What The World Needs Now: Nuclear Energy
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Three Mile Island, a location about 12 miles from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, causes a shudder for many people when it is brought back into a conversation. The failure of a water pump brought the nuclear power plant to within one hour or less from a horrific disaster. A nuclear reactor's cores generate an enormous amount of heat and has to be constantly cooled. They have a primary cooling system which keeps the core within operable limits. This causes the cooling system to absorb a huge amount of heat, which is cooled by a back up cooling system where it is absorbed by flowing water. The pump circulating this water failed, causing the systems to overheat. A valve was supposed to close under these conditions and the instruments showed that it had indeed closed, however, it had not. These two seemingly minor problems, had it not been for quick action of the crew, would have caused a meltdown and the building to explode with catastrophic consequences. This caused near panic in many people and the large power producing station was closed. Now, after thirty years, it is being restarted. The major problem with nuclear power plants is simply a lack of education concerning them in the populace. I acknowledge that this was a near miss of a tragedy. But, the tragedy was avoided. We have other nuclear plants which have been operating for years without an incident. True, there have been other incidents, none in the U.S. of that magnitude that I know of. Russia had a much worse accident than that, but all in all, we lose many more lives from tornadoes alone than this. We lose a tremendously larger amount to automobile accidents, yet we allow people to drive with reckless abandonment on our freeways at almost 100 mph. I have no statistics or information, but I suspect that as many lives have been lost building and operating water powered electrical generating plants as those from nuclear plants. The point I am trying to make is that any endeavor has a certain amount of risk. The acceptance has to be weighed as to the value of the project when compared to the risk. And my contention is that the nuclear powered electrical generating plants are well worth our full speed ahead in building them. Everyone knows our present dire need for alternative energy, to free ourselves from dependency upon energy from foreign countries who gleefully gouge us for higher prices at every opportunity. Plus to lower our pollution of the atmosphere. But of the alternative energies proposed, none are readily attainable. Much research and development of these alternatives must be conducted in order to try and develop them into a viable and cost acceptable product. Right now, they are far from it. So we will throw trillions of dollars, which we cannot afford at this point in time, into their development, without a clue as to whether they can ever be brought into an affordable source. If they cannot, trillions of dollars and precious time has been wasted. Why should we mass produce nuclear powered electrical plants? Simply because they answer many of our needs. They are non-polluting, they can produce electricity at reasonably acceptable costs, and they help to solve much of our water distribution problems. States are now in court trying to resolve water sharing problems between them in order to keep their water powered electrical production up to demand. And that is growing annually. As stronger efforts being made to convert automobiles to electricity, our demand for electrical power will increase substantially. If we are still dependent upon fossil fueled plants, our pollution will increase. We can build nuclear power plants for billions of dollars, partially paid for by the private sector, while the other alternative sources will cost trillions, mainly paid by current taxpayers and taxpayers for generations to come. The best thing to get our nation's budget under control, is to allow oil drilling in the areas where it is known to be plentiful and easily obtained, and will be done by oil companies, not taxpayers. Then while removing our dependence upon foreign oil, the government will gain billions of dollars in tax revenue while researching alternative energy sources and building more nuclear powered electricity producing plants. Then, and only then, can we begin to concentrate on balancing our budget and reducing our grandchildren's indebtedness. The problem is, this plan is simple and will solve the problems. To ignore it and raise prices and taxes on our fossil fuel usage, will not solve them but rather, will add the insurmountable burden upon the lower income citizens of striving to fuel their autos and heat their homes. But our government, has never seen the simple workable plans. They cannot see the forest for the trees.
Webgazine Columnist.
Article submitted Sunday, March 29, 2009 & read 36 times.
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