Three Mile Island
As Global Warming fear mongers clamor for government intervention to curb CO2 emissions, one fact is often overlooked. These people now attempting to force us away from oil, natural gas, and coal for our energy needs are the same people who a few decades ago forced us away from what remains the best alternative energy source, nuclear power. A lot has happened since the three mile Island incident scared the public into siding with environmental extremists, but what few have failed to mention are the consequences of our continued refusal to restart our nuclear power programs. Three Mile island revolutionized the nuclear power industry. Safety requirements and mechanisms were put into place to prevent the same inability to diagnose problems with the plant that occurred at TMI, while emergency procedures were revamped to meet the flaws we discovered. In the meantime, dozens of studies on the people and wildlife surrounding the plant have shown no lasting or even temporary effects from the small radiation leak. Apparently, even the occurrence of a worst possible melt-down at TMI caused no temporary or lasting damage to the environment. So why haven’t we restarted our nuclear power program? Why is our existing program one of the smallest among countries with the ability to generate nuclear power? Because it is politically incorrect to support it, because too many special interest groups have had their way in Washington, and because a few extremist were allowed to influence U.S. policy for generations after them. No one wants to say it, but the fastest way to cut carbon emissions is simply to go nuclear. And why shouldn’t we? New methods are showing great potential in reducing the half-life of nuclear waste to mere minutes. That means we won’t have to pile all our waste in a growing mountain in the desert while we wait for it to finish decaying. If we are to develop a responsible, ‘greener,’ and free market approach to energy in this country we need to allow nuclear energy companies to grow and expand their market.
-James Thoburn
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James Thoburn (twitter: @you_count) is the founder of Backyard Politics. Comment here or @reply you_count on twitter to join the conversation.
Even France draws somewhere on the order of 40% of their power from nuclear plants! (or so I’m told.) Still, I don’t think that the solution to our energy woes lies in one direction alone. Certainly, we need to start putting resources back into nuclear power, but, in keeping with the recent blog post on solar bubbles, look to new avenues that could conceivably be even more effective than nuclear in the long run. (That’s not to say that a whole bunch of solar balloons will ever equal the energy production capacity of a nuclear plant, but there certainly is potential for alternative energy solutions to fill a significant portion of our nation’s energy needs IF we invest in the necessary research.) Beyond that, working on “green” technologies concurrently with revamping the nuclear program, might provide the a little bit of politically correct leverage that could easily be beneficial in the long run.
Personally, I dont see the difference between obtaining power by feeding the GH effect and creating hypernocive radioactive waste that must to be buried later in concrete coffins. That's not green at all.
Why not dedicate the same investment in CLEAN alternatives?