Showing that he has good sense on energy, John McCain says he would like 45 new nuclear power plants to be built in the United States by 2030.

As has been repeated uncounted times, all forms of energy production have drawbacks. But as long as we’re worried about the declining availability and rising price of fossil fuels, and about the effect of greenhouse gases on the atmosphere, and about the fish-killing properties of big hydroelectric dams, the drawbacks of nuclear power are so small in comparison as to disappear.

Yes, there has to be long-term storage of nuclear waste. And yes, people have to be shielded from radiation at the core of the reactor. But those and other issues are being solved in other parts of the world where nuclear power is a large and growing source of electric energy.

France and Belgium get more than half their electricity from nuclear power, and more than 100 new nuclear power installations are planned in India, China and Russia, McCain said in a speech in Missouri.

If all those countries can safely handle the challenges involved, why do so many opponents insist that America can’t?

Opposition to nuclear reactors has become part of the environmental religion in the United States. But if we no longer like dams, if we don’t like burning coal, if oil and natural gas are variously getting too expensive or hard to get, if solar and wind farms cannot supply the needs of the country, and if people don’t want to do without — without heat, transportation or jobs — then the anti-nuclear part of the environmental faith has to be ignored or overcome. (hh)