Intel’s newish boss.

From the Economist

Colorado Dark

  It is called Colorado’s last boom town. Ten thousand people stampeded into Creede in the late 1800s in search of the silver hidden within the San Juan Mountains. The town was the epitome of the Wild West, a hangout for outlaws and conmen. But more than the shoot-outs and gamblers, it was the mines that made Creede. For nearly 100 years its prosperity was tied to the price of silver. The town’s last mine closed in 1985 and only about 300 people remain. Ghost towns and the creaky remnants of old mining camps litter the mountains. Now environmentalists and residents are looking to another sparkly resource to revive the economy: the stars.

Headwaters Alliance, a local non-profit organisation, wants to create a “dark-sky reserve” in aptly named Mineral County, which includes Creede. The campaign is not unique to southern Colorado. Dark-sky communities are cropping up around the American West. The International Dark-Sky Association (ida), based in Tucson, wants towns to curb their light pollution, which harms nocturnal wildlife and obscures the stars. The ida has certified more than 130 dark-sky places globally since 2001; 14 of them are in Colorado.

From the Economist

Quantitative Easing

Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers’ August 26 op-ed in the Washington Post is an excellent commentary of the Federal Reserve’s policy of “quantitative easing.”  Under quantitative easing, the Fed buys bonds, which keeps down interest rates and adds more money to the economy, greasing the wheels of commerce.  Summers says that this was necessary during the financial crisis of 2008 and during the first shock of the Covid crisis in 2020, but not now.  Quantitative easing tends to benefit the wealthy, pushing the stock market and other asset prices, like homes, higher, but not doing much for regular people. 

Furthermore, because of the way Fed borrowing works, quantitative easing tends to shorten the term of the debt.  Summers says that with interest rates so low at present, the Fed and Treasury should be financing long term debt, locking in the current low interest rates.  Summers is not convinced that interest rates will stay low forever.  Inflation is a bigger threat than the Fed currently acknowledges. 

Summers warns that the Fed has followed the course of quantitative easing without examining where it is going.  He fears that following the easy path of the status quo will lead us into a financial quagmire similar to the way our continuation of unexamined policies led eventually to disasters in Vietnam and Afghanistan. 

I think that Summers is right on.  But Wall Street and most people love quantitative easing because it is good for almost everyone in the short term, just better for the rich.  However, the question is whether there is a problem in the longer term.  While inflation is the immediate concern, there might be other disruptions of the market, a stock market crash, or problems in the labor market, or failure of supply chains for food and other daily needs.  It’s also possible that nothing bad will happen.  We are in uncharted territory by letting quantitative easing and “easy money” run so long. 

China is tightening up its financial markets.  Most people think this is political, to reign in the power the Chinese billionaires vis-à-vis the government.  I think the Chinese may also be worried about dislocations in their economy.  They may think that tightening up now may prevent worse consequences in the future.  If so, I share their concerns.  I wish the Fed did, too.  I think Larry Summers does.