A Bad Master but a Good Servant

I have to say that as a bloke who don’t like Bush, I support him this once on his call for America to have more nuclear power stations.

For a start, the USA’s needs may be met in large by these nuclear power plants rather than oil, thus directly and indirectly minimising its current tussle over oil sources in the form of a very quiet 2nd Cold War with China and a soon emerging new economic power, India. Look at France and Lithuania – they get 80% of their energy compared to the US' 20% from nuclear power stations.

Use of nuclear supplied energy will also reduce oil dependancy on some Arab countries, and may even force these Middle East nations to democratise faster, because right now there is no motivation for them to do so, as the superpower USA is shoring up the status quo of their dictatorships. The removal or even a diminishing of US backing for the dictatorships will encourage the people of these countries to press more assertively for greater accountability, justice and freedom.

Second, it reduces human created carbon gas emission. Hey, a recalcitrant USA may even sign the Kyoto Protocol. We need to bear in mind that the USA is the world’s biggest polluter. Soon a China and eventually India may reach the same frightening level, so a nuclear-energy supplied China and India will be a good thing as well.

Thirdly, most of the world’s supplies are in safe hands, with good old Australia holding 28% of the world’s uranium, Canada 14% and South Africa 10%. Thus, there will be stability in uranium supply from these democratic nations. The other big uranium-resource nation is Kazakhstan (12%), who also possesses the world’s largest but yet-to-be confirmed oil reserves – lucky soon-to-be rich bastards

The Greens and environmentalists have always been concerned about such nuclear stations, but look at the alternatives. Oil is dirty in every aspect, from its carbon gas emission to its motivation for war. Solar energy is still a long way down the track. Wind energy is relatively new and only effective in high latitude countries, while tidal energy is yet to come into reasonable shape or form.

Nuclear energy is like fire – a bad master but a good servant. It’s up to us to be responsible for the safe operations and proper maintenance of the nuclear power plants.