Voice in the Wilderness

Texas and US Lag Unlikely Player in Nuclear Energy

This morning's Wall Street Journal piece on nuclear energy by William Tucker is one of the most cogent yet easy to understand stories I've seen on the virtues of nuclear energy and the arguments of nuclear opponents. Money quotes:

While we may be at a turning point, one enormous question still hangs over this revival of nuclear power in the U.S.: Who is going to pay for it?.... the capital will have to be raised from Wall Street. But not many investors are willing to put up $5 billion to $10 billion for a project that could become engulfed by 10 to 15 years of regulatory delay -- as occurred during the 1980s.

Of course, the inevitable "regulatory delay". Who can blame investors for not wanting to fork over $10B of of hard-won money on the vague hope that some regulatory bureaucrats will get off their keister in time to get a decent ROI. I'm all for proper environmental protections, but does it take 15 years to get those issues figured out? Surely somebody, somewhere in the world has figured out how to responsibly handle nuclear waste and accelerate their nuclear energy development.

...the problem of radioactive waste has been absurdly exaggerated. More than 95% of the material in a spent fuel rod can be recycled for energy and medical isotopes. ... France has proved that reprocessing works. With a fully developed nuclear cycle, the French now store all the waste from 30 years of producing 75% of its electricity beneath the floor of one room at La Hague in Normandy.

The French?!? Oh Lord, don't tell me the French have more cajones than we do when it comes to standing up to the absurd exaggerations of environmentalist scare tactics.

If we are now going to choose nuclear power as a way to resolve both our concerns about global warming and our looming energy shortfalls, we are first going to have to engage in a national debate about whether or not we accept the technology.

It would have been nice if, decades ago, someone in the political world would have seen the trendlines in global energy demand and started carrying the torch for the clean and efficient nuclear option.

Thankfully, here in Texas we have such a person in Texas Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams.

I had the pleasure of hearing Comm. Williams at the RightOnline Summit last Saturday. After hearing his talk, I'm conviced that the solution to the energy problem is.... Michael Williams. Simply channel his energy and light half the cities in Texas ;-)



But seriously, in addition to being one of my favorites for future statewide office, Comm. Williams has long advocated for expanded development of domestic nuclear energy. According to the Railroad Commission website, the US produces 20% of its electricty from nuclear energy and Texas produces 8.8%. Not bad, but we're still 66.2% behind the French!