Chiron's Blog

There aren't going to be any electric cars! It would add at least $10,000 to the price of a car and, without nuclear power, there is no cheap way to charge them. Our government, especially Congress, is suffering from Attention Deficit Disorder. I've been in the energy business enough years to see Federal energy plans come and go; none stay around long enough to solve any problems.

It takes about 22 mills to make a kilowatt from coal and 8 mills to make a kilowatt from nuclear power. I sat at meetings in the White House and watched the nuclear industry distroyed. I was also involved in the Breeder Reactor Corporation. We were $1.4 billion into the program and a new President of the United States decided to kill the project. The head of the USDOE said, "the President feels we can buy that technology from the French." When Three Mile Island failed and indeed had a "melt down," the safe guards worked. A British executive from a UK nuclear utility told me they vent more radioactivity during maintence than escaped from Three Mile Island and yet the environmentalist in the USA used the incident as an example of why we shouldn't build nuclear plants.

It isn't just nuclear. I was Chairman of a Federal coal gasification program in the late 70's. The Federal government was going to reduce our dependance on foreign oil. Somewhere along the line that basket of kittens we call the Congress saw something more shiny and forgot about energy independence... again.

This has been a wonderful result for African Americans; not so wonderful for women. Sarah Palin was relentlessly attacked, ridiculed, and diminished. She had more experience than Obama but was thought to be unqualified. So much for the equality of women in the work place.

I love to go on and on about how there is so little difference between Republicans and Democrats that you needed a letter (R) or (D) beside their names our you can't tell them apart. But now there is a difference; a huge difference!

Now the choice is Capitalism or Communism, a war hero or a man who makes fun of people clinging to their guns and bibles, and experience or experimenting. The choice is finally clear.  Think about a country were the chain of command is Obama, Biden, and Pelosi - no experience, non-experience, and words fail me.

When Barbara West, a TV news anchor at Florida television station WFTV, pointed out that Obama’s latest description of his economic policy was essentially a quote from the Communist Party’s famous leader Karl Marx: “…the state will take from each according to his ability and give to each according to his need,” her station was officially banned by the Obama team. Imagine how he’ll run the White House. Maybe it doesn’t matter; I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of journalists with the guts to ask him anything other than what his favorite color is. It is all blowing away on the wind – so few politicians with courage, so few news people that are unbiased, and so few leaders. In a way, even though I am a conservative, it is a shame that Senator Obama turned out to be just another slick talker in a suit.  

Karl Marx. You can put lipstick on him; he is still a Communist.

Dear Kmestis,

In response to your aversion to nuclear power:  

Waste Storage: There is storage space for spent fuel. A facility was constructed miles underground in the New Mexican desert many years ago. I was in it. The ground was proven not to have been disturbed by water for over 250,000 years. The Clinton administration decided not to use it - millions for nothing again. Also, is the remote possibility of minor radioactive problems worse than the tons of carbon dioxide now going into the atmosphere? You might be interested to know that spent nuclear submarine fuel cores lay in open fields as we speak. We await our leader’s decision on what to do with them.
Three Mile Island: Three Mile Island was actually proof that nuclear is safe. TMI turned out to have actually been a complete melt down and yet essentially no radioactivity escaped. Visitors from the British Nuclear agency told us they vent more radioactivity during regular maintenance than was released from TMI.  

It's easy to do nothing; but your grandchildren pay the price for cowardice in energy, industry, and international affairs. In Politics, courage is not rewarded. 

Congress will declare the oil crisis over. It is over, right?  Of course it isn’t over. Our offshore friends and “allies” are just taking a break to stack our money. You and I know that nothing has changed but, unbelievably, the Congress will now walk away from the problem. You might think I am making an observation that the present Congress, controlled by the Democrats, hasn’t done anything about the problem. That is true but let me tell you what previous legislators have done – nothing. The minute the public pressure over gasoline and heating oil subsides, all the wonderful promised programs will fade.

I served on the Executive Committee of the Breeder Reactor Board of Directors.  Utilities invested $700,000,000 and the federal government invested $700,000,000 to build a Nuclear Breeder Reactor. This device reclaims spent nuclear fuel and would have reduced the cost of kilowatt to about half a penny. A new administration came in and killed the project. The design is in a file someplace and the containment vessel and other multimillion dollar equipment is in a field near Oak Ridge with grass growing through it. We were told by the head of the USDOE that we could buy the technology from the French if we ever really needed it. And, by the way, the French pursued the nuclear program and are now virtually free form foreign oil to produce electricity. 

I have a similar story for the Fusion Power committee I served on “We’d have Fusion Power in twenty years” That was twenty years ago. I served on the national Coal Gasification project to free us forever from foreign oil – that was in the 70’s. Need I go on?  The Congress is now trying to point fingers and hang some people for problems on Wall Street. The answer is simple for the economy, energy, and education. They don’t do their job!

Obama said on TV: "When you spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody."

If you've ever worked, what else do you need to know?

Vote for McCain!

How can the Democrats pretend to represent the average guy and then make fun of a guy trying to start a little business? Now the media's operatives, stumbling all over each other as they compete to impress the Obama team, rush to find dirt on poor Joe. Maybe he doesn't have a Journeyman's license but what possible difference does that make to Obama's promise to redistribute his money. Many places in the country don't require a license to practice plumbing. Maybe he owes back taxes. He should be pitied for that, in this country state and federal taxing agencies have the power to destroy anyone they please - guilty until proven innocent and then still guilty. Come on Harvard, give the guy a break.