Be careful what you wish for.
Because the environmentalists of the 1970s were so succesful in generating paronia over nuclear and tying up projects with endless litigation, if you give the average person today the choice between a coal plant and a nuclear plant, they choose coal.
Despite estimates by the U.S. EPA (off the top of my head) that air pollution from coal prematurely claims the lives of 25,000 Americans a year. A figure deaths attributed to nuclear power in the west...even under the most cynical of accountings, over the last 50 years does not approach.
Changing our energy systems is really a win / win / win economically, geopolitically, and environmentally. But it takes a willingness to address problems rationally and move forward with aggressive engineering solutions -- building the nuclear plants in the interim while geothermal technology is developed.
Solar and Wind power can't produce the volume those two do, and Coal even if you address the pollution concerns with schemes like sequestration does nothing for the scares on the landscape from mountain top removal and strip mines.
The goals of carbon reduction set by Kyoto or any other mainstream proposal are ridiculously low compared to what could be achieved if we really wanted to -- by building the nuclear plants, by building the geothermal plants, and eliminating carbon use for electricity, heating, air conditioning, train transport, and short trip automobiles (under, oh, 40 -- 80 miles per day), and accomplish that within 20 years.
That keeping money within the U.S. immediately helps with the trade deficit and starts to strengthen the dollar, while the money spent is also providing good jobs in the U.S. and building important engineering and construction experience. Money kept in the U.S. also means it circulates internally that much longer and is taxed at that many more transactions helping to reduce federal deficits. I suspect many other nations would do well to reduce their imports of energy.
However, rest assured we need not worry about such bold visions -- rational thought has long left mainstream environmentalism, and business interests hate the risk of leaving what they know to try something new. So we'll putz around with half-hearted measures and tax breaks for very, very unbold things like ethanol and windmills built in the middle of nowhere that actually needs power. You could elect Al Gore in November and give him a veto proof Congress, and based on what he's said over the years...we wouldn't achieve 1/4th of what we could in carbon reductions because of irrationality and people pissing in each other's cheerios.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
