Is Nuclear Power America's Best Energy Alternative?

The issue of which energy option (or alternative) is “best” actually depends on the local environmental, social, political, and economic situations that exist in each area.

While it might make for good headlines to see one sector of the energy industry ‘lining up’ against another sector over environmental or economic reasons, the reality is that our rapidly growing demand for energy and the increasingly unstable worldwide geopolitical make up both mean that we need all the domestically produced energy we can get.

In areas like Texas , Ohio , Pennsylvania , Illinois , Indiana , or West Virginia , where there is strong demand for inexpensive, abundant, and clean baseload energy and where there is very easy access to massive coal reserves, it only makes sense to use a local, domestic energy resource like coal. In an area like the Canadian province of Quebec , where there is access to abundant hydro resources, it makes sense to rely on that generation option. It makes sense to build wind generation options in Nebraska and off the coast of Massachusetts , where wind resources are abundant. Nuclear makes sense in areas where there is easy access to supplies of enriched uranium and in areas where there may not be abundant coal or hydro options available.

When it comes to energy generation, there is no one size fits all answer. One energy option will be the “best” fit in one area, while another is a “best” fit in another. North America needs as much domestically-produced, affordable, and clean energy as we can get. Coal, nuclear, hydro, wind, gas, biomass … they’re all options that need to be considered for each jurisdiction.