Is Google Alerts Useful?

Over the past two weeks we have noticed a pattern in Google Alerts. That service seems to cull out the negative items about Bill Ritter. One would think that this site didn't exist. According to Google Alerts, Bill Ritter is a glowing politician who can do no wrong and gets no bad publicity.

This author goes out of its way to identify and report on the down side of the Governor's actions, but somehow, Google doesn't see our work as important.

We did original research to find out what the Governors were told at the National Governor's Conference about renewable energy. They were told that nuclear energy was going to need to be a major component of future energy production, and that coal would have to remain the largest component. Solar and Wind are and will be insignificant producers of electricity.

Upon his return, Bill Ritter did not report this information accurately. He dismissed nuclear power with the claim that the waste disposal problem hadn't been solved. We discovered that he was told that the waste problem had been largely solved in France and what it would take to solve it here - government investment.

That is news, and it is news that wasn't reported anywhere else. Did Google Alerts see fit to include it among their alerts for Bill Ritter? We wouldn't be using this example if it had.

There are other examples. Something, or someone appears to be protecting Bill Ritter at Google Alerts. What is happening can't possibly be claimed to be in the public interest. We hope that Google sees this and takes positive steps to fix the problem.

What Ritter Heard At The Governor's Conference

It is instructive to read what Bill Ritter was told at the national governor's conference about nuclear power as a source of green energy. Here is what he heard from three time Pulitzer prize winner Tom Friedman:

I would say a couple of things, Governor. One is, I just came back a couple of weeks ago from the Hague. I was at Royal Dutch Shell. They have an energy scenario team, probably the best in the world.

It's really instructive when you sit down with them. They do a global chart basically of all power generation in the world, breaking down every kind of fuel. And it's kind of interesting. You kind of go down the list. You start with coal, and natural gas, nuclear, whatnot, and you get to wind. Wind, for total global energy generation according to the Shell Scenario Team, is one-tenth of one percent today. Solar doesn't make the list.

On a global basis, it's so small they can't pick it up. And this gets back to the Governor of West Virginia's point. I mean, between now and when we get to that clean fuel future, there are only two ways to fill it in a cleaner way. That is, some kind of cleaner coal and nuclear. At scale, I don't see any other way. So I am personally, I don't want to say a fan, but I have absolutely no problem with it. I weigh the balance of climate change and nuclear, and I think it comes out very much in favor of nuclear. And I think, to answer the points that Jeff has rightly raised, I think the government is going to have to build some of these plants and assume all the risk, at least the first ones, before you're going to get CEOs to bet half their market cap on building on nuclear plant that could be stopped at any point.

But Bill Ritter simply wasn't listening. Here, according to Mike Saccone of the Grand Junction Sentinel is the message he brought back:

[ Bill ] Ritter said he and the other governors who attended the most recent National Governors Association conference in Washington did discuss nuclear power, but did not include it in their near-term vision for cutting national carbon emissions.

When it comes to green energy, we have a bunch of dreamers, not doers, as governors, and Bill Ritter is one of them.