Surveying the ongoing fallout from Hurricane's Katrina and Rita, Professor Goose at The Oil Drum says the situation is "not only bad, it's very bad." Some of the disruption is temporary, to be sure, but, as Professor Hamilton (and many others) have been warning, things may not be looking so great even after the short-term stress has passed.
Andris Piebalgs has a plan. From BusinessWeek online:
EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs on Wednesday told oil companies to boost refining capacity.
Piebalgs said he would meet with executives from major oil companies and ask them to do more to remove production bottlenecks...
He also said Europe should switch to using alternative energy sources and boost research of wind, wave and solar, and hydrogen energy and of clean coal and carbon sequestration.
"The energy potential of biomass in the EU needs to be developed. A Biomass Action Plan will be tabled before the end of the year," he said.
MEPs warned against the EU's over-dependence on oil and said Europeans should diversify their energy sources...
In a resolution scheduled to be voted on Thursday, lawmakers were to call on EU governments to initiate a world summit of large consumer and producer countries.
The resolution also calls on the European Commission to ensure the EU becomes the world's least fossil-fuel-dependent and most energy-efficient economy by 2020.
Maybe "plan" is a little generous. Planning to plan maybe. In any event, note the absence of a specific mention of nuclear energy alternatives. The politics of that are not hard to figure out. From EurActiv:
A Eurobarometer survey conducted in February and March 2005 analysing EU public opinion on nuclear energy has revealed an underlying lack of knowledge concerning nuclear power, alongside a growing distrust of governments and the media on radioactive waste management issues. The survey results included the following findings...
- Only four out of every ten interviewees (37%) answered that they were in favour of nuclear energy.
- While 30% of participants said that they were ‘fairly in favour’, only 7% of the EU citizens interviewed claimed to be ‘totally in favour’ of nuclear energy.
- 31% of the people interviewed said they were 'fairly opposed' to energy produced by nuclear power stations while 24% stated that they were 'totally opposed'...
- In comparison to four years ago, latest opinion demonstrates a significant loss in confidence with both national governments (down from 29% to 19%) and the media (down from 23% to 13%) as reliable sources of information on nuclear issues.
Is this a result of informed debate? Maybe not:
Three quarters of EU citizens (74%) claim that they are ‘not well informed’ about radioactive waste.
Not to be picking on EU citizens -- Orlando Sentinel columnist Peter A. Brown argues the situation is just as muddled in the United States (hat tip, NEI Nuclear Notes). And for every argument that includes a role for nuclear alternatives, there is no lack of opposition to be found. But if there ever was a time when it was okay to be "not well-informed" about the essential issues of the debate, this is decidedly not it.