I am a big proponent of harnessing the power of fusion — from 93 million miles away.

Fusion is done by our sun really, really well and for free. Here on Earth in reactors … not so much. And so the famous saying, “fusion energy is fifty years away — and always will be.”

I have never been a big fan of earth-bound fusion, in part because I was an M.I.T. undergrad in October 1983 when Prof. Lawrence Lidsky published his famous critique, “The Trouble With Fusion,” in the MIT-edited magazine, Technology Review, with that unforgettable cover quoting his devastating conclusion.

What made the critique doubly devastating was that Lidsky was then associate director of the Plasma Fusion Center and editor of the Journal of Fusion Energy! More on Lidsky at the end.

Things haven’t changed much in three decades. Technology Review reported earlier this year, “researchers still say practical fusion power plants remain decades away.”

The New York Times editorialized Sunday on the latest fusion failure, “A Big Laser Runs Into Trouble“:

After spending more than $5 billion to build and operate a giant laser installation the size of a football stadium, the Energy Department has not achieved its goal of igniting a fusion reaction that could produce energy to generate power or simulate what happens in a nuclear weapon.

The latest deadline for achieving ignition was last Sunday, Sept. 30, the end of fiscal year 2012, but it passed amid mounting concerns that the technical challenges were too great to be mastered on a tight time schedule.

Congress will need to look hard at whether the project should be continued, or scrapped or slowed to help reduce federal spending.

We spend a lot of money on this effort — money that could almost certainly be better spent on forms of carbon-free energy we could actually have a chance of deploying in time to avert catastrophic, irreversible climate change.

As William Broad reported in The Times last Sunday, there is a sharp split among experts on whether the project — one of the most expensive federally financed projects ever — is worth the money. Just operating it costs roughly $290 million a year….

If the main goal is to achieve a power source that could replace fossil fuels, we suspect the money would be better spent on renewable sources of energy that are likely to be cheaper and quicker to put into wide use.

Even if ignition is achieved in the laboratory in the next several years, scaling up to a demonstration plant will cost billions and may ultimately show that fusion is not a practical source of power.

I was at the Department of Energy when the decision to approve the National Ignition Facility was being made. I can’t say any of the energy analysts thought it a particularly worthwhile investment. I can say non-energy considerations ended up playing a much bigger role in the decision than energy considerations.

Lidsky, who died in 2002, is worth remembering. In the tradition of the best scientists and engineers, he spoke truth to power — in this case what he saw as a largely fruitless, waste of money — at great risk to his career. But then I have never met a scientist who was “in it for the money.” When smart folks want to get rich, they pick a different profession.

In its obit for Lidsky, Technology Review explained what happened to him — and how his main conclusions stood the test of time. Indeed, the first line of the obit raised his famous critique of fusion:

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Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM)

DENVER, Colorado — A key western congressman declared late last week that Mitt Romney supports his push to “reverse this trend of public ownership of lands.”

In a speech to the Colorado Conservative Political Action Conference, Rep. Steve Pearce (R-NM) criticized Teddy Roosevelt’s “big ideas of big forests and big national parks,” which primarily exist in the West. Pearce told the audience that, if elected, Mitt Romney will help turn back public lands to the states or private entities.

PEARCE: America, each state, the public lands were given back to the states after they were chartered. But in the West, starting with Teddy Roosevelt who had the big ideas of big forests and big national parks, they held that land. And so the next chart shows you the effect on us in the West. Just understand this is the education. The red is of course bad. We’re starved in the West for education funds because of policies that Mitt Romney sat and listened to Rob Bishop and myself explain when it came to Hobbs. He knows that if we want to reverse the trend, we’ll reverse this trend of public ownership of lands starving education.

Watch it:

Though Romney’s campaign has asserted that they’re not targeting national parks for further drilling, Pearce disputed the notion that they should be off-limits. “Constitutionally,” Pearce told ThinkProgress after the speech, decisions about drilling in national parks and other public-owned lands “should be left with the states.” Indeed, drilling is already underway in a number of parks, with dozens more threatened.

Public lands are vital to the nation for many reasons. They allow anyone, not just the wealthy, access to beautiful natural areas. They provide clean air and water. They even help the United States adapt to climate change while boosting the economy.

For a primer on how the nation’s 700 million acres of public lands could be affected under a Romney presidency, click here.

Federal support for energy technologies has been a central piece of this year’s presidential and congressional campaigning. Since last week’s presidential debate, however, the issue become even more interesting.

Mitt Romney surprised many during the debate when he said that cutting billions of dollars in yearly tax breaks for the oil and gas industry would be “on the table.” Of course, he followed that up by grossly inflating federal investments for renewables and lying about the number of clean energy companies that went bankrupt.

Still, Romney’s statement is notable considering that he’s never said anything like it as a presidential candidate. (It’s also very likely that Romney — who once called himself “severely conservative” — made the comment only to Etch-A-Sketch himself back to being a centrist, as he tried to on almost every issue during the debate).

Yesterday brought another surprise comment on the issue from a prominent Republican. In a debate against his Democratic challenger last night, Fred Upton (R-MI), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, took Romney’s comments further and actually proposed an end to federal tax support for fossil fuels: “I’m for putting all of these on an even footing. Let’s look at the oil and gas subsidies, let’s take them away. Let’s let them compete just like everyone else at the same level.” Upton then went on to criticize government investments in renewable energy.

Like many other politicians who oppose federal support for clean energy, both Romney and Upton have previously protected tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry (Romney through his campaign, Upton through House votes). However, now that they’re being forced to message to the general electorate, both candidates are changing positions to make their opposition to renewable energy spending sound more reasonable.

Whether or not Romney and Upton are being sincere or just saying what may get them elected, they’ve added their prominent voices to a chorus of Republicans and conservative free-marketeers who want to see an end to all federal support for energy — mostly clean energy.

This argument is quickly becoming the new “center” of the debate. While a realistic conversation around how, how much, and how long to incentivize certain energy sources is absolutely necessary, it’s important that clean energy advocates not get pulled in to the question of if the government should lend its support to emerging industries.

As we’ve covered over and over, it’s preposterous to claim that the free market delivered us the energy system we have today. We’ve enjoyed cheap fossil fuels in part because of government’s attempts to bring the industry to scale. Over the last century, the federal government has practically given away land for extraction of coal, oil and gas; helped build infrastructure to transport fuels; and has provided a range of tax breaks, loan programs, and technical support for the fossil fuel industry. But now that the clean energy industry is asking for many of the same incentives in order to compete against an incumbent industry, hypocritical politicians call it “picking winners and losers.”

And that makes the second point so crucial. It’s important to remember why we’re putting federal and state support behind clean energy in the first place. We have to limit our use of fossil fuels within a pretty compressed time frame in order to transition to a low-carbon future and avoid irreversible climate change. Period. And that means providing support for renewable energy, efficiency and conservation while taking away support for the polluting resources causing the problem. Global warming pollution needs to be a loser since it is the greatest threat to human health and well-being. It’s as simple as that.

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[I'll be speaking at a panel in DC on this subject Wednesday morning. Details here.]

Last week, I wrote about how climate hawks attacked their Republican opponents for denying climate science in three Senate races — Maine, Nebraska, and Massachusetts.

The Hill has a good follow-up piece, “Climate change emerges as sleeper issue in Senate races” — though I confess I liked their original headline better (see the URL):

Dems use climate change to tag Republicans as extreme

The piece has some valuable analysis from Stanford public opinion expert Jon Krosnick:

… Krosnick, who authored a study on the effects of climate change communication on races nationwide, said that there are subsets of voters who tend to focus in on one issue that could be compelled to turn out if candidates appeal to them on climate change.

“They can actually be activated to vote by hearing the Democrat take a green position,” he said. “[Candidates] may actually enhance turnout as well as attract voters over to their side by discussing climate change.”

He added that the current political climate, where neither candidate is a clear winner on significant issues like the economy and jobs, is ripe for issue voters to be swayed on a topic like climate change.

I interviewed Krosnick last year when he came out with a bombshell election analysis of the 2008 presidential election and the 2010 congressional election. It found that Democrats taking “green” positions on climate change “won much more often” than those remaining silent.

At the time, I asked Krosnick about the implications of his research for the President, who even back then had all but dropped “climate change” from his vocabulary.  Krosnick answered:

Our research suggests that it would be wise for the President and for all other elected officials who believe that climate change is a problem and merits government attention to say this publicly and vigorously, because most Americans share these views.  Expressing and pursuing green goals on climate change will gain votes on election day and seem likely to increase the President’s and the Congress’s approval ratings.

The Hill piece has some interesting details on the thinking of the would-be Senate climate hawks, starting with Angus King who actually launched an ad attacking his opponent for climate denial:

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by Miles Grant, via The Green Miles

It’s not that Mitt Romney doesn’t have his facts straight about the Environmental Protection Agency. It’s not that reasonable people can disagree with the Environmental Protection Agency about the best approach to solving a set of problems.

Mitt Romney is choosing to lie about the Environmental Protection Agency because he thinks that will give him a political advantage.

But as Paul Krugman said on ABC’s This Week, “The press just doesn’t know how to handle flat-out untruths,” so you get articles like this in Politico today:

The GOP presidential nominee is telling voters in Colorado, Nevada, Ohio and Virginia that Obama’s EPA is to blame for wiping out the coal industry. Romney and his surrogates are warning Iowans of EPA plans to regulate for farm dust and railing against the agency for flying airplanes over livestock operations to spy for dirty water.

In many instances, Romney’s EPA attacks stretch the boundaries of what the agency actually does or can do. The EPA has repeatedly denied any plans for new farm dust rules, and the planes have been used as a cost-cutting enforcement measure dating back to the George W. Bush administration. Energy experts say the coal industry’s problems are a byproduct of all-time lows in natural gas prices rather than new air pollution requirements that have been subject to legal battles for more than a decade.

Mitt Romney says something that’s not true. Even after widely-available facts to the contrary are pointed out, Mitt Romney keeps saying it anyway. We’ll have to leave it there.

How can you tell Romney’s lies are calculated and deliberate? Because he often shifts between lies and the truth depending on his audience. Talking to the Republican National Convention? Global warming’s a joke. Talking to scientists? Global warming’s serious business. It’s part of the fabric of his campaign, as Romney’s brazen lies in the first presidential debate about his $5 trillion tax cut plan and letting insurance companies deny coverage to sick people showed.

Romney is counting on articles like this to make his clear-cut lies seem debatable. As media critic Jay Rosen writes, “a post-truth campaign for president falls into the category of too big to tell.”

As usual, The Onion can say it, but political reporters can’t. ”People are usually too afraid to ask me straight up if I’m lying, because that is apparently not something you ask someone who is running for president.”

Miles Grant covers progressive politics, climate activism, and environmental policy at The Green Miles. This piece was originally published at The Green Miles and was reprinted with permission.

by Adam James

Smart grid advocates have done a decent job of developing and deploying innovative new technologies in a short period of time. They also have done a relatively good job marketing those technologies. Where they have fallen short, however, is in selling the whole smart grid package to utilities, customers, regulators, and policymakers. Many are still skeptical, close-minded, or plain old belligerent about it.

There are a lot of reasons for this. Due to a lack of a unified messaging strategy among the diverse stakeholders in the smart grid community, there is a lot of disagreement about how to “sell” the smart grid to utilities.

Here Is What We Want: A Clear Four Point Message

Everyone likes the sound of a smart grid. It’s snappy, sounds high tech, and has clear connections to everyday life. Although a lot has been done to make a smarter grid, we are still a long way from a fully functional 21^st Century energy network. So when people, specifically in government, ask what is needed — what should (and shouldn’t) smart grid advocates say?

1) We don’t want your money; we just want you to help us make money.

Recovery Act funding is drawing to a close, and has been very successful in sparking smart grid development and demonstrations across the country. There is very little chance, particularly in this fiscal climate, of a massive new infusion of cash. And that’s okay. There is plenty of money parked in utilities, and a built-in rate base for revenue. The problem is, the kind of capital investments we want utilities to make will undercut their ability to make money. There are insufficient cost recovery mechanisms in place to recuperate these investments.

Here’s an example. We want utilities to make investments in distribution wires and substations that better facilitate distributed generation. But, as more distributed generation comes online in conjunction with friendly net metering and interconnection, the “variable costs” portion of a consumer’s bills shrinks (since it is based on energy consumed, and distributed generation offsets that consumption). This leaves only the traditional “fixed costs” part of the bill, which doesn’t compensate utilities for centralized generation that is only used intermittently or for their new role shuttling energy back and forth across wires and monitoring transactions.

What does all that mean? We are asking utilities to invest in their own demise. So what do we need from Government? Not more money, just rate regulation that compensates utilities in a new way and incentivizes them to make money creating the kind of grid we want.

2) Set the Standards. But not too quickly. Or too slowly.

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by Graham Readfearn, via DeSmogBlog

The EU should raise the price to businesses of producing carbon dioxide to reduce greenhouse gases and improve efficiency, the Liberal Democrat energy and climate minister told a conference in London on Monday. [Guardian]

Mitt Romney’s administration on Day One would approve a pipeline that would run from Canada to U.S. refineries in Texas, creating thousands of jobs and pushing America on its way to energy independence, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Monday. [Associated Press]

A Fox News special on President Obama’s “green agenda” presented a one-sided discussion of Environmental Protection Agency rules that distorted the intention and impact of regulations, downplayed the threat of climate change, and ignored the public health threats of coal use. [Media Matters]

A renewable energy initiative on Michigan’s ballot is finding support in an unlikely place – churches. [The Daily Climate]

Grocery shoppers can expect to see drought-related price increases in the coming weeks on turkey, eggs, vegetable oils and dairy products. [Chicago Sun Times]

The Ohio Democratic Party on Monday urged federal and state prosecutors to investigate whether the largest privately owned coal company in the country illegally forced employees and vendors to contribute to presidential contender Mitt Romney and other mostly Republican candidates. [Toledo Blade]

The EU has launched a campaign aimed at showing how low-carbon solutions can improve quality of life. [BBC]

A combination of climate change and booming tourism could cause famous mountain spots in Southwest China’s Yunnan province to lose their snow, authorities and experts have warned. [China Daily]

The thunder, lightning and rainfall every single evening of late have nailed one fact—the monsoon is in no hurry to retreat from the city. While its average withdrawal date is September 28, the monsoon has been stretching its stay to October in the past few years. [Times of India]

A variety of organizations — from those that bring development aid to those that focus on animal protection — have taken up the cause of global climate change. Often through broad coalitions such as the Climate Action Network they lobby governments, pushing for policy changes that would favor clean energy. [International Herald Tribune]