game changer but with regard to renewables look at the just the latest report from the energy information administration here in the united states the estimated natural gas fired electricity is about the cheapest form of power production and about sixty three dollars per megawatt hour on shore wind generated electricity costs fifty percent more offshore wind costs four times as much and and solar thermal cost five times as much this idea that renewables are cheaper than conventional for forms of electricity generation is just simply not true further even if it were on par they're not dispatchable the reality is we need electric sources electricity generation sources that we can turn on and off that's what gives them value having them be intermittent and highly variable gives them of a real world value of a centrally zero so that but i think peter just to direct a conversation if i could one idea i think the bigger problem for nuclear going forward is the issue of global cooperation with regard to the fuel cycle this is regard it addresses the issue of proliferation one of the first responders after fuku

executives that he met with to formulate the administration's energy policy and the government successfully defeated the sierra club's freedom of information act suit to get records of those meetings. within weeks after 9/11 president bush issued an executive order that allowed him to veto release not only of his own presidential papers but those of his predecessors, reagan and george bush the first and clinton so they would be not available to the public. the administration pursued leaks not with the knicks and plumbers unit but threatening criminal prosecution. some republicans in congress -- prosecution of the new york times when it broke the story about the national security agency's illegal wiretapping and also the story of the government tracking international financial transactions. george bush himself said it was disgraceful for the times to have done this, to review these government activities and publishing the security agency leak was, quote, helping the enemy. george bush's first attorney general john ashcroft in one of his first post 9/11 acts was to issue a directive to federal agencies that flipped the presumption of freedom

energy. other agencies are involved, including the environmental protection agency, the faa, federal aviation administration, the department of interior -- i mean, i could go on. host: what is gun with the information that you gather? -- what is done with the information that you gather? guest: we have a scholarly papers, so all of our work eventually is described in a scholarly journal, which is pe er-reviewed by other scientists who are experts in our field. we provide that information back to government agencies to help them improve computer models they are using to make a better forecasts, to find better ways of making use of the information. we work very closely with scientists who are in federal laboratories. host: here is a headline from "the christian science monitor." explain that a little bit more. guest: in the case of hurricanes, we have a fundamental observational problem. is a bad place to go. if you want to launch a weather at bellona or something in the instance of a hurricane, you are more interested in preserving your life and gathering data what they are doing now is finding robotic ways to gather the information. we have data coming to us from space in the form of satellite info