67% Want New Nuke Plants. About time!

In a recent poll taken by Zogby, 67% of people favor new nuclear power plants being built in the United States. Does this number surprise anyone? At first I thought that was a little high, considering we haven't built a new plant in over 25 years and the "scare" tactics that many of the environmentalists and critics have brought on. Couple that with the disasters in Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and the many "scares" that have occurred in the 1970's and 80's. It's just nice to know that we haven't abandoned the whole idea of returning to nuclear power.

A few years back in college, I did a presentation on the "Generation III" nuclear reactors and how efficient and extremely safe they were compared to the old ones. One particular reactor I touched upon was the Westinghouse AP1000. It was a closed loop system that had an abundant amount of fail-safe modes. That is the key here, fail-safe integration into our highly advanced systems helps alleviate the fear that many have regarding nuclear power. At the going rate, oil prices are getting out of hand and that is just because of the speculators and not demand. Energy costs of fuel oil, natural gas and even wood heat for that matter are at all-time highs. What are the options now? Hydrogen based systems are still in the beginning stages and ethanol products are depleting many of the much needed food crops.

To me, it only makes sense to start producing nuclear power again at a much more rapid rate. The systems nowadays are safer, produce less byproducts (waste) as well as producing more energy than ever before. In these times of need to reduce the burden on our wallets as well as overall energy consumption, this makes sense. I only hope that someday soon, many in the policy making positions understand the benefits of nuclear power again.

God Bless America.