The Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s newly created Office of New Reactors is expecting a flood of new applications, another sign of resurgent interest in nuclear power.

The new designs are considerably safer, and can be built “from first concrete to reactor critical” in just 36 months.

With Peak Oil appearing to become reality, we need ways to produce massive amounts of cheap energy 24/7 without using petroleum-based products. There are only two ways to do this, coal, which is hideously polluting from start to finish, or nuclear. There are no other alternatives.

NEI Nuclear Notes and Atomic Insights provide news and views on the nuclear industry.

Our previous post on the topic sparked a lively debate in the comments, check it out.

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British banks face 10-day debt timebomb

Almost 20 per cent of the short-term money market loans issued by European banks are due to mature between September 11 and September 19.

If the bank can’t roll over the loans and find buyers - and it’s almost a given they won’t be able to - then they have to finance the loans themselves, tying up tens of billions of their own money. They’ve been preparing for this by hoarding cash and making very few loans.

The major problem is, no one knows yet if the borrowers who issued the commercial paper have exposure to subprime, and no one wants to lend money until they know for sure. Thus, London lending is locked down and small businesses are already suffering because of this.

Along with this comes the increasing problems with structured investment vehicles. SIVs borrow money at short-term lower rates and invest it, highly leveraged, in higher yielding long-term instruments. The snag is, they need to refinance the short term debt, and given the frozen lending markets, that may not be possible.

The coming U.S. hard landing

On top of a weakening of the real economy the current financial markets turmoil will get worse – not better - in the next few months. This was never just a sub-prime problem as the same reckless and toxic lending practices in sub-prime – no down-payment, no verification of income and assets, interest rate only mortgages, negative amortization, teaser rates – were occurring in near prime mortgages, Alt-A loans, piggyback loans, home equity loans, and prime hybrid ARMs. About 50% of all mortgage origination in the last two years was made of this toxic waste and utterly junk lending practices.

H&R Block likens credit crisis to Great Depression

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Wall Street has been assuming the Fed will cut interest rates at their Sept. 18 meeting. Well, to be more precise, they’ve been foaming at the mouth, screaming for, and demanding a rate cut.

They might not get it. Philly Fed President Charles Plosser in a speech Sept. 8 said it is not the responsibility of the Fed to bail out failing businesses or support troubled markets. Moreover, he did not give the usual disclaimer that he was speaking for himself only.

It is rare for a Fed President to comment so directly on monetary policy… I didn’t see a disclaimer in Plosser’s speech, so we can assume his speech was cleared, and it seems likely that he is speaking for the Fed. I’d take Plosser’s comments as the Fed saying expectations for a Fed funds rate cut in September are probably too high.

(Fade out to wails of anguish and gnashing of teeth emanating from Wall Street)

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The 1997 Kyoto protocol would limit carbon emissions to 11,000 pounds per person. According to one carbon calculator, a single round-trip plane trip across the country uses half this “allowance.”

Something to think about as we consider lifestyle changes to reduce our emissions.

Yikes. Sue and I have made numerous transcontinental plane trips this past 12 months, and others travel much more than we do. We’ve also flown to Hawaii on vacation. If plane flights become restricted or nonexistent because of the fuel costs or emissions caps, then the world as we know it will be very different. Hawaii will cease to exist as a tourist destination and if tourism goes so does much of their economy. Then there’s the question of shipping goods to Hawaii (as most everything they need gets shipped by boat.) If the cost of shipping soars because of peak oil, then those goods may not get shipped. Within a few years you’d probably see a mass exodus from Hawaii as their collapsed economy could no longer support that many people.

Hey, I want to go back to Maui. It’s a wonderful place. So, in a coming world presumably concerned with peak oil and carbon emissions, is tourism dead? How do we keep the good parts of our world and deal with these problems too?

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Rolling Stone details the billions of dollars that have “vanished” in Iraq, more than $8 billion, to be exact. Someone is getting rich, and it sure isn’t the soldiers.

“Who in their right mind would send 360 tons of cash into a war zone?” asked Rep. Henry Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight Committee. “But that’s exactly what our government did.”

Someone who wanted to distribute untraceable money to their fellow kleptocrats, that’s who.

Rollin’ into Baghdad wonderin’ how he got this far
Just another poor boy off to fight a rich man’s war
– Steve Earle

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