How I changed my mind on nuclear energy
Changing your mind is a skill. It is hard to learn. And having a tribe makes it harder.
In the early 2000s I was a full on greenie.
I hated nuclear. I worried about the climate. From 2005 to 2007 I did a master’s degree looking at the economics of individual consumption choices on greenhouse gas emissions. I worried that oil production would peak. Looking back now, I can see that I wanted to believe any disaster narrative circulating in my social group.
Now?
The world looks different.
It took years of training to learn how to make sense of the world. How do you really look at the data critically? How can you identify and accept those inconsistencies that reveal the limits of our knowledge?
I saw how the academic sausage was made.
Time has passed.
This means that predictions made decades ago can be tested. The climate catastrophes I expected have not come to pass. I have revised my views in line with reality.
Climate change, or what was once called global warming, and before that the greenhouse effect, is just one of many environmental issues. And for me, it is far down the list. Managing local land use conflicts, managing waterways to sustain water quality and wildlife populations, improving air quality, and ensuring the protection of wildlife conservation areas, are all much higher priorities for me in terms of their ability to create direct human benefits.
I have also seen the power of economic development as a force for good in many countries and realised that, for most of humanity, the idea that a slightly different climate could be beneficial in the future is down the bottom of their priority list. Stable local politics, physical infrastructure, and integration into global trade networks are what provide a high quality of life, much more so than investments in potentially, marginally changing climate patterns a century in the future.
I’ve changed my mind on a few topics over the years, and I might write about them in the future. Today I will tell the story of how I changed my mind on nuclear power.
First big realisation
In 2014 I had lunch with Professor Paul Frijters at the University of Queensland. He was my PhD supervisor and we were discussing how to go about gaining new insights into grey corruption (this research informed our book on Australian grey corruption called Rigged).
Grey corruption seemed like it was happening. But the why and how weren’t that clear. Many theories were inconsistent with each other, so you couldn’t just say “It’s a multivariate problem” or some other cop-out.
That day at lunch the subject of nuclear energy came up. I must have raised it as one of those topics where there seemed to be financial interests behind policy settings or at least the policy debate.
As Paul listened I recited the reasons I then believed about why nuclear was clearly a bad idea. I remember his reaction when I moved on to the next reason that contradicted the last one.
“Hold on. You can’t just pick and choose arguments you know. Can we stick with this one until we determine whether it makes sense and is consistent with what we know before we move on?”
I remember the feeling. It is a feeling.
He was right. I had jumped from one argument to another one that exactly contradicted it without even realising.
I remember the feeling. But I don’t remember the exact argument. Such is the power of emotion over logic.
If I had to guess, I think I was saying nuclear was too expensive. Then I think the next breath I said that renewables are cheaper from a welfare perspective because they lack negative greenhouse gas externalities. But then the same argument would apply to
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