Out of the Nuclear Closet

September 10th, 2012

Jessica Lovering, Ted Nordhaus, and Michael Shellenberger call for a commitment to nuclear power for our future energy needs:

What’s needed now is a new national commitment to the development, testing, demonstration, and early stage commercialization of a broad range of new nuclear technologies  – from much smaller light-water reactors to next generation ones  – in search of a few designs that can be mass produced and deployed at a significantly lower cost than current designs. This will require both greater public support fornuclear innovation and an entirely different regulatory framework to review and approve new commercial designs.

Nuclear power has a lot of drawbacks, but also incredible advantages: constant power and no emissions. We shouldn’t give up on nuclear power. We should continue developing it to overcome its drawbacks.