By Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
In their April 9 Op-Ed article, “Global Warming Scare Tactics,” Ted Nordhaus and Michael Shellenberger, veteran apologists for nuclear power, trot out their threadworn and empirically unsupportable argument that poor messaging by the environmental movement on climate change and its failure to embrace nuclear power explains the growing gap between Republicans and Democrats on whether global warming is caused by humans.
Many environmentalists would welcome nuclear power if it ever becomes safe and economical. Current construction costs for new nuclear plants run approximately five times the cost per megawatt of wind, solar or natural gas.
Even before Fukushima, private insurance carriers — the ultimate arbiters of risk — ranked nuclear power plants so dangerous that they would not indemnify them. Thanks to industry lobbyists, the public now bears most of that burden, along with the ruinous costs of waste disposal which, despite its promises, the industry has yet to solve.
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