Japan Fallout Here: The Folly of Obama’s Pushin’ O’ the Green

by Christopher C. Horner

Although usual suspects are now saying that the chain of events leading to Japan’s nuclear crisis is simply proof that we need to now rule out the last energy source that works, in terms of providing the necessary, base-load power required to run a modern society, it actually proves the opposite. With nuclear for all intents and purposes frozen in amber — as if it wasn’t already, talk of a ‘renaissance’ notwithstanding — this, combined with the Left’s war on energy that works now places us on the precipice, as well.

Will Obama admit that he must immediately cease his war to kill coal, which is a stepping stone on their war to also strangle gas? (all of which was detailed here, ten months, early, I suppose)

Of course not. Will someone, possibly an aspiring president, call him out on it?

After all: his war on coal assumed an unprecedented binge of 100 new nuclear ractors here.

That was facially absurd at the time — “at this rate”, as the greens like to say, we’ll add 100 new reactors as the new millenium approaches — but it is inescapably reckless now. They must be forced to cop to it. And do the responsible thing.

That’s not exactly how things are playing out. Congress is moving to stop Obama’s EPA from the centerpiece of its ‘energy plan’, which is to regulate its war on coal-fired electricity that they were unable to legislate. And the administration reflexively joined the demagoguery of that responsible move, the necessity of which has now only proved more obvious.

But that EPA backdoor global warming scheme is, just like the failed cap-and-trade legislation, premised on a fantasy economic assumption (100 new reactors) to dumb-down the cost of regulating coal out of existence (‘bankrupting’ anyone who wanted to try and use it, in Obama’s own phrase to the SF Chronicle ed board). In fact, this was built in purely to have a piece of paper to wave around and say see this is completely different than the plan that candidate Obama said would cause your rates to necessarily skyrocket, and bankrupt anyone daring to use coal! Not honest.

Oh, sure, new nuke reactors have been on ‘pause’ for decades thanks to the same people waging this war on coal. But you’re greedy, they say. If they create energy poverty by increasing the scarcity of that which works, you’ll invent Pixie Dust or Flubber. Which, if it worked, would immediately become their next ‘greatest threat’. We know this. Because for decades the greens have said Pixie Dust or Flubber would be ‘like giving an idiot child a machine gun’, to quote one sage.

But this all shows how the Japanese circumstance — which cannot help, in practical terms, serve as the latest reason to not build nuclear here — means we must stop their plan to ensure no new coal is built, either. You cannot, as an adult in a position of responsibility, take a position that nuclear is too scary, coal will never be acceptable, and you’ll rule on natural gas later. Sometime after imposing the energy-scarcity agenda, assuring Americans that we’ll just rely on electricity, instead.

That fantasy game of rigging a game by risible economic assumption is exposed, by the new de facto freeze on nukes, in all of its recklessness. Yet unless forced to come clean, the administration will not let reality intrude on their dogma any more than they did when his ‘green economy’ models like Spain proved to be basket cases. They simply stopped telling us to look at the supposed success stories, while charging full-steam ahead to force us onto politically selected but failed energy sources.

If allowed to continue this blindness to realities in an ideological pursuit, Obama risks spectacular human, economic and national security consequences.  This will be disastrous. And it could be avoided if someone on the Hill or preparing a presidential run would demand candor, and an open, honest public debate. What has been invented, that you are not waging war on, that will keep the lights on?

If the Obama administration so much as flinches on nuclear — and indeed his NRC has already frozen the recertification of Vermont Yankee — it is his duty to immediately call off EPA’s ‘global warming’ war on coal. In fact, in the face of what we already see, that is the only responsible thing to do. In a twist on the old saying, will the last adult in the Obama administration please stop them from turning out the lights?


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Posted Mar 17th 2011 at 10:33 am in Environment, News, Obama, Regulation, energy | 59 Comments