Nuclear Power, the demon of some environmentalists must be part of our going-forward energy paradigm..........Why?..........."Nuclear power plants operate at much higher capacity factors than renewable energy sources or fossil fuels"..........."Capacity factor is a measure of what percentage of the time a power plant actually produces energy"..........."It’s a problem for all intermittent energy sources".............."The sun doesn’t always shine, nor the wind always blow, nor water always fall through the turbines of a dam"..............."What are nuclear power’s benefits?............ "First and foremost, since it produces energy via nuclear fission rather than chemical burning, it generates baseload electricity with no output of carbon, the villainous element of global warming"............."Switching from coal to natural gas is a step toward decarbonizing, since burning natural gas produces about half the carbon dioxide of burning coal"............ "But switching from coal to nuclear power is radically decarbonizing, since nuclear power plants release greenhouse gases only from the ancillary use of fossil fuels during their construction, mining, fuel processing, maintenance, and decommissioning — about as much as solar power does, which is about 4 to 5 percent as much as a natural gas-fired power plant"................"In the United States in 2016, nuclear power plants, which generated almost 20 percent of U.S. electricity, had an average capacity factor of 92.3 percent, meaning they operated at full power on 336 out of 365 days per year (The other 29 days they were taken off the grid for maintenance.)"............."In contrast, U.S. hydroelectric systems delivered power 38.2 percent of the time (138 days per year), wind turbines 34.5 percent of the time (127 days per year) and solar electricity arrays only 25.1 percent of the time (92 days per year)".............."Even plants powered with coal or natural gas only generate electricity about half the time for reasons such as fuel costs and seasonal and nocturnal variations in demand"..............."Nuclear is a clear winner on reliability"..............So what is the perceived downside of Nuclear Power?............."Nuclear waste disposal, although a continuing political problem in the U.S., is no longer a technological problem".................."Most U.S. spent fuel, more than 90 percent of which could be recycled to extend nuclear power production by hundreds of years, is stored at present safely in impenetrable concrete-and-steel dry casks on the grounds of operating reactors, its radiation slowly declining".............."UNSCEAR — the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation, composed of senior scientists from 27 member states has concluded that even the worst possible accident at a nuclear power plant — the complete meltdown and burnup of its radioactive fuel — was yet far less destructive than other major industrial accidents across the past century"........."Nuclear Power deserves better than the anti-nuclear prejudices and fears that have plagued it"..............."It isn’t the 21st century’s version of the Devil’s excrement"................"It’s a valuable, even an irreplaceable, part of our next generation energy solution"

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Richard Rhodes • JULY 19, 2018

Why Nuclear Power Must Be Part of the Energy Solution

 Richard Rhodes is the author 
of numerous
 books, including the recently
 published Energy: A
 Human History, and is the winner of
 the Pulitzer Prize, 
the National Book Award, and the National 
Book Critics
 Circle Award. Appearing as host
 and correspondent 
for documentaries on public 
television’s Frontline
 and American Experience series,
 he has also been a
 visiting scholar at Harvard, MIT, and 
Stanford University.