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Nuclear Energy – The New “Green” Energy

Posted on Friday, January 17, 2025
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by Ben Solis
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An increasing number of states have now passed legislation designating nuclear power as a source of “green energy.” Congress could soon be set to do the same.

Ohio became the latest state to pass such legislation just before Christmas when Governor Mike DeWine signed HB 308, officially rolling nuclear under the state’s legal definition of “green energy.” Notably, the bill garnered support from both Republicans and Democrats, who said the legislation signaled that Ohio is open for nuclear research and development.

One of the bill’s cosponsors, Sean Brennan, a Democrat from Parma, has said such legislation is necessary to meet growing energy demand. “It doesn’t promise any incentives or anything beyond simply placing nuclear under the category of green energy in the Ohio Revised Code,” Brennan told The Akron Signal. Ohio also passed a bill in 2023 designating natural gas as green energy.

The Buckeye State joins a growing list of other states that have passed similar legislation, including Idaho, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Utah. Even states that haven’t officially designated nuclear as “green” have shown interest in nuclear as new technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs) promise to make nuclear power generation safer and cheaper than ever before.

In light of these developments, investment in nuclear power as green energy, or perhaps more accurately clean energy, could become a key part of fulfilling President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to deliver “the number one lowest cost energy and electricity on earth.” The International Energy Agency estimates the cost of electricity production from nuclear to be roughly 30 percent cheaper than offshore wind or solar.

The American Legislative Exchange Council has already published a model bill which tags nuclear as green energy. As the bill points out, nuclear is reliable, “has a stable and predictable cost,” and produces less pollutants than natural gas.

There may not be a more opportune time for such a law than now, as polls indicate a growing support for nuclear energy among the American people. The 2024 National Nuclear Public Opinion Survey, conducted since 1983 by a firm specializing in energy-related issues, showed a record-high 77 percent of respondents favored using nuclear energy to generate electricity. Another poll from ecoAmerica found that 78 percent of Americans believe nuclear energy boosts growth, cuts pollution, and reduces energy costs.

I spoke with several industry experts for this column who explained that nuclear is not only safe, but also necessary to ensure a secure energy future for the United States and the West.

Accidents like Three Mile Island (1979), Chernobyl (1986), and Fukushima (2011) have led to lasting safety concerns when it comes to nuclear, but the data shows that nuclear is on average far safer than every other method of power generation except solar. New and improved technologies also have made nuclear safer than ever before, and nuclear engineers have learned from past disasters.

In the case of Chernobyl, the meltdown was caused by a deadly combination of outdated equipment, failure to follow basic safety procedures, and reckless experimentation ordered by the Soviet regime. Scientists at the plant were instructed to skip the typical cooling of the reactor to increase plutonium production for nuclear weapons.

Concerns about nuclear waste are also largely overblown. Retired Austrian nuclear engineer Dr. Helmut von Wiegand called nuclear waste “a legitimate concern, but not an unsolvable one.” While proper storage is a must, new technologies have again mitigated risks and provided new opportunities. Reprocessing spent nuclear fuel, for instance, could reduce waste while increasing power output. President Jimmy Carter imposed a moratorium on the practice in 1979, but Trump could lift it.

The abundance of nuclear fuels also adds to the benefits of nuclear energy. At current consumption rates, there is enough accessible uranium to last at least the next 230 years. Uranium can also be extracted from seawater, a supply that is constantly replenished through erosion, runoff, and plate tectonics.

Perhaps most importantly of all, expanding nuclear energy production may be a necessity to meet the energy demands of the economy of tomorrow. New technologies like Artificial Intelligence require enormous amounts of energy. One query on Chat GPT pulls ten times as much energy as a Google search. Global electricity demand has already increased by 31 percent since 2000 and is set to grow by an annual average of 3.4 percent through 2026.

But in order to unleash the full potential of nuclear energy, the industry will need buy-in from leaders in Washington. In a bitterly partisan environment, nuclear could be one area of common ground, as it addresses Republican desire for cheaper electricity and Democrats’ push for cleaner energy – so long as Democrats are willing to ignore the cries of protest from a small minority of radical environmental lobbying groups.

Even without Democrat support, Republicans now have the power to prioritize nuclear investment. Liberal dreams of a “green revolution” may well come to pass – just not in the way they had hoped.

Ben Solis is the pen name of an international affairs journalist, historian, and researcher.

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Avoter
Avoter
3 hours ago

I work at a nuclear power plant in Georgia. Construction of two new units was recently completed. However the project was several years behind schedule and a lot of millions of dollars over budget. I say it’s green because of the money wasted on.the construction. Time and again different aspects of the construction had to be demolished and rebuilt because the construction didn’t meet the require specs, even though the contractor had all the necessary information. The labor force had to be union labor, and that was the biggest reason for such ineptitude in job performance. It did however prolong the jobs for the union workers with no benefit to the companies funding the project.

uncleferd
uncleferd
3 hours ago

SMRs (Small Modolar Reactors) will almost certainly revolutionize the power industry here in the US. Among many attractive attributes, the SMRs are small enough in footprint to place on pre-existing power plant sites that already have large, utility-scale power grid transmission line connections. One of the biggest hurdles of solar and wind is that these require large areas – which necessitate placement at a greater distance from population centers – AND, consequently, longer costlier, and more time-consuming (many years) design & installation of the connection to utility-scale power grid. SMRs can bypass these issues, while having smaller staffs with much lower head-count, and much lower overhead in general. SMRs are also much safer than the previous generation of nuclear plants as well… with ability to shut down without power in emergencies. Hope the “activists” and public pay attention, and realize the benefits of SMRs.

Glenn Lego
Glenn Lego
3 hours ago

There is a nuclear power plant near where I live in Rockford , in the town of Byron, Illinois. The electricity company was going to shut it down until lots of local power protested. It looks like it’s going to remain open for the time being.

anna hubert
anna hubert
3 hours ago

There is a bright light at the end of that darkest longest tunnel. Finally there is a voice of reason and it’s been heard.

Robert Zuccaro
Robert Zuccaro
3 hours ago

Harry Reid was all about taking funding to build Yucca Mountain but then fought to keep it from being used for what it was built for. So too, Trump could build reactors but the first Democrat majority will shut it down!

Troubled
Troubled
2 hours ago

There is nothing overblown about nuclear waste storage. So far we’ve managed to destroy one of the largest salt deposits in the United States. Decay of nuclear waste takes hundreds of thousands of years but I guess it’s like the National Debt, kick it down the road for a future generation to solve.

Nick Murphy
Nick Murphy
39 minutes ago

You can’t do that! It works! How are the radical Marxist liberals going to destroy this country? They are in the process of destroying southern California. You can’t make this stuff up and they cannot deny they caused it

John Shipway
John Shipway
52 minutes ago

Awesome! And we can talk the Russians into taking the spent fuel rods from us so they can gring the crap up and spread it all across western Ukraine!!
I wonder how much grift a two headed Zelensky could steal from the morons in the western world?

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