Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder, has become a harsh critique abruptly leaving it after leading the group from 18-years because of what he calls “pop-environmentalism.” Specifically he cites fellow directors who without any formal science training labeled nuclear energy “evil” while going on to chemicals and biology and genetics. He calls it “pop-environmentalism” that uses misinformation, fear and sensationalism to deal with people on the emotional level rather than intellectual level.

Moore favors nuclear power because of its low cost ($1.68 per kilowatt hour) and reliability. Moore says natural gas cost three times as much (and where most of the electrical cost increases have come from); wind cost five times as much and solar ten times as much. Moore calls solar power completely ridiculous.

Mooreexplains nuclear waste recycling reduced it by 90% makinh it disposal manageable. He wonders how many Americans know half of the U. S. nuclear energy comes from dismantled Russian nuclear war heads? He speaks of a nuclear renaissance to replace coals fired power plants, and debunking the misbegotten idea nuclear reactors produce weapons which they do not. Moore labels the environmental movement an “obstacle.”

Excerpted and edited from NEWSWEEK, April 21, 2008, page 42.

U.S.average retail gasoline prices have reached a new high, and are expected to rise 20 to 30 cents per gallon this summer says MoneyNews.com. According to the nationwide Lundberg survey of about 7,000 gas stations the price has risen 64 cents per gallon in the past 12 months as refiners are more willing to pass along rising crude oil prices. OPEC (the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) is unwilling to increase production saying the U. S. can not refine more crude because no new refineries have been built in 30-years due to environmental zealots and their Congressional allies who have also bottled up new oil production thereby creating the price problem – so, they say, why should we help when you are helping yourself? So, apparently the “pain-at-the-pump” is not yet enough to provoke protest and revolt although gasoline use declined nationwide in January for the first time ever.

I believe mankind should immediately and seriously embark on a goal, to be driven by technology, not market based trading schemes as they have unintended consequences, to reduce worldwide use of and dependence of most of the world on so many carbon based energy sources. This should be done without political hysteria (ha) or business resistance (ha), in order to bring change to the oil based tensions in the world, to stimulate intellectual processes and learning, to create new economic businesses to create jobs and as an important byproduct to reduce our contribution of green house gases into the atmosphere, whether or not our use is determinative to short term climate change. Still an open question in science.

Most importantly for the US, national security is on the line and our unnecessary budget deficits are ballooned by our attempts to keep oil flowing to the entire world, not just to the US.

Iran is worried over rising political and ethnic unrest. Of course senior officials accuse the United States of helping foment protests by labor unions and students. Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has recruited 12.5 million people to “monitor” the behavior and opinions of other Iranians. Not since the darkest days of Stalinism and Maoism has any regime mobilized so many citizens against fellow citizens; neighbor against neighbor, children against parents. Accused are watched; usually interrogated; often threatened, sometimes roughed up, and often arrested and imprisoned or worse. Some are reported to have disappeared.

FutureGen lost the support of the Bush administration last week because the estimated price tag had doubled to 1.8 Billion. FutureGen is the Energy Department effort with a dozen or so private utility companies from around the the world to develop a prototype plant to burn “clean coal.” Since all non government contributions were set at 400 Million all of the increase would be born directly by the government.