Just wondering

Reuters tells us that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that

Venezuela and other Latin American countries could develop nuclear energy as an alternative power source for civilian purposes.

"We are interested too, we must start working on that area... the nuclear area. We could, along with Brazil, with Argentina and others, start investigations into the nuclear sector and ask for help from countries like Iran," Chavez said on his regular Sunday TV program.

Now, there are two questions here with regard to nuclear power. One is, do nations have the right to develop nuclear power for domestic energy production? Legally, yes, they do - and that, by the way, includes Iran. (I note for the record I've previously said that I "don't dismiss the possibility of aggressive intent on Iran's part" and there is "some basis for concern," but I think explanations other than trying to conceal a nuclear weapons program are more likely.)

The other question is, is doing that - developing nukes - a good idea? No, it's not. It's a lousy idea. Nuclear power remains, as I dubbed it long ago, "unsafe, uneconomical, and unnecessary." It's wasteful, unhealthy, environmentally destructive, and contributes to nuclear weapons proliferation. Devoting national investments to it is clearly a dumb thing to do.

That would seem to be especially so for a country like Venezuela, which is not only rich in heavy crude oil (it's the world's 5th largest exporter of oil) but also in natural gas, which is the cleanest of the fossil fuels. And it produces 75% of its electricity through government-run hydroelectric plants! So what I'm wondering is, what is the point of nuclear power?

I can think of four reasons, in increasing order of probability:

1) Chavez actually hopes to build nuclear weapons. A very unlikely proposition.

2) Like a good number of other Marxists, he's enamored of industrialization for its own sake, seeing it as advancement and thus nuclear power as progress. (I still recall being told - seriously - by someone in the '60s that "socialist" - meaning in that case owned and operated under Marxist principles - power plants "do not emit pollution.") Possible, but doubtful.

3) He's just saying it to tweak our noses. Not the most likely, but I certainly wouldn't put it past him - and that's not a slam.

4) He envisions some sort of energy consortium as a step toward creating a Latin - or at least a South - America fully economically independent of the US. Now, that seems consistent with other things he has said to date, so I'll go with that one.