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Will There Be a Nuclear Split in the Environmental Movement?

By Eric McErlain
In a review of The Bottomless Well: the Twilight of Fuel, the Virtue of Waste, and Why We Will Never Run Out of Energy by Peter Huber and Mark Mills, Paul Weyrich noticed the authors' opinion about the ties between the environmental movement and its anti-nuclear allies:
Huber and Mills do not foresee an immediate end to oil and gas consumption but they suggest environmentalists should cut their ties to the anti-nuclear power movement (with its Hollywood axis — remember the 1979 movie starring Jane Fonda called "The China Syndrome"?) and realize that clean, plentiful energy can be produced. The Greens are the swing constituency which can set our country back or move it forward with an energy policy. Post-Three Mile Island the gap between meeting a rising demand for energy and the environmental opposition increasingly to rely on nuclear power was met by burning coal. However, nuclear power is cleaner and safer than other fuels, a record which should appease the environmentalists' concerns about global warming. Solar and wind power cannot meet all of our anticipated energy needs over the next two decades but it should be part of the energy mix.

We've already seen how environmentalists like Stewart Brand, Patrick Moore, James Lovelock and Hugh Montefiore have stepped forward to embrace nuclear energy. I'm guessing that there might be more out there, and the nuclear industry is eager to start a dialogue with them.

Hat tip to EV World.

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