Greenies turning around on nukes

Patrick Moore, one of the founders of Greenpeace, endorses nuclear power in a Washington Post op—ed. Not that he actually apologizes for the lost decades due to greenie scare—mongering, or accounts for the huge sums sent to the Middle East to pay for petroleum  — money that could have been spent instead domestically on nuclear reactors to generate power. Being green means never having to say you're sorry.

Still, it is a notable item:

What nobody noticed at the time, though, was that Three Mile Island was in fact a success story: The concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do —— prevent radiation from escaping into the environment. And although the reactor itself was crippled, there was no injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby residents. Three Mile Island was the only serious accident in the history of nuclear energy generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us away from further developing the technology: There hasn't been a nuclear plant ordered up since then.

Today, there are 103 nuclear reactors quietly delivering just 20 percent of America's electricity. Eighty percent of the people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them (that's not including the nuclear workers). Although I don't live near a nuclear plant, I am now squarely in their camp.

It is the questionable global warming hypothesis that drives this greenie embrace of cheap, limitless nuclear—generated electricity.

Sooner or later, someone is going to raise a conspiracy theory about all this. Probably seriously. So to get in my satirical version first, please allow me to pre—emptively lay it out:

Global warming is a hoax perpetrated by the nuclear power industry, desperate to revive its sagging US fortunes. Junk science was funded, fears aroused, all for the purpose of making nuclear power seem not so dangerous.

Remember, you read it here first.

Hat tip: Ed Lasky

Thomas Lifson   4 17 06