Glenn Reynolds on Coal and Petroleum

by Little Miss Attila on February 16, 2010

He reminds us that there are still some damned good reasons to look for alternatives to fossil fuels.

We should continue to try to minimize the use of fossil fuels regardless. Burning coal and oil is filthy, and they’re more valuable as chemical feedstocks anyway. We should be building nuclear plants and pursuing efficiencies in the shorter term, while working on better solar (including orbital solar), wind, etc. power supplies for the longer term. That doesn’t mean “hairshirt” environmentalism, where the goal is for neo-puritans to denounce people for immorality and trumpet their own superiority. It just means good sense.

That’s a critical distinction. Also, if we don’t tax them in a punitive way, some of the existing energy industries may well do valuable research on those renewables that just aren’t quite “there” yet.

But if we want clean electrictity, we must build nuclear power plants. Matt Groening has had his fun, and now it’s time to power up my mom’s Prius with something that doesn’t pollute the air.

{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }

ponce February 16, 2010 at 9:09 am

America’s creaky power grid wasn’t built with the capacity for everyone to charge up their cars from nuke-le-are power plants.

Is the silly right ready to spend trillions of taxpayer dollars on a new power grid?

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I R A Darth Aggie February 16, 2010 at 9:26 am

Are you ready to wear a hairshirt and live in a cave, Ponce?

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