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On the Bush Energy Speech

By Eric McErlain
As you might imagine, there's press coverage of President Bush's speech on energy policy just about all over -- check out these accounts from the Washington Post and the New York Times for starters.

Investor's Business Daily (no direct link, behind subscriber wall) seemed to welcome the President's message on nuclear energy:
[N]uclear power provides a form of cheap -- and clean -- energy. Paying less to heat and cool our homes would offset the pain of higher gasoline prices -- and lessen our dependence on foreign oil. All good.

Out in the heartland, it looks like the Lufkin Daily News liked what it heard:
Our view is that nuclear power plants, when properly regulated and maintained, provide a safer, cleaner, cheaper and longer-lasting source of energy than the traditional types of energy generation – coal-fired or natural gas plants in particular. Nuclear plants are used throughout Europe. With the tragic exception of Chernobyl in 1986 – the result of a flawed design – these plants have been safely operated for many years.

Nuclear plants do not pollute the atmosphere, as do coal-fired plants, nor do they require vast amounts of an increasingly expensive commodity, such as natural-gas plants. We agree with Bush that the government should make it easier to build such plants.

Here's what Crumb Trail had to say:

If things proceed as Bush advocates, helping China and India to develop and deploy clean energy technology, that will be the most effective thing the US can do about environmental issues including GHG emissions. With their large populations and fast growth rates they are poised to dwarf the rest of the world's emissions as well as consume an ever larger share of dwindling fossil fuel reserves. The US should also increase its use of emission free nuclear energy, but that wouldn't help if China and India were not also being helped.

This could be good. It was encouraging to see the US avoid being sucked into the Kyoto inanity, but avoiding dumb policy isn't enough. Good alternatives are needed, and this sounds much better, though it's still a long way from being a reality.

For more, stop by Prometheus and Green Car Congress.

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