When Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., rolled out her plans for her Green New Deal, there were several chuckle-worthy elements to it. Conservatives had quite a bit of fun with her “farting cows,” her proposed abolition of air travel, and her guaranteed incomes for those “unwilling to work,” among other things.
But if you’re not convinced by those gaffes that the proposal wasn’t serious, there was a much more convincing proof buried in the text. For in the process of making all U.S. electrical generation carbon-neutral, the Green New Deal not only ruled out the creation of new nuclear generation capacity, but also called for dismantling the nuclear capacity that exists.
Science has established the consumption of fossil fuels is affecting global temperatures. And there is only one form of electricity generation that is both feasible on a large scale and completely carbon free. That is nuclear power, which accounts for the largest share of carbon-free power generation in the U.S. No one could possibly dismantle 20% of U.S. generation capacity — and 60% of carbon-free generation capacity — and still hold forth any hope whatsoever of decarbonizing domestic power generation in the long run.
We strongly oppose the efforts by President Trump and various business lobbies to subsidize nuclear power, and also coal, on the pretext that the market does not already reward its grid reliability. However, if the top priority is to save the planet and reduce carbon emissions, then Trump’s plan, at least with respect to nuclear, is the best possible thing he or anyone else could do.
Nuclear technology is advancing quickly. If global warming is the big problem, then there would be no excuse for the U.S. not to adopt it on a grand scale. The best plan, in the long run, will be to follow in the footsteps of France, whose near-zero net carbon footprint today was made possible by its early adoption of nuclear. With coming generations of safer and perhaps even foolproof reactors in the works, this plan will keep looking better until nuclear fusion becomes technologically feasible at long last.
In the meantime, cheap, natural gas, made available by fracking, has already made the U.S. the world leader in carbon emissions reduction. By allowing gas to displace coal as the leading fuel for domestic power generation, fracking has already done more to reduce emissions than the combined activity of all the environmental activists in human history. Renewables such as wind and solar, which still play only a minor role in generation, cannot operate without the flexible backup that gas provides for those times when the wind stops and the sun sets or goes behind a cloud.
Natural gas will help reduce carbon emissions in the short run. But nuclear is the only long-term answer if you’re worried about climate change.
This Earth Day, write your congressman and ask him or her to consider measures that will make it easier, cheaper, and faster to bring new nuclear power online. And if you’re not for nuclear power, then perhaps you’re just not as serious about climate change as you think you are.
