RE: RE: OT: Three-Mile Island Events [text][bcc

From: <Christopher>
Date: Mon Apr 05 2004 - 12:23:00 EDT

>Can't figure to this day why there aren't CANDUs running and under
>construction in the US.

Nuclear power is dead in this country. There's probably a need, but no demand. People just don't trust the energy business any more and in particular they don't trust the nuclear power business. That's the function of leadership--to inspire trust in a course of action, and there isn't any leadership in that area. US industry likes financial people, not technical leaders like Henry Kaiser or Rickover or Werner von Braun. That's bad enough, but the conniving from Enron and deep suspicions of big oil have destroyed much of what credibility remains. Congress and the executive branch are scared of them. When you add serious pollution concerns to the mix and it's a mess, that will probably require a catastrophe to get straightened out.

We've had since 1973 to make ourselves energy independent, and we just pissed it away, by not taking steps to reduce our dependence on petroleum and other fossil fuels, by not emphasizing cleaner power and more efficient automobiles, by not taking serious steps to make nuclear energy economical and by ignoring all but the stupidest possible approach to disposing of spent nuclear fuel. Despite all the free market ideology, these are not the kinds of issues you can expect corporate America to address, especially the corporate America whis has given us Ken Lay and Roger Smith and seems hell bent on destroying our manufacturing base.

Without turning this into a political discussion, I take the Ford-Reagan-Bush (both) preoccupation with rolling back the clock as the major problem. Not that the Dems did much, but the Pubs were in office during the years when they could have made a difference without draconian measures. Much as I admire Jimmy Carter, I don't think he had the starch to head up the kind of energy policy reassessment that could have done the job in the late 70's. Clinton had the brains and drive to do it but as pre-occupied as he was he missed the chance. We Americans only stop wasting time when someone sticks a gun in our ear, so I expect that we'll only get a serious approach to energy policy when it's almost too late, the price is almost intolerable, and there's someone with FDR's (or cousin Theodore Roosevelt) leadership skills to galvanize national will.

Christopher Wright P.E. |"They couldn't hit an elephant at <a href="/group/PipingDesign/post?postID=N2yxOen5puU0QVw14TNQ00pHO-Uo9StyW0eCUiZaL8NirCFx9yBDBEa95ft52kL8aXW_nnsf363l">chrisw@skypoint.com</a> | this distance" (last words of Gen.

___________________________| John Sedgwick, Spotsylvania 1864)

<a href="http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw">http://www.skypoint.com/~chrisw</a> Received on Mon Apr 05 12:23:00 2004