WHY NOT NUCLEAR?

We won’t argue whether climate change is man-made or natural. Nor will we argue whether renewable energy is superior to fossil fuels. The fact is we have an electricity-driven home life, and a fossil-fuel-driven mobile life. It is in everybody’s best interest to find the best balance of which types of energy will provide the best, cheapest, most efficient, most climate friendly, dependable energy source for each need.

With the American penchant for travel, we can’t see electric vehicles (EV) taking over for all uses without a radical expansion of the charging network, coupled with the ability to charge in much less time than it takes now and batteries that are much more energy dense. No one wants to be delayed an hour or more just to fuel up, and to have to stop to do so every two hundred miles or so. That’s where fossil-fueled vehicles have the advantage. Quick refueling and on your way for another three hundred miles.

We note the construction of solar farms, many of which are huge. This is a decision that, hopefully, was made after looking at all the environmental issues such as days of sunshine per year, etc. In the central US we get about 219 days of full and partial sun per year. Is that enough to make a solar farm profitable? We note that solar farms in Arizona, with close to 365 sunny days per year, are more productive and probably more profitable.

As for wind turbines, these devices require an average annual wind speed of 12 mph. There are few places in the US with the appropriate wind speed and topography for a wind farm, and the environmental issues with wildlife mortality are a problem.

When we look at what’s available now – not someday soon – we find that, although wind and solar have possibilities and for some uses are particularly well suited, we don’t believe our economy and civilization can be supported by these choices today.

Sure, there are other niche technologies like heat storage or pumped hydro storage, but these are particular to a specific environment or use and are not currently ready for prime time.

That leaves fossil fuel and nuclear.

Let’s talk about fossil fuel first. Gasoline and diesel predominantly power our vehicles. These fuels are relatively cheap, available, and the technology to use them is mature. The problem is emissions.

Internal combustion engines can be powered by natural gas, which reduces emissions significantly and conversion to natural gas for the personal vehicle and pickup truck fleets would be beneficial.

Current diesel technology also produces significantly less pollutants than older diesel tech did.

And then there’s nuclear, a clean, safe, available, mature technology. The problem with nuclear is that we’re scared of it. We shouldn’t be. Nuclear plants in the US have been producing power for a generation without problems or disasters. The only issue that comes to mind is Three Mile Island, and that had significant effects, unfortunately.

The Three Mile Island (TMI) incident had a profound impact on public perception and attitudes toward nuclear power. It eroded public confidence in the safety of nuclear energy and raised concerns about the potential for catastrophic accidents. This event contributed to increased scrutiny and regulation of the nuclear power industry.

The TMI accident led to a reassessment of nuclear safety regulations in the United States. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) implemented stricter safety standards, improved emergency preparedness measures, and enhanced oversight of nuclear power plants. The regulatory changes aimed to prevent similar accidents and improve the overall safety of nuclear facilities.

The actual effect of TMI – ignoring the public fear that environmentalists have been feeding on since 1979 – was and is minimal. There were no deaths attributed to TMI. The actual environmental impact was minimal, contained to a small release of radioactive gas and iodine with no immediate health consequences.

What the major effect of TMI was and continues to be is the lack of public trust in nuclear energy. This one incident effectively crippled the nuclear industry, even though the end result was processes and procedures for running nuclear facilities that resolved the TMI issues.

Nuclear is the power source we need for today and the future. The only way to generate enough electricity to power our mobile and home lives is to go nuclear. The nuclear plants in operation today have over 40 years of safer power production history producing clean, environmentally safe power.

But what about spent fuel rods? Unfortunately no solution is perfect and the used fuel for nuclear reactors is a problem. There are solutions such as storage pools or dry casket storage, but eventually there will have to be a mass storage solution as some of the elements left in spent fuel rods have a half-life of thousands of years. One solution to long-term storage is a geological repository. The problem here is no one wants it in their state. Spent fuel handling is a problem that begs a solution, however we still believe nuclear is where we need to go for the near-term.

There is no doubt that wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources will mature and be viable in the future. If they don’t, we’ll find something that will work.

Meanwhile the solution is staring at us, and it’s nuclear.