Time to Level the Energy Playing Field?

Responding to a recent column by Tom Friedman in the New York Times regarding the political opportunity that lies in promoting energy independence, our friend Geoffrey Styles had this to say:

The political opportunity may be great, but it'’s going to require some icon-breaking for both sides, if we want real progress, rather than well-intended but impractical remedies. I plan to suggest some concrete examples during the next couple of weeks, but topping the list is the need to mesh our energy and environmental priorities in a way that treats all primary energy sources --—i.e. those that create net new BTUs, rather than changing them from one from to another -- equally, and differentiates between them based on their total environmental impact, with greenhouse gas emissions as first priority. That means coming up with a systematic way to evaluate the life-cycle environmental consequences of a wide range of energy sources, including ethanol and other biofuels, clean coal, nuclear, oil sands, offshore drilling, photovoltaics and wind power, and then prioritizing our efforts.

Might a new consensus be developing on this issue? I sure hope so, and the nuclear industry is ready to play a significant role in what comes next.

Technorati tags: Nuclear Energy, Environment, Energy, Politics, Technology, Electricity, Nuclear Power, Climate Change, Global Warming, GHG