This week I finished:

Nuclear Revolution: Powering the Next Generation, by podcast guest Jack Spencer. I also watched his presentation on the book and panel at Heritage and followed up with the film he recommended in that presentation, Powering America, by the Heritage Foundation, where Jack works.

Through our conversations on my podcast, especially doing the Spodek Method, and (coming soon, just recorded) on his, plus all the interactions that come with scheduling, Jack and I have become friends. If you’ve listened to our conversations, you know that we’re planning to go fishing together. I haven’t eaten fish since 1990 and don’t expect to restart, but Jack predicts I’ll at least still love the experience.

I agree with much of his view. Competitive markets can transform new, untested, risky technologies into dependable, tested, known ones with less risk of failure, even negligible. I would expect that process to happen with nuclear energy.

My post on Adam Smith and pollution shares a concern that Smith shared. Free markets transform many people working for their own interests into opulence: “Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice.”

What he means by “justice,” as I understand, is that I can’t be allowed to hurt or coerce you with impunity. I’m concerned not with nuclear accidents, but with what podcast guest Tom Murphy wrote about in Limits to economic growth: A peer-reviewed paper by podcast guest Tom Murphy. I saw other views I think Jack missed. I look forward to talking to him about his book and seeing what we learn from each other. Maybe I missed things. I’m inclined to think we’ll come up with a resolution that may interest many others.

Jack said something I valued when we were talking about bringing me to Heritage to talk about my book, Sustainability Simplified. When I said he might not agree with the book, he said not agreeing with it wouldn’t affect sharing it. That’s the opposite of being an ideologue. That’s integrity to the pursuit of knowledge.

• ← Measuring greenhouse emissions looks like a distraction. Extraction and introduction into the biosphere seems more relevant.
• 802: Lorraine Smith, part 2: The hidden, dirty secrets of corporate “sustainability” work →