Atomic power improves education

The debate over the quality of education in this country is not a debate at all in Gaffney, SC. There the community of 13,000 "promised to establish new science, math and engineering courses in local schools". Is this a response to the federal No Child Left Behind Act? Nope. The town is vying for an atomic power plant to be built there:

"We're looking at the kids who are in fifth grade," [Executive Director of the Cherokee County Development Board James P.] Inman said. "Those are the ones who need to start getting ready now for the jobs that are coming. That way they won't have to move away to find work if they don't want to."

There's oppostion to the Gaffney plant. But I think people are at last beginning to take a realistic view of the risks and the potential benefits -- the old Ben Franklin method triumphant.

"The financial impact here will be phenomenal," [Cherokee County Council chairman L. Hoke] Parris said. "Right now, downtown's pretty much dead. Pretty much all we've got is Wal-Mart and the yellow mall."

Besides, he said, there have been nuclear facilities around the region for decades, and he thinks residents in the Carolinas have gotten used to them.

"I think people are just pretty much comfortable with nuclear power in this part of the country," Mr. Parris said. "We're getting farther away from Chernobyl and Three Mile Island."