No matter how old and flabby he or she may be, the government thinks your nighttime partner is one “hot” body. That’s because the natural background radiation emitted by every human body on Earth exceeds the standard set by federal agencies to qualify as a “regulated source.” Perhaps this radiation is the true “marriage penalty”?

Apparently, the human body is so sensitive to radiation that it can’t be exposed to itself. Either that, or modern society’s attitude toward radiation is so irrationally restrictive that the standards for acceptable exposure might be a tad overdone. Such nonsense would be laughable, except that these ludicrous standards for radiation “safety” and the general public’s phobia of radiation (in any amount) constitute major impediments to the expansion of the nuclear power industry in the United States and Europe.

This is quite a shame – particularly now, when the public and lawmakers (driven by concerns over carbon emissions and the pipe dream of “energy independence”) are in a scramble to subsidize all manner of alternative energy sources – except for nuclear. The difference between nuclear and other non-fossil-fuel alternatives, such as ethanol, wind, and solar, is simple: nuclear is the only alternative capable of providing more than a small fraction of our energy needs.

Nuclear is truly carbon-neutral, well-proven (it provides 20 percent of America’s electrical power needs), relies on no nasty third-world types, and has the added benefit of burning the same fuel as nuclear bombs. Every nuclear power plant built means there will be slightly less uranium available for Armageddon, and that uranium’s world price will be high enough to make bomb-making ambitions less tenable. Why bomb Iran when we could just outbid them?

If we are going to subsidize an energy source to compete with oil and gas, why not subsidize one that helps save the world, rather than just Archer Daniels Midland? But most people think increased nuclear power is about as good an idea as issuing concealed-carry permits to preschoolers. It’s just unthinkably dangerous!

Yet if it’s radiation that you fear, then you should be all for nuclear. According to the EPA, living within 50 miles of a nuclear power plant increases one’s annual radiation exposure by about 0.009 millirems (mrem) per year. Compare that to living within 50 miles of a coal-fired power plant, which (because of the uranium contained in coal and thus coal smoke) exposes you to 0.03 mrem per year – more than triple the radiation exposure from a nuclear plant.

And how much is 0.009 mrem anyway? Your annual exposure from all sources is about 300 mrem. A single chest X-ray is 40 mrem. Your television exposes you to 1 mrem of radiation each year. Living in a brick home gives you 7 mrem per year. Just breathing air (which is chock full of radon gas) gives you about 200 mrem per year. And eating a banana (rich in potassium, including the natural radioisotope potassium-40) will give you about 0.007 mrem. Living close to a nuclear power plant is approximately as dangerous as 1.4 bananas, as far as average radiation exposure is concerned.

Even extraordinary accidents are a small risk. Three Mile Island, the worst release of radiation in the history of the Western world’s nuclear power industry, is estimated to have exposed those living within 5 miles of the plant to about 9 mrem – about the same increase as flying 1000 miles in a jet airliner (which exposes one to increased cosmic rays).

The much worse Chernobyl disaster was a product of the Soviet system of authoritarianism and dictatorship, and hanging it around the neck of the Western nuclear community makes about as much sense as blaming the U.S. Postal Service for the old Soviet system of gulags. But even if we include Chernobyl, nuclear power has killed far fewer people than soot from fossil fuels.

We are in the midst of one of the most far-reaching public debates in all history over the energy industry and its future form. Yet how this energy debate is supposed to produce anything other than silly conclusions is unclear, given the widespread ignorance over oil, gas, wind, ethanol, solar, coal, and nuclear energy that is evident at every turn.

What do you bet Bananas Foster is considered a “dirty bomb”?