Future, Shmuture

[inkstaingirl]

This is from the LA Times, by way of the Daily Grist (www.grist.org

Comments

[particle_mann]

Well as I just learned recently, cheap nuclear power is really a myth. Nuclear power plants survive on handouts and subsidies-basically the nuclear power industry is one of the biggest recipients of corporate welfare out there. The solution then, is to eliminate the subsidies (like Blair is doing in England) and let the free market sort the stupidity out.

Now, that said, yes, we would still be apologizing for our mess, but at the same time we're also doing our very best to bury it in as safe an environs as we can manage at our current level of technology, and is the alternative of more atmosphere polluting fuels really that much better? That one isn't a rhetorical question-to support our current level of technology and technological comforts, compromises have to be made somewhere. Where would you draw the line/what would you have us do?

[inkstaingirl]

well i think the first step would be pretty obvious: it's called conservation. we need to stop wasting energy like it's going out of style, we need to be using the most efficient EVERYTHING and stop pretending that we don't live in a world made up of a finite amount of raw materials. the second step would be to wake up to the fact that there are more than one way to make energy and it need not involve burning coal, gas, or splitting atoms: hydroelectric power, wind power, solar power, geothermal power, tidal power and biofuels are all examples of existing technologies that we could be fine-tuning and perfecting if, as you pointed out (and i already knew, but probably other people do not) we stopped the government & industry circle-jerk of payoffs