No, seriously!  November 2007, page 46.

I wrote in response to an article claiming that some “environmentalists” support nuclear power.

Thanks to my associates degree in Earth Science and my Ecology professor, Dr. Tarp, I immediately recognized a bunch of glaring flaws in the arguments of the author or the article.

And they published it!  Cool.  Now it will be seen by whatever percentage of the 3 million readers actually read the magazine (probably fairly high, since hardcore porn is so easy to come by.  I imagine that these days is actually true that most of the subscribers, like myself, genuinely buy it for the articles).

With very mixed readership, unlike in my blogs, I am not just preaching to the converted.

I have actually had a couple short comments published in the magazines I subscribe to.  This is the longest though, and the first not to be edited or abridged at all.

I also really liked the first letter to the editor (by Mr. McGinnis), pointing out what should go without saying yet which i have never heard said before, about abortion being a metaphysical/scientific question (when does life begin?) and not a question of “life” or women’s rights.

On to the text (In re: to “Greens for Nukes, July):

Greens for Nukes could easily sway the opinion of the uninformed, but as the author is clearly knowledgeable about the subject, the article amounts to deliberate disinformation as propaganda to support the industry he works in.

He states (correctly) that renewable energy currently provides a small percentage of worldwide energy use. He ignores that Nuclear power provides an even smaller (6.3% vs 6.5%) amount of worldwide energy than renewable (which includes hydro and geothermal, not just wind and solar).

He states (correctly) that most renewable energy projects are subsidized. He ignores that EVERY nuclear plant ever built was heavily if not entirely subsidized, and that the fuel procurement and disposal is also subsidized. He ignores that even with those subsidies nuclear power is the most expensive form of electricity production.

Nuclear waste may take up a small amount of space, but it lasts for essentially forever. He proposes uses nuclear weapons as a fuel source – global warming aside, a major problem of using fossil fuels is that they are a limited resource. So is nuclear fuel. He proposes spending billions on plants to process nukes which at our rate of electricity consumption could be used up in a few decades. Renewable energy is, well: renewable.

Lastly, he suggests that it is infeasible that we cut back on our power usage. Americans use nearly ten times more energy per capita than the world average – including the rest of the first world – roughly 1/4 the worlds energy for 5% of the worlds population. Obviously it is more than possible to live comfortably with out using the electricity and petroleum we use here.