Zaremba, H. (2019, June 25). Nuclear Energy Just Isn’t Competitive In The U.S. Retrieved from https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Nuclear-Power/Nuclear-Energy-Just-Isnt-Competitive-In-The-US.html.

 

The U.S. is the largest nuclear energy producer in the world at about 30% of the worlds nuclear energy. These numbers are declining rapidly with cheap energy alternatives becoming more readily available. The decommissioning of plants out numbers the construction of new ones; this can be attributed to the high costs of matiances, but more importantly, construction. Nuclear plant construction never was really standardized, leading to an array of different plants with different capabilities and different costs. Still, nuclear power has proven to be an effective solution to climate change; we need to focus on smaller plants that can be constructed in a factory and shipped to an installment area.

We have yet to try new approaches to the construction of nuclear plants, which is why we haven’t seen much development in the past years. The plants that are still active in the U.S. provides a majority of the clean power we use, but the waste the produce costs taxpayers more and more each year. I believe this is the energy solution, or at least part of it. Focusing our efforts and finances on these smaller reactors would be the wisest choice in terms of where to put our money. Of course, more research is always needed, but we cannot drop this energy source completely just because it wasn’t perfect from the start.