Posted by Jonathan Adler:
Should Libertarians Support Nuclear Power?
http://volokh.com/archives/archive_2008_10_19-2008_10_25.shtml#1224628021
The Reason Foundation has posted an on-line debate between William
Tucker, author of [1]Terrestrial Energy: How Nuclear Power Will Lead
the Green Revolution and End America's Long Energy Odyssey, and the
[2]Cato Institute's Jerry Taylor over whether libertarians should
support nuclear power. [3]Tucker argues that nuclear power would be
economical were it not for political interference, and should be a key
element of America's energy future.
The current problem with nuclear is not its underlying economics
but the current political climate in the U.S. that is hostile to
nuclear and doesn't offer a level playing field. Coal is familiar
and politically entrenched and so people don't question the danger
it poses. Solar and renewables are showered with subsidies and
mandates because they have won popular favor even though they are
very low density energy sources.
The real solution then to making nuclear energy economically
feasible may lie in changing the popular perception of nuclear as
forbidding and dangerous. People should consider nuclear as natural
as the ground beneath their feet (hence I have titled my
forthcoming book Terrestrial Energy). The slow breakdown of uranium
atoms is what heats the core of the earth to temperatures hotter
than the surface of the sun. When we build a nuclear reactor, we
are only reproducing this process in an isolated environment. Yet
it is so powerful that its environmental impact is 2 million times
smaller than fossil fuels or the various forms of renewable energy.
If powering the world with virtually no environmental impact can't
be made economical, what can be?
[4]Taylor is more skeptical, suggesting that (like many other energy
sources) nuclear power cannot compete without massive government
subsidies.
Nuclear energy is to the Right what solar energy is to the Left:
Religious devotion in practice, a wonderful technology in theory,
but an economic white elephant in fact (some crossovers on both
sides notwithstanding). When the day comes that the electricity
from solar or nuclear power plants is worth more than the costs
associated with generating it, I will be as happy as the next
Greenpeace member (in the case of the former) or MIT graduate (in
the case of the latter) to support either technology. But that day
is not on the horizon and government policies can't accelerate the
economic clock. . . .
Those who favor nuclear power should adopt a policy of tough love.
Getting this industry off the government dole would finally force
it to innovate or die - at least in the United States. Welfare,
after all, breeds sloth in both individual and corporate
recipients. The Left's distrust of nuclear power is not a
sufficient rationale for the Right's embrace of the same.
References
1. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0910155763
2. http://cato.org/people/jerry-taylor
3. http://www.reason.org/commentaries/tucker_20081021.shtml
4. http://www.reason.org/commentaries/taylor_20081021.shtml
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