Re: “Optimism about nuclear power is high: Is it deserved?” (Jan. 8, Enterprise)
I’d say the reply to this text’s headline is a convincing sure, provided that nuclear energy has been used safely and successfully by the Navy for seven a long time. I noticed this firsthand whereas serving within the Navy within the Nineteen Seventies.
Famend local weather scientist James Hansen has described the concept that renewable power sources alone can meet all of society’s power wants as “fantastical” and “virtually the equal of believing within the Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.” Nuclear energy, then again, is sort of actual. Proper now, it offers France round 70% of its electrical energy.
Standing on the shoulders of American scientists, China is perfecting the last word type of nuclear power: A Thorium-based Molten Salt Reactor, which — by its design — is meltdown proof, produces considerably much less nuclear waste and isn’t straightforward to weaponize.
The unique Molten Salt Reactor was developed right here, on this nation, 60 years in the past, at Oak Ridge Nationwide Laboratory by Dr. Alvin Weinberg, who spoke of considerations about “Local weather Change” lengthy earlier than the time period even existed.
Weinberg noticed nuclear energy as the answer. So ought to we.
Brad Edelman, Kent (U.S. Naval Officer, 1973-1979)
