Metafilter Grapples with Nuclear Energy

Using a two-part feature in LA Weekly (Part I, II) as a departure point, members of the Metafilter online community are now debating the merits of new nuclear build.

And it looks like nuclear is getting a fair hearing. Some comments:

Nuclear power has been terribly demonized, but environmentalists should love it. It does almost no damage to the environment at all, unlike fossil fuels, which appear likely to change the climate on Earth and wipe out thousands (millions?) of species...

Yeah, I've never understood why environmentalists are opposed to Nuclear power. it's the only possible energy system we could use that doesn't cause much pollution.

It seems more like irrational fear then anything else...

We will have an energy crisis if we don't find some way of replacing fossil fuels. Nuclear power seems like the logical step...

Nuclear is, alas, our only hope of keeping our society at the level it is at. We, quite simply, cannot continue to burn other fuels at the levels we are on and not make the planet uninhabitable...Nuclear is the only tech we have now that 1) can generate the loads we need 2) without destroying the biosphere and 3) without taking up huge fractions of land to support it...

Be sure to read the feature by Judith Lewis that started the debate (Part I, II).

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Economics