Talk About Nuclear Energy

Earlier this week I attended a Sierra Club house party where we saw a preview of a documentary about mountain top removal for mining coal. Towards the end, the movie talked about alternatives to coal – reducing our energy usage and using wind, solar, and geothermal energy. Conspicuously absent from the presentation was nuclear energy. I found this shocking. Yes, nuclear energy has its problems (note the topic of this blog), but to not mention it as a possibility at all struck me as bizarre and perhaps even a little dishonest.
In 2007, 19.4% of U.S. energy came from nuclear reactors . That’s almost 1/5. If you want to talk seriously about alternatives to coal (which contributed a whopping 48.5% of the U.S. energy in 2007), the nuclear option should at least be mentioned. I don’t consider myself to be either a major supporter or opponent of nuclear energy. What I do strongly advocate is that it be part of the conversation.

Along these lines, there is an initiative in England called KNOO – Keeping the Nuclear Option Open. One of their four work packages is entirely dedicated to the issue of nuclear waste.