What has been happening for far too long in the intellectual battle for and against Nuclear Energy is the opposition to the energy by groups that are uninformed in regards to Nuclear Energy. One such group are the average environmentalists.
Before you think that I'm just jumping onto a fairly large bandwagon by saying that environmentalists are idiots let me explain: I have no problem with environmentalists in particular. I don't think we should damage the environment anymore than is necessary either. It is only when they oppose what they by definition and practicality should be supporting that I have anything against them.
Nuclear Energy is clean and with Reprocessing, it can be even cleaner by removing 90% of the Nuclear Waste. It would cause a lot less environmental impact than implementing any Green Energy solutions would. For instance, the 20 square miles of Solar Panels or 1200 windmills to equivalate one Nuclear Power Plant would cause a lot more environmental damage. Yet they ignore this and continue to say that Nuclear Energy would cause more damage.
Another group that has hindered public opinion in regards to Nuclear Energy are politicians. Politicians fear supporting Nuclear Energy because they are worried (especially in the wake of Fukushima) that any support for it will result in loss of election and voters. They are worried that if they support Nuclear Energy they will lose voters in other electrical areas such as Coal and Natural Gas as well as lose public favor.
If you notice, politicians almost never mention Nuclear Energy in energy needing development and growth in our country. They will generally say something like: "We need to expand all of our energy capabilities: Fossil, and Clean and Renewable." Now, Nuclear may be classified under Clean and Renewable for all I know, but it certainly is not what they are trying to make you think when they say it.
And the above example is if the politicians do not openly oppose Nuclear Energy. Many politicians come out and say that they are against it completely.
Between the environmentalists and the politicians it is a wonder that anything gets done with Nuclear Energy.
Oh wait--it doesn't.
Take for instance Yucca Mountain, Nevada which at one point Congress wanted to make a Nuclear Repository for all of the United State's waste to be stored at. Between environmentalist protesting and political subterfuge the project was never completed despite the fact that there was no real reason why the plan shouldn't go through.
And now, the Government is paying out millions of dollars each year to make up for not following through on a contract it signed with energy companies years ago in the form of fines for directly failing to meet the contract, and subsidies to help pay for the storage and management of the Nuclear Waste which could be much better dealt with if Reprocessing and not Storage received subsidies.
The two groups of environmentalists and politicians have succeeded in making a country fearful of Nuclear Energy while not really giving any reason to be afraid. An irrational fear which was only solidified when Fukushima occurred in 2011.
The funny thing about Fukushima is that Onagawa, which was a Nuclear Power Plant even closer to the epicenter of the 9.03 Earthquake and subsequent Tsunami, was perfectly fine. The only difference between Fukushima and Onagawa was that Onagawa had a higher seawall than Fukushima. Well, if we're going to put Nuclear Power Plants on islands, it's probably a good idea to have a really high seawall. Especially in areas frequented by large earthquakes such as Japan is.
And yet, politicians, intellectual opponents to Nuclear Energy, and environmentalists have used Fukushima as grounds to point out that Nuclear Energy is much too dangerous. That Nuclear Energy should be feared, and avoided. The sad thing is that to the average citizen of the United States, they appear to have succeeded in instating this fear.
It is necessary to overcome this fear for Nuclear Energy to be considered a viable energy source by the citizens of the United States and for Nuclear Energy to be used more in the United States.
Thank you for reading.
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Sources:
http://casenergy.org/nuclear-energy/why-nuclear/clean/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yucca_Mountain_nuclear_waste_repository
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onagawa_Nuclear_Power_Plant
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