Yeah, you know me!
You should probably be down with liquefied natural gas as well, since it's cleaner and safer to get out of the ground than coal. Sure, it's not renewable, but it pollutes less and we have the generating capacity to use it, unlike solar. Sure, building facilities to accept and regasify LNG will increase our use of foreign gas, but having more options for obtaining fuel helps mitigate price swings and preserves domestic supplies for real crises. Any sensible energy policy spreads the risk and focuses on adjusting the mix of power sources to lower prices, emissions and geopolitical risk while recognizing that all goals can't be met at once.
That being said, there are a lot of legitimate details to be dealt with. In the rush caused by high natural gas prices, too many companies have proposed too many terminals up and down the coasts. It seems clear to me that most of these proposed terminals won't get built and there is a significant risk of overbuilding depending on the regulatory situation.
On a political level, safety is a major issue. An LNG tanker is like a gigantic pressurized fuel bomb. Just like a nuclear power plant, most people wouldn't want to live or work near where they unload. These concerns are driving local opposition to terminals, such as the proposed Hess facility in Fall River, Mass.
When confronted with a problem, you can protest, or you can give up. You could also get behind a plan that addresses your concerns. If the risk from a tanker is too big, move the terminal offshore, on to a manmade floating island 13.5 miles off the coast of Long Island. Of course, you won't stop the hardcore anti-LNG crowd from complaining, even if it comes out as gibberish:
"My initial reaction is we have grave and serious concerns about paving over the ocean and treating it like commercial real estate," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, a statewide group based in Farmingdale.
Paving over the ocean? Is that supposed to be an argument that is worthy of a response? Esposito gets even dumber in the Times:
A leader of the coalition against the floating terminal, Adrienne Esposito, was dubious of the island proposal, saying "the more we learn, the more it sounds like the island of Dr. Moreau," referring to the H. G. Wells novel that was made into three horror movies.
The Atlantic Sea Island Group, which wants to build this thing, should issue a press release promising to keep genetic engineering on the facility to a minimum and to make it less like The Island of Dr. Moreau or The Island and more like "Fantasy Island." If you can't fight nonsense with logic, then fight it with nonsense.
"Dee tanker! Dee tanker!!"
Couple of notes:
While you say most people wouldn't want to live near a nuclear power plant, some of my organization's polling data suggests that plants get the strongest support from the folks who live closest to them. In fact, a number of communities are already competing to host a new plant.
Back in the 1970s, nuclear energy displaced oil-fired electric generating capacity, to the point today where oil's role in the electrical sector today is negligible. We could do the same with new nuclear build and natural gas, as more nuclear could displace some gas-fired electric capacity, and free that up for use for home heating and the industrial sector.
The petrochemical industry could certainly use the break. Because gas prices in the U.S. market have been so volatile, thousands of jobs have moved offshore and they're probably never coming back.
One last note: Going forward, the three countries with the largest reserves of natural gas are Russia, Algeria and Iran. The two largest sources of uranium are Canda and Australia.
Who do you trust?
That's not to say nuclear should completely displace natural gas -- something that's impossible anyway. However, a more balanced fuel mix will help the nation's and the world's energy security significantly.
Eric: I agree to a certain extent with your comments. We need a more balanced fuel mix in all sectors of energy consumption, including electrical generation, transportation and other industrial uses, such as cement and chemical manufacture.
However, it's probably an overstatement to say that polling data from people living near existing and proposed plants can be extrapolated to say that people want nuclear plants near them. Many nuclear power plants are in smaller communities because of security and safety concerns voiced in more populated areas. They therefore went to smaller towns, where, like with the construction of prisons, they see the economic benefit as greater than the risks. All those studies mean is that there are communities that are economically desperate enough to put up with the risk, which I suppose is fine, up to the point where sprawl changes the population mix. Then you have another Indian Point - quite unpopular and the source of much alarmism.