Forbes Magazine, February 07, 2005
Atomic power is making a comeback in the U.S., with only muffled squawks from the usual opponents. Could that have something to do with the price of oil? Or maybe global warming?
The world certainly needs alternatives to oil and less polluting sources of energy with nuclear power offering a proven alternative. Imagine electrifying all the railroads for example. It will not take much more of a rise in oil costs for that to be profitable and we only have 20 to 30 years to find another energy source. If we start now it will take much of that time to get the industry up to speed.
Don't get this wrong, though. Nuclear protesters are not obsolete. The risk from nuclear energy is coming from rogue nations entering the nuclear family despite the swords to plowshares of Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace program.
North Korea and Iran are close to violating the spirit with their nuclear weapons program and I wonder why Anti-nuclear protesters are not, well, protesting. It couldn't be that they are only anti progress, could it?
Compare the risk of Three Mile Island to that of terrorists having access to dangerous radioactive material or even low-level nuclear explosives. We already live in an era where every disaster such as the three train derailment killing dozens in Glendale, California due to an empty, parked SUV on railroad tracks being initially suspected as being a terrorist action. Imagine a cell of a dozen people with the ability to make many square miles have radiation levels ten or a hundred times of natural background.
If the Anti-nuclear protesters organize protests at embassies, consulates or UN missions against Israeli, Iranian, North Korean, Pakistani and India we all should make every effort to be there.