Hard Decisions: Make 'em Now

I'd like to have all oil and coal plants immediately replaced by levitating maglev solar windfarms powering the grid and fueling our all-hydrogen fleet of cars and trucks. But you know what, we don't get to have that yet. We may not get that for a long time. What we need now is time to stay afloat while the new tech is being developed. And some increased energy production that don't exacerbate the human component to climate change ... to the extent we understand it. See this article on a Colorado community grappling with solar and nuclear energy.

Using current technology, we can't build nearly enough renewable technology to replace coal and oil. That's true for us, and it's true for China and India. So in most cases, either/or choices don't exist. We've got to build both sustainable new sources to push those capabilities to the next level, even if we don't get much from it yet. But we've got to build real capacity too, and since there's a choice, we shouldn't make the worst one, i.e., traditional coal or oil fired power. New nukes keep us in the game long enough to discover, design and build what we're all looking forward to: what comes next.