Editorial “Greenhouse” scare boosts nuclear power

Despite the recently-announced abandonment (after it had been completed) of a major U.S. nuclear power station, other events have offered hope and expectation that there will be no slowing in the world’s steady progress toward even greater use of nuclear plants for power generation.

And that’s encouraging for Canada’s uranium miners, who produce more than one-third of the world’s annual output of uranium, the fuel that drives the world’s nuclear reactors.

The abandonment of the $5.3-billion Shoreham nuclear plant in New York state, a triumph for the anti-nuclear forces in the area, may have seemed at first to signal a disturbing trend not boding well for the future of nuclear energy in the U.S. and elsewhere, nor for the future of uranium producers themselves.

And it is a fact that while there are still a number of reactors under construction in the U.S., no new nuclear plants are now on order there.

The Canadian Nuclear Association, though, believes the Shoreham situation does not reveal a trend, and points out, for instance, that in 12 other U.S. states, referendums on abandonment of nuclear stations have all rejected such a proposal. The association sees no real danger in any kind of loss in the existing market for uranium and forecasts an expanding uranium market for the nuclear units still under construction.

World-wide there are now more than 400 power reactors, with some 4,200 reactor years of operation. These figures that demonstrate in themselves that nuclear power is not only safe but economic.

And, the future for nuclear energy appeared to take a decided turn for the better as a result of an event which occurred just after the announcement of the Shoreham station abandonment.

In Canada, a World Conference on the Changing Atmosphere was held in Toronto, at which some of the world’s top environmental researchers indicated that the continued construction of nuclear reactors could be a major hope in keeping the earth habitable for the human race.

The problem, as the conference saw it, is a kind of greenhouse effect developing over the world, caused in large part by coal-fired power generating stations which pump massive clouds of carbon dioxide into the air, creating a belt of heat in the atmosphere which could literally roast us all. And coincidentally enough, in the days immediately following the conference, there were reports of heat waves (and deaths) around the world (including one in Toronto itself) that seemed to lend credence to the theory.

Certainly public attention was caught by this, at least in Canada, and we have no doubt it will do something to improve the public perception of nuclear energy as the alternative to coal-fired power and help to defuse the kind of anti-nuclear forces which were so successful at Shoreham.

We’ve said before in this space that we should not be afraid of nuclear power, and that it is the best answer we have for the needs of our growing global populations. Despite Shoreham and despite the disaster at Chernobyl, we remain convinced that there is no turning back now in nuclear power development.