Writing for American Enterprise, Max Shultz, of the Manhattan Institute, says that boosting the use of nuclear power is one way to help guarantee a moe secure energy future for European countries.
The first thing European policymakers must do is eschew the claims of those who think conservation and energy efficiency are the path to a more secure energy future. They’re not. Conservation may work on the margins, but it’s no substitute for the truly massive sums of energy required to feed the advanced economies of Europe.
Neither is efficiency the key to lowering consumption. In The Bottomless Well, my colleague Peter Huber illustrated that increases in efficiency lead to a rise in consumption. Efficiency gains end up lowering the cost per output, thereby encouraging even greater energy usage.
The answer to Europe’s energy security dilemma will instead come from the supply side. Boosting the use of nuclear power and diversifying natural gas supplies are the surest ways to lessen reliance on the Kremlin. Adopting these measures here in the United States would pay similar rewards.
The case for nuclear power is fairly straightforward, and has four major components.
First, generating electricity from nuclear power is economical. Uranium is relatively inexpensive compared to natural gas and coal, and plant operating costs have fallen over the last few decades.
Second, nuclear power does not require supplies from unstable nations. Unlike so many of the world’s oil and gas reserves, the planet’s greatest stores of uranium are not confined to geopolitical hotspots like the Middle East, Venezuela, and Russia.
Third, nuclear energy is environmentally friendly. Considering that it produces no emissions, this should prove attractive to European politicians who profess to be concerned about climate change.
Finally, nuclear energy has amassed an excellent record of safety. Anti-nuclear crusaders counter by citing the accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl seven years later, but those fail to make the activists’ point. Three Mile Island actually showed that reinforced concrete containment facilities do protect public safety when serious accidents occur, and the catastrophe at the Soviet-era Chernobyl plant was the product of incompetent operators violating regular safety procedures. Moreover, Chernobyl did not have the standard containment structures to prevent deadly radiation from escaping. Chernobyl is a testament to the danger of command-and-control style communism, not nuclear energy.
The first thing European policymakers must do is eschew the claims of those who think conservation and energy efficiency are the path to a more secure energy future. They’re not. Conservation may work on the margins, but it’s no substitute for the truly massive sums of energy required to feed the advanced economies of Europe.
Neither is efficiency the key to lowering consumption. In The Bottomless Well, my colleague Peter Huber illustrated that increases in efficiency lead to a rise in consumption. Efficiency gains end up lowering the cost per output, thereby encouraging even greater energy usage.
The answer to Europe’s energy security dilemma will instead come from the supply side. Boosting the use of nuclear power and diversifying natural gas supplies are the surest ways to lessen reliance on the Kremlin. Adopting these measures here in the United States would pay similar rewards.
The case for nuclear power is fairly straightforward, and has four major components.
First, generating electricity from nuclear power is economical. Uranium is relatively inexpensive compared to natural gas and coal, and plant operating costs have fallen over the last few decades.
Second, nuclear power does not require supplies from unstable nations. Unlike so many of the world’s oil and gas reserves, the planet’s greatest stores of uranium are not confined to geopolitical hotspots like the Middle East, Venezuela, and Russia.
Third, nuclear energy is environmentally friendly. Considering that it produces no emissions, this should prove attractive to European politicians who profess to be concerned about climate change.
Finally, nuclear energy has amassed an excellent record of safety. Anti-nuclear crusaders counter by citing the accidents at Three Mile Island in 1979 and Chernobyl seven years later, but those fail to make the activists’ point. Three Mile Island actually showed that reinforced concrete containment facilities do protect public safety when serious accidents occur, and the catastrophe at the Soviet-era Chernobyl plant was the product of incompetent operators violating regular safety procedures. Moreover, Chernobyl did not have the standard containment structures to prevent deadly radiation from escaping. Chernobyl is a testament to the danger of command-and-control style communism, not nuclear energy.
