The Middle Ages of Our Energy Policy: Will the renaissance be nuclear?

摘要

With increasing frequency and urgency come proclamations that we are entering a period of nuclear power renaissance. The first applications in 30 years for licenses to build new nuclear power plants in the U.S. have recently been filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Are we ready for this renaissance? Simply continuing to derive approximately 20 percent of the nation's electric power production from nuclear generation will require nearly the full capacity of the Yucca Mountain permanent repository for radioactive waste as presently proposed. Expanding nuclear's contribution nearly ten-fold as projected to be needed in order for nuclear power to make a meaningful reduction in our current emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels would require both interim repository capacity and permanent repository capacity far beyond that currently proposed for Yucca Mountain. While some look to reprocessing spent fuel rods-a practice discontinued in the U.S. in 1972-that would probably not eliminate the need for interim and permanent storage and would risk proliferating the ingredients of nuclear weapons in a belligerent world.