Todd Jaquith opines that reports of the demise of atomic energy seem to have been greatly exaggerated. It is true that the glorious nuclear future, as envisioned in mid-century forecasts of the world to come, has not quite materialized as promised. The rise of environmental consciousness and the fears of nuclear fallout have done much to militate against widespread enthusiasm for nuclear energy.
Of course, the high-profile 1986 Chernobyl accident, the poster child for catastrophic nuclear meltdown, together with the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear incident (a consequence of the 2011 TÃ…ÂÂhoku earthquake and tsunami) have done little to increase public confidence in nuclear power. However, each year the particle pollution caused by coal power plants claims about 7,500 lives in the U. S.. Compare that to the 4,000 people the World Health Organization estimates were victimized by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (20 workers died, almost 4,000 children recovered from thyroid cancer), and nuclear seems like much less of a health risk.
Meanwhile, our civilization has a thirst for power that has shown little sign of abatement. In fact, quite the opposite, we are consuming energy at ever-increasing rates as our technology becomes more sophisticated and our civilization becomes increasingly more dependent on this technology. The World Economic Council, for instance, predicts that world energy consumption will increase from 546 exajoules (2010 levels) to anywhere from 700 to 900 EJ by 2050, depending on the level of world economic cooperation and concerted action in the future.
Sustainable and renewable sources, wind, solar, hydroelectric, geothermal, tidal, and (even nuclear), will certainly have their parts to play, each contributing in their own way to supplying our energy thirsty world. But whether we like it or not, fission nuclear energy will remain an integral part of the global energy budget because there is just nothing else capable of supplying the level of power needed.
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