America’s green nuclear age?
A new generation of nuclear reactors is pitched as the solution to our energy and climate problems
A nuclear power plant in Missouri: time for a new generation of reactors?
(Corbis/Visions of America/Joseph Sohm)
“The Greens” have kept us from developing new nuclear power since the Three Mile Island disaster, said venture capitalist Bob Metcalfe in The Wall Street Journal, but they can’t stop America’s “new nuclear revolution.” Nor should they want to. A new generation of small, “far safer” nuclear fission reactors could provide us with plenty of “cheap and clean energy,” if the government would only lower the “astronomical” costs and regulatory risks of building new reactors.
Energy companies are “open” to safe, cheap new nuclear technologies, said Sara Patton in The Seattle Times, but “the nuclear industry simply isn’t there yet.” Increasing efficiency and focusing on renewable energy are safer and cheaper ways of meeting our growing energy needs than placing “another high-risk bet on nuclear power”—and they avoid the problem of nuclear waste.
Ah, but some new reactors, such as GE’s PRISM plants, are actually designed to run on old nuclear waste, said Felix Salmon in Reuters, and they’d be affordable and “super-safe,” shutting down instead of melting down if there’s a problem. They can also be retrofitted into coal plants. What's missing is “political will,” and billions of dollars for testing and approval.
The political will may be there soon, said Steve Williams in the Victoryville, Calif., Daily Press. Energy Secretary Stephen Chu “has made nuclear power an agency priority,” and the Obama administration just approved $18.5 billion in funding to start reviving the U.S. nuclear industry. Taxpayers, consumers, and even environmentalists should welcome this “vast about-face” in energy policy.
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2 Comments
Posted by James Aach, Wednesday, June 24, 2009, 11:00 am One of the problems with nuclear power is that most people have no real world experience just academic papers, propaganda from both sides, cheery reports like those above, and really bad TV movies. As a longtime nuke plant worker, I've written Rad Decision to show the real world of nuclear, good and bad. It is available free online at RadDecision.blogspot.com . No advertisting, no sponsors, no for the author.I'd like to see Rad Decision widely read. Stewart Brand, noted futurist and founder of The Whole Earth Catalog
Posted by PJ, Thursday, June 25, 2009, 2:28 pm It's not just nuclear waste, but the incredibly high costs financial and environmental and human of mining uranium that make nuclear power a BAD idea. If you just look at emissions and efficiency it seems like a good thing. But step back and look at it in context, before and after. Some new reactors are designed to run on nuclear waste? Sounds like a fantasy to me. And even if true, do those produce waste? What about reactors that require new fuel? Where does that come from? Most people have never thought about that.
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