Amory Lovins, Subsidies and Environmental Action

Over at the Environmental Action blog, Navin Nayak is objecting to our post from yesterday listing all of the work we've done looking at Avory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute. And he's calling us out:

For today, we'll focus on RMI's main argument, which is that nuclear power is not competitive without massive federal support; if every energy source (including efficiency) were allowed to compete on a level playing field, nuclear would sink to the bottom.

Funny, but the issue of subsidies is one that my friend Lisa Shell took on a couple of months ago, both here and in a letter to the editor at the Fredericksburg Freelance-Star. So, rather than go point by point with Nayak, just read Lisa's response.

Here's more from Nayak:

So I guess all I'm really wondering is why the nuclear industry bothers?

Why? It's simple, really. Because more often than not, plenty of anti-nukes cherry pick the data in order to support erroneous conclusions. And folks like Lovins and Nayak just figure most people are too busy to check their math.

Nayak has yet to respond to the central critique of Lovins' work that's been forwarded by my colleague David Bradish -- that when you take a closer look at his studies, things are not quite as they seem.

Here's David:

The Rocky Mountain Institute’s summer newsletter “debunked” nuclear’s theology and their press release “doused the hype about ‘nuclear revival’ in an icy bath of real-world data”. Well, after checking out the data and doing some analyses, I was far from being doused.

Go back and take a careful look at what we've written.

One other thing: Everyone is welcome to leave comments at NEI Nuclear Notes. But Nayak's own blog doesn't allow comments at all. I wonder why that is.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Environment, Energy, Electricity, Carbon Emissions, Rocky Mountain Institute, Amory Lovins