Jun 01 2011
The Fate of Nuclear Energy
The Fate of Nuclear Energy
Fear turns into panic
The fallout from Japan’s nuclear disasters following the earthquake and tsunami didn’t really affect Western Europe, but it did contaminate the political scene. In Germany, the Green Party seized on meltdown fears to panic the public and intimidate the nation’s leaders. Germany isn’t on a major earthquake faultline, or anywhere near an open ocean, but apparently, the panic-mongering worked.
Yesterday, Germany announced that it would shut down all its nuclear energy plants by 2022. Exactly what will replace all that carbon-free nuclear energy in an economy as industrial as Germany’s isn’t clear. Possibly something less clean and less safe, like more coal plants or relying on Russian oil. Or maybe they can buy some power from France. France has about 60 nuclear plants, generating nearly 80 percent of their energy, plus enough power to sell the surplus to their neighbors. Or maybe by 2022, the Germans will have realized you don’t make sweeping plans for the future based on passing headlines. If we did that, the entire Gulf Coast would be shut down right now, thanks to all the panic headlines telling us the beaches would be completely covered in BP oil for the next 20 years. A guest on my Fox News show said last week that the media’s distorted reporting on the Florida Gulf Coast did more economic damage than all of the hurricanes in the past 30 years.
Meet The New Chairman
Monday, President Obama chose a new chairman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff to replace Admiral Mike Mullen. It’s Martin Dempsey, the four-star general and Army Chief of Staff who commanded the troops in Iraq since 2003, fighting the insurgents and training Iraqi forces to take over. It’s the latest shake-up in a game of military musical chairs that saw CIA Director Leon Panetta switching to Secretary of Defense, and Afghan commander Gen. David Petraeus taking over the CIA. If you’d like to know something a bit more personal about Gen. Dempsey, the Washington Post reports that he has three master’s degrees, he’s survived one bout of cancer, he likes using Facebook to communicate with young soldiers, and he’ll belt out the song “New York, New York” at the drop of a hat. That should liven up the military briefings.
Sincerely,
Mike Huckabee