Boom Goes London Boom Paris

     If Randy Newman was writing the lyrics for his popular political science song today he would have to add Boom Tokyo.  As the nuclear disaster unfolds in Japan  things are getting worse by the minute.  This week Japan's Emperor addressed the Japanese people asking them not to give up hope.  The Emperor's speech was little more than an imperial pep talk just like the one his father  gave in 1945 after the nation had been destroyed by the power of the nuclear atom.
     All energy sources have their downside.  We certianlly experienced that with the Gulf spill last summer but the current nuclear disaster in Japan is a complete different ball game.  Whats happening at the Japanese nuclear reactors is nothing more than a peaceful  nuclear explosion.  It is the same explosion used in weapons designed to inflect mass destruction.  If your looking for a way to paint a happy face on the nuclear industry you won't find one.  Hiroshima, Nagasaki and to a lesser extent Three Mile Island and Chernobyl made sure that no matter how much public PR spin is put on atomic power, it will never be safe.  Are we willing to put up with these kind of disasters from time to time just so we can light our homes and power our TVs?   I have not even mentioned the horrors of nuclear proliferation or the ever growing problem of nuclear waste.
     The power that was once termed  "too cheap to meter" is becoming a power where  stopping the meter is almost if not an impossibility.  After this fiasco in Japan I'm sure the nuclear industry will try wrapping nukes in a green cloak and declaring their oneness with preventing climent change.  The industry better do something because plans B, C, and D did not work out in Chernobyl or Three Mile Island  and it looks like plan D has failed in Japan.
     We need to stop putting all our future energy eggs in the nuclear basket and start concentrating on real clean  "too cheap to meter" energy like wind and solar.  I just hope solar energy does not bake us to a crisp or that  wind energy blows us away.  One day we'll all wake up and find ourselves with the same problem Dorthy had.  We could not open the cellar door and now we are not in Kansas anymore.  Lets just hope the land somewhere over the rainbow is as beautiful as we have been lead to believe.