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\title{CO2 and nuclear power}

	A lot of people are talking about the CO2 problem,
but most aren't serious.  It isn't yet clear whether there
is a CO2 problem, although it seems likely.  The lack of
seriousness is exemplified by the way most discussants
are tiptoeing around the issue of nuclear power --- the
one provably expandable source of energy that doesn't
generate CO2.

	The Union of Concerned Scientists is saying that
maybe we do need some nuclear plants after all --- of
an improved design.

	The Nader Critical Mass organization cannot go
back on its anti-nuclear position without at least changing
its name --- and maybe giving its claim on high-level
positions in a Dukakis Administration.  Dukakis doesn't
seem to have changed the position that led him to stall
the Seabrook plant by claiming the part of its ten mile
zone that sticks into Massachusetts can't be evacuated
in case of emergency.  He is now waffling in opposing
the restart of Pilgrim while opposing the Massachusetts
anti-nuclear referendum.

	Here are some points.

	1. It's not just the U.S.  China produces and
burns 900 million tons of coal per year.  This is more
than the U.S. does.  Its economic development is likely
to increase this production and consumption.

	2. It will be necessary to use nuclear power for
more than generating electricity for its present uses.
The short term possibility is to use nuclear electricity
for space heating, sometimes using heat pumps.  Costly
compared to natural gas at present but perhaps necessary.

	3. The difficult transition will be away from fossil
fuels for transportation.  Both electric cars and hydrogen
powered cars are feasible, but the necessary research is
proceeding at a sluggish pace.

	4. We can take CO2 out of the atmosphere.  Cutting
down the Canadian or Soviet forests and not burning the wood and then
replanting the forests with quick growing trees would do it.  
This would be costly.  If the wood was dumped in swamps it would
eventually turn into peat and coal.

	5. Up to and including the present, there have been two
ideological threats to rational energy policies.  One is the
specifically anti-nuclear ideology, and the other is the general
anti-progress ideology.  As long as the threat was to all practical
ways of generating electricity, it was natural for the defenders
of nuclear energy to avoid emphasis on the disadvantages of coal,
especially when the utilities were supporting the educational
efforts.  However, in so far as the greenhouse effect is important,
the use of coal is the largest problem.

	6. Fifteen years, maybe twenty, have elapsed since the
advent of the ``alternative energy'' movement.  There is still
nothing that comes close to nuclear energy in low cost,
environmental quality and expandibility.

	7. Since 1973 France has shown the world what can be done.
Seventy-five percent of their electricity is nuclear and the
remainder is mostly older hydroelectric plants which there is no
reason to replace.  Several other countries, including Japan,
have surpassed the U.S. in the fraction electricity that is
nuclear.  There is no way the U.S. can prevent the rest of the
world from converting to nuclear energy.

	8. Nuclear energy will surely revive.  Our goal is
to make this happen as quickly and efficiently as possible.
We may need to remember that this takes priority over
punishing the people who stalled nuclear energy in the U.S.

\smallskip\centerline{Copyright \copyright\ \number\year\ by John McCarthy}
\smallskip\noindent{This draft of nuclea[f88,jmc] TEXed on \jmcdate\ at \theTime}
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