Let's Scare America To Death

There was a movie made in the early 70' called Let's Scare Jessica To Death. The premise of the movie (as recently refreshed by the Internet) is about a woman who had been recently release from a mental institution goes through a series of bizarre experiences at a haunted farm house. She fears that she may be once again losing her mind and we find that someone is trying to kill her to get her money. The reason this even came to mind is I read about the re-emergence of an almost forgotten energy source; nuclear power.

An article about the number of nuclear plants being proposed and built has brought out the tired old singers from the 70's and 80's who thought that their campaign had killed this viable technology. Well times change and at $100 per barrel, splitting atoms has once again become cost effective as an energy source. Now we are being exposed to the same old arguments about how we will all die in a fiery cloud of nuclear ash. Yawn. Ho hum. We have nuclear plants in this country that have been operating for more than 30 years and other than Three Mile Island (made famous by Saturday Night Live). Thankfully Jimmy Carter saved the day. Oh that was Dan Aykroyd.

We have improved on the technology from 30 years ago when the last power plant was built. Does the improved technology prevent a possible meltdown? If you factor in the ability of man to mess anything up, the answer is no. Can we put as many fail safes in as possible? Yes. But with the cost of energy doing nothing but going up, it will be the pocketbooks that vote on the upcoming renewal of nuclear power. That is unless the scare America to death crowd once again get the ear of the legislative branch of government and they start "the let's do the opposite of what our constituents want" thinking. That should be what scares America to death.

Icool

Cobb