I would first like to praise Paige Pinkston's column, "Implementation of alternative energy sources is what U.S. needs" (CT, Nov 14), for bringing attention to a critical issue.
More emphasis on balancing energy and environmental policies should be placed on the political agenda for the days and decades ahead. While Pinkston rightly points out that an increased emphasis must be placed on alternative energy sources such as nuclear, solar and wind, I believe that there is a bias that unfairly diminishes the potential benefits of nuclear power.
With balance in mind, a disproportionate amount of time was spent on nuclear energy's drawbacks and dangers, as opposed to its benefits. In this regard, we are drawn to the already pervasive anti-nuclear attitude that environmental groups such as Greenpeace and the Sierra Club promote. In an ever-growing world, natural resources are becoming increasingly strained, populations are skyrocketing and the need for energy is becoming absolutely enormous, not only in the states, but the Third World as well.
This trend will only intensify as the developing world creates more races toward first-world standards. Therefore, I would deem it an uninformed and irresponsible decision by lawmakers if they were to scrap nuclear power as too dangerous and polluting.
Hitherto, we must ask ourselves these questions: Why should we strongly consider nuclear energy? And why is there such an intense pushback from environmental groups? To outline why we should consider nuclear energy, I will build on arguments previously raised in the Pinkston column. Pinkston mentioned that nuclear energy "does not create greenhouse gas emissions." This is true; it does not produce the greenhouse gas mainly emitted by human activity, carbon dioxide. In fact, nuclear energy accounted for 36 percent of voluntary greenhouse gas reduction in 2005, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. In other words, nuclear energy prevented roughly 138 million metric tons of carbon dioxide from entering the atmosphere.
Nuclear energy has already proven to provide large-scale electricity production 24/7 economically, compared to wind and solar, which only do so sporadically. One prime example of this success is France, which procures about 75 percent of its electricity from nuclear energy. In a related point, we should preclude any preconception that nuclear energy in any way undermines our environmental protection laws, such as the Clean Air Act of 1970. Indeed, if nuclear energy has affected this law, it has only helped it by cutting emissions of nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide.
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A couple of notes to add to your column. First, there were no deaths as a result of the accident at Three Mile Island. No radiation ever escaped into the environment. Second, before someone brings up the nuclear waste issue, consider the ridiculous requirement that the Yucca Mountain facility be certified safe for 10,000 years. All of recorded history covers only about 10,000 years. Consider the technological advances in that time, and it is easy to imagine that we will be able to develop new storage and disposal methods for nuclear waste. The author is right - nuclear energy is the obvious solution to our needs. It takes more than 60 large wind turbines at 1.5 KW each to equal the power of a 1 MW nuclear reactor, and they only work when and where the wind blows. Nuclear power works anywhere, all the time.
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