Nuclear assault begins

or never ends. 

I've been seeing a lot of posts lately on nuclear power. The take away from most of these rants: Nuclear power bad.

The latest is from Compass, the Sierra Club blog. Seems another blog, Climate Progress, has a lengthy post about the cost of new nuclear far exceeding renewables and the low-hanging fruit, energy efficiency. They say the power you don't create is the cheapest to eliminate. Perhaps that could be the chorus of a song. 

The study, by "a leading expert in power plant costs, Craig A. Severance" (never heard of him) says the generation costs for nuclear in 2009 are 25-30 cents per kilowatt hour, or three times current electricity rates. 

Since when is cost the factor in new power? Surely, we all care about what our power costs. But the latest argument is about the cost of nuclear? What about the benefits? What about the next generation of nuclear power that is safe? 

What about the experience in France? What about all the myths associated with the dangers of nuclear power? You're about to spit out Chernobyl and Three Mile Island, right? Chernobyl wasn't designed correctly. Three Mile Island is an example of nuclear safeguards that worked. Next!

This country needs new sources of baseload power that are not coal. Nuclear can provide that source, minus the greenhouse gas emissions. I just don't think that efficiency, wind, solar and whatever else can replace coal. 

Oh, I almost forgot: The problem of nuclear waste. Right now, we store it in concrete casks outside nuke plants. So scary. But on the other hand, we pump the waste from coal into the air, and sweet mercury lands in our waterways. And other countries recycle nuke waste, but the U.S. doesn't? Don't we like recycling?

- Green Mullet