Nuclear Energy Is A Must If We Hope to Meet All the New Electricity Demands Coming Straight at Us

Guest Post by Ronald Stein P.E., Oliver Hemmers, and Steve Curtis.

For at least four decades, we have been faced with some difficulties in the production and delivery of electricity in the United States. More recently, the primary concern has been the advent of a large increase in demand, mostly due to data centers, cryptocurrency “mining,” and the questionable transition to EVs and appliances.

The next concern is the aging national electric grid delivery system. In addition to refurbishment for age, the grid is not ready to accept the huge rising demand expected for electricity. The electric grid is also vulnerable to cyber and EMP attacks, nature, and onerous regulations.

Common sense dictates that solutions are needed to ensure that the most important factor in Americans’ quality of life is that electricity remains available, affordable, and robust. Despite massive federal funding for renewables that only generate electricity under favorable weather conditions, the solutions for continuous and uninterruptible electricity seem to be farther away than ever.

Consider the situation in which imagined fears regarding climate change have driven a government-subsidized transition to “green electricity.” This transition is focused on “renewables,” which is supposed to mean that the fuel used is to be constantly replaced by nature (wind, solar, biofuels, and wood). This sounds good on the surface, but it’s costing taxpayers hugely.

Despite at least $5 trillion in subsidies for green technologies (including direct payments, tax credits, investment credits, and state subsidies, with no scrutiny of Environmental Impact Statements) taken from your tax dollars, only 2% of the fossil fuel reduction has been realized.

Wood and biofuels are renewable but not clean. Wind and solar are proving to be hugely expensive, and it is difficult to integrate that unreliable electricity into the national grid. Despite all the subsidies, these forms of power are raising California customers’ bills as high as $600 per MWH in peak times.

To those who believe these subsidies are good for taxpayers, we would ask: Would you invest your own money in “renewable” electricity companies if there were no Government subsidies? If the answer is “no”, it means that you are being forced to invest your money through your taxes anyway.

If you answered “yes,” why do we need subsidies since private investments should be sufficient? We mention this as an example of the folly we are subjected to in our country’s electricity production and generation.

The noisiest protesters want all fossil fuels eliminated. They do this without considering how their lives would change without them. Thus, before we chastise “big oil” for impacting climate change, we must ask ourselves, “Do I want to suffer the extra cost and detriment to my quality of life without fossil fuels?” These compact energy sources for electricity and transportation have raised our quality of life to the highest per capita in the world.

Yet, this constant drumbeat wants to destroy the source of products and transportation fuels before any other viable, affordable replacement appears to make the same products and fuels now made from fossil fuels. Breaking a system that works before you find a better one does not make much sense.

What appears to be free government money, i.e., “subsidies”, is really coming from your pocketbook. In a true free enterprise system, you would vote with your patronage. However, with so much free money coming from the government, you are no longer the customer. He who pays the gold makes the rules. You become merely a pawn in the government machine. It seems like liberty would lend itself more to customers making their own decisions rather than being forced into a contrived decision.

In fact, under free enterprise, you could buy all the “green electricity” you want from vendors while others could buy whatever electricity they want from other vendors. If there were such a groundswell of Americans who favor “green electricity,” we would simply pay more to get it. But you know we will not.

We all want the cheapest, most available electricity, products, and transportation fuels that we can get. Since renewables cannot make any products or competitive fuels for our transportation infrastructures, fossil fuels will be with us for many decades, no matter how much tax money our government throws away. Protest all you want, but that is how people manifest their desires.

However, nuclear technology is the big winner in a free enterprise system that produces continuous, uninterruptible, and emissions-free electricity. Despite crushing regulations, a licensing process that approves almost no innovations, and their competitors enjoying at least two orders of magnitude more subsidies for renewables, nuclear power is still cost-competitive with other forms of electricity generation.

This is despite nuclear power being the safest industry in the US and the world and the cheapest way to produce power on a level, the free enterprise economic model. It is cleaner than renewables, which require exotic minerals and metals mined in developing countries. It provides baseload power like natural gas and coal and has already been proven commercially for seven decades.

Nuclear takes the least amount of land, uses the least amount of earth’s natural resources, has lifetimes up to three times that of renewables (80 years vs. 25 years), and is competitive in cost even though it pays for all its clean-up and disposition costs up front. Yet, there are some loud minority faction noises blaring fear to entice you to get rid of it. Remember, when you hear scary risk declarations, it is up to you to evaluate their validity and weigh them against the benefits. If anyone preaches risk without mentioning benefits, you know it is propaganda.

Nuclear power is, very simply, the best choice for electricity generation, bar none.

• Least amount of land.

• Requires the least amount of earth’s natural resources.

• Provides continuous, uninterruptible, and emission-free electricity.

• Life expectancy is more than threefold that of renewables.

But it gets better. A lot of noise has been made by some minority factions about “nuclear waste.” Yet, again, they blast scary risk statements without mentioning benefits. It turns out that “nuclear waste” is slightly used nuclear fuel (SUNF) since only 3% of the energy is currently being extracted from the fuel. When recycled in fast reactors, at least 30 times more energy is available. Yet, our federal plan is to spend at least $400 billion to bury it instead of about $30 billion to jump-start existing recycling companies’ technology to extract this massive amount of electricity.

The only thing in the way of nuclear power is federal meddling to skew the free enterprise market in their own best interests. Federal regulations, subsidies, propaganda, and controlled markets are the only things stopping this existing $100 trillion (at 10 cents per kWh) treasure trove from benefitting the US.

Get the federal government out of the way, and a penny per kWh electricity is just around the corner. Keep up the destructive subsidies, regulations, and politics, and we will be languishing in dollar-per-kWh power as demand skyrockets and supply dwindles in the bosom of government love for its citizens. Electricity is the most important resource to all Americans. People must figure out which choices for continuous, uninterruptible, and emissions-free electricity suit them the most.

Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, energy consultant, speaker, author of books and articles on energy, environmental policy, and human rights, and Founder of PTS Advance, a California-based company.

Oliver Hemmers has a Doctorate in Physics from the Institute of Radiation and Nuclear Physics at the Technical University of Berlin, Germany. He was a Researcher in Physics, the Executive Director of UNLV’s Harry Reid Center and C-level executive.

Steve Curtis has a Master’s degree in Health Physics from UNLV. He has spent decades studying spent fuel issues in Nevada and worked as a technical field team leader for nuclear search and characterization missions for the Department of Energy. He is currently engaged in education, speaking, and writing in favor of nuclear power returning to the United States, especially from recycling spent nuclear fuel in fast reactors.

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