Suppose it were possible to build safe reactors. Reactors that simply would not kill people whether they were operated in a correct or incorrect way. Reactors that would never cause people to get cancer or any other radiation related illness. Suppose Reactors could be built more cheaply than renewable generation facilities. Suppose that reactors could be designed that would leave no long lasting toxic legacy, that would have to be minded for millions or even thousands of years. Would the critics of nuclear power be satisfied? Would the critics of nuclear power be satisfied. Would the critics of nuclear power support the implementation of a safe, low cost nuclear technology, that would leave little or no nuclear waste?

Is such a thing possible? Is it possible to do everything that the critics of nuclear power demand? My answer is yes it is. Nuclear scientist have known since the 1950's how to do it. The design and construction of safe, low waste or no waste, low cost reactors has not occurred because doing so lacked support, or encountered strong opposition. Opponents of advanced solutions for nuclear power have included the builders of existing reactor designs, fossil fuel producers, and environmentalists. Far from being enemies, there has always been a tacit alliance between fossil fuel interest and and anti-nuclear environmentalists. As early as 1975, Environmentalist Amory Lovins and John Price, proposed that a "coal based, fusion free bridge," to solar power be used in preference to nuclear power. Thus for Lovins and Price CO2 emitting coal burning power plants, constituted an ethical intermediate phase between the present energy scheme, and an ultimate renewable energy plan. (See "Non-Nuclear Futures: The case for an ethical energy strategy, by Amory B. Lovins and John H. Price, (1975)). And yes, Lovins and Price were warned about the dangers of Anthropogenic Global Warming by Alvin Weinberg, and no they did not pay the slightest attention.

Weinberg asked of Lovins,
Granted that nuclear energy is imperfect, ought we not try, to improve both technology and social institutions, to remove the imperfections?
Indeed the weakness which Weinberg pointed too is one shared by all anti-nuclear environmentalists. Given that the safety record of the conventional nuclear industry has grown steadily more impressive, and that options for making nuclear power even safer, are now better understood, and that some of these options involve the use of technologies that solve the problem of nuclear waste, while lowering nuclear costs, why don't anti-nuclear environmentalist support improving nuclear technology, and the human institutions that safeguard nuclear power? Are we dealing with rational and valid opposition to nuclear power, or simply nuclear-phobia?