Reply #45: Thanks for that.

[GliderGuider]

OK, I understand what you mean now by “quasi-governmental”, and I agree – nuclear is a governmental industry to a much greater extent than any other large energy provider. And yes, both nuclear and coal are entrenched industries in electrical generation, just as oil is on the transportation side. Part of that entrenchment is the nature of the beast (esp. for nuclear) and part of it is simply related to size and history.

Wind and solar power are of course preferable in every way to nuclear, fossil fuels and large hydro. My only cavil is that they still produce large amounts of exosomatic energy, which I personally abhor but which can’t be helped.

It will be very interesting to see how the spectrum of competing interests and effects (entrenched power, government support, global warming science, the technical and industrial development of wind and solar power, public inertia, public desire for change, environmental consciousness, public fears of radiation, peak oil, the desire to keep the lights on and the tank full, the potential collapse of Japan as a global economic power) rebalances over the next couple of decades.

The main areas of disagreement between us are that I still think global warming caused by fossil fuels is more significant than the risks of nuclear power by a couple of orders of magnitude, and I want to see a significant global power-down of human civilization. However, given current events, that’s really neither here nor there. The effects of Fukushima on Japan and its psychological fallout on the rest of the world are far more immediate game-changers and have nothing whatever to do with either of our preferences.

As you say, industries that have achieved power and held it for a long time do not relinquish it voluntarily, which is why I hold out so much hope for the physical, social and economic effects of Fukushima and Peak Oil. I’m very happy to witness a crack in the façade of human technological hubris – I’m just sorry that it has required such misery to force the issue onto the front burner. The way events have unfolded convinces me more than ever that humans as a collective do not make rational decisions. Instead we mostly “make decisions” through the force of external circumstances, then rationalize our behaviour afterwards.