Pro-Nuke People Can Get Nasty with Advocates of Renewables
Alex Cannara, the leader of the pro-nuke group of which I am a part, wrote a rebuttal letter to a paper that had claimed (correctly) that wind energy is less expensive than nuclear. He notified the group (about 150 people): “I left a comment there. Like the tobacco folks, the ‘renewables’ scammers will fight to the death (for their subsidies).”
I wrote to him and cc’d the group:
What a disgustingly unfair thing to say. You should be ashamed of yourself.
You’re impugning the integrity of hundreds of thousands of scientists, engineers, business people and advocates, most of whom are doing their level best to make a difference in this sad excuse for a civilization.
That’s just disgraceful.
I’m sure I’ll get a nasty-gram (or 2, or 17) in response. Ask me if I care. How nauseating.
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This just in from Alex: Well, Craig, what did I say that’s untrue? I am a scientist/engineer and environmentalist and so value truth, since that’s the only way we progress. Again, Craig, tell me what I said that’s untrue, unless you’re just a salesman.
I respond:
It doesn’t bother me that you want to dispute the relative efficacy of nuclear and wind. You may want to look at Energy Fact Check, or you may not; I don’t care, and I’m certainly not going to enter into that argument.
What makes me puke, however, is that you dare to liken the integrity of the entire renewables industry to the criminality of the tobacco companies. It’s just nauseating.
And on top of all the ridiculous libel, you’re destroying your own cause. I’m pro-nuke myself. Do you think you’re making progress by making me want to come up there and sock you in the teeth? Calm down and think about this for a second. You’re far too smart for this shameful crap.
Here in SC, we’ve been paying in towards 4 reactors for two major nuclear power plants for the last decade.
The cost overruns and delays eventually drove Westinghouse – the company directly contracted – into bankruptcy… and the two power plants were cancelled… so now we’ve payed in something like 6 billion dollars, and we’ll pay in another billion to dismantle and bury the project sites… and have nothing to show for it.
Until nuclear power can manage to get around stories like that, it has a problem. SC has no wind resource to speak of.. but had we invested 5 billion into solar (we aren’t a great solar state, averaging ~5 solar hours/day), we’d have a whole lot more power than two buried campuses.
I’m a fan of nuclear, but we need everything that is not fossil… and we need to be honest about what is best for what regions. In the Midwest, the best option is wind, and that should be the focus. In the Southwest, it’s solar, and that should be pursued. Here in the Southeast it should be nuclear, but the nuclear people have their heads shoved firmly up their butts, and some combination of incompetence, corruption, and poor public relations has resulted in a complete disaster.
Those nuclear people need to figure out what is wrong in their own house, and eliminate stories like ours. Then they can WORK WITH OTHERS to reduce fossil emissions as fast as possible.