The happy cult of renewable energy and radioactive realities

Continuing a theme of dumb editorializing and gasoline taxes, the Washington Post gives its review of the Senate's energy bill which mostly just new CAFE standards. But this is a risible defense of Senate Majority leader Harry Reid:

Senate Republicans used a procedural vote to kill $32 billion in tax credits and incentives for renewable energy producers. They were doing the bidding of the oil and gas industry, which objected to trimming some of its existing tax credits and raising other taxes to pay the cost of incentives to companies working to create new sources of clean energy and to promote energy efficiency. Such revenue adjustment is imperative if America is to reduce its contribution to global warming greenhouse gases. Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) is right to pledge to revive the package.

So intent on castigating the GOP, not once does the editorial mention the only reliable source of energy that just happens to be free of greenhouse gas emissions. That would be nuclear power which has been single-handedly hampered by Nevada's Harry Reid who has stood against the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository:

In the 2006 mid-term elections, the Senate majority was won by the Democratic Party. As a result, Senator Harry Reid D-(NV), a long time opponent, became the Senate Majority Leader, putting Congress in a position to greatly affect the future of the project. Reid has said that he would continue to work to block completion of the project, and is quoted to have said "Yucca Mountain is dead. It'll never happen."

What this means is that current nuclear power plants with spent fuel cannot move the radioactive material to a central location. Further, the nuclear industry isn't going to invest in new reactors or technology because the federal government will not support the waste fuel.

Excluding hydroelectric dams, the renewable energy sources that the Washington Post has such great hope for account for less than one-percent of all energy used in the United States; and this is after thirty years of heavy government subsidies and intense research. Meanwhile, greenhouse gas-free nuclear power generates 20% of all the power used in the U.S. but a lot of these reactors will be shutting down over the next couple decades.

Where, Washington Post, does the more important energy concern lie?