America Needs Nuclear Power

I generally agree with Bob Cesca, but I really disagree with his most recent article on the Huffington Post.  He argues that relying on fossil fuels and nuclear energy is the way of the past and that the real path forward for America should be to a new, totally clean and renewable energy paradigm.

In the long run, I think it is possible to think of an America that receives all or almost all of its energy from a combination of biomass, solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, wave and tidal power.  But over the course of the next several decades, that just isn't possible.

Even with the best energy storage systems and a really well designed and well managed electric grid, intermittent renewable resources can't provide all of the energy we need.  The wind doesn't always blow and the sun doesn't always shine.  With good technology and a wide enough geographical dispersion of interconnected generation resources, you can mitigate a lot of that variability in order to keep the grid stable.  But it's impossible for me to imagine any time in the next 15-20 years when that is an achievable goal.  We should certainly strive for it, but nobody should be holding his or her breath.

So where does that leave us?  It leaves us still requiring significant base load resources, which is to say large plants that operate at a high capacity with consistent output for long periods of time.  What does that mean?  It means hydro, biomass, oil, coal, gas or nuclear.  Hydro power and biomass are important parts of our energy supply mix and should be expanded.  But they still aren't enough to get us over the hump.  In other words, if we want to reduce our dependence on fossil fuels and the corresponding greenhouse gas emissions, nuclear has to remain in the mix.  Full stop.

We obviously have to do everything imaginable to make nuclear as safe as it can be.  That means tight regulations and extremely well-trained staff, both of which we mostly have already.  Additionally, we need to find a viable long term solution for storing nuclear waste.  If we can get over the parochial NIMBYism of a lot of people, that can be relatively easily resolved.  Unless we want to continue burning massive amounts of fossil fuels to supply our energy, nukes should be here to stay.