Should We Rethink Nuclear Power?
Nuclear is an obvious choice for covering our energy needs of now and the future. We just must come to see nuclear energy and especially nuclear waste for what it really is. Burying it deep underground in abandoned mines is not the way. Its expensive, its unsafe and you don’t see very well what happens. The French have shown how it should be done. If you put all the nuclear waste on earth into an abandoned valley in the desert and stacked it up in the open the mountains would prevent meaningful radiation from escaping. The most dangerous stuff can be poured into glass. The facility could cheaply and easily be roofed and walled in order to protect it from the elements. And all the worlds nuclear waste could go there. But as I said, covering the full fuel cycle is a much smarter option. Just ask the French – they know how. Nuclear that is well maintained and not being played with is very, very safe. It’s the humans that are not safe.
While it seems to fly in the face of everything we believe and have been taught about nuclear power, it may actually be the safest form of power production that we have. Ironically, the immense potency of the power of splitting an atom is simultaneously what makes nuclear weapons so dangerous as well as what makes nuclear power so safe.
