May 15, 2005
SCARED NUCLEAR:
Old Foes Soften to New Reactors (FELICITY BARRINGER, 5/15/05, NY Times)
Several of the nation's most prominent environmentalists have gone public with the message that nuclear power, long taboo among environmental advocates, should be reconsidered as a remedy for global warming.Their numbers are still small, but they represent growing cracks in what had been a virtually solid wall of opposition to nuclear power among most mainstream environmental groups. In the past few months, articles in publications like Technology Review, published by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Wired magazine have openly espoused nuclear power, angering other environmental advocates.
Stewart Brand, a founder of the Whole Earth Catalog and the author of "Environmental Heresies," an article in the May issue of Technology Review, explained the shift as a direct consequence of the growing anxiety about global warming and its links to the use of fossil fuel.
"It's not that something new and important and good had happened with nuclear, it's that something new and important and bad has happened with climate change," Mr. Brand said in an interview.
May as well use their global-warming hysteria against them while we can. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 15, 2005 10:44 AM
Actually, something new and important and good has happened with nuclear: Pebble bed reactors.
They still produce highly toxic waste that we don't really know what to do with, but the reactors themselves should be much safer.
A Chernobyl-like event could never happen with a pebble bed reactor.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 15, 2005 11:19 AMTrue enough. But we should have long ago switched pretty much all electrical production to nuclear. Scientific illiteracy should not be a bar to real progress.
Posted by: bart at May 15, 2005 2:35 PMI'm eagerly awaiting the battle royale between rival environmentalists if the nuclear power effort gains momentum and Hollywood decides to do a remake of "The China Syndrome."
Posted by: John at May 15, 2005 8:14 PMIts not accurate that we don't know what to do with the waste. We know that we should bury it under Yucca mountain.
Posted by: AML at May 15, 2005 11:38 PMYucca mountain is a short-term solution, not a permanent fix.
Further, it's an idiotic solution. Clark County, NV, has a greater population than the entire states of Wyoming and Montana, combined. Yet, burying the stuff in a remote location where nobody lives within a hundred miles is apparently too common-sense to actually be enacted.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at May 16, 2005 12:02 AMJonah Goldberg did a G-File on Yucca.
http://www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200408161243.asp
Posted by: Ali Choudhury at May 16, 2005 6:08 AMWell hopefully in a hundred years, we'll have figured out how to render nuclear waste inert.
Besides it's not like the US is particularly land-poor.
Posted by: Ali Choudhury at May 16, 2005 7:48 AMOne more reason to invade Canada, eh Robert?
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 16, 2005 11:46 AMThe Feds have invested at least a zillion dollars in Yucca Mtn. Hey, it's only Vegas.
Posted by: ed at May 16, 2005 1:24 PMWhy not just dump the waste in Death Valley?
Of course, that might turn it into a lifeless wasteland where nothing can grow...
Posted by: Joseph Hertzlinger at May 16, 2005 6:57 PMActually, dropping it on Mecca is a good way to deal with the problem.
Posted by: bart at May 16, 2005 10:17 PMI vote for Labrador or Newfoundland.
Posted by: Dave W. at May 16, 2005 11:28 PMCan't, that's where Robert's going to build his manor houses.
Posted by: joe shropshire at May 17, 2005 12:32 AM