On Germany's nuclear shutdown

Germany's agreement on June 11 to shut down the country's 19 nuclear plants is further evidence that President Bush was wise to ignore Europe's hypocritical hand-wringers and dump the 1997 Kyoto treaty. ...

Germany's 19 nuclear plants produce 35 percent of the country's electricity with nary a hothouse fume. If they were to shut down, the engine of Europe's largest economy would stall, unless the facilities were replaced with plants that produce the gases that Germany had agreed to reduce.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who has led Europe's browbeating of Bush, is vague about what Germany will do to replace its lost power, though he offers baseless assurances that the solution will be "environmentally friendly."

It sounds wonderful, since no one likes smog, and so-called "soft path" energy sources, such as wind power and solar cells, don't produce any. But as California finally has realized after decades of trying, the soft path can only take you so far. The Golden State has dumped billions into developing renewable energy in the past 30 years. ...

Even if Germany can match California's commitment to renewable energy, a number of big coal-, oil-, and gas-burners will have to be built to make up for the lost nuclear power ..., which is why Germany (and every other country that signed the Kyoto accord) has failed to ratify it.

The U.S. Senate voted 95-0 last year against ratifying the treaty and Bush decided this year to end the charade and dump it altogether. Germans have produced a lot of hot air recently with their Pecksniffian posturing over this great environmental snub, but their actions prove Bush was right all along.

-- The Salt Lake Tribune, U.S.