Fight Fire With Fire?

Will climate change doom humanity to an existence mimicking Dante’s Inferno? Will nuclear proliferation threaten humanity with annihilation as depicted in Dr. Strangelove? An increasing number of pundits, policymakers and even environmentalists believe that nuclear energy can save us from massive death by climate change and will not lead to massive destruction by nuclear war. (Nuclear fuel making technologies can also be used to produce explosive material for nuclear weapons.) But as I wrote in a new Council on Foreign Relations report, Nuclear Energy: Balancing Benefits and Risks, this view oversells the contribution nuclear energy can make to strengthen energy security and reduce global warming while downplaying the dangers associated with this energy source.
First, what can nuclear energy really do to free the United States from the clutches of corrupt oil-producing countries? The United States generates about twenty percent of its electricity from nuclear energy and only three percent from oil. Oil mainly fuels cars and trucks. Presently, the United States imports about two-thirds of its oil. While nuclear energy is now used for electric power generation and not for transportation, perhaps over many decades, it could power vehicles through production of hydrogen for fuel cells or electricity for plug-in hybrid cars and trucks. But until transportation is overhauled away from gasoline powered internal combustion engines, nuclear energy cannot wean the United States off oil from unstable parts of the world.

Can nuclear energy, which emits very few greenhouse gases, at least further clean up the atmosphere and reduce global warming by displacing coal-fired power plants? Coal-fired plants produce half of the U.S.’s electricity. It is no surprise that the United States relies so heavily on coal. America is the Saudi Arabia of coal reserves with an estimated supply of 250 years based on current demand. Still, nuclear power plants’ operating costs compete favorably with coal and other power sources. But nuclear power’s construction costs are much higher than coal’s capital costs.

Washington Post