Recently in Science Category

Penn State and East Anglia U. Peer review isn't cutting it anymore.

Back from one of the jewels of the Lakes Region of New Hampshire--Beede Falls in North Sandwich--I read this from a guy who's one of my "four horsemen," Steve Sailer. He writes concerning the SAT Advanced Placement Physics C test, in which great efforts are made to have Non-Asian Minority (NAM) girls do better:

My theory is that girls are more conformist, so in a culture that obsesses over academic credentials, such as Asians, they do well, but in cultures that don't, they don't. Thus, only 6 black girls in the entire U.S. in 2008 got 5's on Physics C, and only 7 Mexican-American girls. In contrast, boys are more individualistic, so 78 black youths and 98 Mexican-American youths just went with their inner physics nerdishness and pulled down 5s. Good for them.

For the record I failed West Point physics the second semester of my "yearling" or sophomore year. But I was wise enough to write "Make Love, Not War" on the top of the final exam, which I handed in before anyone else. A great deal before any else. Notwithstanding the close relations of my mentor Rick to my teacher, Maj. Rosen, the deficit was too much to sweep under the rug.

If I only were more of a nerd!

While looking for blog fodder I came across a number of interesting videos. Some of you may have already seen them. Some of you haven't. It doesn't matter since they because they're good enough to see more than once.

First, there's this from Arizona Governor Brewer, calling President Obama on the carpet for his failure to fulfill one of his primary duties as president: Protecting our borders.


Then there's this, made by an unknown author, that brings the problems with the 111^th Congress and the President into focus. Some have called it a new Republican campaign ad. I think it's a warning to those in power that we, the American people, are not to be trifled with, condescended to, or ignored.


America will indeed rise on November 2, 2010. We "shall not go quietly into that goodnight."

Last, but not least, is this video from Penn & Teller's cable show, calling "Bulls**t!" about health food and the scare tactics used by shallow, holier-than-thou racists willing to let millions upon millions starve to death just so they can feel good about eating expensive organically grown, not-available-to-the-Third-World food. (Sorry, you'll have to follow the link as I couldn't find any embed code to add it here.)

One thing that has always bothered me about the folks in Congress is their incredible ignorance and arrogance when it comes to technology and science. Very few members of Congress have the background or expertise to make law or policy on science and technology matters. Far too often they get it wrong, meaning the nation and the economy suffer for it. After all, what do they know?

The answer, in a word, is obvious: they know pretty much nothing. What's worse is that they don't feel that ignorance should preclude them from talking until there is an initial technical investigation, done by some technically qualified people (from various reputable organizations). (We saw this same rush to judgment by the know-nothings after the Space Shuttle Challenger explosion in 1986.)

To me, all this is just another manifestation of the sad, ironic reality that engineers have made the incredibly difficult look way too easy. Everyone thinks it's all no big deal and not very hard, so it's easy to be an expert. It's happened in nearly all engineering and scientific disciplines.

People in general have little or no understanding of the technology they use every day, but at least they know they don't understand it and are willing to admit they don't understand it. All they know is that they can use it. Unfortunately Congress doesn't know that they don't know, and that's the problem. This false belief means they will, more often than not, come to the wrong conclusions about some scientific or technological issue. It also means that the rest of us will pay the price for their decisions, one way or another.

I'm not saying that Congress shouldn't get involved with such issues. But they should be more willing to take the time to learn about them well before deciding anything. There are very few science or technology issues that require immediate action by Congress. Unfortunately Congress doesn't realize this, or worse, they don't care. It's all about posturing and politics and power and not about the actual issues.

I'm almost jealous--I'm sure the Harvard Law student would say, "Don't be."--at the brouhaha over the private email on the possibility that blacks are on average less intelligent than other racial groups. Hey, that's what the data says, get used to it.

The same date says whites aren't quite up to speed to East Asians. And Jews? Forgettaboutit. All that medieval oppression, as I once read from Ernest Van Den Haag, put severe pressures on weeding out their own Homer Simpsons.

But reading the sniveling, mean-spirited white liberals' reaction to it on gawker is all too familiar. Let's destroy her instead of looking at the issue. They are foul-mouthed hooligans.

So can I join in, having little prudence? Men are smarter than women. There. I said it.

So has Charlotte Allen; something like that:

The theory that women are the dumber sex -- or at least the sex that gets into more car accidents -- is amply supported by neurological and standardized-testing evidence. Men's and women's brains not only look different, but men's brains are bigger than women's (even adjusting for men's generally bigger body size). The important difference is in the parietal cortex, which is associated with space perception. Visuospatial skills, the capacity to rotate three-dimensional objects in the mind, at which men tend to excel over women, are in turn related to a capacity for abstract thinking and reasoning, the grounding for mathematics, science and philosophy. While the two sexes seem to have the same IQ on average (although even here, at least one recent study gives males a slight edge), there are proportionally more men than women at the extremes of very, very smart and very, very stupid.

This entry on VDARE led me to this interesting blog which led me to another which led me to this NPR discussion on race and IQ a few years back following James Watson's statement that raised a ruckus. BTW, Watson's autobiography is excellent. One of his pieces of advice I follow by inclination: Don't play golf.

Think about all the wasted time. But I do take lots of walks with my dogs.

All I got to say is that the concept I was taught at university that sex, er, "gender" is "socially constructed" and that race is merely skin deep is a load of hogwash. Having and raising a daughter has disabused me of the former; learning that forensics experts can identify race and sex and (in some cases) age of deceased going solely on skeletons is eye-opening to say the least.

This quote is pertinent, which I first came across reading Lawrence Auster's magnificent booklet, The Path to National Suicide:

It's been sixteen years since the publication of The Bell Curve. The evidence has only solidified in ways that was almost unthinkable back then.

The educational section in The New York Times is absolutely chock-full of IQ-related news. Parents want their children to have as high an IQ as they can produce, I guess realizing that it offers greater opportunity to be a productive citizen later on.

And most of us realize that IQ, or the idea that there's a general intelligence or g (see Arthur Jensen's g Factor) for people, is largely inherited. Not solely, but 60 percent+. I actually think the numerous, numerous studies put it closer to 80-85 percent.

If that's actually true and Darwinism continues its domination--intelligent design people are unpersuasive to me--then start having the courage and to connect the dots.

You may not realize the specific books that have done just that recently here and here.

A Wall Street Journal book review that is an excellent background is here.

As I mentioned in my regular Sunday post, ClimateGate is the gift that keeps on giving.

The type of data and computer code manipulation committed by climate scientists at the CRU apparently has also been committed by NASA and NOAA as well, with non-global warming supporting temperature readings being eliminated, in turn showing a false increase in temperatures.

We don't dispute the fact that there has been some cyclical warming in recent decades -- most notably from 1979 to 1998 -- but cooling took place from the 1940s to the late 1970s, again after 1998, and especially after 2001, all while CO2 rose. This fact alone questions the primary role in climate change attributed to CO₂ by the IPCC, environmental groups, and others.

However, the global surface station data is seriously compromised.

There was a major station dropout -- and an increase in missing data from remaining stations -- which occurred suddenly around 1990. Just about the time the global warming issue was being elevated to importance in political and environmental circles.

A clear bias was found towards removing higher elevation, higher latitude, and rural stations -- the cooler stations -- during this culling process, though that data was not also removed from the base periods from which "averages," and then anomalies, were computed.

The data also suffers contamination by urbanization and other local factors, such as land-use/land-cover changes and improper siting.

There are also uncertainties in ocean temperatures. This is no small issue, as oceans cover 71% of Earth's surface.

These factors all lead to significant uncertainty and a tendency for overestimation of century-scale temperature trends. A conclusion from all findings suggests that global databases are seriously flawed and can no longer be trusted to assess climate trends, or rankings, or to validate model forecasts. Consequently, such surface data should be ignored for political decision-making.

Many of the warmists say it doesn't matter if the data was cooked because they 'know' we're all doomed unless we impoverish the world and return to agrarian level energy usage. They believe no more debate or study is needed, only action.

But with more respected and credentialed scientists calling AGW into question and pointing to the fraudulent data and the incomprehensible and questionable computer code, neither the debate or the science is settled. Before we spend trillions of dollars on a theory of questionable validity, shouldn't we go back over all the data and modeling software and verify it's accuracy?

To add to the debate, it appears that if we look at just rural US MSS station data going back to 1900, there is no evidence of global warming.

Using data downloaded from NASA GISS and picking rural sites near, but not too near, to urban sites, a comparison has been made of the temperature trend over time of the rural sites compared to those of the urban sites. 28 pairs of sites across the U.S. were compared. The paired rural site is from 31 to 91 km from the urban site in each pair. The result is that urban and rural sites were similar in 1900, with the urban sites slightly higher. The urban sites have shown an increase in temperatures since then. The rural sites show no such temperature increase and appear to be generally unchanging with only ups and downs localized in time. Over a 111 year time span, the urban sites temperatures have risen to be about 1.5C warmer than the rural sites. So, the much touted rising temperatures in the U.S. are due to the urban heat island effect and not due to a global warming such as has been proposed to be caused by human emissions of CO2 due to the combustion of fossil fuels.

It's not just rural US stations seeing this non-trend. Canadian ground station in Ontario are seeing the same thing. If global warming were happening to the extent the warmists claim, wouldn't rural weather stations data show it as well? Or might we make the assumption that global warming is only an urban phenomenon? By positing such a hypothesis, might we also state the cure would be to do away with all urban areas (cities) and move everyone back into the countryside? (Yes, it is a ridiculous hypothesis and equally ridiculous 'cure', but both have as much validity as the present AGW theory and proposed cure.)

We hear more about ClimateGate as time goes on, particularly from many professionals. One group we've been hearing from on a regular basis has been engineers. Maybe it's because we depend upon verifiable data and reproducible results as part of our jobs. No amount of wishful thinking will make what it is we design work if the scientific principles upon which it is based are false. This is something the so-called climate scientists involved in the ClimateGate scandal seem to have forgotten.

One of the latest engineers to speak out about ClimateGate is Ken Johnson, a registered Professional Engineer, retired professor of Mechanical Engineering, Thermodynamics, Fluid Mechanics, and Metrology (that's metrology, not meteorology, a similar sounding but unrelated scientific field).

The appearance of [the websites that first made the ClimateGate data public] was probably the fruit of either a diligent hacker or the guilt easing effort of an honest, science dedicated, whistle blower who became disgusted with the dishonest actions of their employer at the East Anglia University's Climate Research Unit (CRU), in Britain, who supplies global temperature data to the UN. The material contained on the sites verified what many climatologists and meteorologists have been claiming for many years, i.e., there is no legitimate scientific data which indicates any unusual long term increase in the global temperature ('Global Warming'). Further, although carbon dioxide (CO₂) 'greenhouse gas' in the atmosphere could have a small effect on global temperatures, it is kept in check by the massive amounts of CO₂ loving vegetation on land and in the oceans (like kelp), which convert the CO₂ into our life sustaining oxygen and food.

The e-mails revealed there has been an organized "cabal" of politicians and others calling themselves "Climate Scientists" who for years have been supplying falsified global temperature data to the UN to promote their efforts at worldwide wealth redistribution through CO₂ emission rationing and taxing schemes, such as the US's upcoming 'Cap and Trade' (industrial CO₂ generation allotments), with a tax on all CO₂ releases. Following the first announcement that their scheme had been uncovered by the e-mails, the major players were on the Internet commanding file deletions, hard drive erasures, and demanding prosecution of those responsible for the releases. This whole episode was dubbed by some journalist as "Climategate". It has been an example of the radical environmentalists demanding the 'foot' must be made to fit the 'shoe'.

To base policies, taxes, regulations, and laws on patently bogus data used to 'prove' a theory not much more than scientific quackery is madness...assuming the theory wasn't designed for just that purpose.

UPDATE 1/13/10: Sorry, I forgot the link when I posted this last night. All fixed now.

Even members of the MSM can learn the lessons of ClimateGate. One reporter from northern California even changed his mind about AGW after seeing the overwhelming evidence of scientific fraud committed in the name of "climate science".

A few years ago, I accepted global warming theory with few doubts. I wrote several columns for this paper condemning what I thought were unfair attacks by skeptics and defending the climate scientists.

Boy, was I naive.

Since the Climategate emails and documents revealed active collusion to thwart skeptics and even outright fraud, I've been trying to correct the record of my earlier foolishness. In one of those columns, I even wrote: "And see Real Climate (www.realclimate.org) for global warming science without the political spin."

In fact, Real Climate was and is nothing more than the house organ of global warming activists, concerned more with politics than with science.

When the self-blinded finally come to see the light, the transformation is amazing to behold. Even if this fellow at some point decides we are at fault for (the presently reversing) global warming, at least it's likely he will come to this conclusion based upon real science and not the political pandering that has been masquerading as science.

There is hope, as illustrated by this one reporter.

Here's a list I can really get into:

Climate Change Is Natural: 100 Reasons Why

1) There is "no real scientific proof" that the current warming is caused by the rise of greenhouse gases from man's activity.

2) Man-made carbon dioxide emissions throughout human history constitute less than 0.00022 percent of the total naturally emitted from the mantle of the earth during geological history.

3) Warmer periods of the Earth's history came around 800 years before rises in CO2 levels.

--snip--

10) A large body of scientific research suggests that the sun is responsible for the greater share of climate change during the past hundred years.

I particularly like #'s 8, 10, 12, and 16.

As the saying goes, Read The Whole Thing. Pay particular attention to some of the comments following the article as they are indicative of the closed-minded AGW faithful and their inability to actually debate the issue.

At first I couldn't believe it.

ABC World News was going to do a story about ClimateGate.

I thought, "Gee, at least someone other than Fox is paying attention." But that thought faded away as I watched the report, a piece that covered the hacked files and the so-called "smoking gun". Call it a CBS-Lite version of the scandal.

The only part of ClimateGate they covered were the incriminating e-mails, something they tried to explain away. No mention was made about the FORTRAN source code used to create results the CRU crew wanted to see, or the Read Me text file accompanying the computer code. No mention was made of destroyed data nor machinations to prevent skeptics from being able to question CRU's conclusions or publish dissenting articles. Nor did they say anything about Jones stepping down as head of CRU or of the UK government investigating the affair. There was also no mention of Penn State University investigating another member of the CRU cabal, Michael Mann, he of the discredited Mann "hockey stick" graph.

Instead they tried to make AGW skeptics seem deranged, even more than the AlGoristas have tried to do.

From comments made to the ABC News blog post about the report, it appears few are buying ABC's attempt to minimize the story.

It's good to know that it's not only white people who are the cancer of the planet, as Susan Sontag is infamously remembered for having sputtered. We're all at fault if we breath out that poisonous gas carbon dioxide that's a "threat" to the public safety.

Silly me for thinking that that gas was good for plants in their production of oxygen and sugars. That's at least what my grandfather, a Ph.D. in biology, constantly taught me when we went down to visit him in Naples, Florida. Photosynthesis, no?

Obviously I should be sent to a re-education camp for siring more than two or three children. (I have four.) All that poisonous carbon dioxide!

Wait. I'm a gun-toting, Bible reading, weekly church attending, conservative. I think there are moral absolutes, truth, and Haydn is better than Lady Ga Ga. They won't even bother wasting time on me. I'm hopelessly reactionary.

During a fascinating interview with his friend Charlie Rose not too recently before his death, Michael Crichton's attack on man-made global warming (at 22:18) with the "garbage in/garbage out" summation following his detailed look at the computer modeling makes him look...well, even smarter. And he was one super smart man.

Charlie Rose was aghast at the climate skepticism, acting as if his friend were denying the Trinity!

The free ranging interview covers a lot of topics, including gene patenting and his most recent book, Next.

Being that smart, that tall (6'7" to 6'9"), that handsome--it's no wonder he married a bunch of women.

I, as well as many others, have been beating the ClimateGate meme to death. It's about time AGW met its long overdue comeuppance. Despite claims by many of the AGW faithful that the fraud committed by the Climactic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia was not major, being that the CRU was only one of many climate research institutes, they have overlooked the fact that the CRU was a major clearinghouse for climate data used by other institutions to generate their climate models. That meant they were using the same 'corrected' data as the CRU, which in turn meant the other models were wrong, too. And one must keep in mind that the CRU data and models were used by the UN IPCC to generate their reports. The fraud committed by the CRU did not affect just the CRU, but any research team or institution using their data to create climate models and the resulting predictions.

As an aside, I came across this presentation about Anthropogenic Global Warming (available here in both PDF and PowerPoint format) given by Burt Rutan at Oshkosh this past summer. (Yes, that Burt Rutan of SpaceShip 1 fame.) For anyone not familiar with Burt Rutan, he is an aeronautical engineer extraordinaire. And as such, he has a considerable amount of experience analyzing test data and putting it in formats easily understood (and reproducible) by just about anyone wishing to spend the time to do so. With that in mind, Burt applied his considerable data analysis skills to the theory of AGW...and totally shreds it. Using readily available data from a number of sources including NOAA, NASA, as well as from global warming advocate sites and organizations, he delves into the data and its presentation to the world.

As he states more than once in a number of ways, it isn't always the amount of data you have that 'proves' a case like AGW as much as how it is presented. In this case he shows how climate data has been manipulated in ways that change the meaning as well as the context in order to sell a theory that is pretty crappy at best. Never mind the data massaging and corrective algorithms applied at the CRU to make it look like we're all doomed because of AGW. He shows how data analysis should be done to show what's really happening and why, regardless of one's personal beliefs one way or the other.

I must remind you that Burt Rutan is not a climate scientist, nor has he studied climatology or meteorology or atmospheric physics. He is an aeronautical engineer and he makes his living designing aircraft and spacecraft. Part of his engineering duties include analysis of flight test data and making sure the analysis is accurate. His job demands accuracy and an elimination of bias because if he gets it wrong people die. This isn't something abstract like AGW. If he fails in his job the aircraft or spacecraft he's designed and built will fail and those on board will die. That gives him great incentive to get it right. And so it is with his analysis of AGW.

Look at his presentation and decide for yourself whether he's on to something or not.

Michael Bellesiles=Phil Jones

Notice both now have stepped down from their lofty respective perches but in Bellesiles's case he is now back teaching at an obscure school in Connecticut. He sounds unrepentent. It's another indication of how lousy academia is.

Do you want to win in Pashtun land, Obama? The only feasible way is this. Send in the lawyers. Lord knows, we're going to be producing an excess number of them as record numbers are taking the LSAT.

UPDATE: I'm not alone in making the connection. Though I was there first.

I find it interesting (but not surprising) the AlGoristas are not willing to discuss or debate the ClimateGate scandal, turning instead to invective, ad hominum attacks, and the old stand by - repeating the same old tired mantra "But the scientific consensus is..." over and over again as if that's all that's needed to make AGW come true.

A perfect example of all three can be found in the comments to this op-ed piece by MIT Professor of Meteorology Richard Lindzen.

The general support for warming is based not so much on the quality of the data, but rather on the fact that there was a little ice age from about the 15th to the 19th century. Thus it is not surprising that temperatures should increase as we emerged from this episode. At the same time that we were emerging from the little ice age, the industrial era began, and this was accompanied by increasing emissions of greenhouse gases such as CO2, methane and nitrous oxide. CO2 is the most prominent of these, and it is again generally accepted that it has increased by about 30%.

No argument there. But then Lindzen does the unforgivable, at least in the eyes of the AlGoristas: He questions the validity of the claims that GW is real and that we, human beings, are the sole cause.

At this point there is no basis for alarm regardless of whether any relation between the observed warming and the observed increase in minor greenhouse gases can be established. Nevertheless, the most publicized claims of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) deal exactly with whether any relation can be discerned. The failure of the attempts to link the two over the past 20 years bespeaks the weakness of any case for concern.

He goes on to make his case, showing the science is, at best, very weak and that the models are useless because they give too much weight to some factors and not enough (or none) to others. It is this that drove the comments of the faithful to go over the edge and cease being a debate. One comment in particular sticks out, trying to discredit Professor Lindzen despite his impeccable credentials and expertise in the science of climate.

At age 70, Professor Lindzen just isn't current on the research, it's that simple. He's done distinguished work in the past, but his current opinions [are] at best outliers. He's not involved in the current research.

His view is that the computer models are unreliable. Considering the capabilities of computer modeling at the time he received his Ph.D, which was 1964, that view is understandable. His expertise in the state of computer modeling is just outdated.

So the argument put forward is that he's too old, which means he is incapable of understanding the science (and the math) behind climate research? The commenter, one Arthur Kreitman, believes that just because Professor Lindzen is 'old' that he is out of touch, implying perhaps that he is senile. He also assumes that the professor's knowledge ossified and that he's learned nothing new since 1964! He is assuming based upon facts not in evidence. Kreitman's comments are a perfect example of an ad hominum attack. Don't argue the facts, argue instead the qualifications of the one you disagree with and make the allegation that he is incapable of understanding the science behind the fraud that is AGW.

But on the other hand, I liked this one because, if nothing else, it explains a few things I've noticed, too.

I too have a theory and a model. Through careful observation of the night sky, I have determined, within a few percentage points of perfection, the winning numbers for every lottery drawing over the last 20 years. But something always goes wrong, and the numbers drawn are not quite right. I've decided that this is clearly the work of extraterrestrials, who are screwing with the night sky to fudge my numbers and deny me my rightful winnings. I had all the data to prove this, but I threw it away when my computer's hard drive got overloaded. Nevertheless, my theory is a fact, because I say it is. And since no one has ever published data proving me wrong in a peer-reviewed journal, no one can say I'm wrong.

The exact same thing happened to me, too!

Michael Bellesiles=Phil Jones.

HT: The Michigan Posse

After the hacked and leaked e-mails and data files from the University of East Anglia's CRU became public, the hew and cry from both sides of the AGW debate rose to a level I've not witnessed before. The leaked information illuminated the fraudulent, dishonest, and in some cases, illegal activities of some of the 'premier' global warming researchers, both in the UK and elsewhere in the world. Cover ups, destruction and willful denial of publicly financed research data to those requesting it under both the UK and US Freedom of Information laws, and collusion to 'jigger' data to eliminate evidence that show climate models are wrong and to bolster preconceived ideas about human-caused climate change.

The AGW skeptics, including yours truly, can point to the files to show that scientific integrity has been lost, that all AGW alarmist doom-and-gloom predictions are based upon fraudulent, cherry-picked data and algorithms designed to produce a predetermined outcome regardless of the data fed into them.

That in itself might be a major news story, but the deafening silence from the MSM implies the fix is still in. Other than Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, and a few other news outlets, there has been little, if anything from the major media. About the only exception has been the New York Times, and that surprised me (though it appears they tried to downplay the significance of the leaked data). The rest of the media are acting like nothing's changed, still publishing iffy reports laying out "We're all gonna DIE if we don't impoverish ourselves NOW!!" scenarios. But readers/listeners/watchers aren't buying it, making comment after comment about Climategate and lambasting the media for acting like it doesn't exist.

But what disturbs me more than lack of attention by the MSM and the governments of the UK and the US are the comments posted by the faithful AlGoristas, bending over backwards to explain away the leaked e-mails, data, and jiggered computer code. Reading the comments to the WSJ article linked above, it is quite apparent that quite a few of those trying to debunk the leaked information have an ax to grind, their reasoning having absolutely nothing to do with the AGW fraud exposed. They blame the WSJ (as if reporting about the hacked and leaked data was somehow 'just not done'). They blame George Bush (I haven't quite figured that one out). They blame a nameless conspiracy bent on the destruction of the human race (I haven't figured out the logic of that one, either). Others seem to be lamenting the fact they won't receive the financial gains they expected due to AGW carbon credits/alternative energy schemes/complete control over the energy production portion of the economy. And yet others claim the multi-megabytes of e-mails, data, and computer code is all a hoax, created to discredit the researchers and their sainted AlGore. Never mind that the folks at the University of East Anglia say it appears the files posted onto the 'net are genuine. That will not deter the true believers.

As the old saying goes, don't confuse the issue with facts. The Warmists will not be denied despite evidence saying their beliefs are based upon falsified data and computer climate models that are little more than means of manipulating other data to 'prove' AGW regardless of what the data really says.

Anyone reading my humble blog knows I am a proponent of nuclear power, probably one of the 'greenest' forms of generating electrical power when all factors are taken into account. Even one of the founders of Greenpeace, Dr. Patrick Moore, sees nuclear power as leading the way to a greener energy. So why aren't those in Congress pushing for reductions CO₂ emissions by promoting more nuclear power?

Could it be it's an emotional issue, one that too many on the Left see as the so-called 'third rail' of environmentalism? It would appear (to me) that that's the case.

Three Mile Island and Chenobyl have been used for decades as an argument against nuclear power. While Three Mile Island was the worst accident at a commercial nuclear power station in the West, no one died, no one was injured, and the safety systems did what they were supposed to do even though the humans running the plant screwed up.

Chernobyl was a different matter...and a different reactor design. Between a very poor design (a graphite moderated reactor), lack of a containment vessel, and a major screw-up by both the plant engineers and the overseeing Soviet government, it's no wonder the reactor destroyed itself, killing hundreds (if not more) and making the surrounding area not habitable. One thing constantly overlooked by people against nuclear power: none of the RBMK type reactors like that at Chernobyl exist here in the US. But that doesn't stop people from being against nuclear power.

US designs have a great safety record, Three Mile Island notwithstanding. There's only one thing I can say I don't like about the nuclear power industry in the US and that's the lack of standardization. There are over 100 nuclear plants operating in the US (not counting those on US Navy ships and submarines), and every one of them is custom built. No two are alike, even those built side-by-side at the same time. If we ever get around to building the next generation of nuclear reactors for power production, we should go to a standardized design.

Standardization makes for less costly plants, the ability to use modular construction, and greater safety because all plants will be identical. The learning curve for workers moving from one plant to another becomes very shallow and very short because all the valves, switches, access panels, electrical components, and critical subsystems will be in the same place in every plant.

The newer designs have taken the lessons learned from the older plants to heart, making them simpler, more reliable and efficient, and easier and less expensive.

The next generation of reactors so-called Generation III units is intended to take everything that's been learned about safe operations and do it even better. Generation III units are the reactors of choice for most of the 34 nations that already have nuclear plants in operation.

The current generation of nuclear plants requires a complex maze of redundant motors, pumps, valves and control systems to deal with emergency conditions. Generation III plants cut down on some of that infrastructure and rely more heavily on passive systems that don't need human intervention to keep the reactor in a safe condition reducing the chance of an accident caused by operator error or equipment failure.

Nuclear plants also have an envious record in regards to the amount of 'up-time', meaning how long the plant is online generating power before it's shut down for routine maintenance or refueling. Fossil fuel plants require intense and frequent maintenance of their boiler systems, meaning they must be shut down far more often compared to nuclear plants. It is not uncommon for nuclear plants to run continuously for two years without a shut down. Fossil fuel plants (particularly coal plants) may have been shut down three or four times in that same period. And because nuclear plants run for much longer periods than conventional fossil fueled plants, both their operating costs and cost per kilowatt-hour are lower. They aren't affected by the fluctuations in fuel prices.

Continued in Part II - Why nuclear waste isn't an issue.