Dear Editor,
I appreciate your recent special report on oil “Breaking the Habit,” it offered an excellent expose into the oil and energy market as a whole, past, present, and future. However, I believe that your complete lack of disregard for the role that nuclear technology plays in the energy market is an irresponsible oversight. The articles mentioned multiple times how renewables, such and wind and solar, and battery technology are disrupting the oil market and only mention nuclear at the very end when describing a fictitious play where China mines “helium-3 on the Moon to fuel nuclear-powered cars and homes on Earth.”
I can assure you that the role of nuclear technology in the energy market is not fictitious. Nuclear energy has been a threat to the oil industry for decades. Why do you think oil companies secretly funded anti-nuclear protests during the so-called “environmentalist” movement in the 1970s? They continue to invest in renewable technology not only to diversify but also because they know that intermittent renewables are create dependency on fossil fuels. Nuclear energy, other the hand, can provide reliable baseload and peak power without producing greenhouse gases, making a fully-electric (and clean) transportation system possible.
The Economist usually produces very honest and thorough publications and fairly represents nuclear energy. I hope that you recognize this oversight in reporting.
Sincerely,
Lenka Kollar