Question Earthority!

At the time I was transitioning into adulthood, “no nukes” was, if not the mainstream position, the common wisdom. Even those who didn’t necessarily buy into the most panicked claims of anti-nuclear activists viewed nuclear power with suspicion … and who could blame us?

My adolescence could reasonably be said to have fallen in between Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, and to have been capped off at the Marine Corps’ Infantry Training School in the summer of 1986, when an instructor observed that someday, one of the frequent earthquakes we felt would be one strong enough to jiggle “the Dolly Parton National Monument” — San Onofre’s two-dome nuclear plant — loose.

Pollution concerns and high enery prices have been driving interest back toward the use of nuclear power, and even some “green” advocates have begun popping up with the notion of using nuclear to address energy and environmental problems. On the other side are those who still entertain serious safety doubts, as well as those “deep ecology” types who believe that cheap, clean energy would just encourage more development that carries its own unacceptable environmental price tag.

Who’s right? As is so often the case, I don’t know.

At least one good friend with a comforting string of scientific credentials behind his name and no industry connections I know of — and who has a strong personal commitment to the environment — tells me that the new generation of reactors is very safe and preferable to new coal-fired plants.

As a libertarian, there are certain aspects of the nuclear regime that I would want modified before endorsing new nuclear power plants as a solution — to begin with, the giant de facto insurance subsidy provided by the Price-Anderson Act, which effectively makes the government, rather than the owners of nuclear power plants, liable for damages caused by accidents. If we’re going to go nuke, the true costs of doing so should be borne by the enterprises which make the profits (they’re passed on to the consumer either way, of course — either in higher up-front fees or in taxes — but the former is more honest).

As an environmentalist, I want credible assurances that these types of plants are a better way of doing things. Granted, coal-fired plants and other production means produce more pollution day in and day out than a properly operating nuclear plant does, but a realistic estimate of the likelihood of catastrophic accidents should be factored into the equation. Once again, it seems like repealing Price-Anderson would be the first step, insofar as risk is reflected in price (if the nukes are that dangerous, it will be cheaper to curb traditional emissions than to insure reactors).

Questions, questions, questions … they just keep coming. At what point does a nuclear power plant cease to be just another piece of property and become a gun aimed at the heads of everyone around it? That’s the line that needs to be drawn, I think — for libertarians, environmentalists and everyone else.

As always, I’d welcome a guest column or two (pro and con!) on this subject. Now that the nuclear debate has been renewed, it would be nice to also see it resolved.