Governor Brian Schweitzer is a swashbuckling policy entrepreneur. He’s charmed the elite East Coast media with his Western swagger and tough talk about turning Montana’s abundant coal reserves into synthetic fuels: “Why wouldn’t we create an economic engine that will take us into the next century, and let those sheiks and dictators and rats and crooks from all over the world boil in their own oil?” This is great stuff.

But the Governor’s coal to liquid fuel plan is likely to be scuttled by concerns over water consumption and CO2 emissions. Here’s an alternative proposal our Governor might consider. There may be reasons why it’s not practical, but it fits his image and is sure to generate attention in the New York Times. The U.S. Navy could be allowed to operate a nuclear reactor providing Billings with electricity. What’s not to like about enlisting the world’s most successful nuclear reactor operators to help make Montana a leader in bringing low carbon energy online?

The West has a connection with the Navy’s nuclear program. Much of the early development work on naval reactors was done at the Idaho National Laboratory and the crew of the Navy’s first nuclear powered submarine, the Nautilus, trained there. The Navy’s reactor program has a storied and successful past. It thrived under the leadership of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. Known as the “Father of the Nuclear Navy,” at 63 years, Rickover was the longest-serving active duty military officer in U.S. history. Born in Poland, his parents fled anti-Semitic pogroms. They settled in Chicago, and Rickover eventually won appointment to the Naval Academy.

Rickover’s team developed a compact (small enough to fit into a submarine with a 28-foot beam), highly reliable, safe nuclear reactor. This was a substantial achievement, considering that in the early 1950s, a one megawatt- reactor occupied an area the size of a city block.

Obsessed with safety, Rickover personally interviewed, and approved or denied, every prospective officer considering service on a nuclear powered ship. Rickover’s high standards and personal integrity are largely responsible for the Navy’s record of zero reactor accidents. And like Governor Schweitzer, Rickover urged the development of alternatives to fossil fuels.

An important paper in Science describes the challenge we face of bringing sufficient low carbon sources online to meet global energy demands that are likely to triple by 2050: “Stabilizing...carbon dioxide...is an energy problem.... [S]tabilization will require the development...of primary energy sources that do not emit carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.... Mid-century primary power requirements that are free of carbon dioxide emissions could be several times what we now derive from fossil fuels (~10 [to the 13th power] watts)....”

How will we meet this energy demand and with what environmental consequences?

There are now 439 nuclear reactors in operation worldwide, meeting the power needs of more than a billion people. Thirty-four new ones are under construction in 14 countries (none are in the U.S.). In 2007, France got 77 percent of its power from nuclear plants; Lithuania 64 percent; Belgium 54 percent; Sweden 46 percent; Switzerland 40 percent; Japan 35 percent; Germany 26 percent; the U.S. 20 percent; the U.K. 19 percent; and Spain 17 percent.

Uranium, even enriched to 90 percent, can be handled with bare hands. (Those who examine each fuel rod wear gloves to protect the fuel from the oil on their hands, not for protection from the fuel.) Nuclear power is not perfectly safe. Nothing is. But the relevant fact is that nuclear power is safer, and more environmentally friendly, than any other feasible low carbon alternative.

The Navy’s newest reactors are reportedly capable of generating enough electricity to light up a small city. We can ship Navy reactors to Montana in rail cars and roll them into a containment building at any of our coal-fired plants. Connections to the grid are already in place.

Making this happen requires the skills of a political entrepreneur, like those of our Governor. I’ll be the first to celebrate if he adds this substance to his energy swagger.