I welcome your thoughtful November 21 editorial. Fear of the bomb was part of growing up. At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, my mother sent us to school and said, “I hope I see you tonight.” From guns to power plants, I’m anti-nuclear. That is, until a year ago when I visited the Idaho National Laboratory. When the director of the National Reactor Innovation Center described a nuclear reactor the size of a small car that could provide 100,000 people with carbon-free electricity for 10 years, I was surprised. “At the end of its life, it will be lowered into a deep hole on site and replaced by the next-generation reactor. Waste is contained, footprint is small, reliability is high, and security is built in. Go away and they just switch off. “
I started to change my mind. She spoke about experiences from Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima and how public and private research is developing a new generation of nuclear power plants. Large companies see economic opportunities.
Suddenly there is competition for locations for these new plants. Wyoming is high on the list. Companies like TerraPower invest in Wyoming. The sodium reactor announced for Kemmerer is a great project. Futuristic, yes, but things go fast. Who can deny record temperatures, drought, smoky summers and furious weather events that the climate is not changing? We can’t wish away the effects of carbon, but we can benefit from clean energy technologies. Advanced nuclear energy is a win-win for everyone. Coal has provided the world with heat and electricity for a long time. We have made great strides in fossil fuels, but their time is running out. Sun and wind are important, but only as “complementary” sources. They cannot provide the “base load” that coal is used for. When the world needs more cowboys, the ranch needs more skills. Young people look for opportunities and clean places. Advanced nuclear energy is an opportunity to see the future and secure it.
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