On the Safety of Nuclear

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17 June 2010, 3:33am

Alex Tabarrok of Marginal Revolution writes his response to Obama's address yesterday on the oil spill:

Most important, nowhere did the president mention two hard ideas that the public must accept if we are to move to a cleaner energy future: nuclear power and carbon taxes. Nuclear power is among the cleanest sources of energy, power plants can be built when and where needed and the combination of nuclear-generated electricity and hydrogen can serve virtually all of our energy needs. Is nuclear power safe? Oil spills and coal-mine disasters should remind us that safety is always relative.

It's about time I can read someone smart say something like that. I'm tired of people — including environmentalists — complaining about how dirty our current energy sources are, but criticizing all of the viable alternatives. We can't survive off of wind and solar right now — we just don't have the technology to store it for when we don't have wind or sunlight — but we do have the technology to give us enough power via nuclear reactors.

One step at a time. Step one: tax carbon. Step two: build nuclear plants and stop burning coal.