Viva Areva

I, for one, welcome our new French overlords.

Today, French nuclear energy conglomerate Areva announced plans to build a $2 billion uranium enrichment plant in the Idaho Falls area.

The news is good for the economy -- they plan to create about 250 jobs, in addition to the construction work the plant will need before it opens in 2014. Our local paper is calling this the biggest economic news in the past two decades, given the scope of what is coming.

• The news adds to the area's growing reputation as an alternative energy corridor.:


• The Center for Advanced Energy Studies will open soon in Idaho Falls.


• The largest wind turbine array in the state is near town, but will soon be trumped by a larger array near Blackfoot.


• Pocatello recently landed plants to build wind turbines and solar panels.

With Areva's project, of course, comes the spectre of nuclear waste. But given the Idaho National Laboratory's success in cleaning up waste here, I don't see that as a problem. Waste is, of course, a long-lasting problem that has to be dealth with. But so is the carbon dioxide and other pollutants produced by mainstream power plants. Nuclear has the potential to help reduce our dependence on foreign oil, while at the same time assuaging environmental fears of opening more land in the US for oil drilling.

But the hard-core environmentalists won't see it that way. They want the castle in Spain, which produces pollution-free energy. Wouldn't that be nice? But, before research can get us there, we've got to have electicity. I'd rather see it produced with nuclear power than coal or oil, which have waste problems of their own but are, in my opinion, much more far-reaching.

The United States has wimped out on nuclear power, insisting instead on fossil fuels and a program of carbon credits that really hasn't reduced pollution, but rather shifted who is producing it. Technology marches on in making fossil fuels more environmentally-friendly, and I applaud that. That research should continue. But at the same time, we have the opportunity to further reduce our carbon footprint -- reducing our dependence on foreign oil -- by bringing more nuclear power plants on-line.

Environmentalists point to the specre of Chernobyl as a reason why nuclear power should not be used. That is a weak argument. What happened at Chernobyl was, without a doubt, horrific. But calling for a ban on nuclear power because of one accident liek Chernobyl is like calling for a ban on jet travel because of the tragedy at Tenerife in the 1970s, when two jumbo jets collided, killing nearly 600 passengers. That nuclear power plants and planes operate daily without a glitch does not make the news; the one, horrific accident is always on page one.