"Oh, no! They say he's got to go! Go, go, Godzilla!"

Until recently, the term “meltdown” was a euphemism for the mental dissociation that Charlie Sheen is suffering from. Then God—or Mother Earth—shook Japan out like a dirty rug, and everything changed.

I don’t have any money to invest, but ever since the 1980s, when I have a spare dollar, I have placed it in bonds supporting nuclear energy. Back in the ‘80s—when Jackson Browne was singing his anti-nuke songs with his electric guitar powered by the much-maligned Indian Point nuclear power plant in New York—I knew that the future, like it or not, was going to be the conversion from coal/oil technology to atomic energy. Hydro-power is fine where you can find the geology to support it, as are wind and solar alternatives. However, the technology still hasn’t caught up to the expectations that began to take root in the 1960s. When you plug an “electric” car in today, where do you think that electricity comes from? Odds are, it comes from a nuclear power plant.

The old hippie moondog in my DNA looks forward to the day when we can achieve peaceful co-existence with our veggie buddies, and convert solar energy as effortlessly as plants do. There is still a lot of flammable, recyclable dinosaur crap around, if only people will get serious about drilling for it. There are a lot of factors behind the reason we haven’t become energy-independent yet. I am not discounting the sinister conspiracy theories that the tin-foil-hat crowd ascribes to the oil industry. I’m a Luddite who can barely use a computer, and still think a horse is the best form of “green” transportation. Despite this, there are people out there thinking outside the box, and doing astounding things every day. That goes back to the conspiracy theory; I think the technology is there, or we’re right on the edge of a breakthrough.

Be that as it may, we haven’t arrived at that point in history yet. Although there will never be anything to equal the rush of unleashing the equivalent of 400 horses with exploding fire to propel a penis-shaped car at 150 miles per hour, I’m pragmatic enough to acknowledge that we need to take seriously the need for change in our energy requirements. Nuclear energy has been around since before I was born, and we have learned to do more with it than make it go “BANG!” Now, the economics of energy have become a matter of national security, and there are enough rogue nations out there with the potential to make atoms go “BANG!” in our back yard.

We don’t need to be in a state of paralysis if/when those Third World nations turn on us because our theology differs from theirs. Becoming a hostage to a cargo cult is not a fitting end for the world’s last empire, and can get nasty on the personal level. Our national integrity has always been supported by our energetic ability to do whatever is necessary to preserve the nation and the culture, but we’re at a tipping point.

No form of energy stronger than animal power is perfect. Everyone is familiar with the Hollyweird clichés of early oil wildcatters standing exalted, with nature’s nasty bounty spewing out of the well onto them. Who remembers “Red” Adair, who made a living putting out those oil wells when the natural gas ignited? The coal mining industry is rife with hazards, from disease from breathing the dust to cave-ins to sudden explosions. Can any casual reader remember why early miners took caged canaries down into the shafts?

A lot of state capitals, especially in the east, are located in the central parts of the states, because that was the egalitarian location for the majority of citizens to reach the capital by horseback. Despite my equine enthusiasm, we shouldn’t have to return to those days when messages were carried in saddlebags. It’s a new age; we’re all wired, and wireless, and micro-plug brain implants are just around the corner. I’m one of those left on the cusp between wood-burning stoves, oil lamps, and touch-screen cell phones. Few days pass when I don’t wonder what my grandmother—born in 1886—would think if she saw what’s happening today. She went from a day when ladies lifted their skirts in the streets so they wouldn’t drag in horseshit to seeing men walk on the moon, and moon-walking is ancient history by today’s standards.

My point is, we have a cheap, lasting, easily-renewable energy source at our fingertips. Nuclear energy isn’t perfect, but we already have the technology to control it safely. I’m wondering why the Japanese haven’t buried Fukushima Dai-Ichi under tons of containment concrete already, and begun taking bids on a replacement facility. They’re going to need it to keep The Rainbow Bridge lit.

So, what’s the deal with all these panicked gasbags here? The same know-nothings who were worried about caribou snuggling up to the Alaska pipeline for the frictional warmth are now suddenly hysterical about the prospect of millions of Americans becoming irradiated. When the decomposed dinosaurs finally peter out, we’re going to have to find another way to keep the I-Tunes and Internet porn coming, and my best bet is that it’s going to be nuclear energy for a while.

Serendipity, as I write this, “Godzilla” by Blue Oyster Cult comes around on the CD. When the first news of the Japan earthquake penetrated my half-awake consciousness, I woke laughing and mumbling “Oh, no! There goes Tokyo!” Then I saw the footage, and joined a prayer posse, because it’s no laughing matter.

Roland Emmerich, the film director, has done Al Gore’s leftist-propaganda version of the end of the world [“The Day After Tomorrow”] and a splendid CGI remake of “Godzilla.” He also turned out a highly-entertaining vision of an alternative end of the world: “2012”, based on the Mayan calendar that ends in December of next year.

He doesn’t always get the physics right, but I’m with Emmerich and the Mayans. If the Earth’s crust becomes destabilized, there is nothing to keep the nuclear power plants from collapsing into glowing heaps of rubble. In the mean time, allowing for tectonic shifts, bad weather, and terrorist efforts, the technology is available to support nuclear power as a viable alternative to burning crapped-out dinosaurs in our energy generators. I have a vague optimism that one day we’ll live in harmony with the universe like H.G. Wells’s Eloi in The Time Machine, and the sun, wind, and rain will provide everything we need, energy-wise.

Meanwhile, we may have to become Morlocks and bash atomic particles into submission for their energy-rich potential. That’s where my money’s at.