“Making nuclear safe is also why it is uneconomic. The US would not have had a nuclear industry if not for Price-Anderson and the rest of it from the federal government.” (Bradley, below)

“10 million deaths/year from the fossil fuel way of boiling water is criminally dangerous in the final degree.” (Canon Bryan, below)

Canon Bryan is CFO and a founding shareholder of Terrestrial Energy, based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. Mr. Bryan and Terrestrial develop advanced commercial power plants. [1]

This exchange with a sophisticated nuclear proponent is illustrative of the current debate regarding the future of nuclear power (my thoughts here). I would note the following having engaged Mr. Bryan:

1. We talk past each other at times because I am focused on the U.S.

“A defense of liberal institutions is needed now more than ever, and Julian Simon’s work, and the work of the previous winners of the Simon Award, will be crucial in providing it.”

“… for population growth to get translated into economic progress we need liberal institutions.”

Ed. Note: This completes a three-part series on the views of the late Steve Horwitz (1964–2021), the first two being on the climate debate and a carbon tax.

Since 2001, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, along with the Simon family, has presented an annual Julian Simon Award. The first award winner was Stephen Moore, a former research fellow for Dr. Simon (1982–85) who has promoted the Simon worldview ever since.

The most recent award winner was Stephen Horwitz, whose comments follow below.

Fellow professor and classical liberal Peter Boettke shared Horwitz’s remarks below on social media with the comment:

I do think in the interview so much of what was truly wonderful about Steve comes out.

The Wood et al. op-ed/policy analysis is a whitewash of epic proportions. Maybe the Titanic did not sink, and renewables forcing was not the iceberg behind Texas’s failed electricity grid in February.

Why did natural gas underperform during the Texas power crisis? Why did Atlas Shrug? Incentives matter.

The RMS Titanic sank, and the Electric Reliability Commission of Texas (ERCOT) failed in an ocean of government intervention. But you would scarcely know the latter from the narrative offered by experts, regulators, planners, and heads at the Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT), the governing body behind ERCOT.

The narrative is predictable. Natural gas was the problem. Corrective regulation from the Texas Legislature and the PUCT is needed. ERCOT needs a promotion with more experts and planners. Fine tuning, not fundamental reform.…

“Even though it was once embraced by some environmentalists, ethanol has turned out to be much better at providing common ground for wildly disparate presidents than cutting greenhouse gas emissions.”

“From a greenhouse gas emissions perspective, the renewable fuel standard has been a bust.”

“In 2022, the current renewable fuel standard will lapse, and Biden’s Environmental Protection Agency will have to decide whether to maintain federal support for this hangover of the oil-soaked Bush era.”

– Tom Philpott, “Why Won’t Joe Biden Let Ethanol Die Already?” Mother Jones, February 16, 2021.

Progressives and D.C. environmentalists are very confused about energy. They don’t like nuclear, the only scalable alternative to fossil fuels. They dislike hydro power too, choosing some other priorities for dams other than CO2 reduction.

And on the transportation side, they don’t like the “renewable” alternative to gasoline and diesel, farm crop ethanol.…