Wednesday, April 19, 2006

Can Progressives Go Nuclear?

Premier Dalton McGuinty says it might be our best bet. From The Star:

Nuclear power may be the best option to fulfill Ontario's future electricity needs, despite its obvious downsides including Chernobyl-type accidents and radioactive waste, Premier Dalton McGuinty said Wednesday.

Natural gas is too expensive, wind power is unreliable, coal plants pollute the air and Ontario's hydroelectric potential has largely been maxed out, leaving nuclear power expansions on the table for the province, McGuinty said.

I am beginning to come around to McGuinty's line of thinking. Solar is the one big source not mentioned in the article, and there are some really interesting developments on that front, but for the right-here-right-now, if you are serious about quelling the increasingly obvious effects of Global Warming, the fast out might be to build more reactors. After all, the big issue with Nuclear (other than Chernobyl-like meltdowns) is where to store the waste so it doesn't pollute a thousand years from now.

It would be a luxury to have only to worry about events that far in the future.

2 comments:

Mark Richard Francis said...

I'll do more posts on this, but nukes can't save the day when it comes to global warming. It's a race to just replace the 500 or so nuclear plants worldwide which are due to expire in the next 25 years.

This is not a supply-side problem, it is a demand-side problem.

And we still don't know what to do with the waste.

The cheapest and fastest way to generate electricity is by conservation.

bigcitylib said...

Post and I shall link.

Cheers,