Those Wishing to Promote Advanced Nuclear May Want To Choose a Different Course

My learned colleagues who advocate for advanced nuclear are quite passionate about what they’re doing, largely on the basis that the ever-growing CO2 levels in our atmosphere are causing climate disruption and ocean acidification.  While I doubt we’re as close to a “ready for prime time” implementation of, say, liquid fluoride thorium reactors as they do, I completely support them in principle.

Here’s the bad news:  their current plan is to approach Jim Inhofe’s (R-OK) staff, and set up a round of presentations on the subject.

It’s hard to imagine a group that would be less receptive to a solution whose purpose is to address climate change and the other forms of environmental destruction that are represented by fossil fuels.  It’s a tragic irony that Inhofe is the top dog on the environment in the U.S. federal government since, if you Google “Jim Inhofe Climate Change,” you’ll be reading about the senator’s belief that this subject is a “hoax” and an anti-American “conspiracy” for a very long time.

Here’s an article in today’s New York Times on the subject that includes:

On Wednesday, Inhofe told The Washington Post, “As we enter a new Congress, I will do everything in my power to rein in and shed light on the EPA’s unchecked regulations.”  Mr. Inhofe, who will take control of the Environment and Public Works Committee in January, is author of the 2012 book called “The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future” and said in 2006 that the United Nations invented the idea of global warming in order to “shut down the machine called America.”

It appears that my advanced nuclear people have made an exceptionally poor choice here.