LETTER: Nuclear power is safe and reliable
If recently announced rules proposed by the EPA come to fruition, coal-fired power plants, which supply about 40 percent of the country’s electricity, will have to shut down, pay fees to emit carbon, or be retrofitted with technology that does not yet exist.
How will we replace that electricity without having our electric bills skyrocket? One word: nuclear.
Nuclear power plants generate 19 percent of our total electricity and 60 percent of the emission-free electricity in this country. The French generate 75 percent of their power from nuclear plants and recycle the fuel to burn it again, significantly reducing the volume of waste needing disposal.
France, not the U.S., leads the world in nuclear fuel cycle technology, not from a lack of smart people in the U.S., but a lack of political backbone by Congress. It’s time for the United States to get back in the nuclear power game and lead the way.
Five new reactors are coming online in the southern U.S., but six reactors will have shut down between 2012 and 2019 for economic reasons, with several thousand jobs going away with them. This trend cannot continue. We need more nuclear plants to ensure a reliable source of baseload electricity to run our factories and to power our homes, hospitals, and schools.
Every project creates thousands of construction jobs, and after the plant begins operation, it employs from 500 to 800 people in good-paying jobs.
Contact your lawmakers about supporting nuclear power by removing the subsidies that are forcing these safe, reliable sources of large quantities of electricity to shut down early.