How — EUPHEMISM ALERT! — “naive” are the nuclear and coal industries? We may soon find out.
Carbon Control Newsreports that an EPA congressional affairs attorney told a Washington, DC think tank audience that,
Even members [of Congress] with the most progressive constituencies are “willing to give up their efforts to hinder” nuclear and [carbon capture and storage] “in order to serve the higher good of getting carbon policies enacted.”
It’s a wonder no one in the audience choked on their lunch at that one.
I have little doubt that the nuclear and coal industries will accept this statement at face value and proceed to walk into the bear trap that is greenhouse gas regulation.
But the greens will never allow carbon capture and storage (CCS) and they will never allow more nuclear power to come on line — no matter how much they seem to nod their heads now in order to get a bill.
The greens may say they will tolerate these things to get a climate bill, but the greens’ word never has been, is not and will never be good or binding on them.
No matter what language is included in whatever bill, in the end, the greens will find grandmothers and children to lay down in front of the bulldozers — and that will be the end of new nukes and CCS.
If the coal industry wants to survive and if the nuclear power industry wants to maintain its 20%-share of the U.S. power mix, both must treat the greens like the mortal enemies that they are. When it comes to the greens’ naked aggression, it’s crush or be crushed.
As between industry and the greens, my money is on the greens — at least for right now since, like Stalin in 1924 and Hitler in 1938, they are only only ones who actually understand that there are no rules to the for-all-the-marbles game they are playing.