Tom Friedman:
As Richard K. Lester, an energy-innovation expert at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, notes, “The best chance we have — perhaps the only chance” of addressing the combined challenges of energy supply and demand, climate change and energy security “is to accelerate the introduction of new technologies for energy supply and use and deploy them on a very large scale.”
This, he argues, will take more than a Manhattan Project. [more]
The good news is that the first new nuclear plant in the US in ages is being proposed for Texas, and the City of Austin is thinking about chipping in. Thus it is an important step to realistically addressing greenhouse gas accumulation.
The bad news is that the plant will be sited next to existing nuclear facilities near Bay City TX at Matagordo Bay, and so, as far as I can tell, would add to the already vast industrial infrastructure at risk from sea level rise.
Texas ought to be leading the way on energy. We need it, we have an established culture of energy related industries, we have land, wind, sun and saltwater (for cooling and possibly even for hydraulic energy storage), and we have geological formations that can contain sequestered carbon.
We in Texas also have a huge coastline at huge risk from business as usual, possibly worse than anybody except Florida. [more]
