Fletcher

I find it interesting that even James Lovelock, the man who set out the Gaia Hypothesis so hated by the Right, has come out firmly in favour of nuclear power…Start building nukes now, to give us some breathing space. And in the meantime, drastically increase gasoline tax and spend the money on alternative energy that might actually work.

I wonder if James Lovelock is in favor of throwing the EPA out the window? Of removing nuclear power plants (and their construction process) from the juristiction of the court system (Federal and State)? Of taking a big, double-bladed broad axe and swinging it like a hero to chop down the regulatory bramble that we have today?

Are you in favor of that?

Because if you aren’t, then you aren’t in favor of nuclear power. Because as long as the EPA exists in its current form, as long a regulation-via-litigation is allowed, as long as Environmental Impact Reports are unavoidable regulatory hurdles, then we aren’t building any nuke plants, safe, sketchy or otherwise. The people who don’t like nuclear power are well-armed with red-tape dispensers and well-trained in using them. You’ll have to demolish the current regulatory structure in order to defang them. Otherwise the plants will be stuck in the approvals process and subsequent litigation until the Sun blows up into a Red Giant and toasts all our marshmallows, ending our energy problems once and for all.

In the meantime, those additional gas taxes will be pouring into the government coffers. Probably a good percentage of them finding their ways into the hands of the anti-Nuke groups, with a few percentage points skimmed off into some Senator’s freezer no doubt.

But that’s kind of a microcosm of our fundamental problem. The government we have today is more adept at adding new burdens to the handfull of things left that work than it is at cleaning up it’s own messes and mistakes.

Are you up for the sort of changes necessary to build nuclear plants again?