(Some) Senators still back nuclear power

I am much afeared that the events still unfolding in Japan - where a couple of older, non-modern design reactors have, understandably, been somewhat compromised because they were located a bit too close to the world's fifth-strongest EVER seismic event - will slowdown the measured progress towards a significantly increased share of energy generation by one of my primary raisins of etter+, nuclear power.

Not exactly your happens-every-day scenario, is it? NO, it's not. And therein lies one of the main rubs of this tale; Japan, due to it's near-total lack of anything else to make energy out of, has had to put a pretty large stake in nuclear, despite the fact that the highly prosperous island nation is located on the Pacifically subducting Ring of Fire.

Somewhat surprisingly - accompanied by the shocking realization that the despicidious Mitch McConnell and I remotely share a similar view on something - many Senators in our nation's Senate agree that the Japanese events, however unfortunate (losing the top of one of your reactor vessels might be considered that), shouldn't be a primary motivation to stop our insightful and foresightful re-implementation of nuclear power plant construction and powering-up. (Joe Lieberman, nodding to the Connute leftists, called for a couple of things like waiting until we understand what happened in Japan. Joe, summary: Lots of shaking. Power lost. Cooling capacities compromised. Things heat up. Boom boom. Clickety-click go the Geiger counters. Big deep breath -- everything is overall fine. So you inhaled a couple extra mrad. Same thing happens if you take a shower in Florida. Let's start putting this country back together, shall we?)

I think the public is going to wonder if it could happen here, and the answer to that is, briefly, in how many places in this country do we have active fault zones and nuclear power plants? Yes, there's a couple that maybe-might be affected under some fairly close to worst-case scenarios. But there's a whole bunch more -- the vast, vast majority in fact -- that wouldn't be. So there's no reason for us to abandon the nuclear movement, and there's no real reason for the Japanese to do so, either. For one thing, they can't, there's no other way for them to generate the necessary amount of energy. And as we contemplate ever longer pipelines to less-than-ideal feedstocks (tar sands, which use up an inordinate amount of water to be broached), we are also going to face the energy crunch, led by higher oil prices, public sentiment turning against dangerous coal, and the growing awareness of the true perils of climate change. The primary holdouts against the change that's a-comin' are the core of the old guard, the conservative salient, older white men. And unfortunately for reasons of economic influence they will hold some sway for a few more years. But the young bucks are already trying to get the old bulls out of the herd.

Well, maybe I'm getting a little too happy with the metaphors here. The bottom line is, the younger generations know what's at stake, deficit-wise and climate-wise. And just as they don't want to be saddled with the burden of paying for the older generation's economic foibles and follies, they don't want to be paying for the sad environmental legacy of the profligates, either. The younger generation can engage with the newness of new nukes, just as they've readily adopted texting and apping, even as the older generation realizes that Skype is cool, too.

So, to finish this up, let's quote from the article from which I drew a wealth of inspiration:

UPDATE: Obama Administration, Senators Stand Behind Nuclear Power Amid Japan Meltdown Scare

Schumer: "We are going to have to see what happens here -- obviously still things are happening -- but the bottom line is we do have to free ourselves of independence from foreign oil in the other half of the globe," he said. "Libya showed that. Prices are up, our economy is being hurt by it, or could be hurt by it. So I'm still willing to look at nuclear. As I've always said it has to be done safely and carefully."

McConnell:

"McConnell, the Senate's leading Republican, told Fox News Sunday that he stands behind his support for nuclear power despite the devastation in Japan.

"I don't think right after a major environmental catastrophe is a very good time to be making American domestic policy," McConnell said.

Lieberman: "Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) offered a slightly different take on the issue, telling CBS' "Face the Nation" that he believes the United States should halt permits for new nuclear power plants until they can determine what went wrong with nuclear reactors in Japan. Still, he said he supports nuclear power in the larger sense."

(+raisons d'etre, you uncivilized ilksters)

Bottom line: we, collectively and globally, still need nuclear power. Right now, the Japanese need all the power they can get -- and they're currently getting a lot of it from working, safe, nuclear power plants.