Regarding the letter by Cady Johnson of Vernal urging Utah to “Nuke Up, Post Haste”, I feel a need to respond and respectfully disagree.
With respect to nuclear power, whether conventional reactors or small module units, they just won’t be built in sufficient quantities to make a significant impact. They take decades to design, license and build.
Using conventional reactors as an example, the U.S. has about 95 nuclear power plants that generate 20% of our electricity. Many of these plants are old and destined to be decommissioned. Does anyone think that we are going to build the equivalent of 95 new plants to replace current capacity? If we went all-in on nuclear power, the U.S. would have to build the equivalent of nearly 400 more plants. This just isn’t going to happen.
Then there are the 90,000 tons of spent fuel awaiting disposal, which the U.S. DOE was supposed to take title of in 1998. Not an ounce of this has been buried and the U.S. currently does not have a plan to do so. What do we do with all of the additional waste that would be generated?
The answer is already here. I drive an EV and generate most of the electricity I consume from rooftop solar. If I added battery storage in my garage, I would use very little power from the grid.
Stephen Nelson, Orem