RE: Pro-Nuke Washington Post Article

[Bob Flood <bflood@SLAC.Stanford.EDU>]

At 10:49 AM 3/20/00 -0600, you wrote:
>
>	You poor dears!  "gasoline" is the equivalent of over 4 dollars per
>gallon over here in the UK, the bulk of it taxes, and tomorrow (budget day)
>they're more than likely to slap even more tax on.

The price of gasoline in the UK (and other countries) is very much a
product of taxes, but that's a deliberate act of a government as part of a
"package deal." The package includes a fully functional alternative
transportation system nationwide so that the general public can travel
without requiring the use of an automobile. This mass transit system
(trains and buses, mainly) goes hand-in-hand with the gasoline tax.

Building such a transit system in a country the size of England is one
thing; building the same kind of system across a continment larger than all
of Europe is another. Thus, a long time ago, a decision was made that,
since we have oil and the country's so large, we'll rely on individual
automobiles for people to get around. Of course, this decision failed to
anticipate the eventual level of oil consumption and the effects on the
environment, and leaves us with a problem every time the oil supply
hiccups. (It may be true that I could travel about the country by train
right now if I chose to, the fact is that we as a nation cannot turn to
mass transit right now because the capacity does not exist.)

A difficult situation - rather as Thomas Jefferson described (paraphrasing
here): A bit like holding a wolf by the ears - you don't really want to,
but now you cannot let go.

>perhaps if Americans had been paying what Europeans have for fuel, you'd
>have been a lot more pro-nuclear!

I think it is likely that you are correct about that.

Bob Flood
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center
bflood@slac.stanford.edu
(650) 926-3793

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