COMMENT ⊗   VALID 00002 PAGES
C REC  PAGE   DESCRIPTION
C00001 00001
C00002 00002	∂AIL %2Engineering and Science%1↓
C00007 ENDMK
C⊗;
∂AIL %2Engineering and Science%1↓
California Institute of Technoloty↓1201 E. California St.↓Pasadena, Calif. 91125

To the Editor:

	Alvin Weinberg's compromise proposals for developing nuclear
energy are sensible.  I would support them even though I would prefer a
rapid development of the breeder so as to establish a source of energy
known to be good for many thousands of years and allow us to turn our
technological energy in other directions.

	Unfortunately, as a proposal for compromise,
they are based on too simple a model of the nuclear controversy.
His model is analogous to a laminar flow model of the atmosphere; it
doesn't predict thunderstorms and other turbulent phenomena that
occur when the Reynolds number is very large.  The "social Reynolds
number" of the nuclear controversy is too large for simple compromises
to win consensus.

	If a dozen people in a room, or even a hundred, were to discuss
the nuclear issues, starting from the varied points of view present
in America today, Weinberg's proposals would stand an excellent chance
of acceptance by everyone as something with which they could live.
Even a town of ten thousand or city of 100,000 might accept them.
Indeed, when the nuclear issue was fresh, something like his proposals
were generally accepted.  However, the following phenomena have arisen:

1. The anti-nuclear issue has developed its professionals.  Their
%2raison d'etre%1 would cease if they accepted a compromise.

2. The anti-nuclear people are part of an environmentalist alliance.
To compromise the issue is to betray the alliance.

3. Environmentalism in general and the anti-nuclear issue in particular
have become vehicles for claiming political power.  For example,
Amory Lovins is campaigning to become Secretary of Energy
using the "Soft Energy" slogan.  Governor Brown used the political
energy of the environmentalists in getting elected, has rewarded
them with office, and hopes to ride to the presidency, keeping
them quiet with office while he compromises some of their demands
in order to appeal to a wider constituency.

	Fortunately, politics is not merely a matter of power.  Politicians
are on the average as patriotic as the next person, and when their immediate
power worries are satisfied, they work for the good of the country as
they see it with a vision distorted by the slogans that elected them.

	I fear the only way to solve the nuclear issue is to slug it
out with the environmentalists and beat them as we did in the initiative
campaign.  When it is no longer a road to power, compromise may be
possible.

.sgn