Nuclear power has been touted as a panacea on these pages while obstacles to wind power have been discussed. Meanwhile, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has released a finding that Earth’s societies at-large need to be in near complete reversal of current modes of carbon dioxide production by 2012 – four short years, or face the certainty of major disruption of many of Earth’s ecosystems including species survival.

It is largely correct that wind energy, while fully capable of supplying energy in general, is incapable of supplying that energy on a schedule which meets base-load needs, i.e., the winds don’t blow steadily enough. However, wind power, as all alternatives, is fully capable of working together in conjunction with other plants, such as natural gas-fired plants, to reduce fossil use and, together, approximate base-load capacity.

In the case of nuclear, the dynamic against further construction is compelling – no matter how you cut it, nuclear construction is time-consuming and extremely expensive. Seabrook Unit 1 was one of the last nuclear plants to go on-line in this country in 1986. After 10 years of construction, its cost, including capitalized interest, was about $6 billion. Thus, as constructed with 1,000 megawatts of net capacity, just standing there, unfueled, not operating, no waste to dispose of, it had cost $6,000 just for the capacity to operate 10 standard 100-watt light bulbs or a typical 1,000 watt (1 kilowatt) hair dryer. Actually fueling and operating the plant and disposing of its waste increased the costs of power from Unit 1 substantially more.

Bringing those 1986 dollars to the present and factoring in the 65 to 70 percent typical availability of a nuclear plant would raise its cost compared to alternatives to $10,000 per kilowatt. And, of course, this doesn’t even factor in the political divisiveness associated with nuclear power as even the most ardent proponent must acknowledge. After all, expedited licensing and insurance subsidies for the industry have been around for decades.

Thus while not a failed idea technologically, a pro-nuclear policy is difficult to justify from a number of standpoints and as a practical matter is a non-starter for arriving at a resolution within a reasonable timeframe. What’s more, why build nuclear when alternatives are available for less than $10,000 per kilowatt?

So, what would work? Conservation for one and alternative energy sources for another. Conversely to a nuclear plant which costs a lot to provide the capacity to do a little, investing a little, usually an amount equal to about one-quarter the cost of new nuclear capacity, in conservation or alternatives, can offset a great deal of needed capacity. Conservationists have generated any number of lists of conservation and alternatives in the past, many of them no-cost or low cost and doable with near term results. All have been largely ignored by policymakers and even energy technicians because there was no broad-based forum in which to compare them and leaven a rational political process.

What is needed is a real market where alternatives can be compared on a merit-to-merit basis. Will it happen? It can and very well might.

A few weeks ago, the Maine Board of Environmental Protection promulgated a rule which implements in Maine a regional multi-state agreement on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. This rule sets in motion an initiative by which a real, transparent market will be created in which all alternatives, including residential and commercial conservation, solar thermal, solar electric, wind, natural gas, and, yes, nuclear will be compared on just such a merit-for-merit basis. It is a splendid example of government action to create a stable forum for not only industry, but all of society to move forward.

The result may be that we will soon recognize that energy and its use are, today, exactly where information technology was 20 years ago, an under-appreciated nascent. In the not-too-distant future we may be able to take the funding which is now devoted to importing oil or subsidizing the nuclear industry and instead spend it on energy research into products that can find their way into everybody’s homes.

The reason many conservation-minded people are livid about energy policy in this country is that those involved in making it, Vice President Dick Cheney for example, often refuse to recognize their bias towards large-scale production, or to recognize the bias is based on a number of false premises. One of those false premises is their abiding belief (apparently) that nothing can be accomplished in small quantities on a democratized, household-scale, alternative basis. If the information industry was still in that mindset, we’d still be using slide rules and abacuses.

Given that climate change and energy are very critical issues, addressing them demands consistent consideration of the displacement cost of production. And this rule may provide that.

Ernie Hilton of Starks is a member of the Maine Board of Environmental Protection. He has worked as an energy sector consultant, including work on the Maine Public Utilities Commission’s investigation of the Seabrook, N.H., nuclear power plant in the mid-1980s.