Being right for the wrong reason is, we can suppose, better than being wrong for the wrong reason. We've grown accustomed to reading (and writing) about climate scolds being wrong for every wrong reason we can think of. A key thing they are wrong about is the knee-jerk opposition to the one energy source that is everything they claim to want: Low-emission, high-density, reliable, affordable. That would be nuclear power, of course.
So, when the Breakthrough Institute's Ted Nordhaus pens a guest editorial for the Washington Post praising the Trump administration's push to fast-track nuclear power in the United States, we can approve of his getting this right, while still pointing out all that he gets wrong.
First, he opens his piece with a veritable army of straw men.
One of the great ironies of the first Trump administration was that amid all the talk of bleach, horse dewormers, mask mandates and school closures, most people didn’t pay attention to the policy that essentially ended the pandemic: Operation Warp Speed.
Of course, President Trump didn't actually advocate injecting bleach, and while Ivermectin is indeed used in horses, it has also long been approved for human use. And it's questionable as to whether Operation Warp Speed had much effect in ending an epidemic that was already starting to wind down when the first vaccines hit the market.
In these things, Mr. Nordhaus isn't just wrong for the wrong reasons. He has set up a stack of straw men that promptly fell over on him. He also excoriates the president for pulling the United States out of the Paris climate boondoggle.
His administration has withdrawn the United States from the Paris climate agreement, slashed funding for climate research and laid waste to greenhouse gas regulations, all to the consternation of environmentalists and Democrats.
That's good. We should seek to cause consternation to environmentalists and Democrats, every day and twice on Sunday. The Paris climate deal wasn't good for the United States; the entire climate change argument is based on the shakiest shaky presumptions that ever shook.
But then, on nuclear power, Mr. Nordhaus strikes a very different tone:
But the administration has also launched the most ambitious effort to commercialize new nuclear energy technology since the Eisenhower administration’s Atoms for Peace initiative. The goal is to develop smaller and more nimble reactors to help meet a growing demand for energy, which is partly driven by an explosion of data centers for the artificial intelligence boom.
Love Trump or hate him, his administration’s determination to quickly demonstrate, license and commercialize new nuclear technology is unprecedented. Executive orders that mandated sweeping reform at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission are underway. Against concerns that the administration intended to install bomb-throwers and flunkies on the NRC, the White House has appointed two remarkably qualified commissioners, Ho Nieh and Douglas Weaver. Both are nuclear engineers and seasoned regulators who were confirmed by the Senate with bipartisan votes.
All of those are net positives. As I'm continually pointing out, we solve today's problems with tomorrow's technology, and nuclear power is part of tomorrow's energy picture; it can't not be, not if we are to maintain and even advance our modern high-tech lifestyle. It's that modern lifestyle that, among many other benefits, allows me to write these words from a small office out in the woods in Alaska's Susitna Valley and not in some big-city high-rise office building - or allows me to write these words for you instead of being out panning for gold, looking for enough nuggets to pay our property taxes. Our modern connected lifestyle is great - and it's energy-hungry. Thus, the need for nuclear power.
Read More: Scale Up Now: 100+ New Reactors to Cut Costs and Replace Aging Fleet
Thorium in China, Fusion in Britain: Possible New Energy Game-Changers?
Here, though, is where Ted Nordhaus is right for the wrong reason, or, at best, for an irrelevant reason.
Like Operation Warp Speed, there is, of course, no guarantee that the effort will succeed. Nor will the problem of climate change be solved if it does. But having cheap, scalable nuclear energy helps reduce the world’s dependence on fossil fuels, provides more clean power and could prove critical in making deep reductions in global emissions.
Oh, yes, increasing use of nuclear power may reduce dependence on burning oil, gas, and coal for electrical generation, although it won't power long-haul trucks, or trains, or ships; nor will nuclear power replace all the myriad things we depend on petroleum for besides fuel, which includes things ranging from plastics to pharmaceutical precursors. There are no replacements for petroleum in many of these instances; not without dropping back to a 19th-century level of technology, which honestly, ain't gonna happen.
As for climate change: It's not the problem Ted Nordhaus claims it is. My standard statement still applies. Yes, the climate has been slowly warming, with some dips and spikes (see: Little Ice Age) since the end of the last major glaciation. Yes, the climate will probably continue to slowly warm until the next major glaciation, and yes, there will be another one. Humans do have some impact on that, as does everything, but our impact can be dwarfed by one really good crowd-pleaser of a volcano.
Nuclear power, though, is everything the climate scolds claim to want. It's clean, it's reliable, and if we can get some regulatory reform, it will be affordable. One would think that the scolds would love the idea, and that's why we can congratulate Ted Nordhaus for being right on nuclear power and by saying so in a climate scold-friendly publication like the WaPo, even if he is right for the wrong reasons.
