Okay, you know how nervous I get when someone puts the word "truth" in their title, but I am also intrigued when a person used to hold one opinion, yet changed it significantly after looking at things with fresh eyes. So Daniel Koonin, a theoretical physicist who was a Dept of Energy Undersecretary during the Obama Administration, has modified his views for a recent report to the Dept of Energy's current chief. Madeleine Rowley at The Free Press (no relation, but a W&M grad) reports on that controversy, and also links to what he said about the cause of the California wildfires.
Koonin has not done a 180, but believes that ideologues have exaggerated the dangers. As this is about where I have been for decades, I probably have more sympathy and am less critical of this opinion than I should be.
One of the purposes of the report is to present agreed-upon facts. Ninety-five percent of the report is sourced from the UN report, so we’re not denying anything. We are simply emphasizing some parts of the UN report that don’t get a lot of public play.
Skip to the end, he believes starting with small nuclear is encouraging on the way to getting to more use of nuclear as the need for electricity is expected to increase sharply because of AI data centers, but cautions that it takes a long time to rework an entire energy system.
1 comment:
Roger Pielke - The Honest Broker on Substack - is another good resource.
Post a Comment