Economy needs cheap, green energy

Reading Maroc Navarro-Genie of the Atlantic Institute for Market Studies in today’s Guardian [21 July 2015] one should not be surprised that there are such people as “radical environmental activists.” His version of the government’s energy and environmental record is so far from reality that it makes the radicals look positively responsible!

I fancy myself as a bit of a Greenie, but hopefully neither radical nor in the denial camp. I look forward to the day when we have a carbon-free economy, but that time is a way off yet.

Therefore I would reluctantly support pipelines to the east and west, as being the lesser of the other evil of moving oil by train. Despite the recent serious spill in Alberta, pipelines don’t necessarily have to leak. The highest standards of construction and maintenance should fix that risk.

Mr. Navarro-Genie fails to acknowledge the potential of a booming low-carbon economy. I have repeatedly in these pages encouraged my peers to imagine what our economy could be like with abundant reliable electricity powering high-speed rail services, small electric cars and manufacturing industries. A look at history shows that when energy is cheap, industries and the economy flourish. We could have that again if only we adopted the means of generating abundant carbon-free energy. The only source of that kind of power is nuclear, the most reliable and green form of power generation we have invented.

The institute that NavarroGenie represents is part of the old paradigm. Its day is past. Peter Noakes Charlottetown