One thing Hollywood is very good at is scaring the bejesus out of Americans — even when they’re merely spreading false fears.
A famous movie in 1979 called “The China Syndrome” chronicled a nuclear power accident that could kill tens of thousands of Americans with radiation poisoning. The title came from a spooky fairy-tale scenario in which the nuclear material would melt the earth right through to its core and then all the way down to China. Despite causing few deaths, the Three Mile Island accident in Pennsylvania that year further panicked Americans about the safety of nuclear plants.
The damage to the industry was done and nearly fatal. For nearly four decades, the nuclear industry failed to permit any more new nuclear plants.
That was yesterday. The time is right for a nuclear renaissance. The incoming administration, from President-elect Donald J. Trump on down, is pro-American energy independence. Nuclear power has to be part of the equation.
We need to get back to building new plants so that we have the electric power capacity for the next generation of artificial intelligence and other uses that will tax the grid beyond what it can provide. AI will use three to four times as much energy as the internet, so demand is going to spike and we will be at risk of brownouts.
Jack Spencer — an energy policy expert at the Heritage Foundation — has just published a fabulous policy manifesto, “Nuclear Revolution: Powering the Next Generation,” on how we unleash (we love that word) a nuclear power renaissance in America.
Spencer shows conclusively that “obstructive regulations at the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and anti-nuclear scare tactics from the left are what has inhibited this industry for decades.” It’s as if Jane Fonda (remember her in “The China Syndrome”?) were running our energy policy.
Today we get a little less than 20% of our electric power from decades-old nuclear plants that are now being retired. If we don’t build new ones, we will lose ground on our energy production at the very time we need much more capacity.
The federal government has spent hundreds of billions of dollars on wind and solar subsidies — but these are still niche energy sources that are NOT scalable to meet our $25 trillion industrial economy’s needs. Former Vice President Al Gore and the climate change environmental groups should be all in on nuclear as a clean energy source with very minimal greenhouse gases.
If we double our nuclear power capacity over the next decade or so and allow more natural gas and oil drilling here at home, we can regain our energy dominant position. OPEC would be a toothless tiger, and the Russian war machine could be defunded.
Small reactors that can serve towns of 50,000 to 100,000 people can minimize risks of major plant accidents that could put Americans in danger.
It’s all so logical. It puts America first.
We don’t need Fonda dictating our energy policy any longer.
Stephen Moore is a visiting fellow at the Heritage Foundation. He is also an economic advisor to the Trump campaign. His new book, coauthored with Arthur Laffer, is “The Trump Economic Miracle.”
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The rest of the world is seriously looking at building 4th generation nuclear plants, as the need for reliable baseload power is only going to intensify in the years to come. We really need to stop fixating on the fear tactics the Left in this country is constantly promoting in order to push their fantasy that the United States can completely function with only wind and solar farms. It certainly isn’t economically viable either, when you look at how expensive all these wind and solar projects are and the cost of electricity has indeed skyrocketed as Obama promised it would in 2007 and 2008.
I expect President Trump will quickly put an end to most of the so-called Green New Deal dreams that the Democrats have spent over a trillion dollars of taxpayer money over the last 4 years alone, when he takes office in January. Unfortunately, that is taxpayer money that has just been flushed down the old toilet at this point.
Most Europeans understand wind and solar are not going to cut it, even if some of their clueless leaders are resisting that reality. Already plans in Europe to decommission existing nuclear power plants have been put on indefinite hold and new 4th generation plants are being proposed. The so-called green dream of an EU running solely off wind and solar farms has been a huge failure and nearly destroyed the economies of several major European countries.
China is already well under way building the latest generation of nuclear plants, both large scale and SMR, as they intend to become completely energy independent and able to power the next 50 years of Chinese growth. So, we need to stop flushing hundreds of billions of dollars every year that we don’t have on the Left’s fantasy, and have to rely on borrowing from countries that want to bury us in the dust of history, and instead get back on track towards rebuilding this nation to achieve a better future.
I can’t think of anything uglier, inefficient, and environmentally disastrous than these stupid wind farms. How they ever got a pass from the “greenies” I’ll never know. The navy has figured how to safely use nuclear power. Time to bring some of that technology back to shore.
Energy infrastructure is being dictated by draconian policies and fueled by fear. No new refineries or power plants can ever be built due to regulatory choke hold. Ironically existing sources of energy are also on the chopping block as more stringent environmental requirements are being applied to old systems that don’t have the ability to meet new regulatory guidelines without substantial cost. Instead of proxy war spending, build energy independence that is second to none.
Solar and wind power are both highly intermittent, and, also, handicapped by their need for large footprint… that requires remote siting and long, enormously costly power transmission line runs to connect to existing power grid.
SMR’s (Small Modular Reactors) provide constant power between bi-anual refueling outages, and, can be built on older, existing power plant sites – where they can connect, directly, to existing power grid. There is no better alternative for clean, reliable power.
BTW: Re; the last letter: TMI was basically a small break loss of coolant accident caused by stuck open code safety relief valves on the Pressurizer. The operators did not recognize this since a small break LOCA had never been defined as a scenario in the design basis, and they were not engineers with any education in Thermodynamics. After TMI a licensed Mechanical engineer (trained in thermodynamics) was required to be on shift at every nuclear plant. There was no basic design flaw (yes operator error). There was NO significant radiation release, nor was there any hydrogen explosion that was postulated to happen. Sorry Jane, your movie was wrong and it sucked.
I live one mile north of Palo Verde Nuclear Generation Plant. The plant is as safe as any other power station. But, the corruption from the management of the plant is very scary.
I wonder what Elon Musk thinks of Nuclear power? This seems like the kind of project/problem that he thrives on. There are solutions if you are thinking positive and not condemning possibilities before you’re even started.
It’s about time. We could have been doing this for the last 40 years, with clean skies. Hanoi Jane should be in jail, not dictating anything to anybody.
I just want to know how we handle the waste from a nuclear power plant effectively without poluting. Where do all the spent radioactive materials go?
Good read, and I did not realize that Solar Panel farms required water to operate. What is water used for to produce solar power? And water is a precious commodity that we do not want to waste at any time. Also, does US have any operating uranium mines at this time or would we have to import from other countries?
Solar power might be good for off-grid living of a home but the size of the solar array needed for powering a large building,let alone a community, is enormous. There is an insurance company near where I live that has a huge solar panel array for their campus, but I don’t know if it provides all their power needs. It is probably just a tiny fraction of what they use. Wind turbines, in my opinion, are a huge waste of money. There are a lot of them around here and rarely do I see them moving, even in strong winds. Add to that they are eyesores and ruin the landscape.
Nuclear is clean and safe (as long as the loonies are kept away from it). I think the longer we wait to build new and better nuclear power plants the more likely there is to be an “accident” at the older sites.
The Three Mile Island incident, which was a really bad situation, resulted in no deaths or injuries.
I would think that by now the Nuclear Plants could be built very safely where the risk would be almost non-existent. Sounds like a very sensible way to go forward.
It’s unfortunate that America is too often run by idiots that use scare tactics to control the populace. They used Chernobyl, Fukushima Japan and the non event at TMI to end the use of nuclear energy for electric power generation in America. Then they promote wind turbines and solar panels, which are ugly, take an enormous amount of space and can only provide a minimal amount of power, if there is wind or sunlight. And both are made with the jobs gone to our adversary, in China. Meanwhile our Navy has used nuclear power for ships and submarines for many years and I cannot remember any nuclear events on any ship or sub in that time even though sailors walk in close proximity to nuclear reactors. It’s time to use nuclear energy for electric power generation again! Meanwhile Joe Bidumb plans to shut down 4 hydroelectric plants out West. These use existing dams on a river, which is the most economical (free) and constant source of energy for power generation in the World! And some thought he had a brain!
Very interesting! I live in Nevada where there’s lots of open spaces being filled to overflowing with Solar Panel Fields…miles & miles of them. Imagine the surprise of locals when they found out how much WATER these require! Water is a treasure in the desert, and these fields require TONS of it on a daily basis to function. I see huge water tank trucks ferrying water out of our local basin (deep underground) to the fields that have been built. They were required to put down wells when they were built, but evidently it’s not enough so they have hired a local construction company to haul water out to their solar fields! Why do they need so much water? One day I counted 8 trucks. They carry about 9,000 gallons of water! It’s really sickening. There are also numerous huge fields in other areas that are now sitting dormant… Due to lack of water? They are a hideous blight on the landscape. I wonder if people in Las Vegas have benefited from this power infusion or if it’s ALL going to California? Solar isn’t feasible.
Moore is a smart fella. Europe has many newer Nuke plants. Did anyone die from the Chernobyl melt down? If no, then is it not safe to say that no one has ever died from a Nuclear Power Plant, whereas the pollution from traditional energy sources is said to kill many. Go Nuke and Drill Baby Drill!
I’m for nuclear power but I’m also for not glowing in the dark! Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukishima are all cautionary tales. If you build it, better damned well be safe… and what to do with waste? Harry Reid was all about spending billions to build a facility at Yucca Mountain then all about not using it once the construction was complete!
What a Rose Colored Glasses article that was! And thanks for calling me a leftist (Trump is FAR left of me). The hidden fact that nuclear waste has no “safe” disposal site anywhere should be all we need to shut down these hazardous waste sites. Lets also not to forget to mention the higher incidence of several forms of cancer near these disaster sites. These plants are not at all safe, and no I never saw the dumb movie you speak of,do the research, Hollywood is not reference material. Fossil fuels have served us well and will continue to do so for a very long time.
“Its all so logical”, which in governmentese translates to “when hell freezes over”. I don’t care if Trump or Jesus himself is President, navigating the federal bureacracy is simply impossible unless one is willing to speak in lifetimes of providing anything. And in 2050 or whenever the first new plant comes online one can rest assured it will be full of faults and incredibly well over budget.
The US has been supporting the laughably corrupt country called Ukraine because it sees a little mirror image of itself, including the Nazis (see Chris Wray and his string puller Merrick Garland).
At what cost?
The $900 million Three Mile Island Unit 2 had only operated for three months before its reactor cooling system experienced a component failure on March 28, 1979, followed by operator error and failure to diagnose the accident due to poor reactor design resulted in a partial reactor core meltdown and nuclear fuel damage. TMI 2 was turned into a permanent $1 billion+ radioactive wreck within a few hours. The accident (including an internal hydrogen gas explosion) resulted in radiation releases that went off scale of the unit’s vent stack monitor from the core damage. The narrow radioactive plume travelled up the Susquehanna River valley. The health impacts remain in dispute, while there is no dispute that radiation is clinically proven to be carcinogenic, teratogenic and mutagenic without a safe threshold dose.
However, the nuclear industry was already in decline and experiencing an economic meltdown with the last new construction application that would be successfully completed issued in 1973 and no new reactor construction applications to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission received after 1978. Nearly as many reactor projects would be cancelled or construction abandoned as projects completed because of uncontrollable construction cost and recurring delays in the completion of construction. The last nuclear power station of that era would take 46 years to be issued its 40 year operating license at Watts Bar in Tennessee.
Jane Fonda had nothing to do with any of this.
It wouldn’t be until 2005 and the passage by Congress of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 to federally kick start the so-called “nuclear renaissance” with taxpayer backed federal loan guarantees and production tax credits a streamlined licensing process with less due process afforded affected communities. The US Congressional Research Service (CRS) documented that the industry managed to submit new applications to the NRC for 34 units of advanced reactors for certified designs like the Westinghouse AP1000 pressurized water reactors and the GE Economic and Simplified Boiling Water Reactor. Of those 34 units, nuclear utilities mustered the courage to finance and break ground for only four units (two AP-1000 at V.C. Summer Units 2 & 3 in South Carolina and two units at Vogtle 3 & 4 in Georgia). Westinghouse Electric Corporation went bankrupt (and almost its parent company Toshiba) in cost over runs and recurring construction delays. The SCANA utility abandoned the Summer construction project in 2017 with over $9 billion in sunk cost to be picked up by SC ratepayers without a single watt of benefit. A Westinghouse VP for the SC project has been sentenced to prison and another under house arrest for fraud. The SCANA utility’s CEO and Chief Operations Officer have served their prison sentences for defrauding the South Carolina Public Utilities Commission and state ratepayers. As for Vogtle, the nuclear project barely managed to finish construction (originally with an estimated cost of completion at $14 billion) for more than $35 billion and seven years behind schedule leaving its state electric ratepayers indebted to exorbitantly expensive electric rate shock for the indefinite future.
Speaking of the future and the next generation of unproven reactor designs, the same diseconomies of scale have already cancelled the US Department of Energy’s pet pilot project for the NuScale Small Modular Reactor. NuScale’s SMR was supposedly to be built on the donated federal government site at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls under a power purchase contract with the Utah Association of Municipalities Power Suppliers (UAMPS) for nearly 30 municipalities in several western states.
Again, uncontrolled cost estimates followed by recurring delays for a shifting PowerPoint reactor design caused the collapse and cancellation of this first effort leaving NuScale on shaky financial ground and a score of class action law suits from NYSE investors duped into another kick a Lucy’s football.
This inherently dangerous and expensive nuclear waste generating technology doesn’t seem to have changed its spots.