Action Colorado held an energy summit last Friday at Colorado State University Pueblo, and all indications are it was an engaging and informative event. Of particular note was the amount of talk which focused on the future of nuclear energy.

State Sen. Larry Liston was there taking it all in, unsurprising given his stalwart support for nuclear energy over the years. He ran a bill this past session, SB24-039, which would have classified nuclear power as a “clean-energy” source — which it is — for the purpose of making it eligible in the government’s eyes for clean-energy financing — which it currently is not. That bill, as one might have expected, was swiftly dispatched in the first committee.

Sen. Liston remains undeterred, and told me recently he is fully committed to helping along the development of nuclear energy in the state. He revealed he plans to run more bills this coming session along those lines, welcome news to anyone who shares a holistic concern for the future of energy supply.

But it’s not welcome to everyone. Nuclear energy has for decades been the bogeyman of the environmentalist left, the Luddite wing of the Democratic Party who would dis-invent the wheel if they could. It is a testament to the virility of that most-enduring scientific superstition of the 1970s that the tendentious fear of atomic power has lingered for so long, and become so firmly entrenched in our national public policy consciousness, in defiance of science and economics. The official blockade of nuclear energy has even stood firm up against the existential nihilism of concern regarding climate change.

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But there are cracks showing in the anti-nuclear wall. Recently, more and more Democrats in Washington D.C. are cautiously coming out with their support for nuclear energy, driven by the realization that if we want clean, reliable energy to support current and expected demand into the future, it is not going to come from intermittent sources like solar and wind. To that end, even the Biden administration is coming around, announcing some $900 million to help boost the development of advanced small reactors.

It’s about time, though one wonders if it is too little, too late. A free marketplace historically tends to make technological advancements more economical, but the hostility toward nuclear energy has resulted in an economic and regulatory climate that hobbled the market and made it impossible for the technology to be anywhere near competitive. Since 2012 only four new nuclear plants were approved for construction. There are none being built currently.

Contrast that with the People’s Republic of China, which is building 27 nuclear plants today, and plans to build 150 new reactors by 2035, and at a rate far faster than any other country. A new report released by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation informs us China is some 10 to 15 years ahead of the United States in the development of high-tech, fourth-generation nuclear power. One suspects this, as much as anything, has informed the president’s change of heart on nuclear.

Now, China’s state-run, socialist economy, whatever its inherent inefficiencies and human costs, gives the PRC something of an advantage in this arena. China can direct whatever resources it wants toward whatever particular end it deems in the CCP’s interests. Resources can, for instance, be diverted from such superfluous activities as feeding the population or building hospitals toward nuclear technology, per the whim of Chairman Xi and the Chinese Communist Party.

But one cannot help but wonder what their motivation is. It is certainly not an official desire to create clean energy; China is building coal plants at an even faster rate than nuclear reactors.

Well, in an ominous coincidence, another report came out this week that reveals electricity is not the only nuclear ambition propelling the CCP — the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute released an analysis that concludes the PRC is rapidly expanding their nuclear arsenal and could have as many intercontinental ballistic missiles as the U.S. by as early as 2030.

The United States has been asleep at the nuclear wheel for far too long. On the military side, our own nuclear deterrent — if it is to continue to deter — is overdue for an upgrade, and serious investments need to be made in missile defense — and the rest of the military for that matter.

In terms of energy, it is well past time for economics and national security to gently but firmly nudge ideology aside. Oil and natural gas will continue to fuel our economy and electrical grid for some time, but they are depleting resources, ecological considerations cannot be ignored, and renewables do not provide a feasible alternative. Whatever Larry Liston has in the works is probably worth considering, if we wish to vouchsafe our grandchildren the same technological leverage our grandparents vouchsafed us.

Kelly Sloan is a political and public affairs consultant and a recovering journalist based in Denver.