Posted by
Bill Crawford on Sunday, May 02, 2010 10:22:40 PM
In the late '70's, many policy makers, tagged repeatedly on the chin by OPEC and gas shortages, looked to nuclear power as a solution. The activists who painted nuclear as hell on earth were given a political boost by the breakdown at Three Mile Island that they still enjoy.
Today there are two types of anti- drilling people: the realists who are taking a second look at nuclear, and the anti-sprawl crowd who wants energy to be expensive so we will finally consume less and conserve more. The White House has both types roaming the halls.
The BP accident will serve to put an end to the hope where an aggressive oil drilling consensus can ever be reached here, not even if gas gets up to the magic $4 a gallon level again. Those of us who think that fossil fuels still have a necessary future here must face that down, or die another Don Quixote political death.
Fortunately, for those of us who respect the science enough to not regard anthropomorphic global warming as a religion, there are alternatives to oil here that can be explored. The possibility that new nuke plants can be pipelined is only something that will show itself when the public is squealing like a pig when they buy gas, but it is a possibility that didn't exist ten years ago.
But coastal drilling is dead. The spill in the Gulf will make sure of that. It won't be easy on the eye, folks. Brace yourselves.