The big question is whether the federal government sinks even more public money into expanding our fossil fuel consumption or if we invest in cleaner, safer forms of energy. We can make this choice and if our country can shift its sources of electricity, it will have a larger impact than trying to convince everyone to buy a new car or go out of their way to make lifestyle changes. Most people I know aren’t thrilled about where their energy comes from but don’t feel like they have much of a choice. So if we make it easier to choose more sustainable forms of energy then we all win.

Andrew and Brian, I have to say I’m with you on the disillusionment factor. It is a powerful driver for change. But we need to make sure we complement disillusionment with inspiration so that people don’t become jaded and disengaged. The local work is absolutely important to transforming that disillusionment into positive action, and it needs to be accompanied with a narrative that connects the local work to broader change. I think part of the draw towards passing federal legislation is that it appears to have swifter and more uniform potential for change than all the local work, but in reality, even if something passes, we still need to do all the local work to shift our communities anyway.

We are the third most populated country in the world. We are going to have to get over our NIMBY philospohy. We need MORE drilling and MORE nuclear power plants if people are ever going to realize that we ACTUALLY ARE USING ELECTRICITY RIGHT NOW (I drove my car today, how about you?). Having two difficult choices with REAL CONSEQUENCES is the only way to get people to actually CHOOSE to CHANGE. We must coerce and cajole for change. Obama understands this. It is the “art of what is possible”. We are talking about generations here. Obama is only one man with a heaping pile of to-do on his desk. Juliana is very perceptive in recognizing that you have to appeal to people’s core motivation, which in this country is very dog-eat-dog me first my way. If you think you can affect 320 million people’s outlook on life in ONE YEAR, be my guest.

Geothermal certainly will have a piece of the pie. Most likely in the western US. Nuclear will likely be used in areas where you need baseload and do not have geothermal or hydro. Not a silver bullet, but certainly part of the solution.

I also cannot resist pointing out that the UAE is building nuclear units and they have LOTS of sunshine. Another examle of nuclear for a specific baseload application (i.e., UAE has a lot of oil, but not much natural gas).

Fourth-generation nuclear power (IFR and LFTR) produce waste that is radioactive for only 300 years. If we can’t manage it on that timescale we’re in bigger trouble than we realise, heck, the pyramids are ten times older and still standing! Nor is the waste useful for making weapons, so it won’t be plundered for that, there’s simply no point. If civilisation collapses, nothing bad will happen to it.

Uranium isn’t renewable, true, but with 4th-generation reactors using uranium and thorium completely (instead of only burning 1% of it as happens today in older reactors) there is more than enough to power the planet for centuries, if not millennia.

Uranium mining is small beer when compared to the damage done by mining gas, oil, or coal. For that matter, uranium mining for future widespread deployment of nuclear power would do less environmental damage than deploying wind or solar over the vast areas that would be needed.

There is no reason to expect that innovation in our current political and economic framework will yield results conducive to a sustainable or just future. There is plenty of reason to predict that capitalist (or state-socialist) innovation will produce more efficient methods of perpetuating the status quo.

It is important that we recognize that at the community level, we can develop powerful leverage through a mix of modeling sustainable communities, taking over and reshaping local governments, and mobilizing against entities and infrastructure that degrade our communities. At the national level our movement is decorative – we are seen, heard, and we marginally influence perception, but we can’t reach our stated goals. Our greatest impact might be that we reinforce the myth that we have a democracy in which what we say matters. We can say what we want on the national stage, because it does not matter.

Hopefully, Obama’s speech will produce more disillusionment. Our movement, if we are to succeed, needs to be disillusioned with the status quo and the institutions that maintain it. Disillusionment is freedom from illusions – when we are free from the illusions like democracy or sustainability through socially responsible capitalism, then we can pursue strategies that actually create resilient, sustainable communities on our own terms.

A note on nuclear:
I am not an engineer and I do not of technical knowledge about nuclear plants or nuclear waste disposal. So when I think of nuclear my main concern is not meltdowns, but the observation that even the longest lasting complex societies have not lasted as long as the life cycle of nuclear waste. My greatest fear is that looking at almost any trend, you can see that the coming century(s) will be one of great geopolitical instability with unforeseeable consequences, and what if we lose our capacity to responsibly manage nuclear plants and nuclear waste? And of course, uranium is not renewable and has a pretty nasty life cycle when you include mining, processing, etc.

As far as wind and solar go, the same site has a very good series of articles on the true lifetime costs of such technologies. When you consider the steel and concrete you need to build them, the cables you need to connect them, and the fact that they simply don’t work most of the time, you soon realise that they do so much damage for essentially no reduction in CO2.

I fully agree about the ‘clean coal’, that’s always going to be a myth. Unless we can produce power cheaper than coal today, it won’t take off. Clean coal, even if it existed, will never be cheaper than dirty coal, so it will never be built on a large scale.

My question is whether people will keep hanging onto “we can pass a comprehensive climate bill!” nonsense which I keep seeing on IGHIH and elsewhere — it’s a huge waste of our energy, at absolute “best” the only way to pass it will be if it’s an absolute joke on targets and an abomination to all environmental and social values (TONS of nuclear power, clean coal, etc.) – passing such an awful bill would divide, demoralize, and demobilize our movement for years – precious time we do not have.

My hope is, as always, that more people will put their foots down and say, enough is enough, I’m done with the D.C. b*llsh*t and go all out to win more real victories in communities and through solidarity across communities fighting dirty energy development elsewhere and throughout the world.