The American Spectator

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ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE br> Re: William Tucker's Mandating Physics : /p>

While I'm an advocate of Nuclear power, I think William Tucker understates the difficulty involved in bringing more nuclear power online in this country and does not understand the primary purpose of the environmental movement. The people that make a living off of mining coal and transporting it will probably take exception to his proposal to wipe out most of their jobs as a side note. I think William underestimates the scale of his proposal, the nature of capital investments (both existing coal fired plants and future nuclear plants) and the shear legal hurdles involved in bringing large scale nuclear power to market in this country. Like nuclear ships, the number of companies that have the expertise and means is small compared to the more conventional technologies.

I hope William understands that in the time it take to build a single nuclear plant in this country, several coal or natural gas plants each of equal capacity can be built. By the same token, several such plants can be built for the cost of one nuclear plant. The capital investment market abandoned nuclear power a long time ago for this reason. Everyone understands why it cost several times more and takes 10-15 years to build a nuclear plant. Short of those factors changing, nuclear power will continue to be a loser for capital investments.

In addition, nuclear plants require something that coal or natural gas plants don't, water for cooling and a lot of it. Ask the French about the need to provide adequate water resources for cooling to see the importance of this. Add on to this that this water usually comes from a nearby river and then look at where rivers usually run (along fault lines) and then look at California closely in this regard. Given that California is the eastern most side of the Ring of Fire in the Pacific rim, placing a bunch of nuclear plants in California probably won't go over very well with the population there. Perhaps all the plants could actually be built in Arizona or Nevada instead?

p>And finally, the environmental movement is not ignorant or ignoring nuclear power. Their primary purpose is not to solve any problem but to tear down capitalism at every opportunity and acquire political power. Like the Civil Rights industry, they are not going to vote themselves out of a purpose (and power). At the end of the day, California is the last place in this country you are likely to see a significant investment in nuclear power. It will take a significant political and business change in "climate" long before any measurable change in the real climate can occur from the use of nuclear power. You are right in one regard, it will be interesting to watch California shoot itself in the foot again as more and more businesses relocate out of the State. If enough businesses leave, the air should clear up a bit in California. br> -- Thom Bateman br> Newport News, Virginia /p>

Regarding Mr. Tucker's article on CO2 levels, the conclusions reached are based on very questionable information, not to mention child-like logic.

For starters, the idea that today's levels being 25 percent higher than those measured in SOME ice cores within the last few thousand years is trivial. Look back further and you will find levels 1000 percent higher. Earth has had thousands of "ice ages," spaced every 20,000-40,000 years. CO2 levels have fluctuated wildly during those warming/cooling periods, as plant growth increased to utilize high levels, or decreased during periods of low levels.

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