As passionate as his father was about civil rights, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is equally so about the environment.

Robert Kennedy Jr.

In a lecture in Fort Worth on Wednesday, the 56-year-old son of the late Senator, advocated for moving the nation to green energy, which he doesn’t see as encompassing nuclear power.

Coal is not the only power-producing industry that needs scrubbing, said the longtime environmentalist, nuclear energy is simply not safe. “Nuclear energy is the most catastrophic form of energy. No bank will finance it…[and] no insurance company will insure it,” he said.

“It’s not just a bunch of hippies saying it’s unsafe. There are spills all the time into the Hudson,” says Kennedy, who serves as chief prosecuting attorney for Riverkeeper, whose mission is the restoration of the Hudson River. Three Mile Island was not the last accident despite what nuclear advocates say.

He made it clear that lobbyists for fossil fuel and polluting energy industries are powerful and dangerous. The nuclear industry, for example, managed to find a way to get a Congressional exemption that leaves them free from damage. “All homeowners’ policies in the U.S. exclude radiation from the nuclear industry,” he said.

Kennedy believes greed has taken over the utility companies as well. “Utility companies make money by selling more energy – even if the energy is green. We need to change the rules,” he says. “Don’t reward bad behavior.”

He believes it’s a question of loyalty. “Instead of being loyal to their shareholders, company leaders need to be loyal to our nation,” he says.

Along with serving on the boards of green energy companies, Kennedy, a resident of Mount Kisco, N.Y., has led the efforts to protect New York City’s water supply, both through Riverkeeper and as a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He is the president of Waterkeeper Alliance and a professor and supervising attorney at Pace University School of Law’s Environmental Litigation clinic. (After getting his undergraduate degree from Harvard and law degree from the University of Virginia, he picked up a masters in environmental law from Pace.)

As a partner with Silicon Valley’s VantagePoint Ventures, he is involved firsthand with green energy. VantagePoint funds an array of emerging clean tech and green energy companies., including solar, algae fuel and energy conservation businesses.

During his lecture at Texas Christian University, Kennedy also addressed the coal industry’s claims that coal is clean and cheap. It is neither, he says.

The problem is that once a coal plant is built, there are many hidden costs such as pollution and healthcare.

“More than 60,000 Americans are killed each year due to ozone particulate pollution,” he says. In addition, every fish in the United States is affected by dangerous levels of mercury, thanks to the coal industry. That mercury level also has grown in humans. Babies being born to women with high mercury levels have a higher percentage of illness ranging from autism to mental retardation.

On the other hand, “Once a solar plant is built, the energy is free forever.” There are no pollution and health costs, and no strings attached, he said.

Using coal to produce electricity is a destructive business from the beginning of the process, says Kennedy, who opposes the mountain-top removal mining in Appalachia in which ancient mountains are sheared off to get to the coal. The practice destroys forests and the resulting debris pollutes area rivers. (Coal companies say they ameliorate the damage by planting new trees, but environmentalists say these saplings cannot replace the mature forests; that erosion, runoff and river pollution are not abated.)

Kennedy recalled his father being against what was then known as strip-mining. “He told me, [the coal industry] is not just destroying the environment, but permanently impoverishing the surrounding communities. They’re doing this so they can break the unions.”

It’s particularly a shame because Appalachia, Kennedy points out, “is the oldest ecosystem on the continent.”

“Today,” he says, “ninety-nine percent of coal in West Virginia is owned by Wall Street bankers such as JP Morgan and Chase.” The reason? Many of the homeowners were tricked into selling their mineral rights because they didn’t know any better. “The coal industry has liquidated the people of West Virginia of their cash,” he says.

Kennedy says he’s not just fighting for ecosystems and halting the destruction of the environment. “It’s about the subversion of American democracy, the public process and transparency in government.

“Government is supposed to protect us,” but because of the influence polluting companies and lobbyists wield in Washington, that’s not happening.

Interestingly enough, he says, “every nation that has attempted ‘de-carbonization’, has prospered afterward. In Iceland, they became scared of global warming and within 15 years, went from being the poorest nation in Europe to the fourth richest. Sweden is another example. After Sweden de-carbonized and closed their nuclear facilities, they prospered. Tons of entrepreneurs came in as clean energy was introduced.”

He named Brazil and Costa Rica as having robust economies after they de-carbonized as well.

Robert Kennedy Jr. speaks at TCU.

Kennedy would like to see an increase in geothermal power, which he uses at his home in New York. “Geothermal,” he says, “is an underutilized resource. It’s been unexploited until now, but it could be a boon, especially in Texas where you already have holes in the ground from gas/oil drilling.” His home also has solar panels and between the two forms of energy, his home generates more power than he can use, which he then sells back to the utility company. “But you can’t do this in all states. This needs to be fixed. We need to reward efficiency; and punish inefficiency. We should be able to turn every home into a power plant.”

Another resource he’d like to see used more is wind. “There’s enough wind in the states of North Dakota, Minnesota and Texas to power the entire country,” he says.

The Obama Administration faces some major obstacles, Kennedy says. “We need to get rid of the subsidies that give breaks to dirty energy. And we have to build an electric grid that can accommodate the entire country.”

Kennedy compares the effort to the interstate highway system that was built during the Eisenhower years. The United States has the technology, Kennedy says. “And we have the resources – wind that blows at night; and sun that shines by day…We can put PVCs on every south-facing roof in the country.” Taking advantage of these green energies should be a no-brainer.

The TCU lecture was part of the Frost Foundation Lectureship for Global Issues, sponsored by the TCU Center for International Studies.

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Station. Photo: nrc.gov

Supporters and foes of nuclear power are mobilizing for a fight in New England. As owners of the Vermont Yankee reactor seek a 20-year extension of the plant’s operating agreement (which expires in 2012), rising levels of radioactive tritium in the groundwater surrounding the facility have made that renewal the subject of intense debate.

The plant is located in Vernon, along the Connecticut River, just north of the Massachusetts border. On Jan. 7, Vermont Yankee officials notified the state health department that samples taken from a groundwater monitoring well on site at the plant contained tritium.

Increased radiation levels indicate that reactor water is leaking into the soil, but the source of the leak has not been determined. No tritium has been found in drinking water wells or in the river, source of the reactor’s cooling water.

No such plant has been denied an extension since 1989, when Sacramento residents voted to close the Rancho Seco nuclear plant, owned by their municipal utility. Privately-owned  Entergy purchased the Vermont Yankee facility in 2002.

Under the Atomic Energy Act, decisions regarding license renewal usually rest with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Vermont, however, struck a deal with Entergy that gives the state legislature oversight.

Hence, an environmental and economic issue takes on political hues as well. Already, some Vermont lawmakers have announced new opposition to the license renewal. Meanwhile, in his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama called for a “new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants.”

The state health department is posting regular updates on the situation at Vermont Yankee. Governor, Jim Douglas, a longtime proponent of the facility, issued a statement saying that recent revelations “raised dark clouds of doubt” about the reactor’s safety and management. At the same time, Douglas suggested that the legislature delay any decisions on the future of the plant until more is known about the problem.

The facility, the state’s largest generator of power, began searching for tritium (a radioactive form of hydrogen) under a 2007 nuclear industry initiative that came in the wake of leaks discovered at reactors in Illinois and New York. In the wake of the Jan. 7 revelations, the state has increased the frequency of testing at the elementary school across the street from the plant but has not detected higher levels.

Vermont Yankee spokesman Robert Williams told The New York Times that the company was working to find a leak. “It’s a necessarily slow and methodical process,” he said.

The clock has just struck midnight on New Year’s Eve, 2020, and your rooftop cocktail party is in full swing. An urban garden, with potted evergreens and fruit trees, carpets the top of your downtown apartment building. The structure itself is vintage – a 1960’s brownstone that’s been retrofitted, by city-wide mandate. It operates on the new multi-source national electrical grid, which is supplied by wind, solar, geothermal power, as well as fossil fuels whose emissions are trapped underground.

Rooftop Garden (Photo: Adpower99/Dreamstime.)

In your apartment, appliances and plumbing fixtures are energy- and water-efficient – something you were able to afford with the help of government incentives that started in 2010.

As the New Year turns, friends sip mojitos with mint freshly cut from your herb garden, nibbling locally made goat cheese, accented by your own roof-grown tomatoes and cukes. A rainwater-collection system irrigates your vegetable garden, and the rooftop’s community compost fertilizes it. Solar-heated water percolates through your plumbing, and a mobile rooftop solar system heats and cools your home. Several stories below, in the building’s underground parking lot, the family car is getting its nightly re-charge.

It’s a smart, self-contained life, one that consumes no more than it requires, and produces some of its own food and energy on-site. And believe it or not, you are paying less for utilities, transportation – for life, in general – than you did a decade ago. That’s because U.S. policy-makers and legislators pushed so hard ten years before to put the country on an aggressive path toward a sustainable, renewable-energy future.

Imagine if they hadn’t pushed through the Energy and Power Bill in 2010, or the emissions Cap and Trade plan or later, the Carbon Tax bill… Imagine if progressive, quickly instituted policies and incentives hadn’t reassured manufacturers and factory owners that it was a good idea to retool and hire and train all those “green-economy” workers. …

This is the future we could see, the best case scenario we might see, if the White House and U.S. Congress and the rest of us act aggressively – now – to grow a green economy and reduce carbon emissions.

Is it Possible?

Most conservative think-tanks and government agencies foresee a longer-term conversion to green energy. According to one DOE report, the fastest we could move would be to attain 20 percent wind by 2030, while still relying on fossil fuels for up to 78 percent of  our overall power as late as 2035.

There are quicker conversion scenarios offered by groups ranging from the Union of Concerned Scientists to the American Wind Energy Association , from the Worldwatch Institute and the Renewable Energy and a Energy Efficiency Partnership (REEEP) to former Vice President Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection/Repower America plan.

The latter suggests the U.S. could be at 100 percent renewable in 10 years,  but that roadmap doesn’t give a breakdown on which types of energy would provide what percentage of our overall electricity needs.And Gore’s and similar plans have been criticized as requiring the economy to travel at a warp speed not possible on this planet. They’ve also been challenged as risky, because they’d be based totally on today’s technologies, when solar and geothermal and biofuels are rapidly improving and coming down in price. Of course this could help us get there more quickly, but it also warns against locking in commitments.

In fact, if there’s one thing all parties agree upon, it’s that there is no single, truly reliable breakdown for a ten-year scenario that predicts specifics for how the energy pie would be divided in 10 years; 20 percent solar? 30 percent wind? 40 percent conventional fossil fuels like natural gas? Where does nuclear power fit?
No one has a crystal ball.

According to Mark Z. Jacobson, a Stanford University civil engineering professor and co-author of a recent report in Scientific American – “Evaluating the Feasibility of a Large Scale Wind, Water and Sun Energy Infrastructure” - in theory, the United States shouldn’t have a problem converting all “new production of electricity to renewable by 2020. The issue is, what’s ‘new’? It’s not going to be a high percent of the total. Each year you can replace a certain percent, but a (pre-existing) power plant can last 40 years.”

However, Jacobson adds,  ”It’s certainly feasible in ten years - if everybody put their minds to it – to say  all new power has to be renewable. We could be at 50 percent wind, 40 percent solar and 10 percent everything else, including geothermal, hydro-electric, even some tidal wave power.”

But converting our total energy production to renewables in 10 years is not a likely scenario, he says, because that would require the U.S. government to “take away all the subsidies from fossil fuels and shift them over to renewables” – unlikely, even with a progressive President and Congress.

“These coal plants that are grandfathered in, the way to make those go out of business is to change the subsidies, change the laws, but we’ll have a battle! Getting rid of the old stuff is easier said than done. We have all these people working in the industry and they are going to complain that we’re costing the country jobs, putting their companies out of business. And we’d need a job training program to shift them into other industries.”

But is it technically possible to have all new energy be renewable by 2020?

Yes,  says the professor, adding that we might already be at 25 percent renewable for new power now.

“Right now, wind is the second largest source of all new energy, after natural gas, and if we slowly get rid of the ‘old’ power, how fast that could occur depends on”  introducing things like new laws and incentives, aggressive policies that don’t change with each election, as well as shifting subsidies to green power interests and ridding the powers-that-be of outmoded mindsets.

Jacobson concludes:  ”The scenario of 100 percent conversion to renewables in 10 years is very slim. A 90 percent conversion – maybe a little less slim. … That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. All forces should be aligned to do these things. But given there are so many confliciting interests – there are lobbyists, naysayers, competing financial interests, the economic cycles, the political cycles – so many potential roadblocks. … You can’t just shut down the existing plants and have new generation on-line in 10 years. You could imagine the law suits. The goal is there, but if you think about it as retiring existing things as they go down, there’s probably less of a fight on that front.”

And, as the civil engineer points out, ” electric power is not the only thing you’re trying to change. You’re trying to change the entire infrastructure, so you want to go down the path of least resistance. It’s better to get 25 percent across the board – for everything, for other sectors, and not just (go for) 100 percent for electric power. Those other sectors include industrial, transportation, energy efficiency” for our built-environment.

As for which type of renewable energy will create the largest chunk of power in America, no one can say. So let’s take a look at the three main ones  consistently mentioned by renewable-energy proponents. First up, wind power.

An overwhelming 86 percent of Colorado residents want to limit subsidies for oil shale production and halt new coal-fired power plants, according to a newly released poll.

The survey of 600 Colorado adults conducted by Opinion Research Corporation also found support for
federal and state investment in wind and solar energy, enhanced energy efficiency, and highly fuel-efficient vehicles. The study was conducted for TheCLEAN.org and the Civil Society Institute, and was released by Western Colorado Congress, a community action alliance focused on protecting and enhancing the quality of life in western Colorado.

Key findings of the poll include:

• A halt to construction of new coal-fired power plants is supported by most Colorado adults. Just over three out of four respondents in Colorado (76 percent) and 73 percent of Americans would support a five-year moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in the United States if there were stepped-up investment in clean, safe renewable energy — such as wind and solar — and improved home energy-efficiency standards.
• Only 9 percent of Colorado residents favor subsidies for unregulated oil shale production. Nearly two out of five state residents (38 percent) favor no subsidies at all for oil shale; roughly half (48 percent) believe that subsidies for oil shale should only exist with “strict environmental controls.” Taken together, the latter two data points mean that nearly nine out of 10 Colorado residents favor eliminating or placing strong conditions on oil shale subsidies.
• Nearly nine out of 10 Colorado residents (87 percent) believe that “natural gas companies should have to provide information to nearby communities and residents about hazardous chemicals used and produced in natural gas production.” Only about one in 10 (11 percent disagree on the grounds that “disclosure of hazardous chemicals would give information to competitors and harm the gas company.”

“Colorado residents deserve credit for understanding that more investment by the state and federal governments in coal and nuclear power is essentially the same thing as investing in subprime mortgages,” Civil Society Institute President and Founder Pam Solo said in a statement.

“If Colorado taxpayers are going to directly or indirectly underwrite energy development and energy-intensive industries — such as the auto industry — we need to insist that state officials in Denver and the next Congress and president make good, solid investments that make sense for the long-term of our country. The only energy investments that rise above the ’subprime’ level today are wind, solar and other clean renewable energy in concert with enhanced energy efficiency.”

Nuclear power may be a viable solution to our energy needs, but many questions surround its safety.
In New York, especially after the 1979 Three Mile Island accident in nearby Pennsylvania, future plans for the nuclear power plant in Indian Point have come under fire. Until recently the debate has been a financial one between the plant’s owner and the state of New York. But last week, a new report in the Bulletin of the Seismological Society of America brought up the danger of potential earthquakes beneath the plant, that could have grave consequences.

Researchers at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University examined earthquakes that took place from 1677 to 2007. In the report, they determined that a magnitude 5 quake in or around Manhattan occurs once a century. They also discovered previously undetected area of potential seismic activity, a 25-mile fault line that runs within one mile of the Indian Point nuclear power plant, just outside of New York City.

Because of New York’s large concentration of people, the possibility of any earthquake near that nuclear power facility is particularly dangerous.

Nearly 10 million people live within 25 miles of the Indian Point nuclear plant, including the 8.2 million in the New York metropolitan area, according to the report.

Lynn Sykes, the lead author of the study, said that attention needs to be given to bridges, schools, fire stations near Indian Point nuclear power plant, located 24 miles west of New York City along the Hudson River at the town of Buchanan.

Currently the owner of the plant, Entergy, is looking to extend its operating license of the plant by 20 years. Sykes, a respected veteran in the seismology field, recently told the Associated Press that he is opposed to the extension due to the potential danger a quake could cause.

Prior to publication, the report was provided to New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo in order to take the quake info into account when considering the extension.

Nuclear power, which is made by splitting uranium or plutonium atoms, provides about 20 percent of the country’s electricity. The Environmental Defense Fund says that although nuclear fuel emits very little carbon dioxide, there is concern about its safety to the environment as well as to our health. The problem comes from the storage of nuclear waste. There currently is not a plan for longterm storage and disposal which the EDF identifies as an issue because it makes the U.S. vulnerable to terrorist attack or theft.

Entergy maintains that its facility is safe and secure and points to a report by an independent panel. The company website safety pages also explain how it stores fuel.

Copyright © 2008 | Distributed by Noofangle Media