Thread by @Gormogons

GP You know what's a really good source of green energy?

Nuclear.

You know what's the one green energy source forbidden by Democrats' Green New Deal?

Nuclear.

GP Nuclear ain't cheap (mostly because of regulatory hurdles and over-empowered NIMBYs fighing siting) but it works day and night and is ridiculously safe.

GP If climate change advocates were truly serious about the problem, we'd be building nuclear power plants like mad and lifting the dumbass Carter era ban on reprocessing nuclear fuel.

GP And before you go BUT MUH FUKYOOSHEEMA, let's discuss fact. That plant didn't melt down because of a 9.0 magnitude earthquake followed immediately by a biblically epic tsunami.

GP That plant melted down because the backup generators were located at ground level and got swamped by the tsunami, preventing the continued circulation of the cooling system.

GP So, an engineering failure. Really, not even the engineer's fault. More a failure to have a vivid enough imagination for cataclysmic events. As Blue Oyster Cult once sang, "history shows again and again how nature points out the folly of men."

GP Unless you think Upstate NY or Chattanooga, TN or Los Alamos, NM or Austin, TX is going to get a 9.0 magnitude earthquake and giant tsunami at the same time, nuclear is nothing to fear.

GP And yeah, the waste is an issue. But as noted, we can either reprocess or open the fully built and sitting vacant Harry M. Reid Memorial Nuclear Waste Repository at Yucca Flats.

GP Were I Trump, I'd have the Dept of Energy, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and the EPA revamping regulations to encourage the building and siting of nuclear plants.

GP I'd also press Congress to pass legislation eliminating states' ability to *unnecessarily* hamper plant siting, transmission line siting, and gas/oil pipeline siting. States have a role, but states shouldn't have veto power.

GP If necessary, site the plants on federal land where state environmental and zoning laws don't apply. If there's not enough federal land, use eminent domain powers to take it, then lease it to companies to build and operate nuclear plants on it.

GP Hold Congress and the Green Weenies' feet to the fire. Ask them (and media) why they aren't in favor of California getting cheap(er), clean power? Why don't they want poor people's rates to go down?

GP It's time to call the climate change activists (like that Swedish Cabbage Patch Kid) on their bullshit.

We're willing to compromise. We'll fork over bucks to build zero carbon nuclear plants and phase out coal and oil plants.

GP Still gonna need peaking plants (probably natural gas) for periods of massive use, usually in the summer. In Upstate, it's winter because we're cold af and dark as night six months a year.

GP And, not for nothing, if you want to talk infrastructure programs, this is one that checks off multiple boxes. Green energy, union construction jobs, long term job creation, hardening the grid (national security), nationwide power network reliability, etc.

GP The only real reasons to vote against building nuclear plants are: (1) can't give Bad Orange Man a win on anything and (2) it puts the lie to Democrats' Green New Deal and prevents them from garnering more power over us.

GP Save the earth. Build nuke plants.

The end.

GorT: And let's start looking at advancing fission energy. It would be even better.