An editorial in the Waterbury (Conn.) Republican-American:
Copyright © 2005 Republican-American
One of life's more pleasurable experiences is watching environmentalists paint themselves into a corner.
Take energy, for example. Environmentalists say they support energy independence for America, but their proposed solutions run from nonsensical to irrational. They say the burning of fossil fuels causes pollution and global warming. They also are against developing more domestic energy sources -- witness their hysteria over drilling in the Arctic Nincompoop Wasteland Refuse -- because each drop of oil prolongs the age of the internal-combustion engine.
But the renewable sources they promote have serious deficiencies. The technologies behind fuel cells, solar power and biomass have not advanced sufficiently to supplant gasoline, heating oil, natural gas and coal anytime soon. Meanwhile, environmentalists are schizophrenic when it comes to other non-polluting sources. They love wind power as long as windmills aren't built in places where the wind blows (ridge lines, mountain passes, Nantucket Sound, etc.). They like hydro, except when it requires damming rivers.
Most of all, however, they hate nuclear power, which neither fouls the air and water nor emits greenhouse gases. No greener energy exists, yet environmentalists scream "Three Mile Island" anytime anyone brings it up. Well, they'd better get used to people bringing it up because nuclear power is poised for comeback.
A conference on nuclear power this month in Paris closed with most of the 70 participating nations agreeing nuclear power will be a major player in the 21st century. Interest is especially high in the emerging economies of Asia, where 18 of the world's 27 new nuclear plants are under construction. The United States and several European nations may follow.
Ironically, the renewed interest overseas is rooted in the Kyoto Protocol, the international global-warming treaty that is the cause célèbre of the environmental movement. Kyoto requires developed nations to curtail their greenhouse-gas emissions, and since electrical generation produces at least a third of the world's warming gases, signatory nations naturally would look first at their power grids for potential reductions. The nuclear-power industry says if the world's 442 nuclear plants were closed and replaced by fossil-fuel-fired plants, 600 million tons of additional carbon would be released annually -- twice what Kyoto aims to reduce.
But Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund and all the rest don't want nuclear to be a weapon in combating climate change because of their boilerplate fears about meltdowns, radiation releases, disposal of spent fuel and terrorism. But in America at least, those issues have been or are being addressed through technological advances, standardization of design of nuclear plants and the development of the Yucca Mountain radioactive-waste depository. Though environmentalists think nuclear plants are sitting ducks for terrorists, the facilities are very difficult to blow up, even by crashing jetliners into them.
The nuclear issue hits home in Connecticut because of the problems it has had with energy generation and because it has signed the unconstitutional Kyoto Lite treaty with other New England states and the eastern Canadian provinces.
Without nuclear, pollution will get worse and the state will be unable to meet its obligations under Kyoto Lite; with nuclear, the air and water would be cleaner, and the state might have a chance to meet the agreement's goals.
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