Neolib, your environmental bent is distorting your economic judgment.
All an environmental bent should mean is that you want public commons protected, such as air, water, spectrum. Or, if there is some tolerable level of pollution, then we the people might as well sell the right to pollute to the highest bidder.
We environmentalists aren't rabid religionists who will destroy the village to save it. We want things better, not worse. Unfortunately, luddites have climbed on the environmental bandwagon, polluting environmental sense.
In the instance of the USA you mentioned, the difference between the USA and Iran for their energy needs is that the USA doesn't have sufficient hydrocarbons to keep them moving, whereas Iran is awash in hydrocarbons and doesn't need nuclear energy. So it is quite true that nuclear energy is good for the USA and bad for Iran.
The income from hydrocarbon sales today should not go to nuclear energy now, but to income generating assets such as roads, and other public facilities. The pipeline is not needed. The hydrocarbons that would flow down the pipeline should be used in Iran to produce valuable products such as methanol, plastics and value-added finished goods, which would be the way to provide employment for the people you are concerned about.
Building a pipeline to India, selling the gas to India, using the money received to build nuclear reactors, will waste Iran's resources, leaving no future for the people you are concerned about. They'll be sitting in a desert with nuclear reactors and no industry and no gas.
Have you heard of Occam's Razor? The simple answer is that Iran wants nuclear bombs. Why pretend otherwise?
Mqurice |
