Technology Futures

This report says that Europe is starting to invest again in nuclear power [link no longer available]. Like the U.S., most of Europe stopped building nuclear power plants after the 1970s Three Mile Island disaster.

If you look strictly at deaths directly attributable to nuclear power and compare them to deaths from coal power, coal loses every time. There are mining disasters regularly, with the latest tragedy right here in Appalachia.

Nuclear's biggest problem was that during the sixties and seventies, every nuclear power plant designed was a one-off...that is, a custom design. It's like building cars by hand--expensive and increases the risk of problems. What we need is just one or two standard nuclear power plant designs that are well understood. Training and safety systems would be standardized, it would much easier to evaluate and test components, and the cost of off the shelf power plants would be much lower.

Nuclear power plants have virtually no emissions, do not generate acid rain or carbon dioxide, and don't require transporting large amounts of fuel (coal, oil, natural gas) across great distances. France generates 80% of its electricity from nuclear power, and has done so safely for more than twenty years. The U.S. needs to take another look at nuclear.

A Marquette University dental student has had an expulsion reversed after the widespread publicity forced the university to back down.

The dental student foolishly made some short-tempered remarks about teachers and fellow students on his personal blog. The school responded like a three year old with a temper tantrum by kicking the student out and revoking a full scholarship.

But a local newspaper and radio station, along with bloggers, publicized the university's actions.

Aside from the irony of a university trying to censor the exchange of ideas (and everyone apparently agreed the student was foolish), it is much harder to cover up these kinds of actions today. Twenty years ago, the student might have had his budding career ruined because of a single juvenile mistake, and the university would probably have gotten away with the over the top reaction.

Like it or not, our actions are potentially subject to more scrutiny than was ever possible in the past. If your organization or business is faced with accusations (true or untrue), how you respond could become the main story. Too many organizations, like Marquette, have not adapted to the Knowledge Democracy, in which we can all be our own media outlet. Some of us have less power, and many others of us have much more power to influence events.

The annual Consumer Electronics Show is in full swing, and like past years, an incredible and often amusing array of new gadgets are on display. One company has combined the craze for those rubber wristbands with a USB memory stick. I wouldn't wear one because they don't match my loafers, but I suspect they may be popular with teenagers.

With a hat tip the excellent Connecting People blog, here is a link to what looks like a great new source of economic development ideas and concepts for the Knowledge Economy.

One of the great things about blogs is that the good ones are typically written by people with a passion for a particular topic, like future-oriented economic development. The short article style of blogs, coupled with the fast scanning offered by RSS feeds, gives you access to a lot of information that has already been vetted and reviewed by someone that knows more than you do about a topic outside your own area of expertise.

One of the problems I see over and over again, especially in rural communities, is a lack of information. Rumor, innuendo, and misunderstandings often get in the way of bringing focus and commitment to a problem. If more community leaders were blogging about local affairs, it would be more difficult for roadblocks to develop. Open discussion of problems is a good thing, not something to fear.