Writing for CNET, Daniel Van Boom asks, “Nuclear power is clean and safe. Why aren’t we using more of it?”. This question can be quickly answered with a short list:
The first two remain the only incidents in which nuclear weapons have been used in warfare, and one hopes this never changes. The rest are examples of what happens when people get sloppy or don’t think things through.
However, we’re drawing the wrong lessons. We should have learned from Hiroshima and Nagasaki that total war and the indiscriminate slaughter of thousands or millions of people are monstrous injustices that ultimately accomplish nothing but the perpetuation of cycles of violence. We should have learned from Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima Daiichi that we must be even more vigilant when using nuclear fission power than we are when using fire.
While we haven’t used nuclear weapons since 1945, we’ve had at least two close calls and lived through a Cold War that resulted in generations living beneath an atomic Sword of Damocles.
I know that nuclear power is generally safe, and that the question of what to do with “spent” fuel is a soluble problem, but it’s hard to overcome decades of anti-nuclear propaganda. I have to admit that I let out a sigh of relief when the TMI-1 reactor at the nearby Three Mile Island plant was finally shut down in 2019.
Regardless, what’s the alternative? We need more solar, wind, hydroelectric, and tidal power, but when renewable power sources aren’t available we need a backup. Right now, that backup is fossil fuel but if the vast majority of climate science is correct fossil fuels are going to be our death (not to mention our use of HFCs in air conditioning).
We need a better backup for renewable power, and our best bet seems to be nuclear. It doesn’t generate nearly as much CO2. The fuel can be safely reprocessed and reused without generating plutonium for bombs. New designs can dramatically reduce the risk of meltdowns and similar disasters. So let’s nuke the fossil fuel industry from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.