There are 104 commercial nuclear power stations in the United States today, supplying about 20 percent of the nation's electricity. No new commercial reactors have been licensed here since 1973. And the last commercial plant to come online, Watts Bar in Tennessee, powered up more than a decade ago, in 1996.
That all needs to change, says Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson, an M.I.T.-trained theoretical physicist. And her opinions matter, because President Obama recently named Jackson to the newly revived President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology.
...If the United States is serious about realizing an energy supply that's invulnerable to geopolitics or price shocks, and also wants to stop global warming, says Jackson, "then you're talking about having to look at sources of energy that have less of an effect in terms of carbon growth, carbon dioxide emissions." She believes part of that energy mix must be nuclear power.
"However well we do on energy efficiency, there's going to be a need for a lot more electricity," agrees Stephen Tindale, executive director of Greenpeace U.K. from 2001 to 2008. Nuclear power "is a bridge technology" for the next 30 to 40 years, he says. Going nuclear in the medium term would give the world time to build out the capacity of clean energy technologies, while also slashing greenhouse-gas pollution...
With the world population headed for 9 billion-plus by 2050, many cities in the global North are trying to confront decades of neglecting basic infrastructure. Meanwhile, billions of people in the cities of the global South have never had clean drinking water and effective sanitation. The North could learn from the "disadvantaged" cities of the South--that it's possible to do a lot of social, economic and environmental good with very, very little. Read more...
