Via the Foreign Policy Passport blog, an update on the so-called "renaissance" in nuclear power usage in some European countries. Britain is scheduled to increase deployment of new power plants. But for all of the talk about nuclear power being a potential solution to the problems of a carbon-based economy, the same challenges associated with nuclear power 30 years ago are still with us today. Has an acceptable alternative to "burying nuclear waste where no one will ever find it" ever really emerged? What about the costs associated with the "new" security threats of the post-9/11 world?
Organized opposition to nuclear power isn't going away any time soon, but neither is the fascination with -- and reliance upon -- technological solutions to our energy problems.
And while Obama has yet to truly prove he can live up to his rhetoric and lead, this example shows that he is willing to engage in some sense of personal responsibility and civic duty when it comes to energy consumption, rather than relying upon the easy punt afforded by technological solutions.
I think that the author is new to this, or at least has never heard of Amory Lovins (or Jimmy Carter.) Conservation isn't new. Anyway, I put my two cents' worth in as a comment, responding to a particularly silly statement someone made that "...solar and wind are absolutely as reliable and controllable as nuclear, and can be generated in huge quantities. And the problem of storing solar and wind generated electricity (for use at night/calm days) is far more easily solved than the problem of what to do with nuclear waste."
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