Recently a self confessed anti-nuke sockpuppet in this space tried out (again) the lie that the anti-nuke industry is something other than a, well, puppet of the dangerous fossil fuel industry.
I don't buy it for a New York second. In my experience, there are ZERO anti-nukes, whether they are the scientific illiterates in Greenpeace or whether they are unaffiliated anti-nukes, who are not apologists for dangerous fossil fuel mining, dangerous fossil fuel waste dumping - directly into their favorite dump, the planetary atmosphere - and dangerous fossil fuel accidents. ZERO. Note in saying this I am not claiming that they are paid pro-fossil fuel sockpuppets, even though the same assholes who engage in anti-nuke dangerous fossil fuel apologetics often claim that I must be employed by the nuclear industry. I have no intention of describing my personal life here, but I can say with admiration that if one is employed by the nuclear industry, one can, should, and must be proud of one's intellectual and moral integrity. A career in nuclear science and engineering is not only intellectually challenging, but it is a highly ethical enterprise in service to humanity, irrespective of what dumb scientific illiterates have to say about it. However, the claim by anti-nukes that the only reason that anyone can do anything is for money indicates exactly and precisely what their mentality is. They are all, everyone of them in my experience, materialist consumer types. They are preternatually incapable of understanding an ethical position.
Nevertheless it is easily shown that there are paid anti-nukes, highly paid anti-nukes who are paid by dangerous fossil fuel companies directly for their dangerous fossil fuel apologetics.
Consider the scientifically illiterate anti-nuke Amory Lovins. We've heard in this space lots of whining about the tar sands pipeline into the US, as if the complainants had never filled their tanks with Canadian oil sands derived gasoline. (Fat chance.) Now, for the record I oppose all dangerous fossil fuels, including tar sands, and believe they should all be phased out as quickly as is conceivable. You will never see me engaged in apologetics for any dangerous fossil fuels, but I'm not Amory Lovins.
So we're all against tar sands here? I guess than that Amory Lovins is not a Kossack then.
Here, from anti-nuke Lovins' own website is a list of the companies for whom he "consults," that is the companies that pay for his consumerist McMansion in Snowmass, Colorado, just outside of Aspen, where he has his offices in a neighborhood that is not walkable.
Famous Anti-nuke Amory Lovins describes his revenue sources:
Mr. Lovins’s other clients have included Accenture, Allstate, AMD, Anglo American, Anheuser-Busch, Bank of America, Baxter, Borg-Warner, BP, HP Bulmer, Carrier, Chevron, Ciba-Geigy, CLSA, ConocoPhillips, Corning, Dow, Equitable, GM, HP, Invensys, Lockheed Martin, Mitsubishi, Monsanto, Motorola, Norsk Hydro, Petrobras, Prudential, Rio Tinto, Royal Dutch/Shell, Shearson Lehman Amex, STMicroelectronics, Sun Oil, Suncor, Texas Instruments, UBS, Unilever, Westinghouse, Xerox, major developers, and over 100 energy utilities. His public-sector clients have included the OECD, the UN, and RFF; the Australian, Canadian, Dutch, German, and Italian governments; 13 states; Congress, and the U.S. Energy and Defense Departments.
Please note the "Suncor." Solar company, you say? Hardly. Suncor is the "green" tar sands company.
Suncor, "green" joint venture of Sunoco and Petro Canada.
We have lots of people here whining about the President of the United States and his approval of the Suncor pipeline, but at least, unlike Amory Lovins who generates very little in the way of whimpers of protest here, the President is not openly paid by Suncor.
Lately we've been hearing that the ignorance, fear, and superstition that constitutes the German anti-nuke energy policy is, like Suncor, "green."
So, apparently is German coal mining techology, an active area of German energy research.
Coal's future suddenly looks brighter in Germany
The public debate over an accelerated phase-out of Germany's nuclear energy program has pushed the nation's domestic coal industry back into the spotlight. Nuclear energy provides over 23 percent of Germany's electricity, and if nuclear plants go offline soon, renewable energy sources are not going to be able to completely cover the shortfall.
"In the short run, we cannot do without conventional energy generation," said Franz-Josef Wodopia, managing director of the German Hard Coal Association (GVSt). "Both in terms of the power supply itself as well as far as its role in stabilizing the power grid."
He said coal will now have to play the "bridge function" that nuclear technology was once meant to as the country transitions to renewable energies.
The liars in the coal/gas/anti-nuke industry are keeping to their bullshit story that coal is a "transitional" fuel, and handing out the delusional horseshit about "efficient" coal plants.
Like the assholes in Norway who kept hyping the "sequestration" plants to put lipstick on their gas pig, they have no intention of building "transitional" plants, since no one builds a brand new expensive plant with the idea of operating for just one or two decades. No one. They're full of shit. They're liars in Germany. They intend to operate these filthy plants for the entire lifetime of everyone on the planet who is now living, until the last bit of climate change kills the last person who can stand it.
But, nevertheless, a nice touch is to declare coal mining "green."
Plans are still on the table for a kind of model mine, which is something German mining equipment manufacturers would like to see. Around 90 percent of their revenue of 4 billion euros annually is made abroad. But to remain competitive, they need a testing facility closer to home – a mining pit where they can test new equipment and techniques.
A test area like that, where no commercial mining operations take place, could attract research grant money.