PBS Need to Know – The Nuclear Option. Damning with faint praise

As a pronuclear advocate who majored in English as an undergraduate, I could not help but notice the frustratingly effective use of slanted language in the above video segment to damn nuclear energy with faint praise.

From the very pregnant pause after President Obama says “if it’s safe…..”, to Dr. Lester’s multiply negative statement saying that nuclear energy is useful, to the inflation of the waste issue right after being told that the input fuel quantity is tiny (a small input of fuel is what makes the size of the waste problem so manageable compared to the alternative of fossil fuel combustion), it is not hard to find examples of phrases that give nuclear a bad impression while seeming to be grudgingly favorable.

Maybe someday, I will have the resources to make a high quality segment that helps people to understand that gas is no where near as abundant as its boosters claim, that focusing on the capital cost of the electric power plant ignores the capital cost of the required fuel infrastructure, and that there are many reasons why the equipment used to convert fission heat to electricity has been forced far higher than the cost of equipment used to convert combustion heat to electricity.

Until then, I will just have to watch segments like this and fume that if Dr. Lester is one of America’s leading pronuclear advocates, it is no wonder why the promised nuclear renaissance is sputtering.

http://atomicinsights.com/pbs-need-know-nuclear-option/