Energy Sanity – part three

One type of energy that is not often mentioned is nuclear. A nuclear power plant gives off no greenhouse gases. It gives off no soot or other pollutants. In fact, nuclear power is completely clean. One would think that the environmentalists would clamor for more nuclear plants.

Unfortunately, nuclear power in the USA was done in by the Three Mile Island problem in 1979. No one was injured; no one died, but nuclear energy was labeled “dangerous”. Plants have operated for half a century in the USA, France, Germany, the UK, and many other countries. In all that time, the only real problem was in Chernobyl in what was the Soviet Union. No one knows for sure what sort of safeguards the Soviets required, but they were not enough for that plant. We do know, however, that in the West, none of the plants have failed. In truth, the fear of nuclear power in the USA is irrational. We are importing liquefied natural gas in tankers, but we cannot build nuclear plants. We one of the LNG tankers to explode, the blast would rival a nuclear bomb. That is ok, but we cannot build a nuclear plant. It simply makes no sense.

The principal method used to stop construction of nuclear plants is the dispute over the disposal of nuclear fuel. There is no question that the spent fuel rods are dangerous and need to be properly stored. There is nothing to suggest that this cannot be done, however. Indeed, the plan to store this spent fuel in Yucca Mountain in Nevada was a good one, one that died, however, at the hands of the hysterics.

A rational national energy policy would push for the construction of many more nuclear power plants. It would set federal standards for the plants that superseded state and local requirements. It would approve a standard design for these plants so that each application would not require years of review. It would provide regulations for locating these facilities far from cities so that some of the anti-nuclear hysteria can be avoided. These same regulations would require minimum security measures that would assure the safety of the plant against a break in. There is no reason why power plants cannot be located far from cities with power lines bring the power to those cities. For example, Montana Power has four large plants at the town of Coalstrip, which, as the name suggests, is adjacent to a very large strip mine that supplies the coal to the plants. Similar locations for a few hundred nuclear plants could reduce the need for oil and other fossil fuels significantly. Better still, it would improve the US balance of trade by cutting fuel imports dramatically. Best of all, it would supply energy at a price that would not vary with the whims of OPEC. It would give the US a measure of energy independence.

President Obama has said on more than one occasion that he is in favor of using nuclear energy. Of course, as soon as he mentions nuclear energy, he forgets about it until the next time he gives a speech on the subject when he trots out the idea again. Obama, however, has never actually done anything to promote nuclear energy. Obama has nuclear energy down there with natural gas and clean coal as energy concepts that he will not support although he also will not mention that lack of support.