The recent talks by Congressman Bill Foster and Tom Skilling at North Central College highlighted the current science of human influence on climate change. This is a valuable discussion for laypeople, but there is a large piece missing from the potential amelioration of human effects.
Just as there have been irrational “climate deniers,” for several years we have had a huge number of “nuclear deniers.” We can talk solar and wind energy all we want, but they will never replace the amount of electricity generated currently by nuclear energy. Yet we’re closing plants down just we should be looking to improving and building more of them.
Fears of some nuclear risks are rational, but some are totally nonsense. The processes of better and safer nuclear fission, and waste disposal, have been worked on for years, many locally at Argonne National Laboratory, but they have been largely ignored. No new nuclear plant has been built in the U.S. for over 20 years.
Some will celebrate just as well. But the issue is what are the reasonable alternatives? The global environment, in which humans are not the bad guys but a natural part of it, and who deserve to be here like all other living things, will be affected by the presence of 8 billion people. What’s better: the long term effects of warming, or no electricity? Solar and wind will not do it, and switching to electricity production from coal and nuclear to natural gas doesn’t solve the carbon dioxide problem. Looking at building an improved nuclear network is an energy and climate imperative.
— Kent Schielke, Naperville
