TIME TO GO NUCLEAR

Uranium (Nuclear Minerals) / Nuclear Power - Economics, Design, & Industry

Date posted: 07/13/14

MICHAEL SPECTER reports that he did not give much thought to nuclear power before 1979, when the accident at Three Mile Island made environmental apathy impossible or, at least, detestable. But there are few more obvious signs that the world is moving in the wrong direction than an event that threatens to despoil the planet forever. To be for nuclear power after Three Mile Island (and, even worse, after the accident at Chernobyl, in 1986) was to be for corporations, for lying, callous governments, and for the inane notion that the benefits of new technologies always outweigh the risks. Nuclear power just was not natures way, and who can be against nature. That, to bend a phrase of Bill Clinton, depends on what the nature of nature is. If nature means continuing to melt the globe by wantonly burning fossil fuels, or encouraging the increased consumption of beef (which requires land, water, and space we long ago used up), or assuming that our planet will be capable of sustaining ten billion people in just a few decades, or even attempting to cool the earth by altering the fundamental character of its climate, then it might be time to reassess. Still, I had not altered my position on nuclear power until last week, when I watched the Robert Stone new documentary, Pandora Promise. The film follows several former dedicated opponents as they come to realize, based on their examination of the evidence, that nuclear reactors may provide the best and perhaps even the safest option that we have to power our planet. The liberal (and environmental) credentials of the protagonists are beyond dispute, among them are Richard Rhodes, whose book The Making of the Atomic Bomb is by far the best history of the impact of nuclear weapons on society, and Stewart Brand, whose Whole Earth Catalog helped define environmentalism and redefine the goals of a generation. Read on, his change of view is interesting.