David Neiwert has an interesting point to make about the environmental movement and its sometimes blinkered approach to the issues it addresses. The gist of his post is that there needs to be a balance between a recognition of the practical concerns of the people engaged in seemingly anti environmental activities and an unbridled idealism that labels divergent views as irredeemably evil. Nuclear energy has experienced some mind meltingly complex trips around the ideological circuit over the last several decades, and Neiwert neatly explicates how a focus on an (presumed) absolute good can lead to wrong-headedness, cultural blindness and social marginalization - even when right. Read the whole thing - it's better than this summary.
Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu
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