Atomic age

The debate about the best way to replace this country’s dependence on fossil fuels with clean and renewable resources has people scrambling over themselves to hype their favorite pie-in-the-sky alternative.

The shift from oil and coal to a power grid that runs on rainbows and a sense of self-satisfaction might take a good while, though, and we need something to power us in the meantime.

Nuclear energy is the best way to fill that need.

In a nutshell, nuclear reactors use a piece of radioactive material to boil water, and the resulting steam spins turbines that produce electricity.

The upshot to this is that there are no greenhouse gases released during the process, unlike coal and natural gas. The giant smokestacks that can be seen at nuclear power plants release nothing but harmless steam.

It ain’t all a bed of roses, though.

Opponents of nuclear energy have very valid issues with the process. The threat of a meltdown, wherein the core of a nuclear reactor begins to melt due to insufficient cooling, exists whenever these plants operate.

During a meltdown, nuclear material might be released to the surrounding environment.
Nuclear waste disposal is another serious environmental and national security concern.

Thanks to forward and backward motion of different presidential administrations during the last few decades, this issue will be on the table for many years to come.

Despite all these negative aspects, nuclear energy remains the most viable and efficient method of power generation that does not rely on fossil fuels.

It can be implemented now, unlike certain other forms of energy production that will still require large amounts of funding and research to get out of the planning stages.
If this weren’t the case, why would nearly 20 percent of the United States’ electricity already come from nuclear power?