Any other time, I’d be glad to hear some skepticism about the Tennessee Valley Authority.
As a believer in free markets, for instance, I’d rather private companies handle the bulk of what TVA does – a-la Duke Energy in the Carolinas, Indiana, Kentucky and Ohio.
But as events in Japan give anti-nuke activists a convenient pretext to demand the slow-walking of nuclear power projects in the United States, it’s hard to think what more TVA and other domestic utilities could do to prove their facilities are safe.
To repeat something we should all know by now, nobody died and nobody got hurt in America’s most serious nuclear incident – 32 years ago this past week at Three Mile Island. And so, although it runs counter to the advice of world-renowned physicists Meryl Streep, Jane Fonda and Cher, I can’t put rational thought on hold long enough to forget the sterling track record of nuclear power in the United States.
Even Japan’s ongoing atomic woes can’t really get my skepto-motor running.