POSTED ON MARCH 26, 2024 BY STEVEN HAYWARD IN THE DAILY CHART
THE DAILY CHART: THE U.S. NUCLEAR DEFICIT
I once asked a French acquaintance how it was that France managed to build over 5o nuclear power plants over the same time period that the U.S. built virtually none, and his answer was basically that France didn’t pay any attention to Jane Fonda. Actually his explanation was more colorful (and accurate). Read this with a French accent in your mind:
True: French labor unions, where Communists have some presence, like nuclear power because it meant lots of union jobs. U.S. progressives say they like labor unions—but they hate construction and electrical unions.
But my follow up question to my French interlocutor is equally pertinent: How did France manage to build nuclear plants so much more cheaply than the U.S.?
In any case, this figure shows how the U.S. abandoned nuclear power. Imagine how much lower our carbon footprint would be if we had kept up the pace of the 1950-1990 period. (Keep in mind that the plants that came online in the mid-1980s were begun 10 to 15 years before.)
Chaser—Even The Guardian gets it:
New York was warned that this would be the outcome, but climate cultists are immune to facts.