Guest Post by John Stossel
This Thursday, Earth Day, politicians and activists will shout more about “the climate crisis.”
I don’t think it’s a crisis. COVID-19, malaria, exploding debt, millions of poor children dying from diarrhea — those are genuine crises.
But global warming may become a real problem, so it’s particularly absurd that Earth Day’s activists rarely mention the form of energy that could most quickly reduce greenhouse gases: nuclear power.
When France converted to nuclear, it created the world’s fastest reduction in carbon emissions.
But in America, nuclear growth came to a near halt 40 years ago, after an accident at the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania.
The partial meltdown killed no one. It would probably have been forgotten had Hollywood not released a nuclear scare movie, “The China Syndrome,” days before.
“People saw that and freaked out,” complains Joshua Goldstein, author of “A Bright Future: How Some Countries Have Solved Climate Change (with nuclear power).”
One of the people still freaking out is solar activist Harvey Wasserman. “I live in terror of the next accident,” he says in my latest video.
His anti-nuclear argument has basically won in most of the world. Nuclear plants are being shut down.
Why? I ask Wasserman. No one was hurt at Three Mile Island.
Wasserman replies that after the accident, he went to nearby homes and people showed him “their tumors, their hair loss, their lesions.”
“It’s bunk,” I tell him. “It’s been studied. People lose hair and get cancer and they attribute it to Three Mile Island, but it’s not true.”
“Having been there,” Wasserman responds, “It’s my clear assertion that people were killed.”
Actual scientists don’t agree. In fact, they find less cancer near Three Mile Island than in other parts of Pennsylvania.
But what about Fukushima? That was more serious. Today, clueless media quote Greenpeace claiming, Fukushima’s radiation could “change our DNA!”
Also bunk. “There was heightened radiation, but it was all at this low level below what we consider to be safe,” explains Goldstein.
The low level of radiation released at Fukushima was hardly a threat. What killed people was the panicked response.
“Everyone freaked out and ordered a massive sudden evacuation. That caused suicide, depression… Fear of radioactivity really did kill people.”
One nuclear accident, Chernobyl, did kill, and its radiation may still kill thousands more.
But Chernobyl was built by socialists cutting corners to please dictators. No Chernobyl-like plant will ever be built again. And even with Chernobyl’s deaths, nuclear power’s safety record is better than that of coal, oil, and natural gas.
“But what about the nuclear waste!” shout the activists.
“It’s a small problem,” says Goldstein. “All the nuclear waste from all America’s reactors for 60 years would fit into a Walmart.”
While the anti-nuclear movement has stopped nuclear construction in most of the West, “other places are building them like crazy,” says Goldstein. “China puts a nuclear reactor on the grid every two to three months.”
America may soon finish… one. It took Georgia Power Company six years just to get permission to build a plant. Regulation is so heavy that, 15 years later, it still isn’t operating.
Wasserman is proud he played a role in that. “If you want to accuse us of having raised the cost of building new nuclear plants by demanding more regulation, I plead guilty.”
He claims countries can power themselves with rooftop solar panels and wind. Technology improvements did lower their prices, but what happens when the wind doesn’t blow? Or the sun doesn’t shine?
Store energy in batteries! replies Wasserman. “We are having a major technological and industrial revolution in battery capacity.”
Goldstein scoffs in response, “The idea that a miracle battery is going to come along and save us is completely untested.”
By contrast, nuclear energy has been tested. It could reduce greenhouse gasses, and provide reliable energy, if only we didn’t fear it so much.
“The whole regulatory system is crazy,” Goldstein concludes. “We’re regulating this energy source as though it were the most dangerous thing out there, and it’s actually the safest thing!”
John Stossel is author of “Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media.”
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This guy Wasserman was involved with the No Nukes concerts in the ’70’s with Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Browne. I’ll give Bonnie Raitt a pass because of her slide guitar work, but I cannot countenance anyone who pals around with Jackson Browne.
She is a pretty badass slide guitarist.
If we had only used Thorium reactors instead of Uranium reactors most of these issues could have been avoided. But, Uncle didn’t like the fact that Thorium doesn’t benefit the weapons industry.
Fortunately there are a few startups trying to make a go of Thorium without Uncle’s $$. I did however find this disturbing when looking for links to some designs I’ve seen.
10% for The Big Guy?
The only good use of an abandoned nuke plant was in Upstate SC where they used a huge abandoned water tank to film parts of “The Abyss”.
The underwater scenes with the strange lifeforms were filmed in the Mighty Congaree River south of I-277. All such lifeforms were determined to be from Orangeburg and the Savannah River Plant.
We’re always just one more Fukashima or Chernobyl away from nuclear power being safe.
There is no such thing as a greenhouse gas. It’s been known since the 1850’s that all atmospheric gasses heat at exactly the same rate….. Water vapor is a different matter….
Covid is not a crisis, just the reaction being used to restrict personal freedom is the crisis.
If the green people succeed and force us to stop using fossil fuels for power and heat, expect lots of dark, and I’m not talking BLM dark. The wind doesn’t always blow and the sun shines only half the day, and here in the Pacific Northwest, a hell of a lot less than that. So how are you going to cook, watch TV, charge your phone, turn the lights, and heat your house if Mother Nature is taking some time off? Oh, that’s right, batteries–a technology that is always on the verge of a breakthrough.
Thanks to the greenies, the blackouts that are now becoming common occurrences in California will be visiting your house soon.
Well if the communists are good for one thing, its power outages and rationing.
The Jews made out pretty well.
https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/know-your-oligarch-a-guide-to-the-jewish-machers-in-the-russia-probe-1.6113189
Yeah, we’ll get feral nigger attacks, too. Count on it.