A solar energy field under construction for the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in Rancho Cordova, Calif., Tuesday, Sept. 15, 2009. (AP)

Post your comments below

California has always been a mainspring of American economic growth. In wave after wave of discovery and innovation, from gold to the Internet, California has cracked open new frontiers for itself and the country.

Now California’s in trouble – with debt, foreclosure, layoffs, unemployment worse than the nation’s.

But once again it’s got a great, bright hope — this time, clean tech and the green economy. It’s on fire, but is it enough?

This hour, On Point: in a special broadcast from outside Los Angeles, can California’s green economy save California? Can it save the country?

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Mary Nichols, Chair of the California Air Resources Board (appointed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in July 2007). She was assistant administrator for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Air and Radiation program under the Clinton Administration.

Bill Gross, a lifelong entrepreneur and founder of Idealab, a business incubator which seeks to help fledging companies with new innovations. Idealab is invested in Aptera Motors, Energy Innovations, eSolar (where Gross is CEO), Distributed World Power, RayTracker, and Infinia. Energy Innovations completed the world’s largest corporate solar installation at Google headquarters in 2006.

Gary Polakovic, former lead environmental writer at the Los Angeles Times, where he shared in a Pulitzer Prize. He’s now president of Make Over Earth, Inc., a public affairs firm specializing in environment and energy issues. He’s covered environmental issues in California and across the nation for 23 years.

Stewart Brand

In today’s first hour, Whole Earth guru Stewart Brand and energy expert Amory Lovins debated whether the U.S. should build more nuclear power plants in the effort to reduce carbon emissions.

Brand’s new book, “Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto,”  takes on a number of what he calls environmental “pieties,” including opposition to nuclear power. He says nuclear is now “green” — and that we can’t afford to oppose it any longer on the old grounds, given the urgent need to address climate change. 

Amory Lovins

Lovins has recently argued against Brand’s view, in a posting at Grist.org, and he layed out his case for us on the air today.

It all mirrors a debate in Washington about whether more nuclear power should be a serious component of a new energy-climate bill.

You can listen to the exchange here:

httpv://www.bu.edu/wbur/storage/2009/10/onpoint_1021_brand.mp3

And here’s a transcript:

TOM ASHBROOK: Amory Lovins, you’ve pushed back fairly hard and quite publicly on Stewart Brand’s embrace here of nuclear power. Why?
AMORY LOVINS: Although Stewart and I share a great sense of urgency about climate change, I think the more urgent you think that problem is, the more important it is to invest judiciously to get the most solution per dollar and the most solution per year. And nuclear flunks both those tests. It gives about two to twenty times less carbon savings per dollar and about twenty to forty times less carbon savings per year than if you brought instead the things that are walloping it in the market, namely micropower and energy efficiency.
TOM ASHBROOK: What is micropower?
AMORY LOVINS: Micropower has two parts. One is renewables other than big hydro. So it’s sun, wind, geothermal, small hydro, and so on. And the other part is co-generating electricity and useful heat together in factories or buildings, which saves at least half of the fuel money in carbon.
TOM ASHBROOK: So your core argument is not the nuclear waste argument, but a cost-effectiveness argument around nuclear?
AMORY LOVINS: Correct. Nuclear is about the most expensive and slowest thing you can build. And I don’t think it’s true you need to build everything. You can’t afford to build everything. You need to choose the best buys for your goal, just as in assembling a financial portfolio you don’t stuff it full of one of everything on the market. You figure out the diversified set of assets that will best meet your investment objectives. If you buy something really expensive and risky, that actually makes your portfolio perform worse because you didn’t get to buy stuff that would have performed better.
TOM ASHBROOK: Stewart Brand, what about the argument? You’re arguing a big push in nuclear. Amory Lovins says it’s not the most cost-effective way forward and it really matters what we pull the trigger on here.
STEWART BRAND: I was surprised that in Amory’s good and thorough response to the chapter [on nuclear energy], which I’m glad to see is out there, and it’s downloadable from Rocky Mountain Institute. One of the things, Amory, you didn’t address in that was [nuclear] microreactors, and I’m delighted you’re talking about micropower because it looks like the new generation of those small reactors down around 100 to 125 megawatts coming from half a dozen manufacturers are right in there. And [they] could do co-generation and local adaptivity and all the things you’d like to see distributed micropower do.
AMORY LOVINS: It might have been a good idea to look at 50 years ago, but it’s way too late. Actually, I did describe it… I wrote a special paper on this called “New Nuclear Reactor, Same Old Story” last spring, because I got really curious about these arguments and dug into them. There are two basic issues, that again are economic, that I get to before the other attributes. I think the Gen 4 reactor types are broadly comparable to today’s reactors in waste production. They might in some respects be respects be safer. They’re generally as proliferative or more proliferative. But their economics are not sufficiently better to make any difference, for two reasons. One is that of course what makes a reactor work is that you have a very concentrated source of heat and also of radioactivity, and the physical devices you need to harness the heat and manage the heat and radioactivity do not scale down very well. It’s just a matter of physical scaling laws. Secondly…
STEWART BRAND: Wait, wait, wait. Isn’t that the case also with solar thermal? They’re using the same thing. They’re using smaller steam turbines.
AMORY LOVINS: To some degree, it’s true of the steam turbine, except that there you don’t have a concentrated source and you don’t need shielding. And the mirrors—or troughs or whatever – are very well suited to scaling down and to mass production. The more serious problem, though, is one of timing. The things you’re competing with, or the things that all nuclear fails to compete with by large margins, are already getting their economies from mass production. They’re things like photovoltaics and wind turbines. And they are decades further along in getting their scale economies. And then by the time you’ve got some kind of new reactor that’s usually been on the books for forty or fifty years to be actually licensed, financed, built, tested – and then you’ve scaled up production of it – you’d be more decades behind, at least one or two, the things that are already several times cheaper. In fact, if you were to take today’s nuclear plants and make the nuclear part free, the other roughly two-thirds of the investment would still be grossly uncompetitive with efficiency and micropower.

Brand and Lovins also took up the issue of nuclear safety, after one of the show’s callers raised the issue. Here’s the exchange on that:

TOM ASHBROOK: Stewart Brand, what about the safety issue when it comes to nuclear?
STEWART BRAND: It’s been very good…[t]he people around nuclear reactors, they’re polled every so often: “What do you think about nuclear, nuclear reactors, would you like to have another nuclear reactor at the plant nearby?” It’s the most positive support the industry gets, people who are closest to the industry out in the landscape. So, at least all the data from that shows it’s not so big an issue…
TOM ASHBROOK: Amory Lovins, the safety aspect of nuclear?
AMORY LOVINS: …I think we need to remember that, although there are many honest and conscientious people in this industry that know they’re dealing with serious matters, organizations are fallible, just as individuals are, and they often do things that the individuals in them would not do by themselves. Historically, whenever you get a period like we’ve been in the last eight years, where there’s a very pro-nuclear administration and that sends all the signals against dissent and rocking the boat, this turns out to be bad for the nuclear industry. Because bad things end up happening that wouldn’t have if we had been more alert. And you get capture of the regulatory apparatus by the industry being regulated and so on. So I think the issues of human fallibility remain serious in this industry. I just don’t tend to treat those first, because if the technology is unnecessary, uneconomic and actually reduces and retards climate protection, I stop there. I don’t go on to whether it’s proliferative or unsafe or whether we know what to do with the waste.
STEWART BRAND: Amory, question, what do you make of the rather pro-nuclear stance of the current administration?
AMORY LOVINS: I think there are differing views within the administration. And I think the differences between our views are mirrored there and that our discussion will be helpful in informing those internal debates. I think also a lot of the pressure comes from members of Congress more than members of the administration.
STEWART BRAND: The Democrats there, the powerful ones, are sounding more pro-nuclear every day with the climate bill.

You can listen to the whole show here.

Post your comments below

In the 1960s, Stewart Brand became one of the country’s first and most famous champions of a new ecological awareness. His Whole Earth Catalog spoke to a generation of hippies and back-to-nature commune dwellers.

Now, at 70, Stewart Brand is calling on environmentalists to reframe their understanding of the problem — and solutions. It’s too late for back-to-nature, he says. Global warming is beyond that.

To survive now, Brand says, we need nuclear power, genetic engineering, giant cities. We must manage nature or lose civilization.

This hour, On Point: In the face of global warming, Stewart Brand redefines green.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Stewart Brand joins us from Denver. Founder and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, founder of The WELL (Whole Earth ‘Lectronric Link), and co-founder of the Global Business Network, he’s president of the Long Now Foundation. His new book is “Whole Earth Discipline: An Ecopragmatist Manifesto.” 

Joining us from New York is Amory Lovins, co-founder, chairman, and chief scientist at the Rocky Mountain Institute. He’s author of “Winning the Oil Endgame.” You can read his critique of Stewart Brand’s book at Grist.org.

Later this hour:

We’re joined from New York by Bill McKibben, longtime environmental journalist and founder of 350.org, an advocacy group organizing events across the world on October 24 — “International Day of Climate Action.” He’s coordinating what he says will be about 1,000 events, from the Great Barrier Reef in Australia to the streets of the U.S.

More links:

Here’s Stewart Brand speaking at a TED conference in July on rethinking “green pieties”:

Amory Lovins was on FORA.tv in August talking about energy efficiency and climate change:

And here’s Bill McKibben in Australia this summer talking about the “350″ movement:

A gas station attendant pumps gas in Portland, Oregon, July 2009. (AP)

Post your comments below

The planet has a lot of people, more cars every day, and only so much oil.

Chris Steiner reckons that means the price of gas is going up. Maybe way up. He’s written a book called “$20 Per Gallon,” with a chapter for the impact of every tick up along the way.

At $8 a gallon, the airlines close down. At $10 a gallon, Disney World goes dark. At $14 a gallon, Wal-Mart is done. It can’t afford to ship products.

He calls it a thought exercise. He may be dead wrong. Or not.

This hour, On Point: $20 a gallon. Chris Steiner says we’ll like our world better.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Joining us from Chicago is Christopher Steiner, author of “$20 Per Gallon: How the Inevitable Rise in the Price of Gasoline Will Change Our Lives For the Better.” He’s also a staff writer for Forbes magazine and a civil engineer.

And from Bald Head Island, N.C., we’re joined by Mark Mills, co-author (with Peter Huber) of “The Bottomless Well: The Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy.” His recent column in Forbes is “Don’t Bet on $800-a-Barrel Oil.” He’s a physicist, a former staff consultant to the White House Science Office under President Ronald Reagan, and co-founding partner of Digital Power Capital, an energy tech venture fund.

A rendering of Masdar City from the Masdar Initiative website (masdarcity.ae).

Post your comments below

In Arabic, the word Masdar means “the source.” And right now, the desert outside Abu Dhabi, capital of the United Arab Emirates, is the source of a budding green revolution.

Construction is underway for Masdar City, a high-tech metropolis that will be home to 50,000 residents -- and be the world’s first city with no carbon footprint. No cars. Zero waste. A truly green metropolis.

The plans on the drawing board are very big. The challenges are big, too. Can it even work? We’re going direct to Abu Dhabi for answers, and a tour.

This hour, On Point: Masdar and the green city of the future.

You can join the conversation. Tell us what you think — here on this page, on Twitter, and on Facebook.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

Tom Ashbrook is on vacation.

Guests:

Khaled Awad, director of property development for the Masdar project. He joins us from Masdar City, on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

In our studio we’re joined by Kevin Bullis, energy editor at Technology Review. His article on Masdar, “A Zero-Emissions City in the Desert,” appeared in the March/April 2009 issue.

More links:

The Masdar City website offers an extensive overview of the project, along with videos and an image gallery.

Watch a video “fly through” of Masdar City as rendered by the firm Foster & Partners:

Large windmills and solar panels are seen in Atlantic City in October 2008. (AP)

Post your comments below

One year ago, gasoline prices were soaring toward four dollars a gallon and fuel-efficient hybrid cars were flying off the lots. Toyota dealers couldn’t keep a two-day stock of Prius hybrids on hand.

Today, with oil down and the economy bust, they have an 80-day stock, and hybrid sales have fallen off a cliff steeper than general car sales.

So, the question: Can green technology really save our broken economy? The Obama administration is betting big it will. We’ll ask two players with a big stake in the answer.

This hour, On Point: A gut-check on the green economy.

You can join the conversation. Is green tech our golden ticket out of this economic bust? Does saving the economy and environment at once sound too good to be true? Or just right?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

From New York, we’re joined by Adam Aston, energy and environment editor at BusinessWeek magazine.

Also joining us from New York is Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund. He’s one of the foremost champions of harnessing market forces for environmental ends. In Philadelphia last month, he sat on a green jobs panel with Vice President Joe Biden. He is co-author of the New York Times bestseller “Earth: The Sequel – The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming,” which was adapted as a Discovery Channel special. Watch the trailer here.

And from Menlo Park, California, is John Doerr, partner in the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. He has backed some of America’s biggest technology success stories, including Google, Amazon, Intuit, and Sun.  And he is now a member of President Obama’s new Economic Recovery Advisory Board, chaired by former Fed Chairman Paul Volker.

More links:

Watch John Doerr’s speech on green technology at the 2007 TED conference.

Last October, The New York Times Magazine ran a cover story on Doerr and his partners at Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers and the prospects for green technology start-ups.

Large windmills and solar panels are seen Monday, Oct. 6, 2008, in Atlantic City, N.J. (AP Photo/Mel Evans)

Post your comments below

The economy and Wall Street crisis are like the whale that has surfaced to swallow the presidential campaign season. We saw it again in the debate last night.

But the bigger leviathan, the deeper monster waiting to bite, may still be energy and the environment.

John McCain and Barack Obama each have big plans on nukes, clean coal, and global warming. But their tag lines are very different: “Drill, baby, drill!” versus wind, solar, innovate.

Can we still afford either? Do we have a choice? We’ll ask their top advisers.

This hour, On Point: energy, the environment, and the choice on election day.

You can join the conversation. Who do you trust to lead the country toward a cleaner, safer energy future? And will economic crisis speed the move? Or slow it down?

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

From San Francisco, we’re joined by James Woolsey, energy adviser to the McCain campaign, director of the CIA from 1993 to 1995, now a VantagePoint Ventures partner and Annenberg Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is a founding member of the Set America Free Coalition, which advocates for energy independence. To find out more about McCain’s ideas, see his energy plan.

From Washington, we’re joined by Elgie Holstein, senior energy policy adviser to the Obama campaign. Under President Clinton, he was chief of staff at the Energy Department and Assistant Secretary of Commerce for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. To find out more about Obama’s ideas, see his energy plan.

Also from Washington is Keith Johnson, energy reporter for The Wall Street Journal and writer of its “Environmental Capital” blog.

A Saudi official stands in front of a Saudi oil industry picture at a hotel in Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, June 21, 2008, ahead of a major oil summit. (AP Photo/Hasan Jamali)

Post your comments below

“Energy independence,” the idea that America must break its addiction to foreign oil, is a big theme of the ‘08 presidential race. In fact presidents since Richard Nixon have argued that powering cars and heating homes with crude from unstable and unfriendly countries puts our national security at risk.

Or does it? Our guest today, Robert Bryce, an outspoken contrarian on energy policy, has a different view of things. On the one hand, he’s got solar panels on his house. But he says the idea of energy independence is a “dangerous delusion” in a global economy. Forget energy independence, he says. America’s best way forward is energy interdependence.

This hour, On Point: Is America over a barrel? A controversial voice in the energy debate.

You can join the conversation. Do you think America’s reliance on foreign oil puts this country’s national security at risk? Can the U.S. afford to take itself out of the global market for oil? Tell us what you think.

-Jane Clayson, guest host

* * *

Guests:

Joining us from Austin, Texas, is Robert Bryce. He’s the managing editor of Energy Tribune magazine and has written on energy for twenty years. His latest book is “Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence.” You can read excerpts from the book that appeared in The Texas Observer.

Joining us from Rockville, Maryland is Anne Korin, co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security and chair of the Set America Free Coalition, an alliance that promotes ways to reduce America’s dependence on foreign oil.

And joining us from Pagosa Springs, Colorado, is Miriam Horn. She’s on the staff of Environmental Defense Fund and is co-author, with Fred Krupp, of “Earth: The Sequel—The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming.”

Half of all electricity in America is generated from coal. As oil wanes and world energy demand grows, coal’s role is destined to only grow bigger.

The problem is, coal is dirty. Carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants are a major contributor to global warming.

Five years ago, the Bush administration announced what it called one of the boldest steps the nation has ever taken toward a pollution-free energy future. A big project to bury CO2 in the earth — forever. Last week, it pulled the plug.

This hour, On Point: clean coal dreams in trouble, and what that means for the environment and the economy.

-Tom Ashbrook

Guests:

Keith Johnson, reporter for The Wall Street Journal and lead writer on the paper’s “Environmental Capital” blog.

Howard Herzog, principle research engineer at MIT’s Laboratory for Energy and the Environment.

Jeff Goodell, author of “Big Coal: The Dirty Secret Behind America’s Energy Future.”