Nuclear Fission, not the whole solution but definitely a part of it. Learn More.

As the world moves to decarbonize, we need to consider all of our options. Nuclear fission energy is a scary beast when we let misconceptions cloud our judgement. the paper below discusses the common misconceptions of nuclear energy as well as makes a case for its inclusion in the world’s future energy mix.

Enjoy.

Nuclear’s Future

Not enough food? Oh Whale.

So I saw this article pop up on my feed about how whales are ending up tailless due to fishing and getting tangled in fishing nets.

https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/05/whales-animals-entanglement-fishing/

I think it is a little over whelming that there really isn’t any form of way to prevent these things from happening at the moment. I don’t really have a comment or know what to say about this, I just think it is a thing to know about the world.

 

Negotiated Rule Making II

This is my reply to Participatory Rule-Making.

Last semester in 11.021, Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics, we discussed and had to write a paper on the merits, or lack there of, in using Negotiated Rule-Making as a means to promulgate policy. I have attached my paper below that expresses the history of how negotiated rule making came about in the EPA and some case studies on the issue. Unfortunately, looking back at the essay, I believe that I could have done a better job in writing and expressing my view points, but I will leave it here for review.

There is a belief that NRM causes the people to be more trusting of their governments, however, even if this were to be true, in the US it has not been implemented that often and has more often than not led to less affective policy.

I’ll leave the paper I wrote here for public review and comment.

Negotiated Rule making

Key themes from each of the readings

Hey class,

I spoke about the possibility of us all sharing our ideas on the main ideas of each reading on here for collective help on our writing assignment. So here are the main lessons that Brady and I picked out from the Rigs-to-Reefs Reading.

1. People want decisive policy, black or white, no in-between, to give closure, however, there exists a stable state of disagreement in compromise that is acceptable when considering the true desires of negotiating parties.
2. There are many concurrent definitions of nature, and to reach a solution it doesn’t need to be resolved.
3. Achieving closure will require the consideration of science across all scales, namely bridging the gap between the selective sciences of opposing sides.
4. Policy should not be stifled by impasse, but rather provide the means to allow the impasse to exist and be justly examined on a case by case basis.

Best,

Ignacio

China Oil Spill and its effect on the Energy-Food-Water Nexus

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-00976-9

http://fortune.com/2018/01/18/china-oil-spill/

This is an interesting set of articles which displays an important connection between the security of energy and the security of food.

In Environmental Law there are provisions that ask for projects to evaluate their worst case scenarios, but this type of planning is oftentimes lacking in foresight and does nothing to prepare for the actual event that oftentimes surpasses the WCS that people can foresee. This tanker’s spill is no different from any previous spills, except for the content it was carrying. However, no previous method for spill control can help with this substance and people don’t know the extent of the damage that will extend into fisheries.

The spill will likely expose vulnerabilities in the fish farmer’s ability to know that they are distributing fish that is safe to consume, and ultimately have several health side effects.

I believe that the only way to ultimately end these problems is to “stop cleaning the ocean” and tackle the problem itself and look for alternatives, and then also to clean the ocean at the same time!