On 26 Jul 2004 17:48:42 -0700, jim rozen wrote:
In article , Roger Shoaf says...

Religious hatred? No. I just think it is a monumental stupidity to ignore
the science, and the numbers and the reality that dictates that nuclear
power is the only thing we got to make the electrical power we need and
want.

OK, but what you *are* ignoring is the political and PR reality
that is standing in the way of achieving an economically viable
nuclear power industry.

Nuclear power *is* economically viable, even in today's regulatory
climate. Duke Power, Georgia Power, Jackson EMC (my co-op,
which, with a number of other Georgia EMCs, owns a nuclear
plant) are all profitable, and have among the lowest power rates
in the South. (Well, the co-op can't legally turn a profit, but the
members get nice rebate checks each December.)

Politics and PR are a problem for the future, since no new plants
are being built because of anti-nuclear hysteria, but that isn't a
problem with respect to the economic viability of existing plant.
With essentially no fuel costs, they are cheap to operate. They
aren't subject to the whims of a foreign dominated fossil fuel
market. If governments actually start to pay attention to the
environmental costs of fossil fuel generation, nuke plants won't
be hurt. Etc.

Gary's been pretty good at keeping a broad view of the situation,
and from what he says, nothing is going to change until the
government changes their ways. Stupidity? Yes. Can be
changed? No.

Or at least not until we're sitting in the dark for longer
than we ever have.

Unfortunately, I believe that is true. Too many members of the
public are being willfully stupid on the issue of nuclear power,
and too many politicians pander to that stupidity.

Attempting to educate the public, and correct their misperceptions,
has largely failed. Even rolling blackouts, brownouts, skyrocketing
rates, foreign wars to secure fossil fuel supplies, etc haven't done
much to shock the public to reality. While they've been vilifying the
"evil corporations", they've ignored the real problems looming on
the near horizon.

(Government has made matters much worse, of course, with its
ridiculous "deregulation" schemes which have actively promoted
corporate malfeasance through inane attempts to force a natural
monopoly into a pseudo-free market mold. In other words, the
government set up conditions which virtually guaranteed that
there'd be an Enron type scandal.)

Perhaps an entire season without power would finally shock the public
enough to make them throw off their misperceptions and prejudices
and allow us to start to rectify the real problems. But the economic
cost of that sort of blackout would be staggering. And once there
isn't enough power to go around, it won't just be for a season. Even
with accelerated work, it'll take years to build the nuclear plants to
meet the shortfall. Our economy could well collapse before it could
be done.

The French, Taiwanese, Koreans, et al will be laughing, of course,
but not for long. They need the American economy to fuel their
own economies. When we go down, they suffer too. At least they'll
have lights, so they won't suffer in the dark as Americans will.

Actually, the picture I've painted above is likely too dramatic for
reality. Most likely what we will see in the near term is rapidly
increasing electric rates, an increasing number of short term
power disruptions, and a slow but sure economic disadvantage
for our country as our costs of electric power force our businesses
to be at a disadvantage to the businesses of countries who have
intelligently ensured a continued stable (both economically and
physically) source of electric power for its industries and homes.

But longer term, the picture is stark, dramatic, and very bleak. We
simply *must* convert away from fossil fuels this century. The supply
is finite, much of it isn't under our control, and the environmental costs
of fossil fuel use are high. Long term, there really is no other viable
option than nuclear power to meet the base load demands of a high
energy civilization (and the size and urbanization of the world's
population permits no other kind unless we're willing to accept a
large scale die off of humanity).

Gary