[sailaway21]

Stu,
I note no response to my point that while it is agreed the earth is warming somewhat it is unknown whether the warming is unnatural. The suspicion is that man is contributory, but the facts are hardly conclusive on the matter. I am less dismissive than you on the ice-age stories of the seventies. It is too facile to merely state that it was all a journalistic run-up. I will agree with you on the desirability of nuclear power plants while I would quibble with your $1 Billion per. Is that factoring in the waste disposal costs? Because I'm not sure Yucca Mountain is ever going to get out of the courts, much less operational, and we might want other sites as well. Of course, if we can convince Canada to build a thousand plants and sell us the energy at enormous cost we'll make all sides happy. (g) You're still confronted with tail-pipe emissions, which ain't chopped liver.

From where I am sitting I do not see enough evidence that we are in nothing that might not well be a normal climatic cycle. It would be nice to consider the issue outside of politics but that is not going to happen. In fact, it is the politics of environmental issues that we only derive that 20% of our electricity from Nukes now. If you'd stated that such would be the case in, say, 1968 there isn't a person that wouldn't have called you a Luddite. And they'd have bet the farm you were wrong. What has changed since that time? In my opinion, the most significant change has been that environmental issues have become mostly political. The political process is begun while the ink on the data is barely dry, much less peer reviewed. And, if you follow anything on science, you know that "peer shopping" is now a reality. Anotherwords, the scientists have gone over and joined the other side.

Now if you wish to build nuclear power plants, I'll back you 100%. And I'll do it for similar reasons to those expressed by Camaraderie. I harbor no illusions that those plants will be built in my lifetime, even at a cost of only a billion dollars each. Who's going to pay to build them? You're going to face an uphill battle the slope of the Matterhorn to talk energy companies into it. Unless you can grant them an operating permit prior to breaking ground. And we know the likelyhood of that happening. Shoreham Nuclear Power plant sits idle, complete, and has never sent a watt to a consumer. I doubt the LILCO wants to build another such theme park. A few greenies may have come around, but not enough to make up for the poisoned waters their predecessors have left behind. Ask any person under the age of thirty about 3 Mile Island and you'll get a response that brings Chernobyl to mind instead. We cannot drill for known oil because of oil spills that took place forty years ago. Advances in technology and safety mean nothing in the highly politicized world of environmentalism.

I remain a sceptic because I have a more than vague feeling that we all bought a used car from these guy's once before.