Skip to main content

IBD: Make Nuclear Part of Comprehensive Energy Policy

Investor's Business Daily is calling for a comprehensive national energy policy that must include nuclear energy:
The White House also should be taking the argument for increased nuclear power to Congress and the public. Atomic energy now provides nearly 20% of our electricity needs, but that's far less than what it could be delivering. Nuclear power accounts for about 80% of France's electricity, 55% of Belgium's, half of Sweden's and 40% of Switzerland's and South Korea's. Why are we behind?

Atomic energy makes sense. It is efficient. It takes only 0.0007 of a pound of uranium in a commercial reactor to burn a 100-watt light bulb for one year. That same bulb would require 876 pounds of coal or 508 pounds of oil to get the same results, the Nuclear Energy Institute says.

And it is clean. There are no harmful emissions created when nuclear material produces power. Unlike plants fueled by fossil fuels, nuclear plants don't blow smoke when making electricity.

To their credit, some environmentalists have come around to conceding that atomic energy is clean and support, for environmental reasons, the development of more U.S. plants.

But resistance remains. Much of the blame for the weak effort in the U.S. to take advantage of nuclear power should be placed on eco-Luddites still gripped by a paralyzing fear of nuclear power.

None of them, however, can point to a single death in any of those countries that resulted from a nuclear power accident. Yes, 47 died in the former Soviet Union in the 1986 Chernobyl incident. But that was a product of wretched Soviet engineering, not proof that nuclear power is by its nature dangerous.

Comments

Karl said…
These 'Luddites' include most international agencies involved in post-Chernobyl work, not to mention the governments of Belarus (21% of its territory contaminated and rendered unusable for agriculture) Ukraine and Russia. Check this: http://karlmarcks.blogspot.com/
Karl said…
Comment moderation has been enabled. All comments must be approved by the blog author.

Well, that's no surprise... NEI-style

Popular posts from this blog

An Ohio School Board Is Working to Save Nuclear Plants

Ohio faces a decision soon about its two nuclear reactors, Davis-Besse and Perry, and on Wednesday, neighbors of one of those plants issued a cry for help. The reactors’ problem is that the price of electricity they sell on the high-voltage grid is depressed, mostly because of a surplus of natural gas. And the reactors do not get any revenue for the other benefits they provide. Some of those benefits are regional – emissions-free electricity, reliability with months of fuel on-site, and diversity in case of problems or price spikes with gas or coal, state and federal payroll taxes, and national economic stimulus as the plants buy fuel, supplies and services. Some of the benefits are highly localized, including employment and property taxes. One locality is already feeling the pinch: Oak Harbor on Lake Erie, home to Davis-Besse. The town has a middle school in a building that is 106 years old, and an elementary school from the 1950s, and on May 2 was scheduled to have a referendu

Why Ex-Im Bank Board Nominations Will Turn the Page on a Dysfunctional Chapter in Washington

In our present era of political discord, could Washington agree to support an agency that creates thousands of American jobs by enabling U.S. companies of all sizes to compete in foreign markets? What if that agency generated nearly billions of dollars more in revenue than the cost of its operations and returned that money – $7 billion over the past two decades – to U.S. taxpayers? In fact, that agency, the Export-Import Bank of the United States (Ex-Im Bank), was reauthorized by a large majority of Congress in 2015. To be sure, the matter was not without controversy. A bipartisan House coalition resorted to a rarely-used parliamentary maneuver in order to force a vote. But when Congress voted, Ex-Im Bank won a supermajority in the House and a large majority in the Senate. For almost two years, however, Ex-Im Bank has been unable to function fully because a single Senate committee chairman prevented the confirmation of nominees to its Board of Directors. Without a quorum

NEI Praises Connecticut Action in Support of Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week, Connecticut Gov. Dannel P. Malloy signed SB-1501 into law, legislation that puts nuclear energy on an equal footing with other non-emitting sources of energy in the state’s electricity marketplace. “Gov. Malloy and the state legislature deserve praise for their decision to support Dominion’s Millstone Power Station and the 1,500 Connecticut residents who work there," said NEI President and CEO Maria Korsnick. "By opening the door to Millstone having equal access to auctions open to other non-emitting sources of electricity, the state will help preserve $1.5 billion in economic activity, grid resiliency and reliability, and clean air that all residents of the state can enjoy," Korsnick said. Millstone Power Station Korsnick continued, "Connecticut is the third state to re-balance its electricity marketplace, joining New York and Illinois, which took their own legislative paths to preserving nuclear power plants in 2016. Now attention should