Nuclear Spring

The 21st century will be a time of transition in resource production and use. People are only starting to realize that cheap oil is a thing of the past. There is still much denial that oil prices will not be going back down to the historically low prices of the 90s, but will continue to climb as it becomes evident that peak oil production has occured. Nuclear power, much maligned here in the US since the incident at Three Mile Island in 1978, and the later disaster at Chernobyl in 1986, is in prime position for a major comeback.

Peter George has written an informative article on this impending transition. He first takes on the irrational nature of the nuclear protest movement:

Even today, when the man in the street confronts the concept of 'atomic power,' he often thinks first of bombs and radiation. He can largely thank the 'Greens' and their political cousins in the 'Anti-War Brigade' for most of these distorted perceptions. In a fit of blind zeal the 'Greens' were set to ditch baby and bath water both. It was not always that way.

By the end of the seventies the nuclear option was gaining ground everywhere. The US had 100 Nuclear reactors in operation, 20 under construction and 100 more planned. The world had successfully constructed over 400 in total: then came 'Three Mile Island" (1979) and Chernobyl (1986). Most of the US '20' were halted. Those on the drawing board got cancelled. TMI was an American phenomenon. The world largely ignored it and waited for Chernobyl. The 'Greens' and their 'fellow-travelers' blew a minor glitch at TMI out of all proportion. Later, they and others totally misrepresented the true extent of 'fall-out' from Chernobyl
(1986). On the back of both they sowed a wind of invective against anything nuclear which succeeded in gutting it as an energy source for the next quarter century. The process was aided and abetted by a 20-year downtrend in oil and commodity prices. This helped defer decisions by skewing the economic risk from nuclear, to less complicated fossil fuels like oil, coal and more recently, liquid natural gas.

A quarter century later, thanks to the misguided efforts of the 'Greens,' the world looks set to reap a double whirlwind - a crisis in oil and gas supplies, coupled with a menace in 'global warming.' The former could see oil prices spike ten-fold in a decade. The latter could spawn increasingly nasty side-effects, ranging from 'acid rain' and radically changing weather patterns, to melting perma-frost and sharply rising sea levels. If at some point in the future every identifiable 'Green' is punched black and blue by an angry world, it would be no more than their just deserts.

If we look at the environmental impact of nuclear power harnessed to the production of electricity and hydrogen in comparison to the ongoing impact of greenhouse gas emissions and other air and groundwater pollutants that would be the result of extracting the dirtier grades of petroleum from tar sands, oil shale and other low grade deposits, it is exceedingly obvious which path leads to a healthier world. Nuclear hysteria has been overblown, and the economic impact of higher and higher oil prices will not allow Americans to indulge in the luxury of feel-good Greenie environmental romanticism in this century. Hopefully the victory of George Bush will set the stage for bold, pragmatic steps in the right direction for energy production In the US, including the licensing of new nuclear power plants. The Greenies are down, it is time to act.