Insulate! Insulate! Insulate!

Bloomberg suggests, and Joe Romm reiterates, that McCain's plan to build 45 nuclear reactors by 2030 might cost the taxpayers almost a third of a trillion dollars, or $ 315 billion. Now that's not much these days, considering what is being racked up for the Iraq war and the Fannie Mae debacle, but to paraphrase Everett Dirkson, a trillion here, a trillion there, pretty soon you're talking about real money.

And it would be nice if it could be done, but as Bloomberg and TreeHugger noted earlier, the only company in the world that can make the reactor vessels is already booked up to 2015.

As we also noted in an earlier post, perhaps there is more energy to be made by fixing what we have, by eliminating waste, by increasing efficiency. Perhaps we don't have to Drill, drill drill! as some suggest, or Invent, Invent, Invent! as Tom Friedman calls for. Perhaps all we really have to do is Insulate, Insulate, Insulate!More Nukes in TreeHuggerThere's More Money in Nukes Than In Samurai SwordsNew Generation of Nuclear Power Plants More Expensive than ExpectedConcerns Over Nuclear Power Continue to Mount : TreeHuggerCould Microgeneration Be as Powerful as Nuclear Energy? : TreeHugger