[I]
This view should absolutely be taken into consideration--though, of course, we don't want to weigh an op-ed too heavily. It should direct our attention to more serious arguments for the view that nuclear plants are a lot more dangerous than we think.
I'm skeptical. It seems extremely unlikely that both of the following can be true:
- [a] Anthropogenic climate change is such an emergency that we must [do whatever it is we're supposed to do...cut carbon emissions in half?] in a decade or [CATASTROPHE!]
- [b] Nuclear is so dangerous that we shouldn't rely on it even given [a].
The stronger the case for [a], the less likely it is that [b] is true. If [a] is true, we should be willing to accept
extremely risky alternatives to fossil fuels. We should, e.g., be willing to accept a fair number of major nuclear accidents
I like the planet-killer analogy:
Suppose we discover a planet-killing asteroid that will hit Earth in ten years. One (ridiculous, science-fictiony) way to stop it is to build a shit-ton of nuclear plants (or some similarly risky technology) to laser-beam it out of the sky (or whatever). Or, we can try a moonshot in which we transform some safer technology (like solar, or whatever); but this won't work at current levels of technology; it requires massive technological leaps forward--leaps that may well elude us.
Seems
prima facie crazy to take the second course of action. If we really are facing the end of everything if we fail, then we should go with proven technology--almost no matter how high the costs. How many Three Mile Islands...or Fukushimas...or even Chernobyls...would it be worth to save the Earth? Answer: a whole damn lot.
Second, I doubt Jaczko is right about the cost/risks of nuclear. By some estimates, nuclear is the safest means of generating power, with
fewer deaths per terawatt hour than even solar. Of course nuclear doesn't poison us gradually and steadily the way coal does; but every now and then it will likely poison us a
lot. It's good to keep that in mind--comparison is a bit tricky. However, what the numbers tell us is that, thus far, even given the risks of occasional disaster, nuclear has been very safe.
I spent about a year in high school reading a lot about energy independence for debate, and focused a lot on nuclear. That doesn't make me all that well-informed...but I did read and think about it a lot, and it's something I've sort of kept my eye on to some extent since. I don't have and don't deserve a real position on the issue, and I'm not really a nuclear enthusiast. But I'm inclined to accept a conditional:
if the climate catastrophists are right,
then we should go nuclear. Jaczko's op-ed motivates me to read more about it, but it doesn't change my mind.
One reason I'm skeptical of such arguments is: I'm skeptical of contemporary progressivism generally, and especially of its views of anthropogenic global warming, including the Green New Deal. I think it's clear that leftier progressivism (painting with a broad brush, yet again...) is using climate change as a stalking horse; it doesn't even believe its own hype about the subject. This op-ed coheres with my doubts. Progressives have always wanted to develop alternative energy. Along comes AGW. We're told that it's the greatest emergency humanity has ever faced. We have ten years to make massive changes to energy production. But somehow that ends up also meaning: adopting a long list of progressive policies...policies they've already long-wanted...including (a) alternative energy and (b) stuff completely unrelated to climate change. The latter include, just to name a few: universal health care, paid vacations, "healthy food initiatives," "free" college, affordable housing, family medical leave, a $15 minimum wage, some strange stuff about "indigenous rights"...you name it...no matter how unrelated it is to climate change, if progressives want it, it's in the GND. This is
obvious bullshit. One (slightly less obviously BS) aspect of using AGW as leverage to get what progressives already want for independent reasons is: using it to get alternative energy. As with the other stuff, it makes no sense (though at last this one makes a
little sense); if we're actually trying to avert catastrophe, it's utterly irrational to overlook nuclear (coincidentally: antecedently disliked by the left) and gamble on solar (coincidentally: antecedently liked by the left).
Obviously the GND is not a plan that would be advanced by someone who actually believed we had ten years to save the Earth. Such a person would put all other progressive projects on hold for the next ten years, focusing exclusively on "saving the planet." The last thing he would do would be to water-down the initiative and scatter his energies by trying to achieve completely unrelated pet goals like better school lunches. He'd also prefer proven technologies to uncertain ones--e.g. nuclear to solar. He'd make a deal with conservatives: back me on climate change and I'll give you everything else until the problem is solved. But somehow, magically, even thought we must, allegedly, immediately go to CLIMECON 1, progressives need make no concessions whatsoever. In fact, climate change magically and inscrutably becomes a reason to adopt
everything they want.
So, no. I don't buy it. And it'll take a lot of evidence to convince me of Jazko's conclusion--that the nuclear objection to the GND is unsound because, hey,
we suddenly realize that nuclear is way more dangerous than we thought it was! Despite being responsible for more-or-less 0 deaths ever in the U.S. More people are probably going to die installing rooftop solar panels next year than are going to die from nuclear power...
Read more »
