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A salient point in the nuclear debate.

Marketplace decided to broach that touchy, touchy subject this morning, running a brief segment on the nuclear debate and the support it's been getting from some greens.

For the most part, it's your standard, run of the mill coverage: Some greens are reconsidering because of global warming; others aren't so keen.

However, there was one item that caught my attention. Southern Nuclear, which runs three plants in the South, is considering filing a site permit, the first step to a new reactor. The whole process will take about ten years before the reactor is operational, according to the report.

The report then jumps to an interesting corollary:

It's that timeline that forced some greens to reconsider nukes. They figure if it takes a decade to get a plant going, the debate better get started.

While I have no problem with the debate getting started, I see the lag time as a huge strike against nuclear. Professor Martin Parry, the IPCC scientist, said on Talking Point that thirty, forty, fifty years down the line, it's reasonable to expect that we will have clean, low-emission technologies to meet the world's energy needs. Parry left it open as to whether nuclear would be included in these technologies (he listed nuclear, clean coal, and renewables).

My point is that when we don't plan to build a reactor this year, we are ensuring that no new reactors will be built for the next ten years. By the time a reactor gets online, the other available technologies will be that much better, and we might say hey, maybe we don't really want to have to deal with all the costs of nuclear when we've got renewables to beat it. Reading sites like Treehugger and WorldChanging makes me more optimistic every day that the day is coming fast when those who choose to do so can easily live an emissions- and isotope-free life.

We might regret settling for a single with a compromise on nuclear when we won't see benefits until after we've already hit the grand slam and found really clean alternatives. Sorry, it's baseball season.

Update [2005-6-14 16:10:2 by Dave Roberts]: Sorry to butt in on Andy's post here -- hi Andy! -- but Jim Harding and Denis Hayes just published an op-ed in the Seattle P-I that makes exactly the same point:

Changes in electric market structure -- generally termed deregulation -- have only added to the risks that utilities and investors must consider. In a deregulated market, there is no certainty that costs incurred will be recovered. Even in fully regulated markets, utilities must consider the possibility that any number of technologies -- fuel cells, photovoltaics, coal with carbon sequestration, gas-fired combined cycles, geothermal, conservation or wind -- could undercut their investments long before the capital costs are recovered. Peter Bradford, former Nuclear Regulatory Commission member, argues that nuclear power is fundamentally incompatible with a deregulated industry, and he is probably right.

They also make a good point about proliferation. Check it out.

Words from a different kind of president

We simply must balance our demand for energy with our rapidly shrinking resources. By acting now, we can control our future instead of letting the future control us.

One choice is to continue doing what we have been doing before. We can drift along for a few more years. Our consumption of oil would keep going up every year. Our cars would continue to be too large and inefficient. Three-quarters of them would continue to carry only one person -- the driver -- while our public transportation system continues to decline. We can delay insulating our houses, and they will continue to lose about 50 percent of their heat in waste.

We will feel mounting pressure to plunder the environment. We will have a crash program to build more nuclear plants, strip-mine and burn more coal, and drill more offshore wells than we will need if we begin to conserve now. Inflation will soar, production will go down, people will lose their jobs. Intense competition will build up among nations and among the different regions within our own country.

If we fail to act soon, we will face an economic, social and political crisis that will threaten our free institutions.

That was Jimmy Carter's fear. Here's what he wanted to do about it:

I am tonight setting a clear goal for the energy policy of the United States. Beginning this moment, this nation will never use more foreign oil than we did [two years ago] -- never. From now on, every new addition to our demand for energy will be met from our own production and our own conservation. The generation-long growth in our dependence on foreign oil will be stopped dead in its tracks right now and then reversed as we move through the [next decade], for I am tonight setting the further goal of cutting our dependence on foreign oil by one-half by the end of the next decade ...

(Via CommonDreams > DailyKos > Oil Drum)

Words of hope from President Bush

"See, there's a lot of things we're doing in America, and I believe that not only can we solve greenhouse gas, I believe we will."

Pulp

Sprol.com has become one of my favorite daily reads. Check out this extraordinary series of posts on "Pulping the World."

Feel the farce, Cuke

Well, it seems not everyone finds the (mis)adventures of Cuke Skywalker, Obi Wan Cannoli, TofuD2, and friends as funny as we do. Like its predecessor "The Meatrix," an online video spoof addressing factory farm issues that angered the dairy industry, "Store Wars," which touts organics and refers to conventional farming as the dark side, has many in the produce industry up in arms (er, light sabers?).

"It's one of the best spoofs I've ever seen," said Tim Chelling, vice president for communications for the Western Growers Association in Irvine. "But when it comes to some of the facts presented, as far as consumers go, the farce is not with you."

Listen, Tim, leave the puns to the professionals, ok?

Going down with the ship

Lee Raymond, chairman and chief executive of Exxon Mobil, has decided that global warming is bunk and that his company is not going to waste time or money funding renewable energy.

Openly and unapologetically, the world's No. 1 oil company disputes the notion that fossil fuels are the main cause of global warming. Along with the Bush administration, Exxon opposes the Kyoto accord and the very idea of capping global-warming emissions. Congress is debating an energy bill that may be amended to include a cap, but the administration and Exxon say the costs would be huge and the benefits uncertain. Exxon also contributes money to think tanks and other groups that agree with its stance.

You kinda have to admire the guy:

"We're not playing the issue. I'm not sure I can say that about others," Lee Raymond, Exxon's chairman and chief executive, said in a recent interview at Exxon headquarters in Irving, Texas. "I get this question a lot of times: 'Why don't you just go spend $50 million on solar cells? Charge it off to the public-affairs budget and just say it's like another dry hole?' The answer is: That's not the way we do things."

At least he's not fudging.

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee Jerk

An environmentalist takes “enviroliberalism” to task, gets yelled at Jeremy Carl, a longtime environmentalist now working on sustainability issues in India, thinks that environmentalism should look in the mirror to find the source of its troubles. The problem, he says, is the dominance of “enviroliberalism,” a parochial sort of green thinking that ignores international issues […]

Beyond Blunderdome

Secret plan would put U.K. nuke waste in “interim” domes for 1,000 years The U.K.’s government-owned British Nuclear Fuels has developed an innovative solution to the nuclear-waste problem: procrastinate! The company wants to dump waste from nuclear power plants into giant domes designed to last up to 1,000 years — at which point, presumably, future […]

The Rapture of Capture

Brits want to store carbon dioxide under North Sea The British government announced today that it will invest about $45 million in technology to capture carbon dioxide and store it under the North Sea — part of a $72 million commitment to combat global warming via energy efficiency, renewables, and new technologies. Keeping CO2 out […]

Amending Fences

Energy bill goes to Senate floor amidst bipartisan hopes With the public up in arms about gas prices and President Bush breathing down its neck, today the Senate begins consideration — again — of the Moby Dick of modern-day politics: the energy bill. The House already passed a version, attacked by greens and fiscal conservatives […]