Hank Kalet

No nukes

Nuclear power has become the rage with some in the environmental community — at least those who walk hand in hand with business. The idea is that nuke plants can provide an abundance of energy without spewing out greenhouse gases and exacerbating global warming. The downside, according to these new nuclear advocates, is rather minimal. It’s all candy and rainbows as far as they are concerned.

This is a load of hogwash (hooey, if you prefer). As the Union of Concerned Scientists points out,

a large-scale expansion of nuclear power in the United States or worldwide under existing conditions would be accompanied by an increased risk of catastrophic events—a risk not associated with any of the non-nuclear means for reducing global warming. These catastrophic events include a massive release of radiation due to a power plant meltdown or terrorist attack, or the death of tens of thousands due to the detonation of a nuclear weapon made with materials obtained from a civilian—most likely non-U.S.—nuclear power system. Expansion of nuclear power would also produce large amounts of radioactive waste that would pose a serious hazard as long as there remain no facilities for safe long-term disposal.

The agency won’t rule out nuclear power, but is willing to consider it only as a last resort and only if all of the safety issues are addressed. That’s not likely to happen anytime soon — if ever. In the meantime, every environmentalist who has been convinced to give nukes a fresh look should read today’s editorial in the LA Times.

Nuclear plants are fueled by uranium, which is becoming harder to find; uranium mining generates a good deal of carbon, which increases as we dig deeper for the radioactive material. Although nuclear power is considerably cleaner from a greenhouse-gas standpoint than alternatives such as coal-generated power, those mining emissions are nonetheless significant.

More compellingly, given the cost and time frame for building nuclear plants, it would be impossible to build them quickly enough to make an impact on global warming. There are safer, quicker, cheaper and cleaner alternatives, such as solar and wind power, greater efficiency measures and decentralized power generators that produce electricity and heat water at the same time. Let’s exhaust them before even considering the nuclear option.

As they said after Three Mile Island: No Nukes.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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Corzine and Pluto…huh?

The first gubernatorial recall petition drive in state history has apparently been launched — by a man who also has sought to reinstate Pluto as an official planet. From the AP story:

Carl Bergmanson, the effort’s chairman, is a former Glen Ridge mayor and councilman who has led a petition drive to have Pluto reinstated as an official planet. He said he’s an independent voter who considers himself a Whig, an 1800s political party.

You can’t make this stuff up.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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The wrong debate

This story in today’s Washington Post — which is pointedly and beautifully deconstructed by Ken Silverman — purports to even-handedly review the likely mode of attack that will be taken by Republicans in teh fall should Barack Obama hold on and win the nomination.

The question is whether Obama is too liberal or, at the very least, he can be painted as being too liberal. Silverman says we can expect more of this during the general election campaign, and I think he’s right.

But I also think the Democrats over the years have allowed the question to be framed for them, allowed the word liberal to be turned into an epithet.

The Post story points to “liberal” losers — Walter Mondale, Michael Dukakis, John Kerry — ignoring important elements of those campaigns. Mondale may have been a liberal — the only one of the three that fits the traditional definition, I would argue — but he also was running against one of history’s most popular presidents. To ignore this is to ignore history and to alter the meaning of the 1984 election.

The Dukakis loss came about because of a combination of factors: the shadow of the Reagan era, Dukakis’ inept campaign (remember the tank?), Willie Horton and, yes, his being painted as a liberal governor of a liberal state. Did he lose because he was liberal? I’ll let the reader decide.

As for John Kerry, he ran a disasterous campaign, frittering away any chance he had by not addressing the Swiftboat controversy and by attempting to out-Bush Bush on the war. And he still managed to get within a couple of percentage points.

I think Blue Texan, writing on Firedog Lake, offers an interesting take on this. Writing about Hillary Clinton’s use of the liberal slur, Blue Texan writes

When was the last time you heard a Republican accuse another of being “too conservative”? For that matter, when was the last time you heard a Democratic candidate use that as an attack on a Republican? Right, never. There’s a reason for that, and it’s not an accident. It’s the result of years and years of a disciplined and sustained branding effort by the GOP.

The thing that amazes me is that nearly every public opinion poll on the issues shows that voters support what are considered to be traditional liberal policies — on health care, on the economy, etc. And yet, we still have one side running away from its own base, allowing the other to frame the campaign’s talking points and establish the general rhetorical tone.

My advice: The Democrat should run as a Democrat and the Republican as a Republican. Let Obama — or Clinton — push universal healthcare, (an unfortunately limited) withdrawal from Iraq, a bailout for homeowners, public works and a rollback of the Bush tax cut; let McCain call for a thousand-years war, offer nothing on healthcare and push tax cuts as the sole solution to the economy.

Basically, stop running from the liberal label.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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On MOM, a familiar argument

The Red Bank Borough Council passed a resolution that puts it on record as officially opposing the Red Bank route for the MOM line. The argument, as reported in The Asbury Park Press, sounds eerily familiar:

RED BANK — The Borough Council officially opposed the Red Bank route of the proposed Monmouth-Ocean-Middlesex rail line because its 30 trains a day would gridlock local streets when added to the current 80 North Jersey Coast Line trains that stop here.

The council voted to oppose that route and support the Monmouth Junction route, which would serve western Monmouth and southern Middlesex County towns.

“Trains cross (borough streets) 80 times a day. The amount of train service they’re asking to add will create havoc,” Council President Arthur Murphy III said. “We are not in favor of this; it impacts parking and a lot of things.”

There’s more:

Borough officials said adding a second commuter line to Red Bank would affect the quality of life in an already congested municipality. It would send commuter trains over two additional railroad crossings, adding to the four Coast Line grade crossings.

“It will strangle this municipality,” Mayor Pasquale “Pat” Menna said. “This municipality will have no movement.”

Councilwoman Mary Grace Cangemi, who lives near the North Jersey Coast Line railroad tracks, said that it’s the wait at the grade crossings, not train horns or bells, that affect her and her neighbors.

“It’s the six to seven minutes it takes to get out of my street,” Cangemi said. “There are so many grade crossings — this is not optimal.”

I’ve heard officials in South Barunswick, Jamesburg and Monroe make this argument dozens — hundres? — of times. But when these arguments are made in southern Middlesex County, it is decried as the worst form of NIMBYism.

The hypocrisy of it blowes my mind.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

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