…Nuclear Power is Making a Comeback
1. We are greedy, greedy energy users. Unless consumption patterns change dramatically, energy production and use will contribute to global warming through large-scale greenhouse gas emissions. According to an MIT study, rebuilding nuclear power plants could be one of the principle means of reducing carbon emissions. Unfortunately, alternative energy, while promising, is too early in its development for broad commercialization.
2. September saw the first application for a new nuclear power plant in the United States. Filed by New Jersey-based utility NRG, the company is aspiring to build a plant in Texas. This comes nearly 50 years after the Shippingport Atomic Power Station in Pennsylvana became the first commercial power plant to go online and the first application since 1979 - the year of the Three Mile Island partial meltdown.
3. Politicians are climbing on board. Former New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman, a self-declared environmentalist during the first Bush term, states that “the Bureau of Labor Statistics will tell you that the nuclear industry is the safest place to work - safer than real estate and Wall Street.” Nice.
4. Environmentalists are climbing on board. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace and now co-chair of the Clean and Safe Energy Coalition, used to see nuclear energy as “synonymous with nuclear holocaust.” He is now singing a different tune, declaring “nuclear is the cleanest, safest and has the smallest footprint” of any major means of energy production. And he’s not the only one.
5. Demographics. As of 2006, approximately 41% of the U.S. population was under the age of 30. With every passing year, fewer and fewer people remember the accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl. Given that more people spend time cruising Facebook than history books, this should come as no surprise.
For more about the financial requirements surrounding nuclear power, click here. And for a perspective on the other side of the coin, click here.
