Nuclear Energy – My thoughts

Since the Japan earthquake a few weeks ago, the use of nuclear energy here in the US has become a debating point again.  And once again, the issue is politically split between the anti-nuke gang and nuclear power supporters.

I’ve always thought nuclear energy was a good safe clean source, and I still do.  I have no problem with coal, natural gas, or even petroleum, except they are all FINITE.  They’re going to run out some day….some a lot sooner than others.  I’m also not impressed with the wind and solar type stuff, although I think as their technology improves over the years, they may be more useful.  In my mind, they all have two things in common:  (1) they are all incredibly expensive to get up and running to the point they are readily and usefully available at a reasonable price for all of us, and (2) they all have a certain amount of inherent danger in their production.  OK, maybe solar and wind less so, and they are definitely renewable, or infinite, but their everyday cheap use by everyone is years – maybe decades – away.

But over the years, look at all the coal mining disasters, natural gas explosions, oil well disasters (remember last summer?) and refinery fires.  Converting solid materials into energy is a dangerous action (from what I remember of high school chemistry…I never took physics). But we need energy, period.  So we need to decide what sacrifices/tradeoffs we’re willing to make.  And nuclear needs to be considered in the mix.  The last nuclear accident in the US was in 1979, at Three Mile Island.  Personally, I think the panic over the spread of nuclear radiation is just that – panic.  For some reason, I’m not worried about the threat of nuclear radiation from a generating plant.

The industry seems to respond to new threats.  After the September 11 attacks, adjustments were made to try to make them safer against an airplane attack.  (I say “try,” because I don’t think any plant – nuclear or otherwise – can ever be completely safe from anyone who wants to destroy/damage it bad enough.)  Likewise with earthquakes and tsunamis.  While I understand the Diablo Canyon plant in California is near the San Andreas fault, I’ve also heard that measures have been taken to mitigate damage should the “big one” hit (and it will, one day).  While earthquakes are a possibility almost anywhere in the US, the safety measures seem to include immediate shutdown, but they do need power to keep the cooling systems going.  And so they did in Japan, until the tsunami hit, and knocked out the power to the cooling systems and all backups.  Most nuclear plants in the US are not near the coast, so would not be affected by a tsunami, and could probably keep power – albeit emergency backup – going to the cooling systems.

So my final thought is this:  Let’s not panic.  Let’s learn from history, and adjust accordingly.  We can’t account for every possible doomsday scenario, but we can learn from what we do know, and move forward from there.  But let’s not just run screaming and crying away from nuclear just because of what happened in Japan.  Let’s use our brains, our ability to reason, and our common sense and consider ALL forms of energy for our future, and consider nuclear as a major source of our energy supply.  As long as we need energy – and that’s forever – we need nuclear.