Reality... What A Concept

From every black cloud, a silver lining.

Or something like that.

Vladimir Putin's barbaric, sociopathic, monstrous, murderous, and on and on invasion of Ukraine may indeed offer a sliver of such. It is waking Europe's leaders up to the reality of energy dependence on an immoral regime, and to necessary corrections in domestic policy.

This transition from somnolence, some might be surprised to read, evinced a year ago with reports of European leaders reversing course on nuclear power, an energy source that checks every single "green" box but has remained, against all reason, in disfavor even as global warming-driven action has multiplied. New designs are being developed, plans for new plants are being made, decommissionings are being postponed or cancelled, and not only in Europe.

This resurgent interest in nuclear power is coupled to the hard lessons from implementation of a wind-and-solar paradigm in those nations. Hard lessons that expose inadequacy, myopic planning, and Pollyanna-ish expectations.

Our domestic greens have kept their heads buried in the sand, and continued to blindly believe the promises of the Biden Administration's divorced-from-reality energy policy, rather than embrace the one technology that can move things significantly in a lower-carbon direction reliably, safely, and without the countless pitfalls of wind and solar (pitfalls they prefer to ignore).

Until now, perhaps.

James Freeman at the Wall Street Journal offers some encouraging news:

Journal readers know Michael Shellenberger for his long, grueling campaign to persuade fellow environmentalists to be reasonable. Now running as an independent for governor of California, he seems to be making some headway even in the country’s capital of climate nonsense.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has shown a tiny bit of sense in contemplating a delay in shutting down the state's largest energy producer: the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. He's also making positive noises about 'reliable electricity,' something wind and solar are most assuredly not. That Newsom is coercing the state toward electric everything (the last being a phased-in ban on small-engine tools e.g. lawnmowers and chainsaws) is going to put even more pressure on building a power grid that can supply all the electric cars and battery-powered everything being mandated.

Want to be "green?" Want to do your part in advocating for a better environment? Hop on board the nuclear power wagon. It's cleaner and safer than everything else, wind and solar included. It'll make power when the wind isn't blowing and when the sun isn't shining. It won't require vast tracts of land be given over to solar panels and windmills, nor that great big holes be torn in the earth in pursuit of mass quantities of lithium and rare earths. There is zero chance of getting to "net-zero" without nuclear power.

Even if you're skeptical of the need to mass-remediate the effects of global warming, nuclear remains a cause well worthy of support. Thousands die every year from particulate pollution generated by coal plants. Drilling, mining, and transportation of mass quantities of oil, coal, and gas have their own impact and generate their own risks. Yes, mining uranium and processing nuclear waste are their own thing, but both the impact and the risks are much reduced. Watch Pandora's Promise. Learn the truth about Three Mile Island and Fukushima, so as to reject the baseless fears mongered with their names.

The reality is that the world's way forward is via nuclear power. Ecologically, economically, and geo-politically, it remedies many problems. People are waking up to this reality, and every new advocate adds to the momentum. It's tragic that Europe's leaders needed a kick in the pants from a Russian arch criminal to start walking back from their delusions, but better now than a decade from now, when the inevitable failures of the WASABI fantasy jam them up even harder.

Editor’s note. Readers of a certain age might recall the title of this essay as that of a comedy album. I tip my hat to the late great Robin Willams.

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Yours in liberty,

Peter.