Unseen,
I’ve always been an enthusiast for nuclear power. As awful as Chernobyl and Fukushima were, they do not begin to match the thousands a year that die from emphysema, black lung, brown lung, and even lung and thyroid cancer that results from unclean, unfiltered mining and burning of coal.
I remember in the late Nineties seeing a CNN report about a mass cloud of pollution that was floating between India and China that would come down to the ground and kill 100,000 people in a single swoop. That was from burning coal, wood, and manure.
100,000 people for India and China might be regarded as “a rounding error” or “Karma” or “part of the Five-Year Plan,” but for this Secular, Western, American, Individualist, free-market Capitalist, that is an unspeakable tragedy. Nuclear power with proper safeguards and full liability of providers would put an end to that.
Mr. Shellenberger is right about the pollution created by used solar panels and dead batteries. The only place solar makes sense is space where the power is continuous and free from Earth’s orbit and weather conditions. Moreover, all the acreage devoted to solar farms is that much less that can be devoted to plants or trees to breathe in excess Carbon Dioxide and breathe out Oxygen and produce useful crops and useful by-products. Nuclear power would actually allow for a greener, more nourished, more prosperous world.
A U.S. Geological Survey revealed that we have enough Uranium for at least 1000 years, maybe more with breeder reactor tech. It would tide us over until we could send automated mining equipment to the Moon.
The Manhattan Project’s Dr. Robert Oppenheimer quoted The Bhagavad Gita and said: “I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Today’s nuclear scientists can quote Thomas Paine and say: “We have the power to begin the world over again.”
TheEncogitationer 10 months, 3 weeks ago.
