In his letter to the editor, Zachary Moitoza recently argued that nuclear power is the best solution to our current energy problems (“Nuclear power best alternative to current energy situation,” ODE, 4/21/09). What Moitoza fails to realize is that the majority of Earth’s population growth occurs in areas where nuclear power is simply not feasible.
Third-world countries cannot afford the massive initial costs of building nuclear reactors, and have no means of storing radioactive waste. They lack the electrical infrastructure to handle the immense, constant load of energy that nuclear reactors produce. Moreover, security concerns necessitate examining other options – the threat of nuclear proliferation alone is enough to make many question whether nuclear power should even be on the table.
Proponents often point out that reactors are greenhouse-gas-free energy sources. While the reactors themselves may not produce carbon dioxide, the process of mining and milling uranium, the construction and collateral operations of reactors, and the host of other environmental externalities (e.g. heat pollution of our rivers) illustrates that nuclear power is far from the climate-change savior it is made out to be.
The solution really lies with energy sources that are cheap, efficient and easily implemented. Renewable energy such as solar and wind can be constructed in large quantities throughout the third world without creating a new energy infrastructure. They are affordable and substantially better for the environment. And they pose no threat to humanity, in that one cannot make weapons of horrifying destructive power from a bunch of turbines and solar panels.
Nuclear power as it exists today isn’t a solution. It is, at best, a stopgap.