The editorial, “Don’t foreclose this nuclear option,” in the Feb. 27 Tribune, presented many good reasons for not wiping out Argonne National Laboratory’s Integral Fast Reactor Program (IFR). However, it omitted what may be the most important reason for keeping this program alive.
In 50 years, the world’s population is projected to be 9 billion people. Assuming that a standard of living roughly half the current level in the U.S.A. would be acceptable for the world’s people in the year 2043, the amount of electrical power required to provide that standard of living would be three times the amount being generated today.
To achieve this amount of power generation on a sustainable basis, we must be able to count on a substantial contribution from nuclear energy! This means that unless the world starts to use the technology represented by the IFR program, which multiplies the amount of uranium available for conversion to electricity by a factor of 100, the nuclear option will be effectively foreclosed.
Unless we want to condemn billions of people to an unnecessarily low standard of living, we should make sure that enough electricity can be generated to meet their needs. Cancelling the IFR project, if allowed, will be looked at in the future as an unthinking and uncaring act of selfish people.
