Advocates of Nuclear Energy Would Be Well-Advised to Chill Out a Bit

To my chagrin as well as my astonishment, the advanced nuclear people I’ve been hanging around with recently love to bash the supporters of solar and wind. Are they hired hit-men for the nuclear industry? I don’t think so; lots of them have PhDs, and I’m convinced that there is no real money-motivation here.

Yet they make remarks like: “Groups like 350.org are as reluctant to consider things beyond their views as are climate deniers and combustion folks,” and assert that they need to squash their competition in the form of solar and wind, and to “debunk the myth” of clean energy.

In response to this, I wrote to one of them just now: You people are far brighter and more mature to be making low-brow and unfair generalities like this. The people who understand renewable energy and its challenges—and the people who understand MSRs (molten salt reactors) and their challenges—need to work together to solve a problem of unimaginable importance. Bickering like schoolchildren is counterproductive.