Nuclear Power is the Future – What is America Waiting For? - 2022

Nuclear Power Industry

Lehr and Harris reported in 2022 that we all remember the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster in 1986, but few realize it was a result of poor Soviet-era designs and mismanagement of operations, not solely to generate electricity, but also plutonium for nuclear weapons. As indicated by Campbell, et al., (2020), over the past few decades, uranium mining and now 93 nuclear power reactors in operation today in the US, and some 441 in operation worldwide (plus 54 under construction in China, Russia, India, etc.), have demonstrated safety records far exceeding those of natural gas (line explosions), coal (underground mining accidents), and renewables (wind and solar) in terms of injuries and fatalities during construction and repairs and inherent failings of the technologies.

Serious competition is now underway to determine which energy source will dominate the power grid in the foreseeable future. With coal unfortunately in decline, natural gas, nuclear, hydroelectric power, and renewables (wind and solar) are all in the running. Both natural gas and nuclear power are providing backup to wind and solar power when the wind does not blow, and there is insufficient sunshine. Because California has retired many of its nuclear power plants based on ill-founded, unsound reasons, burning natural gas has taken its place in the power grid in supporting California’s unstable renewable energy systems.

Renewables’ inherent failings have been made even more apparent by the need for backup batteries during zero or low-power output, which are unusually expensive to buy and maintain. Furthermore, as recently constructed wind and solar projects mature, the cost of the electricity they are producing is rising rapidly, not only because of low energy conversion production efficiencies, but also because the costs of operation and maintenance (O&M) of these projects have been overlooked and underestimated during the economic evaluations in the project design stages. This makes cost comparisons between large-scale wind and solar projects and nuclear power artificial and illogical without including the O&M costs.

[Read on... and see References at the end of the article.]