What If The Grid Crashed?

                                                                                     written 30 August, 2026

                                                                              published 6 September, 2026

 

            On August 18, 2026, the New York Times Magazine published an article by Christopher Cox titled "What If America Went Completely Dark?"  It opened by describing the April, 2013 attack on the PG&E Metcalf substation near San Jose.  In 20 minutes, over 100 shots damaged the cooling systems of 17 large transformers, taking them all off line.  The shooters escaped before police arrived and were never arrested.  PG&E maintained power in the region using their system redundancy, but it took 4 weeks to repair.

            Since then, dozens of similar domestic attacks have occurred.  The most damaging attack came in December, 2022, when 2 substations in North Carolina were struck, creating a regional blackout lasting five days.  Other attacks have been foiled, all involving right wing extremists and neo-Nazi groups.   

            The electrical gird is the largest machine built by humans.  The very high voltages of the transmission system are transformed down to the lower voltage of the community distribution systems at more than 55,000 substations, each with multiple large transformers.  These transformers are unique for each location, constructed by hand, costing as much as $14M, taking years to build.  They are designed to last 40 years, and many are already older than that.  Domestic transformer production supplies only one fifth of our demand.  The rest come from Mexico, South Korea, and China.  

            While the grid is extensive, it is a massively interconnected network.  The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission did a power analysis on the national system and found that knocking out just 10 key substations (about 180 transformers) would black out the entire country.  The damage would take years to be repaired, if ever.  

            The New York Times Magazine article focused on the grid vulnerability to human terrorist activity, accidents, and aging infrastructure.  But those aren't the only sources of concern. 

            Solar flares of electromagnetic energy occur regularly: multiple small one daily, multiple medium ones weekly, and a large one every month, all with little effect.  But very large ones, such as the September, 1859 Carrington event, occurring every few centuries, can be destructive.

            The telegraph system had been installed, creating loops of wires hundreds of miles long.  When electromagnetic energy passes through wire loops, it generates current (the physics behind electrical motors and generators).  The induced current shot sparks for the telegraph keys, and the system functioned without any batteries.  Because the telegraph system was fairly simple and small, damage was limited.

            Today's electrical grid is vastly more complex, with much longer loops of wire, so the induced currents would be larger.  Depending on the size of the flare, and which side of the Earth was facing the sun at the time of arrival, it could damage not just a few substations, but possibly half the planet. 

            Electrical energy is essential for the functioning of all other parts our modern economy.  An Energy Department report about a large grid blackout concluded: “The supply of food, water and fuel would degrade within days. The facile communication of information to the general population would be greatly complicated by the loss of cellphones, internet access and television. The economy would virtually shut down as electronic transactions could no longer be processed. After several days, widespread social unrest and confusion would ensue.”  Definitely an understatement!  

            The failure of multiple transformers is a "black swan" event: relatively low frequency, but very high impact.  This grid vulnerability is a consequence of the historical centralized design where a few large power centers produce electricity which is then shipped over long distances.  A more resilient alternative would add widely distributed modest power production and storage. 

             Individual homes and businesses can already be designed to use the grid normally, yet stand alone when the grid fails.  This is harder for entire communities, because of the regulatory stranglehold of existing utilities like PG&E.  

            Ukiah has the rare advantage of owning our electrical system, controlling what happens "behind the meter", giving us latitude not available anywhere else in Mendocino County.  The goal is not to replace the grid, but to augment the system.  Locally collected power stabilizes costs with free energy and fixed cost hardware.  These systems will help supply our usual power load under normal conditions, but will continue to operate during emergencies.  Despite providing less than our full load, having some power is much better than none at all.  

            Ukiah can become a leader in this field, creating an example of interest everywhere.  The sooner we start, the better.

The AI Bubble

                                                                                     written 23 August, 2026

                                                                                 published 30 August, 2026

 

            Most everyone has now heard about Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the massive data centers required to support it.  

            Boosters believe it is the wave of the future, solving problems previously unsolvable, revolutionizing the economy, with potentially trillions in profit for investors.  AI helps wildfire cameras be more efficient, improves medical diagnostics, has designed new drugs, and even new viruses.  The possibilities are amazing.

            Detractors point to science fiction like the "Terminator", bioterrorism, disinformation, and the potential destruction of the middle class from massive unemployment.  Political deep fakes are getting much better, being created more quickly, destroying trust.  Models have "escaped" their test bed.  AI lies, and writes its own code. 

            Whether for good or ill, data center planning has exploded.  The trillions invested keep the stock market expanding.  Over 2,000 domestic data centers have been proposed.  Believing this will be lucrative, people rush to get in on the fiscal elevator.  The "fear of missing out" is a herd mentality driving an economic feeding frenzy.  But this may be another economic bubble, which could crash like others have before. 

            Putting aside the determination of how AI could help or destroy our economy, the reality of what is required to build and operate these data centers has to be considered.  They demand massive amounts of money, land, cooling water, and electricity.  

             The existing electrical grid is inadequate to supply the sudden increase in power demanded, causing regional power price jumps and degraded grid reliability.  Grid expansion is expensive and time consuming.  Additionally, the large transformers essential to grid nodes, each one uniquely designed for that location, take years to fabricate and deliver.  

            But AI is a rush to be first, and can't afford to wait, so many data centers are now planning energy production systems co-located on their site.  A few are expecting to be fusion powered, although this technology is still at the laboratory level.  Others plan to use small modular reactors, which are still being developed, so cost and longevity are yet to be determined, let alone reliable delivery times.  

            Less speculative plans will use banks of natural gas or diesel generators.  But the natural gas fired turbine wait list is already five years and growing, and the war on Iran has perturbed the global natural gas market.  While domestic natural gas prices are still holding steady, our most productive gas fields are experiencing production declines, and may have peaked.  Domestic diesel prices have risen 50 percent due to the war.  

            The war also has a fiscal impact on data centers.  Middle East fossil fuel production has been very lucrative for decades, and those excess funds have been reinvested in U.S. stocks and bonds, subsidizing our ever-growing national debt.

The war has significantly reduced traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, currently running at 10 percent of prewar levels, so that petro-dollar cash flow has diminished.  In addition, the president's erratic foreign policy has degraded trust in the America dollar, further stressing the funding of our national economy.

             AI is still looking for a profitable product to sell, and most companies have yet to turn a profit, so investors are getting nervous.  Data centers demand an enormous number of expensive, very complex computer chips.  As investment money gets tighter, the chip companies are "loaning" money to the data center developers to keep their industry solvent, further eroding investor confidence.  While more money is required to keep AI development moving, we find the global economy less willing or able to contribute further.  

            Climate driven droughts are increasing, affecting agriculture and power generation.  Data center water demands make things worse.  Public backlash has risen dramatically, cutting across partisan lines, driven by concerns about noise, water, electricity, and economics, forcing about half the proposed data centers to be canceled.

            In addition to these structural hinderances to data centers, the war still has no solution.  The strait is still constrained.  We continue to burn up finite strategic reserves.  The diminished energy capacity of the world has yet to hit with full force, now estimated to arrive in September.  When the issue is no longer just rising prices, but also limited availability, the economy will probably shrink.  At that point, if AI is a bubble, it will likely pop.  With so much of the economy focused on AI, some people think the housing crash of 2007 will become just a preview of coming attractions.

            This could all happen before the midterm elections.  What an interesting time to be alive!

Capitalism And Socialism

                                                                                     written 16 August, 2026

                                                                                 published 23 August, 2026

 

            Capitalism prioritizes the wealth of individuals, and socialism prioritizes the society of people: the two poles of the universal relationship between the self and the collective.  This is expressed in nature by the day/night and summer/winter dance between our individual sun and the universe of stars.  Living exclusively in daytime or nighttime is unsustainable.  Similarly, economies embracing either extreme capitalism or extreme socialism are doomed to collapse.  Reality requires a dynamic balance of both to endure.

            As our economy deteriorates and the progressive wing of the Democratic party becomes more popular, we are seeing a sharp rise in critique of the "socialist agenda" from the Republicans and status quo Democrats threatened by change.  For example, Kathleen Parker recently wrote in the Ukiah Daily Journal that socialism "just doesn't work", declaring that, "unlike socialism, capitalism embraces human nature".  

            While it is true that autocratic centralized economic control fails eventually, history shows unregulated capitalism fails as well.  Capitalism is mythologized as small businesses, entrepreneurships, competition, risk and reward, and a rising standard of living, which is accurate in the early stages.  But over time, economic consolidation becomes domination by monopolies, financialization, rent extraction, political capture, and wealth concentration, decaying into oligarchy and collapse.  America experienced this in the late 1920's, and we seem to be headed there again.  

            Capitalism rests on two mistaken assumptions: slavish devotion to the mythical "free market", and the acceptability of unrestrained human selfishness. 

            Adam Smith postulated the free market as the most equitable distribution of wealth, with several essential assumptions: equal access to financing and information, and inclusion of all costs within the price of an item, none of which are true in our actual economy.  Consequently, we have suicidal industries making exclusive short-term profits.

            Unrestrained selfishness is contrary to our spiritual heritage, and destructive to our nation.  Christ said "love one another", but in this supposedly Christian nation, we have a trillionaire declaring "empathy is the downfall of the western world", while most of the population lives paycheck to paycheck.  

            Our president is the most corrupt in American history, enriching himself while impoverishing the rest of the country.  He guts programs for people in need while funding tax relief for the wealthiest.  Climate change is burning up, or flooding out, our nation, but the president cries "hoax", funding energy systems making it worse, unable to admit he is wrong.  His ego driven war on Iran, supposedly a quick "excursion", has no apparent solution, while slowly destabilizing the entire world economy.  This is not sustainable.

            Recognizing the natural life cycle of capitalism, and desiring to prevent corrupt, oppressive oligarchy, societies can take actions to keep capitalism from digesting itself.  This takes the form of taxing capital, restricting money in political campaigns, regulating corporations, investing in essential public services, supporting robust unions, and strong anti-trust and anti-corruption laws.  Such regulated capitalism is what the rest of the world calls democratic socialism: a dynamic balance between capitalism and socialism.

            Months ago, Trenz Pruca posted this summary.  "Capitalism is like fire, brilliant, dangerous, and transformative, so societies have three choices: let it burn out unchecked (oligarchic collapse), extinguish it (authoritarianism), or manage it (democratic socialism).  The societies that flourish will be the ones that treat economics not as theology, but as gardening: tending the healthy growth, pruning the dangerous overgrowth, and remembering that unchecked systems, like unchecked fires, consume everything."

            Capitalist zealots have dominated the discussion in the U.S. for decades, defining any socialist tendency as evil incarnate.  But they are doomed to fail, because reality has an inclusive, socialist inclination.

            Consider a fruit tree.  Using free solar energy, water, and available nutrients, it produces tons of fruit over its lifetime, far beyond its own reproductive needs.  This bounty, freely given, nourishes untold numbers of other species and individuals.

            In our own body, tens of trillions of individual cells, all autonomous living individuals, thrive and function is relative harmony, as a classic socialist organization: to each according to its need and from each according to its abilities.  Some cells work all the time, others only in emergencies, yet are all provided for, freely given energy, nutrients, communication, waste disposal, and meaningful occupation.  When any part of this system fails, the whole organism is threatened.  Should human society be less inclusive than each citizen?

            In response to our growing institutional insanity, people are rising up, saying, STOP!  ENOUGH!  I believe this election will happen, despite the president's efforts.  Stay tuned, and vote!

 

Indigestible Waste

                                                                                       written 9 August, 2026

                                                                                 published 16 August, 2026

 

            Reality is whole, interconnected at the deepest levels, and life works in consort.  Every species ingests energy and material, and excretes "waste", but the "waste" of one species is "food" for another.  Except for industrial humanity.  We have forgotten our commonality of being, and produce "waste" that is toxic to life, indigestible, and widespread.  Three examples are radioactive nuclear debris, plastic, and atmospheric carbon dioxide.

            Industrial scale nuclear production began 80 years ago with two wartime facilities: Hanford, Washington, producing plutonium, and Oak Ridge, Tennessee, producing enriched uranium.  They ended WWII, supported the Cold War nuclear arms race, and jump started commercial nuclear power reactors. 

            The production and use of nuclear fuel creates highly radioactive waste byproducts, toxic to life for a hundred thousand years.  No chemical or biological systems can break down this waste, only time.  The safe disposal of such waste requires careful handling, which is expensive and time consuming.  Forty years ago, production at both military sites ended, and decontamination cleanup began.  Almost $100B has already been spent, but completion is estimated to cost $1T more, and take another 60 years.  Mildly radioactive debris is buried in dedicated landfills, but highly radioactive material is buried at a military geologic facility in New Mexico.

            Spent fuel from commercial reactors, a much larger volume, also requires geologic disposal.  Globally, 427 reactors produce 8,500 tons of this toxic waste each year.  The U.S., with 92 operating reactors, began building a geologic depository at Yucca Mountain, Nevada.  After spending almost $100B, construction was shut down because the location was geologically unsuitable.  Only Finland, with 5 reactors, has an operating depository for such waste.  No other geologic site is currently in operation anywhere, so power plants store their waste on site, in specialized casks.

            The two most widely known nuclear accidents, Chernobyl and Fukushima, also produced radioactive waste problems, still unresolved.  Chernobyl has a human exclusion zone, and a large barn covering the power plant wreckage, which is beginning to fail.  Fifteen years after the event, Fukushima hasn't yet uncovered the melted reactor core material, and they are running out of room to store the radioactive water being pumped out of the broken power reactors.  Cleanup is optimistically expected to cost $1T, and take a century.

            Ignoring all this, the U.S. is investing heavily in modern reactors, which will produce even more radioactive waste with no place to go.

            Plastic production began in the early 20th century, but increased dramatically in the 1950's.  Today, 500 million tons of plastic are produced annually.  Only 9 percent is ever recycled, 12 percent is incinerated, producing toxic air pollution, and most goes into landfills.  But one third is "mismanaged", tossed into the natural world, with 8 million tons entering the ocean each year.  

            Plastic is biologically inert and doesn't rot, so it persists long beyond its usefulness.  Plastic can take 1,000 years to degrade, not transformed, but broken down into smaller and smaller pieces over time, becoming microplastic.  Microplastic is found in every ecosystem, from the deepest ocean to the highest mountain peaks.  Total oceanic microplastic weighs almost 100 million tons, and will soon outweigh all the fish.  100 million marine animals are killed by plastic annually.  

            Microplastic is found in every part of the human body.  Each week, we ingest 5 grams of plastic, the weight of a credit card, from air, food, and water.  Stanford Medicine Newsletter reports, "animal and cellular studies have linked microplastics to biological changes including inflammation, an impaired immune system, deteriorated tissues, altered metabolic function, abnormal organ development, cell damage and more." 

            Yet it is still "profitable" to create new plastic.   

            Unlike radioactive waste or ingested plastic, atmospheric carbon dioxide doesn't kill directly, but is increasingly heating the planet, disrupting every part of the environment, shifting us away from a climate where humans have thrived.  We add 35 billion tons every year, over 1,800 billion tons since the industrial revolution began, most of which will endure for over 1,000 years.

            Our economy is distorted, artificially excluding fundamental costs, which makes suicidal economic decisions look "profitable".  In a unity reality, all expenses are included.  Pretending they are not is bringing down our entire civilization.  Short term thinking, and the illusion of separation, are obsolete perspectives.  We know better.  The information has been broadcast for decades.  But flawed economics still dominate.  We have demonstrated we are smart enough to manipulate the material world.  The question is: do we have the wisdom to endure?

 

 

 

Houston, We Have A Problem

                                                                                       written 2 August, 2026

                                                                                   published 9 August, 2026

 

            In 2020, the president's niece, Dr. Mary Trump, a psychologist, wrote a biography of her uncle tilted "Too Much, And Never Enough", portraying him as a malignant narcissist.  On April 13th, 2026, more than 200 mental health professionals sent a letter to Congress warning that the president is dangerous because “his symptoms of severe, untreatable personality disorder – malignant narcissism”, make him “grossly unfit for leadership”.

            A malignant narcissist may display the following traits.  They use, abuse, and discard people.  They are obsessed with power.  Everything is personal for them.  They hold grudges and take revenge.  They take pleasure from the suffering of others.  Nothing is ever their fault.  They are ruthless in their pursuit of what they want.  They don't have a conscience.  They have many enemies.  No one will see their insecurities.

            Research psychologist Dr. Lucas Bean describes narcissism as an unstable psychological condition, so disconnected from reality it inevitably collapses, in four distinct phases. 

            The first phase is refusal to accept reality.  "They double down, escalate things, lie even bigger, threaten people, demand more.  When the mask begins to crack, escalation is not a strategy, but a survival mechanism.  A narcissist will burn everything down before they admit they lost."

            The second phase is uncontrollable rage.  "Rage is never about the target, but the underlying shame.  Being unable to accept being a fraud, he turns that outward into destruction.  The rage gets louder because the walls are closing in."

            The third phase is implosion.  "This is where people closest to him start to see what is happening.  They have to admit they enabled a fraud, a loser, or double down and pretend nothing is happening.  The more invested in a lie, the harder it is to walk away.  Once everyone around a collapsing narcissist is trapped with him, there is no one around to stop him."

            The fourth phase is the point of no return.  "At this point there is nothing left to lose, and nothing he will not do.  Capacity for destruction becomes limitless.  A collapsing narcissist with dementia only reacts without filters.  A nuclear war feels like a better option than backing down and looking weak."

            Hitler was a malignant narcissist.  As WWII ended, and his defeat was apparent, he ordered the total destruction of remaining German infrastructure, to inflict on his country the devastation he felt within.  Fortunately, his generals had more allegiance to Germany than to Hitler, and refused to carry out those insane orders.  

            The whole world can see our president in the above descriptions.  Everything from the reflecting pool, to his stalled Iran war, increasingly thwarts his whims.  As reality closes in, he is becoming more unstable, flooded with shame, humiliation, rage, and panic simultaneously.  Although the president has surrounded himself with mindless loyalists, perhaps the growing awareness of his destructive collapse will embolden people in the government to save our country.  Forewarned is forearmed.  All we need is a miracle.

            I define a miracle as the operation of a system not currently within my awareness.  As an individual, I have a limited view of the world, therefore, countless systems outside my view are already in operation.  I find this comforting.   

            We can consider our president as a cautionary tale about the limitations of the individual ego.  The deeper reality is we are all in this together.  No individual can exist without the contributions from the living systems of life on Earth.  Our national obsession with money and the accumulation of things has caused us to forget this essential interconnection.  The planetary life systems have become shakier, as our species takes without regard for sustaining the welfare of all people, let alone the whole planet. 

            The political upheaval now making news is because people feel left out, and they are angry enough to do something about it.  The status quo tries to deflect attention, blaming anyone but themselves.  But as prices, climate changes, and material scarcities get worse, the distractions aren't working as well.

            This is beyond politics, but is instead about general survival.  While we are each a unique individual, we all arise from the fundamental common ground of spirit, materiality, and species.  All the spiritual traditions know this, as expressed by the universality of the Golden Rule.  Many know an evolution of consciousness is now taking place here on Earth.  We are here, now, to participate, experience, and manifest that awakening.  That is a miracle that might save us all.

 

Canada

                                                                                          written 26 July, 2026

                                                                                   published 2 August, 2026

 

            While the MAGA cult is fond of accusing critics of "Trump Derangement Syndrome", the entire world now sees true derangement in action: the president wants to punish Canada for "exporting" toxic wildfire smoke, claiming Canada hasn't managed their forests well.

            Canada currently has over 2,000 active fires, of which more than 700 are listed as large and critical, mostly in the wilderness of their northern provinces, far from human habitation.  Heavy smoke has been blowing out of Canada into the upper Midwest and Northeast of the U.S., at levels hazardous to health.  The smoke blows downwind, driven by global patterns that sane people know nobody controls.  

            The flammability of the forest has been increased by extensive heat waves, prolonged droughts, and increased tree death due to insect infestations, which are blown down by stronger storms, then ignited by lightning strikes.  These factors are amplified by the growing climate crisis.  But the president is not concerned with facts, only with blame, because he never takes responsibility.

            In the last 250 years, human industrial combustion has increased long lasting atmospheric carbon dioxide levels by one half, added almost 2 trillion tons.  This has modified atmospheric chemistry, acting as insulation, warming the planet, changing the climactic impact on the surface where we all live.  Of the total added, the U.S. economy contributed 25 percent, while the Canadian economy contributed only 2 percent.  If anyone is responsible, it is not primarily the Canadians.

            But the president says the climate crisis is a hoax.  He lies to dodge any responsibility for what is unfolding.  In Congress, his Republican faithful are rushing to create legislation punishing Canada, while at the same time preparing to grant climate immunity to the oil companies, who knowingly created the problem while profiting immensely.  Beyond the obvious hypocrisy of these actions, another important consequence is the continued destruction of the long-standing relationship between our two countries.

            Upon entering office this term, the president imposed a 25 percent tariff on all Canadian imports.  While most of those tariffs were soon declared unconstitutional and repealed, but the relationship was damaged.  Canadian Prime Minister Carney said "Trump is trying to break us so America can own us.  That will never ever happen."

            Canada reacted swiftly, with reduced consumption of imported American goods, and reduced sales of Canadian goods to the U.S., which dropped 7 percent, the lowest since 1980's, and expanded exports to the rest of the world by 17 percent, an all-time high.  Individual Canadians responded as well.  From being the top foreign visitors in 36 states, spending $20 billion annually, tourism from Canada fell an average of 42 percent, and as much as 65 percent in some locations.  

            At the January, 2026 World Economic Forum, Prime Minister Carney called what America had done to the global order a "rupture, not a transition, not a realignment, but a rupture.  The rules-based international order that America built and led for 80 years is under threat, crumbling, no longer fit for the purpose".  The room stood and applauded. 

            More American goods are purchased by Canada than China, Japan and Germany combined, making it the top export destination for 36 U.S. states.  $3.6 billion in Canadian goods and services cross our border every day, including 85 percent of U.S. electricity imports, the energy equivalent of ten Hoover Dams, and 60 percent of U.S. crude oil imports.  Canada is our largest foreign supplier of steel, aluminum, and uranium, which fuels 20 percent of U.S. nuclear plants.  Canada supplies 34 critical minerals and metals the Pentagon has identified as essential to national security.  Every one of these imports is something Washington cannot replace quickly, or at all in some cases.

            Prime Minister Carney said, "That’s not a trade relationship.  That’s a lifeline.  And America has been treating it like a bargaining chip."

            Our country does not exist alone, but is part of a massively interconnected economy and environment.  The president acts in total denial of that fact, adrift from reality, driven by personal aggrandizement and greed, risking our national economic and strategic alliance with our nearest neighbor, and the fate of the entire global economy.  His war of choice on Iran has returned to a destructive phase, expanding now into the Red Sea, and the price of oil has jumped 30 percent since fighting renewed.  With no solution in sight, he is flailing, his inadequacy obvious to the whole world.  

            Will any Republicans find the spine to say "enough", before he goes nuclear?

 

Our Choices

                                                                                          written 19 July, 2026

                                                                                      published 26 July, 2026

  

            On Tuesday, July 14th, Sonoma Clean Power held a ribbon cutting ceremony at a solar array on Redemeyer Road, northeast of Ukiah.  This 4 megawatt array, with storage, is now the largest wholesale solar array operating in the county.  The power will support Sonoma Clean Power's Evergreen program, which provides 100 percent non carbon energy to their customers.

            Owned by Renewable Properties, which installs this kind of grid scale power system for publicly owned power companies, the array sits on 20 acres, leased for 20 years from a local landowner.  Financing was arranged in conjunction with the Saving Bank of Mendocino.  The system was designed and constructed by regional companies, using local labor wherever possible.

            This is a step toward a local sustainable future, albeit a relatively small step.  To put things in perspective, on average, this array will produce about 5 percent of what Ukiah consumes every day, although this power goes to SCP customers in the valley.  China just announced the completion of another 1,000 megawatt solar array.  Around the globe, 1,000 megawatts of solar are installed every day.  Some of the fastest solar growth is in Africa and Pakistan.  

            Even as heat waves cook the southwest, toxic smoke blankets the northeast, and damaging floods kill people in Texas, our president insanely denies the climate crisis.  Despite this, solar projects accounted for almost three quarters of new domestic grid scale electrical systems installed in 2025.  This is not because the power industry is concerned about the adverse climate impact of combustion fuels, but because solar and storage are the cheapest and quickest power to install, with prices continuing to fall every year.  The oil industry acknowledges this fact, understanding the inevitable transformation will be driven by economics.  Consequently, the actions of this administration seem doubly absurd.  

            As the stalemate with Iran accelerats the global shift away from fossil fuels, the president uses taxpayer funds to keep uneconomic coal plants operating, pay developers to NOT build wind arrays, and pours billions into developing untested small modular reactors (SMR).  The nuclear resurgence excites the investor class, but material reality hinders progress.

            Several domestic SMR's have now broken ground, but the fuel for these is problematic.  Unlike the larger standard fission reactors which use 5 percent enriched uranium fuel, these new systems will use more highly enriched uranium, and some have expensive exotic fuels.  Since most enriched uranium comes from Russia, billions are being invested to build new domestic enrichment factories, an expensive, time-consuming process.

            Nuclear in general has a problem with their "spent fuel", which is hazardous to life for a hundred thousand years.  Since the nuclear industry began 80 years ago, no country except Finland has as yet built a long-term spent fuel depository.  Instead, like crazy people keeping their urine in jars in the garage, nuclear power plants keep their lethal waste in special casks on site.  Each year the 94 U.S. reactors produce over 2,000 tons of spent fuel, and storage space is getting limited.  Japan recently announced they are running out of space, yet they are restarting some of the reactors that were shut after Fukushima.  Building more reactors makes the problem worse.

            To speed development, the president has streamlined nuclear permitting and fired people at the Nuclear Regulatory Agency who monitor the design process.  Nuclear history shows prioritizing speed and cost over safety is dangerous.  Chernobyl resulted from flawed design and the cost saving exclusion of a containment structure: a failure that effected all Europe.  Fukushima resulted from contractor's cost saving decisions to place emergency generators at sea level and build a 30 foot sea wall for protection, even though historic tsunamis had exceeded 45 feet: a failure that created a trillion dollar problem. 

            The financial industry likes the massive funding nuclear requires, and corporations like the centralized control that results, so it makes sense that the president should push nuclear, over and above his anti-climate fetish.  However, the global appeal of solar is driven in part by how easily is can be transformative and diversified down to very small applications.  Bringing electricity to a rural village in Africa, or even to individual households, is part of why solar installations are exploding in even the poorer portions of the world, something nuclear can never accomplish.  By pushing nuclear and trying to kill solar, the president has abandoned the future to China.  

            We can have a sustainable civilization that doesn't kill the climate, create intractable waste, or bankrupt the economy.