Go nukes! Nuclear power gains support in U.S., abroad

By Money Matters Editors

Finally, the United States appears to be heading in the correct direction, from a nuclear power for electricity standpoint.

And there’s even better news: environmentalists, in an impressive switch, are starting to side with nuclear power, too, so says The Washington Post. Here’s why:

Environmentalists now realize that nuclear power represents ‘the lesser of two evils’ versus coal-fired electric power generation plants. When faced with a choice of processing nuclear waste or seeing soot and other carbon emissions spew into the atmosphere – heating up the atmosphere to irreversible levels – the choice is clear: nuclear power wins, easy.

Now, the United States can go about the difficult task of playing ‘catch-up’ for more than two decades of nuclear power plant under-building. It’s as if the U.S. had a breakthrough technology – one that would create less of a carbon footprint and more energy independence – then threw it away for 20 years. From a public policy standpoint, the nation’s neglect of nuclear power was almost as bad as the 2001 Bush income tax cut – which turned a U.S budget surplus into a budget deficit - or going to war without implementing a draft and passing a tax increase to pay for the war.

But let’s stick to the good news at hand: the U.S. now has strong environmental / climate change reasons for vastly increasing its number of nuclear power plants. The rest of the world has already embarked on that journey: nuclear plant construction worldwide currently totals 53 – double the number of plants under construction just five years ago, The Post reported. France gets 76% of its electric power from nuclear plants; Belgium, 54%; Sweden, 42%; South Korea, 37%; Japan, 25%; the United States? Just 19.6%, but that’s going to change, in the decades ahead. To that, Money Matters Editors say, “High time!”