So there’s been a lot of talk about how we’re entering perhaps a critical phase in world history (what else is new?) and an impending energy crisis (true) and how we now pretty much have no choice but to turn/return to nuclear power (debatable).
Of course, Three Mile Island and Chernobyl really made some folks kinda squeamish about the whole nukes thing and, on balance, I don’t think that’s unreasonable. If you’ve read any of the follow-ups on Chernobyl especially, it’s somewhere well north of horrifying. Who would willingly, gladly open themselves up to that possibility, were there any choice?
But, as usual, I don’t just piss and moan (although I certainly do that too), I also happen to have a solution, because I’m a can-do kinda guy (as long as publishing deadlines aren’t involved). And since my brainstorm will make neither side happy, but both sides about equally unhappy, it’d actually work (and never happen). So how’s that for a set-up? Well, here ‘tis:
If we must have nuclear power in this country—and I’m enough of a realist to say that if folks aren’t going to give up their SUVs or computers, then indeed it’s possible we must, at least to some extent—then I propose the following: every major executive from any energy company that owns and/or operates a nuclear power plant must live, with his immediate family, within five miles of a nuclear power plant. Relocation costs and a housing stipend, within reason, can even be part of the deal.
But as it stands now, most power plants, nuclear and otherwise, are located in areas where the per capita incomes are…well, to put it politely, they’re not in what most executives would consider "nice" neighborhoods. There are, of course, some exceptions…but, nationally, not many. And even some of the exceptions can be misleading: the one that was near us in Queens, for instance. Sure, the houses in the immediate area went for pretty good sums o’ money: say, $200,000. But a mile away the house prices were double that; it’s all relative, baby.
We can change the unfair nature of the way things are currently structured *and* be pretty much guaranteed safe nuclear power. Because if the entire board of directors lives with their children within five miles of a nuclear power plant, you can be damn sure safety is truly going to be Priority Number One, even over profits—and what are the odds on that happening otherwise?
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