Tag: Sustainability

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Environment

April 22 Is Still Earth Day

1970 Earth Day Button

Supporting the environment has changed since the first Earth Day. Then the president was aware of public support for protecting the environment and took concrete action. Now, the president couldn’t give two hoots in a holler about it, as evidenced by his support for copper mining in the Boundary Waters. Times have changed, even as the climate crisis knocks on our door daily with some new deviation from what used to be normal conditions.

I wrote about my personal progress in an unpublished memoir:

From Earth Day to Climate Reality

My advocacy for environmental causes came in two time periods: one that began in high school with the first Earth Day, and the second after joining the Johnson County Board of Health. Two and a half years after leaving the board of health, I joined the Climate Reality Project.

The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, was part of a cultural phenomenon which got the president’s attention. I participated in the event while in high school. When the Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency were created soon after, I felt a palpable relief. Government was taking responsibility. These actions assuaged my high school concerns about the environment. With the government now involved, I could turn my attention to other things.

While on the board of health, Maureen McCue and I were active advocating for regulation of toxins in the environment, especially for better air quality. This was a combination of my family’s history of working in coal mines, my grandfather’s suffering and death from black lung disease, and new concerns about air quality raised while I was on the board of health. The main work was to advocate against the use of coal for electricity in Iowa. Planned coal-fired power plants were held back in Waterloo and Marshalltown by a coalition of environmental groups of which we were a part.

The film An Inconvenient Truth was released in 2006 and won the Academy Award for best feature-length documentary of the year. It featured former Vice President Al Gore presenting the science and risks of climate change to a mass audience. Inspired by the force and clarity of that narrative, I traveled to Chicago in July 2013 and participated in the Climate Reality Leadership Program which trained us to present climate science and promote solutions in our communities.

Gore gave his Inconvenient Truth presentation twice, once as he had in the film, and then once on the second day with explanations about each point. During the training we learned about the latest science of climate change, best practices in public speaking, and connecting with an audience, communication strategies, social media, leadership skills, and community outreach and organizing.

The goal was to teach attendees to give the presentation ourselves and advocate for the environment in our home communities. In return for the training, I agreed to make 10 presentations using course materials. I would go on to attend training three more times, serving as a mentor to others. Importantly, I gave presentations where I could attract an audience: at an event at the Solon Public Library, and on farms, and throughout the region. Being a Climate Reality Leader helped me feel like I was part of something bigger than myself. I particularly enjoyed sitting with Al Gore and a small group of leaders at the Cedar Rapids training, talking about issues of the day.

Increased awareness of climate science helped me reinterpret a lifetime of weather. As a child, my father took me to the bank of the Mississippi River to see the record flood of 1965. The flood water seemed endless then and was unforgettable. At the time, it stood out as a singular event.

Singular events accumulated.

In April 1973, more than twenty inches of snow fell across Iowa in what should have been spring. In 1993, as we were building our home in Big Grove Township, a flood described as a 500-year event delayed construction by a month. In 2008, another “500-year” flood backed water into the watershed of a nearby 900-acre lake, stopping barely a hundred yards from our front door. The change in intensity of events was noticeable, particularly the flooding which had been commonplace when I was in grade school.

Precipitation was extreme, yet there were also heat waves. Farmers still talk about the 2012 drought. It was so hot and dry for such a long period that corn leaves curled upward to preserve moisture, and yields dropped sharply. Drought returned from 2020 through 2024, described by the state climatologist as the longest since the 1950s.

In 2019, I measured thirty-five degrees below zero at home as the foundation creaked and a lower-level window broke. On August 10, 2020, I watched a derecho tear through the neighborhood, damaging all but one tree on our lot and uprooting three entirely. Cleanup became routine. Repairs were expected.

Straight line winds, derechos, droughts, tornadoes, Iowa has always had severe weather. What changed was the frequency and the scale. Individually, each event could be dismissed as weather. Together, they formed a pattern. Climate Reality offered a way to address causes rather than consequences—to work upstream instead of continually rebuilding downstream. That was hopeful.

Politicians and industry were slow to respond to our advocacy. All the same, we kept at it. I had an opportunity to talk about coal-fired power plants with Bill Fehrman, then president and CEO of MidAmerican Energy, at an event at Old Brick in Iowa City. To say it politely, he knew how to handle me, pointing to their expansion into wind generated electricity and said they would eventually eliminate coal from their electricity generation mix. I made several trips to lobby in Des Moines with both Republicans and Democrats. With Democrats, I was preaching to the choir. Republicans appeared to listen.

I wrote letters to the editor and guest opinions, I was interviewed by radio and television reporters, I participated in large conferences and my own scheduled events. One time I gave an abbreviated version of the Inconvenient Truth lecture to three farmers while helping them plant crops at a nearby vegetable farm. I did what I could to raise awareness of the ongoing climate crisis.

The work is unfinished on April 22, 2026.

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Living in Society

Two-hour Rain Delay

Two Canada Geese after a rain shower.

It has been a rainy week. Too much moisture in the garden to plant, and constant showers to keep me inside. When the weather is like this, I make a point to find space between rain clouds and get in my 30-minute daily morning walk. A two-hour rain delay is typical.

When I finally got on the trail, I took this photo. There are two geese. The one on the left is ducking its head in the water while the other keeps watch. I don’t usually see them this close to shore.

While waiting for the rain to end, I emailed U.S. Senators Chuck Grassley and Joni Ernst to vote no on HJR 140 which pertains to opening the Boundary Waters to foreign copper mining. It took a couple of minutes. Here is what I said:

I urge you to vote NO on House Joint Resolution 140, the Congressional Review Act targeting the Boundary Waters mineral withdrawal. The Twin Metals mine is owned by a foreign company that has an agreement with China to smelt the copper in China for free — and China gets the copper. The United States gets nothing but the pollution. No United States Senator should support this anti-American bill that would allow China to pollute our most treasured wilderness to gain a competitive edge over us. Please stop it by voting NO.

Bread on the water. The resolution needs only a simple majority, which if they get it, Poof! The Boundary Waters are open to mine runoff. That is, after the inevitable lawsuits end.

On Thursday, the Senate approved the resolution in a 50-49 vote, so folks are lawyering up.

One day this week a beaver was swimming a few yards off shore. They are common in the area and occasionally cut down trees along the lake shore. I have also seen mink on the trail. It reminds me of a time when natives trapped fur-bearing creatures to trade with white people. Typically that was in autumn.

I once visited the House on the Mound in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin, built by Hercules Dousman. He managed trading operations for John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company in the Upper Mississippi Valley. The Victorian-style home was luxurious by any standard. It was called the house on the mound because it was built upon an ancient native burial mound. Dousman flourished on the Wisconsin frontier. “As a fur trader, railroad builder, grain-shipper, he became the most influential figure of the upper Mississippi Valley and the Midwest’s first millionaire,” wrote August Derleth in his 1958 book The House on the Mound.

The beaver I saw seemed unaware of the value of its fur.

If we look closely, there is evidence of lives lived long ago all around us. I used to go with a friend to Palisades Kepler Park near Mount Vernon to climb the bluffs overlooking the Cedar River. I don’t do rock-climbing any more, but I used to enjoy it. On top of those bluffs were Native American burial mounds.

According to Google search results, “The Native American mounds located along the bluffs, represent the prehistoric Woodland Indian culture. These sacred sites include conical and effigy mounds that are often knee-high, with some reaching up to six feet, serving as a reminder of early indigenous habitation.” The burial mounds are some of the last remaining in the area. So many of them were turned into farm land, or like the House on the Mound, built upon by white settlers.

Whether it is waiting out a rain delay or observing our habitat, it is easy to feel connected to nature, and to civilizations that went before us. We forget that Iowa wasn’t always a grid of farms, towns and cities. There were woodlands and prairies, and pure springs flowing within walking distance of where we built our home. On days like this I can imagine the grid being lifted, then walking this land like Natives did in the 17th and 18th Centuries. I live for that imagining. It can be who we are.

Categories
Sustainability

Small Modular Reactors And Iowa

Google Maps Image of Duane Arnold Energy Center
Google Maps Image of Duane Arnold Energy Center

A joke is circulating on the internet that SMR stands for Spending Money Recklessly. It isn’t funny because it is true, even if big money investors have a plan to recoup their investment in Small Modular Reactors with interest. Regular folks like me don’t want new nuclear power when renewable projects that include solar and wind power generation can meet much of our needs.

Here’s the rub with my way of thinking: renewables are clean, cheap, and safe for the first 70-80 percent of meeting our electricity needs. Something needs to fill the gap so the grid can reliably deliver exactly the amount of electricity customers use. What fills that gap? Nuclear energy is a candidate for that, yet it is beset with problems, especially in the United States, like some I mentioned last week.

In her new book, Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers, author Hannah Ritchie has four on nuclear power:

  1. Q: Isn’t nuclear power dangerous? A: Nuclear power is not risk-free, but it’s one of the safest energy sources we have.
  2. Q: Doesn’t it take too long to build a nuclear plant? A: Nuclear plant in the West often have long delays., but some countries can build plants in six to eight years.
  3. Q: Isn’t nuclear power too expensive? A: Nuclear power is expensive, especially in the U.S. and Europe, but some countries are building it much cheaper.
  4. Q: What about radioactive waste? A: We know how to handle radioactive waste safely in deep geological sites, but countries need to prove it.

Ritchie points out there is almost no case for fossil fuels to fill the mentioned 20-30 percent gap in our electricity needs going forward because they are unsafe compared to other forms of electricity generation. When we recognize all their external costs, they are too expensive.

SMR stands for Small Modular Reactor. These nuclear reactors are designed to be factory-built and transported to the installation site as modules, allowing for streamlined construction, scalability, and potential integration into multi-unit configurations, according to Wikipedia.

According to Ritchie, one of the problems of U.S. construction of nuclear power plants is there are not enough experienced workers. We need to build a good number (maybe 10-12) of identical nuclear power plants to train workers in these jobs. Changing government regulations regarding nuclear power have created an environment where each plant is different and that variation is part of the reason construction is delayed. Controlling the design characteristics of Small Modular Reactors by building them in a factory could possibly address the worker issue by standardizing non-site specific differences between nuclear power plants.

As I write this, Eastern Iowa does not have a confirmed commercial SMR project, nor does anyone in the country. There is talk about installing one or more at the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Palo. By “talk” I mean there is policy activity in the Linn County Board of Supervisors, and discussion of existing infrastructure to handle nuclear materials at Palo. Last month, in both the Iowa Senate and House, legislation (HSB 767/SSB 3181) moved to provide sales and use tax exemptions for nuclear energy projects. If enacted into law, it would encourage development of nuclear power projects in Iowa. So far, Iowa is at jump street regarding new nuclear power.

The idea of implementing new SMRs in an environment where there are zero of them in commercial operation in the U.S., seems a bit unlikely. It would be if I were the investor. The role of the federal government is critical in advancing this form of electricity generation.

There is also the legacy to deal with. While nuclear power is safer, by orders of magnitude, than fossil fuel electricity generation, when a problem happens as it did in Fukushima, Chernobyl, or Three Mile Island, it receives global attention. There are other, real-world issues.

Any discussion of nuclear power in the U.S. carries the weight of our earlier nuclear history. Civilian nuclear reactors are distinct from weapons programs, but they share regulations, institutions, supply chains, and a legacy of radiation policy shaped during the Cold War. Uranium mining for both weapons and fuel exposed workers and nearby communities. Atmospheric testing at the Nevada Test Site spread fallout across the country, including in Iowa, and as far away as Rochester, New York, where radioactivity ruined film being produced by Kodak. These experiences led to compensation programs and continue to influence public trust, particularly when new projects or waste sites are proposed. The relevance is not technological equivalence between power generation and weaponry, but the role that historical exposure plays in how communities assess risk today.

One might ask, isn’t the president eliminating regulations to enable the nuclear power industry? Yes and no. While the administration shifted policy direction toward evaluating nuclear reactor proposals more quickly, reducing the regulatory burden, and treating nuclear power as a strategic national priority, it does not mean there are no regulations at all. In fact, the changing regulatory environment is one reason why it takes much longer to build a new nuclear power plant here than in other countries. Every regulation change demands design changes for accommodation. One expects post-Trump administrations to make more regulatory changes.

Small Modular Reactors are no silver bullet, although no form of electricity generation is without issues. Whether SMRs move from planning to commercial use is an open question in 2026.

Categories
Sustainability

Stories About Forests

Part of the forestry preserve at Lake Macbride State Park.

I was taken aback by the administration’s decision to dismantle the U.S. Forest Service. Jim Pattiz outlined what happened in his substack post, “Trump Administration Orders Dismantling of the U.S. Forest Service.” What they are doing is bad. While the news broke suddenly, and agreements were signed quickly, the future of roughly 193 million acres of forests and grasslands not carved up with roads or clear cut logging has been up in the air for decades. With this administration, loggers and anti-government agents appear to be getting their way.

In 1970, Joan Didion opened her celebrated book The White Album by saying, “We tell ourselves stories in order to live.” The U.S. Forest Service action reminded me of this and the competing stories it represents.

One story, summarizing Scott Russell Sanders in A Conservationist Manifesto, goes like this. The national forest represent a wilderness with something to teach us. We are part of a living biome. We should protect these wild places as a habitat for wildlife, as a reservoir of natural processes, and as a refuge for the human spirit. The U.S. Forest Service adds a layer by being a research arm of the federal government.

Another story , according to Sanders, asserts that to “lock up” these acres from development would cost jobs, handicap economic growth, and “threaten the American way of life by denying us access to fuel and timber.” We Americans should be free to go into the warehouse that is nature and do whatever we want, regardless of consequences. It is squandering resources to not harvest timber from national forests and refrain from building roads there.

My story is we lie to ourselves by saying we can lawsuit our way out of this. Already, the Center for Biological Diversity and the Sierra Club filed lawsuits challenging the USDA’s “interim final rule” that removed public comment and environmental review procedures for forest projects, arguing the fast-track rules violate the Administrative Procedure Act and the National Environmental Policy Act. I wish them well. But shouldn’t we be able to agree that the 8.5% of land these acres represent should be set aside and preserved? It is very American to settle this in courts rather than in the hearts and minds of citizens.

In typical fashion for this administration, they are moving very quickly to dismantle the U.S. Forest Service, using the playbook developed to change the Bureau of Land Management during Trump 1.0. The headquarters will move from Washington, D.C. to Utah, and much of the research into how to prevent forest fires, and related issues will apparently end. Many employees will resign because they can’t support what the administration is doing or leave because moving to Utah is not a pleasant prospect. This is the change Republicans seek.

On my daily walks through the woods on a gravel trail, I consider the quiet and beauty of place. The sounds of bird life fill the air, and the air breathes fresh and clean, that is, unless a wind blows in from a concentrated animal feeding operation. We all need this type of solace from time to time.

We do what we can to survive in a Republic. Lawsuits are part of that as are competing stories about our experiences with the same things. I seek to be part of the biome and contribute to its well being: At the same time, I seek to understand all these stories and more, to contribute more than I take, while taking only what I need to survive and protect the commons for future inhabitants of Earth. That is a just path.

Categories
Sustainability Writing

A Madman Without a Strategy: Trump’s Latest Threats Are Unacceptable

For Immediate Release: April 7, 2026

(Washington, D.C.) — President Donald Trump’s April 7 threat that he might escalate U.S. attacks on Iran so that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” should profoundly alarm every U.S. and global citizen. 

Whether Trump is threatening a massive conventional bombing campaign or making a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons to try to coerce Iran into submission, leaders of nuclear-armed states cannot, must not, threaten the end of “a whole civilization.” 

Such threats are unacceptable and following through would be a massive war crime and humanitarian disaster. In addition, an attack on Iran’s Busherer Nuclear Power Plant would risk a radiological disaster in the region.

The only type of weapons in the U.S. arsenal that could destroy “a whole civilization” in a day would be nuclear weapons. Any use by the United States of nuclear weapons against Iran would permanently damage the United States’ reputation, shred its alliances, and would constitute a war crime for which everyone in the chain of command could be prosecuted.

Even if Trump is not considering the use nuclear weapons, but “only” intends to launch a massive conventional bombing against civilian targets in Iran, the effect would be the opposite of Trump’s ostensible goal: preventing Iran’s leaders from acquiring nuclear weapons. 

Rather, it would reinforce the belief that the only way a nation can deter attack from an aggressive nuclear-armed state is to possess one’s own nuclear weapons. A further escalation of this war would thus provide further incentive for Iran – and possibly other states – to develop nuclear weapons.

During the course of the nuclear age, past U.S. presidents have issued veiled nuclear threats against smaller, less powerful but very determined nations only to learn that such threats do not lead them to capitulate. U.S. nuclear threats during the Korean War and later against China and the Soviet Union, as well as Nixon’s “madman” strategy, which involved a nuclear threat against North Vietnam and a massive strategic bombing campaign, failed to bend adversaries to U.S. goals.

We call on rational voices inside Trump’s circle of formal advisors, informal confidants, members of Congress from both parties, and global leaders to remind Mr. Trump that responsible leaders do not threaten to commit war crimes, that a further escalation of his illegal war would undermine U.S. and global security and risk the lives of innocent people in Iran and the Middle East, and that the responsible path forward and out of this war is to immediately end the hostilities.

Categories
Living in Society

Woven Shirts and Such

Sunrise on the state park trail on April 6, 2026.

This is a utility post designed to prime the writing pump for posts coming later this week. It is a bit quotidian, so forewarned.

I decided to get some button-down, woven shirts for my new job as a poll worker. I expect to be called for at least one early voting shift, and then to work the long one that is the primary election day. I haven’t bought a woven shirt in a very long time, maybe since I retired from the big job in 2009. My basic top is a t-shirt in spring and summer, with an added sweatshirt in fall and winter. It serves. I am getting the new shirts mail order, because I have no interest in going to a clothing store.

Monday I fueled the car for $3.529 per gallon. That is high, yet what is the comparison? In Mainz, Germany, where I lived for three years, today it is between $8.00 and $8.70 per gallon (Deutschmarks per liter converted to dollars per gallon). German travelers get a better bargain with the built-in high taxation rate of 55-65 percent. If you ever traveled on the German Autobahn, you know what I’m talking about. I wouldn’t mind paying this amount for gasoline if only it were accomplishing something better than making rich oil companies richer.

I burned the weeds on the plot where the cruciferous vegetables will go. Kale, cabbage and the like are furthest along in indoor planting trays and can tolerate some cold. They will be in the ground soon. The blaze was intense and quickly finished, in about 20 minutes. I worked hard to keep it from spreading too quickly to other plots. I was only partly successful and a couple garlic plants got wilted. It appears they will recover… we’ll see.

It looks to be a good week in the garden. Next up is the long mentioned onions and leeks. The goal is in the ground by Wednesday.

Plot for cruciferous vegetables.

Categories
Living in Society

A Week Without Fertilizer

Predawn light on the state park trail.

I had to take a step back from life and noticed it was 3 p.m., the traditional time of Jesus Christ’s death on Good Friday. As has often been the case, everything outdoors was quiet for a moment. Reading the administration’s orders to dismantle the U.S. Forest Service had taken me aback. Find information about it here.

The highlight of Friday was working on seedlings with the garage door open, my U.S. flag on display. From my workbench I could hear the sound of songbirds in the neighborhood. Using my Merlin Bird app I was able to identify seven species in close proximity: American Robin, Chipping Sparrow, House Finch, Black-capped Chickadee, Red-bellied Woodpecker, Tufted Titmouse, and Northern Cardinal. The chickadee was browsing around where I planted flower seeds last week. This nesting period is a true harbinger of spring.

I had to get provisions for the weekend at the grocery store. Traffic along Highway 1 was heavy all the way into the county seat. It was well before the commuting time, so I guessed people were getting off work early for the long Easter weekend. I paid close attention to traffic even though there was a lot to think about.

Fertilizer was on my mind. Midwestern BioAg specializes in locally produced composted chicken manure among other products. While made locally, the disruption caused by the U.S.-Israel-Iran War, and the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, has farmers scrambling for alternatives to the types of fertilizer imported from the Middle East (containing urea, ammonia, sulfur, phosphates). Composted chicken manure already has broad application on farms, so it is a good operational fit for large-scale growers. Likewise, while the private equity acquisition of the company in 2020 may or may not be directly relevant, these firms change focus from small seasonal buyers like me to serving large customers. I had to figure out what I’m doing as an alternative since it is not available.

The hardware store sells “composted manure,” so I bought five bags. It was cheap, but after reading the label, it is only ten percent composted manure and the rest “composted natural forest products.” Its numbers are 0.05-0.05-0.05, so very little nitrogen. It is more soil conditioner than fertilizer, and what I need is more nitrogen, as does every farmer in Iowa. Probably the best solution is to travel to a couple of farm stores and see what they have left. Because conventional farmers are scrambling for fertilizer this year, whatever I find will be expensive.

The other alternative is to use the fertilizer left from last year–a five-gallon bucket–judiciously and let the rest go without. Because I have been gardening for decades here, there is likely some residual fertility left in the soil. Not a permanent fix, but it could get me through this growing season. I eventually found a 10-10-10 commercial fertilizer at a local hardware store. That will have to do this year.

Home-grown food will be important in our lives as the federal government cuts programs to the bone and puts people out of work. Eventually they will come after our Medicare and Social Security, so local food is doubly important, as is replacing my source for garden fertilizer.

Categories
Reviews

Book Review: Clearing the Air

Hannah Ritchie is the kind of data head I would like to be and her new book, Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers is part of the reason. In it, she explains many aspects of solving the climate crisis using data to back up her statements. This one is worth reading.

Because the book is written in ten topical parts–fossil fuels, renewable energy, electric cars, and such–it is easy to find whatever topic is relevant to a current discussion. Once a reader picks a topic, the uniform format–question, answer, charts, discussion, and what we need to do–the information is quickly accessible. It reads less like a narrative, and more like a scientific research tool, which I suppose is the point.

The section on nuclear power challenged my way of thinking about the power source. It opened the possibility that because of its long overall positive safety record, it could fill a need in a renewable energy powered electrical grid currently being addressed by fossil fuels. She points out the significant obstacles to nuclear power in the United States, and addresses paths to overcoming them. Every part and individual question and answer is like this.

Her five questions to separate fact from fiction are a simple, straight-forward way of evaluating anything read in the news media, in books, and on social media. That alone s worth the price of the book.

So many terms about climate change solutions get bandied about public discourse. Having a reliable way to access information about heat pumps, aviation fuel, electric cars and the like, helps avoid stress caused by trying to digest claims that may or may not be true.

My recommendation is get a copy from your public library and read it. You will likely be glad you did.

Categories
Living in Society

Beyond Joe Trippi’s Technology

Toolbox.
Toolbox.

Joe Trippi’s 2004 work to mine the internet and empower supporters of the Howard Dean campaign was revolutionary. As he described it, it was an “open-source revolution” that went beyond the dissemination of campaign messages. Using Meetup.com, blogs, and other media, he turned hundreds of thousands of volunteers into decentralized, self-organizing activists who powered fundraising and local organizing — like a “virtual mid-size city.” It was something to see in real time.

Since then, there have been two distinct iterations in the use of information technology in campaigns. The first was the Republican Party’s use of Cambridge Analytica to microtarget individual voters during the 2016 Trump campaign. While the success of this operation continues to be debated — and how it worked was not transparent — it was a compelling idea for moving beyond bulk messaging that delivers identical messages regardless of individual differences. What made it a game changer was that voter persuasion could be individualized at scale. On the darker side, Cambridge Analytica announced it was shutting down and filing for insolvency in May 2018. The closure was a direct result of intense media scrutiny, investigations, and the loss of clients following the March 2018 revelations that it misused data from up to 87 million Facebook users.

That progressives need to catch up with Republicans in the use of technology seems evident. This challenge is complicated by the advent of readily available, yet still unproven, artificial intelligence technologies like Claude, ChatGPT, and Google Gemini.

Today, it isn’t entirely clear how artificial intelligence will be used in campaigns. We do know a few things. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders recently sat for an interview with Anthropic’s Claude. (Click here for a clip from that conversation, which exposes some of the motivations for collecting data from internet users.) We also know we need to balance ethical safeguards on AI with innovation in tools that could benefit progressive causes. Finally, misinformation and AI-generated propaganda could undermine democratic processes. What do we do?

What we can’t do is stick our collective progressive heads in the sand. I can’t count how many people I’ve heard say something like, “AI uses too much energy, so I won’t use it.” Two things about this. First, privacy issues are more important than energy use. Second, energy use compared to what?

In her new book, Clearing the Air: A Hopeful Guide to Solving Climate Change in 50 Questions and Answers, author Hannah Ritchie writes, “Data centers currently use only a few percent of the world’s electricity. The big question, though, is whether this will explode with the rise of AI. Probably not.” She discusses a Pareto-style analysis that points to the true energy hogs. Not surprisingly, these are industry, buildings, electric vehicles, air conditioning, and heating, with data centers eighth on the list at around 1-3 percent of consumption. At a minimum, progressives need to stop hyping unknown energy scenarios and instead resolve issues around privacy (Senator Sanders has a bill) while pressuring Google, OpenAI, and Anthropic to meet their corporate climate goals.

Dealing in facts, not hyperbole, is always good advice.

AI is imperfect and no substitute for grassroots knowledge about campaigns and the real voters who will participate in elections. While the database of personal profiles AI draws upon is vast, the granular knowledge that a political activist in a specific race possesses is more relevant to an individual’s potential behavior than AI ever will be.

Like other technologies, AI is a tool that belongs in campaign toolboxes. It is an extension of what Joe Trippi did so long ago — and it is worth learning about instead of shunning.

Categories
Sustainability

Nuclear Power In A Wind State

Iowa Windmill

If Iowa is a net exporter of electricity, why the push for new nuclear reactors?

I get it. Duane Arnold Energy Center has infrastructure to add/renew generating capacity: connections to the electrical grid, access to water for cooling, and transportation in and out. Compared to the new Vogtle nuclear power plant in Georgia, re-starting DAEC would be quicker and less expensive than building a new reactor. If an investor were to pick new nuclear capacity, they can do it on the relative cheap by re-starting old nuclear reactors.

When investors found Google, who was willing to enter a 25-year contract to buy electricity from the Palo plant to support a data center, it resolved a main issue with nuclear power: financial risk. While re-starting DAEC for a single large customer resolves one issue, it isn’t scalable. How many more deals like this are possible at DAEC given that specific infrastructure has a limit: grid capacity, and how much water for cooling can be drawn from the Cedar River?

The president has engaged in nuclear policy and changed priorities in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Even so, certain things still have to happen for real-world reasons to approve a new nuclear power plant. It takes time, despite entreaties to speed the project approval process. Why the president’s interest in nuclear power? It appears to be self-serving.

The parent company of Truth Social has announced a multibillion-dollar merger with fusion developer TAE Technologies, giving it a stake in this still-experimental form of nuclear energy. At the same time, the administration pushed to accelerate nuclear power licensing and reorganize the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, as mentioned. Critics argue this overlap raises potential conflict-of-interest concerns, although no direct evidence has emerged that regulatory changes were made specifically to benefit the Trump family. In a March 27 article in CounterPunch, Karl Grossman and Harvey Wasserman detail Trump’s potential interest in the nuclear regulatory environment. Read it here. Is the Reynolds administration close enough to the president to be influenced by his self-serving interest in nuclear power? You know they are.

If electricity generation development proceeded on a logical basis, we wouldn’t be talking about new nuclear power. Not only is it very expensive, and subject to implementation delays, it doesn’t fit our state. The build out of wind generating capacity in Iowa makes baseload power like nuclear less desirable. Grid operators like MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) value the flexibility found in natural gas, battery storage, and reduced usage when demand drops. That isn’t what nuclear does well.

Who would want nuclear power when the costs are so high? Each unit of electricity produced from the proposed new technology of small modular reactors would be far more expensive that the same unit from solar or wind power generation, even when the cost of storage technologies and other means of accounting for renewable energy’s variability are included. The answer to my question is no one would want it.

It is also important to note there are no commercial nuclear fusion or small modular reactors operating currently in the United States. The work the legislature (HSB 767/SSB 3181 both advanced this week) and Linn County are doing to promote nuclear power may be good in some respects. I remain unsure the “build it and they will come” philosophy will work here because grid operators need flexibility, not baseload.

There is a lot more to say about Iowa’s current infatuation with nuclear power. Watch this space for more.