Your editorial (“Wanted: Bold, not Goofy,” May 2009) is profoundly disturbing, so lacking in balance. In one grand summary characterization of nuclear versus renewables, the essence of the issue may be presented thusly: What are the true life-cycle costs and risks to humanity of nuclear fission versus renewables when one factors in nuclear fuel/waste/China Syndrome hazard versus what it will take to make renewables dispatchable? Messrs. Salazar and Wellinghoff of the goofy camp may well be able to constructively engage you in responding to this question.
Robert R. Bullard, P. E.
Absolute Engineering Group, division of Ahimsa Technic Inc.
To the Editor:
As respects bold, not goofy, causes for error in legislative priority setting must be addressed. I doubt there is one registered professional mechanical or chemical engineer paying omissions and errors insurance with either Greenpeace or Sierra Club, or is on the committees which devise the proposed legislation you describe. Having done cost estimates for construction of petroleum and chemical refinery component systems on several occasions, you have no idea how thoroughly mocked and ridiculed the utility industry is for its own lack of consideration of the chemical uses to which entrained byproduct carbon can be put.
None of these processing methods is even vaguely innovative. This technology of zero-carbon-emissions carbon usage has been utilized for almost 100 years now to make everything from ammonium sulfate fertilizer to pipeline grade natural gas. Utility planners do not need a gasifier to convert carbon to saleable product. They need to trade notes with chemical engineers from the American Petroleum Institute and the ammonia and hydrocarbon subcommittees of the American Society of Chemical Engineers.
Walter James O’Brien
Power Plant Construction Cost Analyst