Gillian Caldwell talks clean coal with President Obama

[bananas]

Run time: 01:09 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzfhwUjtgBc   Posted on YouTube: February 11, 2010 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: February 16, 2010 By DU Member: bananas Views on DU: 221

 
Gillian Caldwell talks to Obama on a rope-line:

http://www.1sky.org/blog/2010/02/my-chat-with-president-obama-dont-be-stubborn-or-we-will-be

<snip>

We shake hands, I grab President Obama’s hands with both of mine and look him straight in the eye:

Me: It’s got to be renewable energy. No more clean coal. (Inaudible: It’s a unicorn. It doesn’t exist.)

Obama: No, no, no… I disagree with you. I disagree with you. I'm going to defend… We are not going to get all our energy from wind and solar in the next 20 years…

Me: Can't the market do it? Can't the market make the investment? (Inaudible: It’s hundreds of billions (of dollars we’d be investing in "clean coal" in the House version of the bill))

Obama: They can’t do it. The technology’s not there. I’ve got a nuclear physicist as my Department of Energy who cares more about climate change than anything and he will tell you you can’t get it done just through that – so you’ve got to have a transition period and do all this other stuff. Don’t be stubborn about it!

Me: It’s about getting the votes (inaudible: in Congress isn’t it?)

Obama: This is not a votes matter, This is a technological matter. It really is. I mean, I've looked at it.

Me: We’re running a national campaign on it and people are really upset about this–

Obama: I know, look. I know everybody’s… you know, if I could do it all with wind and solar I would! We can't. Not yet. But we can ramp it up. That's what we're working on.

<snip>

One of the best comments:

February 8, 2010
1:33 PM

Dr. M. K. Dorsey said:

Gillian,

Great work. Not sure if its a blessing or a curse that you now are in full agreement with General Electric CEO Jeff Immelt. While a younger Senator Obama was still on the campaign trail: Immelt told the Financial Times on 18 November 2007:

"If US utilities were making investment decisions without any additional government incentives, they would choose to invest only in gas-fired power stations and in wind farms."

Its a pity now President Obama is at odds with the CEO of one of the world's largest nuclear power plant manufactures.

Its a further pity that the President had to pull "I have a nuclear physicist" out of his bag of tricks on you while working the Gen44 reception line. As it turns out the environmental movement has a few nuclear physicists as well.

Folks making the case for nuclear power on your blog and beyond need to be aware of: Arjun Makhijani, the President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research.

Arjun's Ph.D. in engineering, with a specialization in nuclear fusion technology (i.e., bomb making) hails from the University of California at Berkeley--that same great place where DOE's Secretary Chu was a lab director, at Lawrence Berkeley Labs.

Makhijani has authored many articles, studies, reports and books on nuclear fuel cycle related issues, including weapons production, testing, and nuclear waste, over the past twenty years. Indeed just as many a Secretary Chu.

He is the principal author of one of the first studies ever done (completed in 1971) on energy conservation potential in the U.S. economy. Most recently, Dr, Makhijani has authored Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy (RDR Books and IEER Press, 2007). This great book, the first analysis of a transition to a U.S. economy based completely on renewable energy, without any use of fossil fuels or nuclear power, should be bedside reading for all those backing nuclear power.

Anyone interested in Makhijani's work and IEER--can even download a free summary of the book "Carbon-Free and Nuclear-Free: A Roadmap for U.S. Energy Policy" here:

http://www.ieer.org/carbonfree/summary.pdf

Thanks again for your work.
Dr. D.

http://live.tcktcktck.org/cop15-calendar/real-talk-happy-hour">Dr. Dorsey served as a member of Senator Barack Obama’s energy and environment Presidential campaign team.

Arjun Makhijani has lots of information at his website www.ieer.org

Obama and Chu should also talk to Carlo Rubbia, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work in particle physics, who is credited as the inventor of the accelerator-driven reactor, who is now working on solar power and says, "The Nuclear Error, The Future Is The Sun"