Nonpolluting energy sources are vital

The public-health menace from polluted air is a plague upon Americans. Despite gains in pollution abatement over the last four decades, greater effort is required to reduce airborne emissions from fossil fuel power plants, industrial facilities and motor vehicles. EPA estimates stricter U.S. air quality standards by 2010 could prevent annually 23,000 premature deaths, 1.7 million asthma cases, 67,000 acute and chronic bronchitis cases, and 22,000 respiratory and 42,000 cardiovascular hospital admissions. The economic benefits from this decline in morbidity and mortality amount to billions of dollars.

Fossil fuel electrical power accounts for 40 percent of U.S. CO2 (global warming), 65 percent of SO2 (acid rain), 20 percent nitrogen oxides (ozone generation), and 40 percent of mercury emissions (neurological damage). Fly-ash particulates from auto and electrical generation (especially PM2.5, particles smaller than 2.5 microns), contribute to ischemic heart and pulmonary disease, diabetes, asthma and cardiac arrhythmia. The elderly and children are particularly sensitive.

Using nonpolluting energy sources such as nuclear will save lives and dollars. Nuclear is the only large-scale, base-load energy source that can retire aging fossil fuel plants. Renewable energy sources can contribute, but they cannot provide the demand essential for U.S. electrical needs. The Department of Energy reports that U.S. electrical power from wood and waste burning, both highly polluting renewable energy sources, have generated about 1 percent, or seven times more electrical power than all wind and solar sources since 1950. During that same period fossil fuels provided 73 percent and nuclear 14 percent.

Critics of nuclear power maintain that no new plants should be built until the nuclear waste issue is resolved. But nuclear waste is being stored safely at nuclear plant sites now. Significantly, nuclear electrical power, producing one pound of fission products safely held in spent nuclear fuel, displaces 3,000 tons of atmospheric pollutants released from a coal-fired plant.

To satisfy both increasing demand for electrical power and significant reduction in air pollution, nuclear must be a vital part of U.S. electrical power. Fortunately, new, more efficient, simpler and safer designs are available and approved by the NRC, which anticipates licensing 35 new nuclear plants by 2030.

Gary Sandquist is a professor emeritus at the University of Utah.