New Clear Days?

Yesterday, The Washington Post gave over some of the space on its editorial page to Patrick Moore to make a case for nuclear power. One of his main arguments sets up nuclear energy as an alternative to coal power and global warming. Although the Post's bio refers to him as a "co-founder of Greenpeace," his situation is much more controversial than that. He broke with Greenpeace twenty years ago and has since taken funding from the mining, lumber, plastics, and yes, nuclear industries. This 2004 profile from Wired seems pretty fair-minded. (Hunter at Daily Kos is more critical--he wonders if the WaPo editorial space was bought and paid for by the nuclear industry.)

Still, as the reality of global warming becomes more and more obvious, I think we need to discuss what our energy options are. Nuclear has a very bad reputation, but coal and oil aren't going to get us much farther, either. What are our other alternatives, and how realistic are they? The general public needs a better understanding of all our options. Here's a start, via Kevin Drum: Mark Kleiman argues for nuclear power, and David Roberts argues against.