We made a mistake by abandoning nuclear energy years ago | Opinion
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Author argues abandoning nuclear in past decades was a strategic mistake.
- Wind and solar remain intermittent and low-capacity, failing to cut emissions enough.
- Natural gas and nuclear provide dispatchable electricity to limit CO2 growth.
As a kid growing up in Richland in the 1950s, I remember my father getting up at 2 a.m. in winter to shovel more coal into our basement furnace. As electricity became more available, we saw a steady rise in standard of living across America.
In summer driving to the coast in our 1955 Buick Special for a week on the beach was to me like being in heaven. Life was good and getting better.
As demand for more energy grew in the 1970s, there was much debate about filling future US energy needs. Historically, electricity generation was mostly coal, hydro and natural gas. Concern for the environment was also on the rise. As part of these concerns, nuclear power plants were being built across the country.
At this same time, Amory Lovins, an American physicist, said the world was now at an energy crossroads. Either we continue with fossil fuels and nuclear, both of which he said had “serious environmental risks” or adopt a “soft energy path” comprised mainly of wind and solar. Though unproven, he convinced many that the future was the soft energy path.
In 1976 President Jimmie Carter came out against nuclear and had solar panels installed on the Whitehouse. Later, the Obama administration defunded (undoubtedly for political reasons) construction of the Yucca Mountain used nuclear fuel storage facility. This extended the hiatus in further nuclear development and use to over fifty years.
In 1988 James Hansen, a NASA scientist, made a presentation to the U.S. Senate that implied global warming was occurring due to a slight continuing increase (about 2 ppm/yr.) in anthropogenic CO2 in the atmosphere. Data suggested that warming was now occurring at a rate of about 1 degree Celsius increase every 100 years.
John Kerry and the UN spent the next 30 years highlighting this as an immediate crisis and existential threat. Their proposed solution? Reduce CO2 by killing use of coal, oil, natural gas and replacing with wind and solar electricity.
This has been the path for 50 years, although after spending trillions of dollars, CO2 continues to rise about 2-3 ppm per year. This approach has also always ignored the elephant in the room with wind and solar: that they are intermittent, non-dispatchable and have very low-capacity factors. We also continue to spend millions of dollars pursuing hydrogen, fusion and geothermal, all of which have major technical limitations that likewise get ignored.
Natural gas and nuclear power are both proven and will reduce CO2 emissions, given nonetheless that the slow rise in CO2 above today’s 427 ppm is neither a crisis nor an emergency.
So, here we are in 2025 at another energy crossroad. Looking back on 50 years of history, it seems hard to me to not conclude that killing nuclear and pursuing the soft energy path was a mistake. With natural gas and nuclear we can for the foreseeable future produce clean, affordable, abundant, on-demand electricity critical to maintaining an acceptable standard of living in middle America.
- Craig Brown of Richland is a retired nuclear engineer, formerly with AREVA, who has 30 years’ experience benchmarking reactor computer models