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To the Editor,
Suppose all vehicles on the road are powered exclusively by electricity. Just think, no more polluting exhaust from gasoline-powered engines. Pure green energy at last.
But how many have considered the huge quantity of energy required for auto charging facilities? Not too many, I submit. The amount of electrical energy required for charging the batteries of a large fleet is indeed phenomenal. At present, green energy advocates appear to be blissfully ignorant of the enormous cost required for a charging source that will meet the demands of all electrically-powered vehicles on the road.
What then is needed for a relatively inexpensive energy source for charging the batteries? Will solar energy meet these demands? Here is where we get a rude awakening. For instance, it is easily shown that many square miles of solar panels are required to equal the capacity of a single 1200-megawatt coal-fired plant. Fossil fuels can easily enough supply this needed energy, but have been roundly condemned by green energy zealots who would shut down fossil fuel installations entirely. With what, then, are we left?
How about wind power or hydroelectric dams? Countless hundreds of acres of wind turbines blighting the landscape and killing birds will not go over well with the general public. As solar power can only be generated during sunlight, wind turbines are useless on a calm day. Insofar as hydroelectric power is concerned, the U.S. has probably already reached its limit of dams.
There is, however, a viable solution. That is nuclear power. Nuclear power is clean, and absent of stifling overregulation, is affordable. The industry has served us well with with few major disasters, the most notable of which are Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. There is no doubt, however, of the economic and psychological impact these disasters have had upon the public.
What then can be done to improve the safety of nuclear power plants? As a suggestion, standardized reactors should go a long way toward ensuring safety. Not 50 different reactors, but perhaps a few select designs, each of a specific power output. At the most three or four standardized units should suffice, allowing for more intensive focus on "what can go wrong" during a rigorous design stage.
No facility in the world will ever be 100 percent safe. But with engineering ingenuity, and taking relief from stultifying red-tape that does little to ensure nuclear safety while tackling challenges from a purely engineering standpoint, safety of nuclear power plants would be optimized. Potential accidents would thus be minimized.
Clean green nuclear power is well worth the risk. Only then will a fleet of all-electric vehicles make any sense.
Gail Wickstrom
Newell