Both liberals and conservatives have a case of cognitive dissonance when it comes to their favorite energy technologies.
Liberals demand energy resources that are easy on the environment. They get nervous, however, when concerns are raised about renewable energy projects’ environmental impacts.
Conservatives demand that energy choices be left to the market. They are remarkably quiet, however, about government favors bestowed on the nuclear power industry.
In pushing for expanded use of renewables, liberals don’t often make clear how much land would be involved. By one estimate, meeting one-sixth of our total energy demand with wind, for example, would require spreading turbines across an area the size of California.
Further, the best renewable resources are in remote, lightly populated areas of the country. That means long transmission lines through many scenic areas and backyards would be needed to move the juice to power-hungry cities.
The potential for conflict is high.
One is breaking out in the California desert, where liberal enviros are getting fidgety at persistent questions about the water and wildlife habitat impacts of concentrated solar power plants.
Conservatives championing expansion of nuclear energy are no better at full disclosure when it comes to nuclear’s dependence on government, including research, waste management, and the federal liability cap for power plant accidents. Repeal that cap and it’s hard to imagine that the industry could remain commercially viable.
Nuclear advocates point out that France obtains some 80 percent of its power from nuclear. They neglect to mention that the French nuclear power industry has been a ward of the state since its beginning.
Conservatives’ arguments for nuclear energy would have more strength if they acknowledged the industry’s dependence on government and explained why it is consistent with their free market principles.
Likewise, liberals do the public no favors when they fail to describe forthrightly how much land would be required to scale up wind and solar energy to the hundreds of thousands of megawatts that they envision.
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