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Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt has chosen to replace half of the members on one of its key scientific review boards, the first step in a broader effort by Republicans to change the way the agency evaluates the scientific basis for its regulations.
The move could significantly change the makeup of the 18-member Board of Scientific Counselors, which advises EPA's key scientific arm on whether the research it does has sufficient rigor and integrity. All of the members being dismissed were at the end of serving at least one three-year term, although these terms are often renewed instead of terminated.
EPA spokesman J.P. Freire said in an email that "no one has been fired or terminated," and that Pruitt had simply decided to bring in fresh advisers. The agency informed the outside academics on Friday that their terms would not be renewed.
[...] These moves came as a surprise to the agencies' outside advisers, with several of them taking to Twitter to announce their suspensions.
Members of EPA's Board of Scientific Counselors had been informed twice — in January, before Barack Obama left office, and then more recently by EPA career staff members — that they would be kept on for another term, adding to their confusion.
We cannot allow Beijing's air quality to beat ours.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by julian on Tuesday May 09 2017, @04:45AM (8 children)
The Chinese government aren't stupid, they know the situation. They were suitably embarrassed by the air quality in Beijing that they turned off coal plants and banned cars for the Olympics. The Chinese Government is under enormous pressure to continue delivering economic growth to China's rapidly expanding working and middle class. Coal is the cheapest source of energy they have to drive this economic growth.
It's worth asking, why is coal the cheapest? The price of fossil fuels are artificially low because the oil, coal, and natgas industries are allowed to avoid paying for all of their negative externalities. We all pay for it, every time we take a breath. If the price of fossil fuels accounted for the damage they cause to our health and to the environment then renewable sources would be more competitive, driving the market to those sources of energy at a faster rate--perhaps at the cost of slower overall economic growth.
Fearing for their jobs, or maybe wanting to avoid having to run a bunch of people over with tanks again, they've decided that clean air can wait. They need cheap energy and they need it now.
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Tuesday May 09 2017, @04:56AM (6 children)
Nuclear is sufficiently more expensive than Coal to avoid going fully on that route?
(Score: 2) by julian on Tuesday May 09 2017, @05:11AM (3 children)
Once you account for security, long-term storage of hazardous material, safety (then again, it's China), and the lag time from beginning construction to actually turning a reactor on, nuclear starts to lose its advantage. No one has solved the waste storage problem. There are theoretical technologies that deserve more research time and money. Nuclear of some kind definitely has a place in the future, but the promises of nuclear energy never ended up working out once the complexities of reality were accounted for. It looks great in theory, but real life isn't SimCity where you can just pay for the plant and plop it down wherever you want and it runs perfectly fine, barring the occasional Godzilla attack.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @07:59AM (2 children)
Didn't France get most of its electricity from nuclear power for decades?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by DannyB on Tuesday May 09 2017, @01:59PM
Yes, but that is France and thus irrelevant. No lessons to be learned from it.
This conversation here is about America. Land of the cut every possible corner in order to increase executive bonuses. Safety is an afterthought that does not increase shareholder value.
Please get with the program, comrade.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by tangomargarine on Tuesday May 09 2017, @04:26PM
Nuclear energy, in the form of fission, is the primary source of energy in France. In 2004, fission energy made up the largest share of France's energy consumption at 39%.[1][2][better source needed][not in citation given] Looking purely at electricity, though, 416.800TWh (76.337%)[3] out of the country's total production of 546TWh of electricity was from fission-electric power stations, the highest percentage in the world.[4]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_power_in_France [wikipedia.org]
France also tested the most nuclear weapons after the U.S. and Soviet Union.
"Is that really true?" "I just spent the last hour telling you to think for yourself! Didn't you hear anything I said?"
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday May 09 2017, @06:22AM
https://ycharts.com/indicators/australia_coal_price [ycharts.com]
Not *quite* giving it away...
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday May 09 2017, @04:00PM
Don't worry. While the West is busy going "nuke-u-lar bad! omgomgomg! nimby!" China is doing research into safer reactor designs and exploring thorium.
The West is in decline. They don't have ambition any more. They don't take risks any more. "I've got mine, fuck my kids" is now the motto of Western civilization. It may not be until towards the latter half of this century, but BRICS or at least China will likely outpace the West.
While part of me wishes I could live long enough to see it happen for the "see I told you so" value, I am content knowing that at least I lived through the height of Western civilization.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Joe Desertrat on Tuesday May 09 2017, @08:12AM
Coal is the cheapest source of energy they have to drive this economic growth.
Cheapest in the short run, but as you say, the Chinese government isn't stupid. They are investing enormous amounts in renewable energy and will transition to that as soon as feasible. It will likely be feasible there long before the US seriously turns towards it, especially as the US is seemingly taking such a large step backwards now, and as a result when the time comes they will likely be exporting the technology to the US rather than the other way around. It will mean economic growth for China and another lost opportunity for the US.