From: Bob Cook
>> The only way the USA could have achieved the same
reliable nuclear program as France did is essentially with Socialism, and a
national policy for nuclear. Having coal made that policy impossible here –
so we did not do that, and now the cost of nuclear is through the roof.
* We did not need Socialism and we had a national policy for nuclear
in the Price Anderson Act which was only partial Socialism.
* All we needed were good regulations for the reactor design part of
nuclear and for the economics of the public utilities that thought Nuclear
was the best invention, since sliced bread; regulations that mandated
simple, small design that used components that could be made by a dozen
vendors and could be assembled in 2 years or less.
Well, Bob - that would pretty much be the definition of the kind of modern
socialism which I am referring to and which France enjoys today. NYT had a
good article on this recently. The French are happier and healthier than we
are in the USA even without oil and other resources. Isn’t “happiness” what
it is all about? Modern socialism is top-down in planning - but often depends entirely on heavily controlled capitalism for the implementation. Best of both worlds if you can keep politicians out of the planning stage. This type of Socialism was already embedded in the policies of FDR which got us out of the Great Depression, and should have accomplished, in Energy, what the Canadian form of Socialism did for them - with their nuclear effort – the CANDU. This is the only sane basic reactor design ever built, due to use of natural U, and it should have implemented here as well. A joint North American effort would improved the end product for both countries due to financial and R&D input from the USA in the sixties and seventies – EXCEPT we wanted to enrich uranium for the Cold War. Thus, everyone suffers today to some degree - instead of benefiting from what “could have been” had we jointly built a CanAm “CAMDU” here using the kind of modularity you speak of.
<<attachment: winmail.dat>>
