The Donella Meadows Archive

Why Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to the Greenhouse Problem

To the folks who bring us nuclear power, this year's drought is one of the best things that could have happened. Their logic goes...

score:9, 07/12/1988, ,

We're All Downwind from Seabrook

Have you ever wondered what drives the people who are activists, who speak up and get involved? For instance, the folks who demonstrate against the...

score:9, 08/07/1986, ,

How to Get Along Without Seabrook

If the Seabrook nuclear power plant does not open soon, we are told, there will be brownouts all over New England, maybe as soon as...

score:9, 10/23/1986, ,

Zwentendorf, a Nuclear Plant That Will Never Be Turned on

On the bank of the Danube 20 miles northwest of Vienna stands a completed nuclear power plant, loaded with fuel, ready to start up. It...

score:9, 03/19/1987, ,

We Don't Need to Squander Oil and Lives

Why were 37 young men killed on the USS Stark as it patrolled the Persian Gulf? Because an Iraqi fighter plane fired an Exocet missile...

score:9, 05/28/1987, ,

Information on Energy America Can't Count on

You've seen the ad. An elongated cartoon man in green holds a candle and faces imposing stacks of OPEC oil barrels. The headline reads...

score:9, 06/11/1987, ,

Every Goliath Has His David

The following message was brought to you by the U.S. Committee for Energy Awareness (USCEA) -- for awhile. Then ABC and NBC decided to stop...

score:9, 06/18/1987, ,

A Catalog for Ecoconsumers

A year ago I wrote in a column that if every light bulb in the United States were replaced with the most energy-efficient equivalent...

score:9, 10/08/1987, ,

A State-Of-The-Art Evacuation Plan

Hearings on one of the most elaborate, comprehensive, and expensive evacuation plans ever made for a nuclear power plant -- the Seabrook plant -- are just being...

score:9, 12/03/1987, ,

Welcome to the Evacuation Hearings

A lot of things about nuclear power make me mad, but nothing makes me madder than the way its bureaucrats make ordinary citizens feel small...

score:9, 12/10/1987, ,

Alaska Oil Vs. Alaska Wildlife: Many Voices

"The North Slope is a flat, crummy place. Only for oil would anyone want to go there," says an official of the Arco Oil & Gas...

score:9, 05/19/1988, ,

A Negabarrel Saved is a Barrel Earned

Amory Lovins shuttles around the world carrying a small suitcase that contains, he says, the equivalent of 200 large power plants plus all the oil...

score:9, 06/02/1988, ,

Nuclear Power is Not the Answer to the Greenhouse Problem

To the folks who bring us nuclear power, this year's drought is a bonanza. They don't have to advertise any more, the media...

score:9, 07/21/1988, ,

Burning Coal in Connecticut, Planting Trees in Guatemala

Applied Energy Services (AES) of Arlington, Virginia, has come up with a way to do something that everyone thought was impossible. It is building a...

score:9, 03/23/1989, ,

A Mixed Message from Bush on Energy

Environmentalists, waiting hopefully to see whether George Bush is indeed one of them, got a puzzling mixed message this week. Bush's Secretary of State...

score:9, 02/02/1989, ,

Clean-up is the Wrong Word

Exxon has just hired 100 people at $16 an hour to "clean up" the massive oil spill near Valdez. The government estimates that "cleaning up...

score:9, 03/30/1989, ,

Why Was Anyone Surprised by the Exxon Valdez?

After weeks of front-page publicity, it's time to put the wreckage of the Exxon Valdez in perspective. The amount of oil spilled was...

score:9, 04/13/1989, ,

When We're Ready for Fusion Energy, It's Ready for Us

If the chemists at the University of Utah have indeed achieved nuclear fusion in a bottle on a tabletop, their discovery could open a new...

score:9, 05/04/1989, ,

The Sportscar of Showerheads

The best antidote to the greenhouse effect, to acid rain, to urban air pollution, nuclear wastes, and high energy bills is energy conservation. If we...

score:9, 08/31/1989, ,

Solar Hydrogen -- a Fuel for Avoiding a Greenhouse Future

If George Bush were an environmental leader, he would not have blocked an international agreement this month to curtail emissions of greenhouse gases. He would...

score:9, 11/23/1989, ,

A Rohrschach Test in the Middle East

Iraq's aggression in the Middle East has provided a big, oily Rohrschach spot, in which we can all read the messages already ingrained in...

score:9, 08/09/1990, ,

Saddam Hussein Has Done Us a Favor

The Arabs did us a favor. That's what some people said after the oil shocks of the 1970s had settled a bit. By jacking...

score:9, 08/30/1990, ,

Lessons from the Soft Path: Denmark's Energy Policy

The energy wars are back. Not the ones in the deserts of the Middle East, but the ones in national capitals the oil-using world...

score:9, 09/13/1990, ,

To Solve the Energy Problem You Have to Want to

In the September issue of Scientific American is a graph that sums up beautifully why we are on the brink of war in the Middle...

score:9, 09/27/1990, ,

Basic Facts About Energy and the Middle East

In the Great White Capital City the leaders of the nation are making plans to go to war. They are also making a national energy...

score:9, 10/26/1990, ,