No Nukes? No More
Nope, not another post about Iran this time, but a link to a Kevin Drum piece that acknowledges what has been obvious to me for at least 5 or 6 years now: nuclear power needs to be a big, big part of our solution to (a) the energy crisis, and (b) global warming. Scare tactics in the wake of Three Mile Island, the “No Nukes” concert, and the movie The China Syndrome succeeded in putting a stigma on the use of nuclear power, and for years and years, no new nuclear plants came on line. Now, it’s as clear as could be that this overreaction to a very slender threat has harmed America in numerous unintended ways. We don’t really even have a choice; ‘renewables’ will never be more than a fraction of power, for the simple reason that they are intermittent and not ‘counted’ at anything approaching 100% in terms of capacity to industry regulators…
Guess we will need the Yucca Mtn repository. Harry Reid ain’t gonna like that, or more accurately, the eviro-reactionaries will not like it and they seem to be running things on Interior issues for the Dems. Nowadays all that Atomic Age boosterism of yesteryear seems pretty corny but the physics undergirding atomic propulsion, atomic medicine, atomic power, atomic industry and other atomic boons to man are sound. Most of the “On the Beach” brand of doom-mongering… not so much. I’m quite unconvinced that “global warming” is other than a hoax but if a distaste for CO2 unlocks the political barriers to the atomic future we were supposed to be well into in 1965, well, good on yer.
I don’t think a new reactor has been built in this country in over a decade at this point, due to the pervasive NIMBY concerns and regulatory hurdles faced by energy companies. We would also do well to emulate Brazil’s program of sugar cane ethanol production – their auto and truck fuel needs are now almost fully met with this domestic production (note – our corn lobby doesn’t do us any favors here, since corn ethanol is quite a bit less efficient than sugar cane). Biofuels are another productive avenue in this vein.
There are many solutions to our current predicament, but we need to get going on these ASAP.