The notion of safety is always based on a balance of benefit and danger. If you think it's so safe, do you want one across the street from your house? Do you want to breathe the air wafting across it's deadly nuclear pebbles? I know I don't.

The pebble-bed reactors Kristof and many others hail as the future of nuclear power are certainly safer than the light water reactors we have come to know and hate. But far from being a radically novel technology, the basic design concept of a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor has been tried and abandoned numerous times over the past 35 years in Europe and the United States. NIRS points out that the safety of a pebble-bed reactor relies on the integrity of the fuel pebbles... something that can't be guaranteed with 100% certainty. The need for convection cooling prevents use of a containment building, thus providing a significant potential for radiation release in the event of a pebble problem. As awful as a coal-fired power plant is for the environment, nothing a coal plant can do comes anywhere close to the potential (however remote) for disaster from a nuclear plant. My feeling is it would be better err on the side of life.

I don't know where Kristof is getting his idea for deep shaft burial, but America's current plan for it's nuclear waste is an ill-conceived centralized storage facility deep inside Yucca Mountain. The geographic choice to "screw Nevada" was made primarily for political reasons and the whole project has been mired in the same deception, secrecy, incompetence and dubious science that always seems to haunt nuclear projects. Serious questions remain about the potential for catastrophic ground water pollution, geological stability, and long-term container integrity. For current Yucca Mountain news coverage, see here and here.

As awful as the effects of global warming will be, nuclear waste is a multi-generational nightmare since it will remain deadly for thousands of years. 220,000 tons of the stuff were produced in 2000 and output increases each year. The only thing you can do with it is store it, and the longevity of its radioactivity means it will almost certainly outlive the language of its warning signs, the government of its protectors and the containers used for its storage - presenting almost certain disaster to the people of the future who happen to stumble upon it or drill into it unknowingly. Nuclear waste can certainly be used by people with sinister intensions and, therefore, requires tight security, at high cost to present and future Americans. It is IMMORAL for us to choose to satisfy our gluttonous desires for energy and pass on horrific environmental costs to COUNTLESS future generations.

If Kristof's description of a Manhattan "submerged under 20 feet of water" is hyperbole, it's a reckless literary choice, and if it isn't, it's a complete misrepresentation in an article that claims to present an honest argument. Predictions are for a 20 INCH rise in sea levels by 2100, not 20 FEET. This would leave Manhattan well above sea level, although storm surges would cause more serious flooding in lower Manhattan. The bigger threat to Manhattan may, counter intuitively, be frigid temperatures caused by the shutdown of the Oceanic Conveyor Belt that moderates Manhattan's weather. American coastal wetlands and Island nations in Oceana like the Marshall Islands will be flooded, but Manhattan is comparatively safe.

False choice. It is already too late to prevent global warming and the climate change it sets off. Humanity has been pumping massive amounts of buried carbon into the atmosphere since the dawn of industrial revolution. While we certainly should stop doing that, the damage has been done. So even if the nuclear energy industry has its way, we will be passing on both serious coastal flooding and tons of deadly radioactive waste. I say we only give them the former.

Gap to what? Why does there need to be a gap? Renewables are available now and all they need is investment and government promotion. Aside from wind (discussed later), two biologically based technologies previously mentioned on MyDD are ready to go. Thermal Depolymerization uses heat and pressure to break down pretty much any organic material (such as offal from meat processing, sewage sludge or municipal garbage) into short-chain hydrocarbons similar to petroleum. A small-scale TD plant is already in operation next door to a turkey processing plant in Missouri. Biodiesel can be created from algae, among other sources. I would argue that the obstacles to widespread adoption of renewable fuels are the energy companies, who prefer known technologies based on expensive, easily controllable raw materials (i.e. coal, uranium) to disruptive technologies based on universally-available renewables.

And while nuclear plants are comparatively clean, uranium mining and processing is even more evil than oil drilling and mountaintop-removal coal mining. 20 years of uranium mining on a Navajo reservation in New Mexico has resulted in significant groundwater contamination stemming from discharges of mine wastewater. Many of the Navajo who worked those mines have died of lung cancer and other mining-related diseases. The Jaduguda uranium mines are the heart of the Indian nuclear program and the 30,000 villagers surrounding the mines have paid for this program with 30 years of shortened life spans, miscarriages, congenital birth deformities and mental retardation. And if you want to see how clean nuclear fuel processing is, take a gander at the mangled residents of Mayak

As with fossil fuels, there is a finite amount of nuclear fuel in the world, so nuclear isn't the final solution. Choosing the expediency of nuclear simply delays the inevitable development of renewable energy sources. Aside from Canada and Australia, most uranium supplies are held by a handful of third-world countries, continuing the same geopolitical problems associated with oil extraction.

It depends on what you mean by "NOW". Nuclear plants take time to build and certify. While the technology is available now, you can't just throw a plant together overnight and flick it on in the morning. Past history with light-water plants probably gives some indication that even if community and activist opposition could be crushed, there would be still be a considerable delay between the decision to start building plants and the beginning of commercial operation. Indian Point II and III both took seven years to go from construction permit to commercial operation. The much-vaunted Millstone II plant in Connecticut took five years to build. The Shoreham Nuclear Plant on Long Island took 11 years to build and was so bedeviled by the incompetence of its owners and community activism that it never came on line.

And I feel pretty certain that anti-nuclear activists aren't going away. Just because you have a plausible argument for nuclear power doesn't mean that those of us who disagree are going to stand aside quietly while the power companies turn our kids into glowsticks. Unless the Republicans succeed in turning the courts into complete vassals of the state, legal challenges by community groups and anti-nuclear activists will represent significant delay and cost in finding places to build plants.

The fact that wind is not constant in most geographic areas does not mean it can't be a source of steady power. It simply means that energy must be stored when the wind is blowing that can be used when the wind stops. Hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water using electricity generated by wind turbines can provide inexpensive storage both for grid generation and remote power generating situations. Proposals have even been made to use the wind turbine towers themselves as hydrogen storage tanks. While developmental issues with fuel cells are often mentioned as retarding the adoption of hydrogen, hydrogen can also be burned in conventional internal combustion engines and turbines. And far from being a complex, nascent technology only available to big energy companies, wind/hydrogen is available now directly to consumers.

Kristof's passing comment about Bush's plans for hydrogen implies a common misconception about hydrogen. Hydrogen is simply a STORAGE MEDIUM, not an energy source. Some other source of energy (fossil, nuclear or renewable) is needed to create hydrogen. The only value of hydrogen is that it can be stored and used for powering vehicles without polluting emissions. Hydrogen is part of the solution, not the solution itself.

Bottom Line: Renewable energy sources are the solution to future global energy needs. Nuclear is neither safe, secure or vital.

A wise man has great power
(Proverbs 24:5)