Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope is right on a lot of things, but not ...

… But not on his knee-jerk dismissal of, and fear of, nuclear power.

In his July/August 2006 “Ways and Means” column, Pope takes Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore to the woodshed for daring to advocate in favor of nuclear energy.

In doing so, Pope threw a lot of stuff against the wall, including rosy scenarios for biofuels, fusing electric generation from nuclear power with transportation fuels needs, whether supplied by petroleum, biofuels, or other sources, and generally displaying a high level of illogic.

What follows is my letter to the editor of Sierra magazine, where his column appears. Let’s see if the mag actually runs it.

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Beginning with the ad hominem that nuclear energy supporters in general, including Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore, are apparently “thoroughly unmoored from reality,” Carl Pope’s “Fantasy Nuclear” Ways and Means essay is a study in refusal to consider dialogue or reason on the issue, including his own use of non sequiturs, rosy scenarios and other misleading mental devices.

First, besides global warming, Carl, there’s another issue out there. It’s called Peak Oil. I know you’ve heard of people such as James Kunstler and Kenneth Deffeyes. Apparently you haven’t fully absorbed what they have to say on the subject.

Second, biofuels are a rosy scenario. Corn-based ethanol, at best, is break-even on energy return on energy investment (EROEI). The highly-touted, highly-puffed switchgrass will likely be no better. And, whether via corn, or “untapped” biomass like switchgrass, were we to use enough of America’s landscape to put a serious dent in our fuel demands, we’d simultaneously be putting a significant dent in our food supply.

Pope, and readers who want the facts on biofuels and other Peak Oil issues, are invited to visit the highly informative The Oil Drum website.

Third, electric generation via nuclear fission has nothing to do with automobile transportation issues, unless Pope is advocating we develop a 100-precent all-electric plug-in fleet of cars and trucks for America’s ground transportation needs.

The real competition, as Moore knows, is between nuclear fission and coal. No, not natural gas, coal. As natural gas prices soar, and as the variety of its demands grow (including for fertilizer feedstock to raise those biofuels, Pope), more and more under-planning or under-construction power plants are looking at coal. If they have to pay for adequate scrubber technology, they will. If they don’t, in states such as the Texas where I live, they will gladly accept that.

Besides, under the thesis that Peak Oil is coming sooner rather than later, coal itself is going to have another demand placed on it — coal gasification, or coal dieselfication to be more precise — for transportation use.

Patrick Moore IS cognizant of all these issues, and that’s why he’s said nuclear energy needs to be part of the mix in supplying our energy needs.
As far as proliferation, Moore didn’t fall off the turnip wagon yesterday. He knows this is a serious issue deserving serious consideration. But, it’s not “First World” nations like the United States that are the problem with proliferation.

As for nuclear plant safety, Moore certainly knows that is a serious issue also, as do I. But, riffing back to natural gas, I personally would fear a terrorist attack on a liquid natural gas facility as much as or more than one on a nuclear facility.

As for subsidies, EVERY energy source gets them in some way or another. U.S. troops in the Middle East subsidizes oil. Major tax breaks subsidize ethanol. Coal and natural gas get their own breaks Lesser tax breaks, fleeting as they can be at times, subsidize alternative fuels and energy sources.

I strongly urge Pope — and open-minded Sierrans — to consider a realistic growth in the use of nuclear power, rather than demonizing people like Patrick Moore, and myself, as “nuke cheerleaders,” with a pejorative taint.