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If climate change is an existential threat to human life, or at least life as we have enjoyed it since World War II, then the expanded use of an existing technology that produces electricity around the clock with no (zero) green house gas emissions, nuclear power, must be accepted, no matter how reluctantly.
Only by offering the nations and peoples of the world a future with heat in the winter, air conditioning in the summer and plenty of dependable electricity to charge our electric cars, will people accept the virtual elimination of the use of fossil fuels, coal, natural gas and oil, to limit the consequences of global climate change.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration reports as of August 1, 2023, the United States had 93 operating commercial reactors at 54 nuclear power plants in 28 states.
The first electric generation from a commercial nuclear power plant in the United States occurred in 1958, 65 years ago.
According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, as of May 2023, there were 436 nuclear reactors in operation in 32 countries, providing about 10% of the world's electricity.
It is a good bet, however, that most Americans are aware of, at most, 3 nuclear power plants: Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania, Chernobyl in the former Soviet Union, and site of the world's worst nuclear power accident, and Fukushima in Japan.
The first two plants suffered accidents, Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl in 1986. The third plant, Fukushima, was a victim of an earthquake and a tsunami, with a wall of water over 30 feet high.
Our Nuclear Regulatory Commission's post-Chernobyl assessment states: "The NRC continues to conclude that many factors protect U.S. reactors against the combination of lapses that led to the accident at Chernobyl. Differences in plant design, broader safe shutdown capabilities and strong structures to hold in radioactive materials all help ensure U.S. reactors can keep the public safe."
Life is full of risks. As Americans we were not satisfied with the frequency of commercial air crashes in the 1950s and 1960s. Among the aircraft manufacturers and the U.S. government regulations, we now experience some years without a single fatal crash, but some risk obviously still remains.
From 1958 to 1968 deaths in car crashes exploded from 35,000 to 52,000. Americans saw this as an unacceptable risk.
In 1968 the U.S. Government responded and finally required automobiles to put seat belts in their new cars.
By 2018, despite the U.S. population growing from 200,000,000 in 1968 to 326,000,000, auto accident deaths declined to about 36,000, about the 1958 total. Technology improvements, from air bags, to collapsible steering wheels, to anti-lock brakes, to safer tires and roads, hugely reduced the risk of dying in an auto accident.
There have been significant improvements in the design of nuclear power plants since the 1960s and 1970s.
The decision to go forward with nuclear power as a zero-carbon emission answer to mankind's contribution to global warming and climate change is political, not technological.
France has made a political decision to press on with nuclear power plants which already supply 70% of its electricity. Its neighbor, Germany, in contrast, has made a political decision to abandon its nuclear power capacity.
As of December 2, 2023, the United States joined a multinational declaration to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050 to support global climate and energy security goals. Our State Department explains the goal is "achieving global net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and keeping the 1.5 degree Celsius goal within reach."
Our government is apparently following the lead of our people. On August 18, 2023 the Pew Research Center reported that "a majority of Americans (57%) say they favor more nuclear power plants to generate electricity in the country, up from 43% who said this in 2020."
If climate change is an existential threat, it appears that more wind turbines and solar farms will not be sufficient to turn the tide without significantly more nuclear power worldwide.
Fred Larson is a graduate of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School Of Public and International Affairs and a former board member of the Jamestown Board of Public Utilities.