The question of nuclear power is a fascinating one. Nuclear power is a technology distinctly of the modern era. It fits well into the progression of history – water power gave way to coal power, which is logically followed by nuclear power. Each shows the harnessing of a “deeper” form of energy – first kinetic energy and momentum, then potential energy found in nuclear bonds, and finally the potential energy of nuclear binding. Each step along the way has introduced new dangers and poisons, but has also yielded greater rewards. But nuclear power hasn’t quite lived up to its predecessors in terms of economic revolution. Nuclear facilities have made themselves a significant part of our power supply, but not in the way various fossil fuels have. And with no new power plants since the 1970s, their position in the American power industry has stagnated.
Are the risks too great for the rewards? Although Chernobyl-type disasters are not thought possible with American reactors, the public doesn’t understand this. The real dangers of nuclear power are more subtle, and often poorly explained. Our Monday debate on nuclear power did a good job of going over them – the risks exist mostly in small-scale radiation leaks, the age of the reactors we currently have, and the need for constant vigilance.
So far the United States (and most of the world) has done well in dealing with these problems. Our largest nuclear incident resulted in no deaths. But as infrastructure ages, risks grow. There will come a time when we will have to decommission our nuclear plants and transition to another source of energy, but the question is when. At the debate I wasn’t convinced one way or another that the time to decommission Indian Point is now. It is true that the money of energy production could be redirected towards retrofitting houses for greater energy efficiency, as well as research for solar power. But in the meantime, New York will burn fossil fuels to make up the energy difference.
There are other options for improving efficiency. We could modernize the electrical grid, or encourage more people to move to cities, or make investments in public transit. In fact, it seems like it would be wise to pursue all of them, if we had the money (isn’t this where public works deficit spending would be most useful?). But until that happens, we’ll probably have to choose.
The most important priority seems to be the investment which will have the greatest return in the future, which is probably technology. With greater technology all of our future possibilities are expanded and amplified. In light of that, it’s a numbers game. Let’s assume there is nowhere else in the government’s budget to save money for technology, and assume that 2020 is when we will have retrofitted enough homes to break even in terms of carbon emissions from where we are now. If we invest the rest of the saved money in solar energy research, we need to improve our technology enough that we can make up for increased CO2 emissions from 2012-2020.
This is all short term of course, and I hate to think in the short term. But from what I’ve read in the news lately, we need to start thinking about the short term, because the time of irreversible danger will not be part of the long term for much longer. The time for investment is coming to and end, so we’ve got to do as much as we can with the time and money we have left to us. Soon we will have to implement the best survival and adaptation strategies that we have, however crude or insightful they may be.
