Let's Have Some Love for Nuclear Power

Let's Have Some Love for Nuclear Power - WSJ.com

Because the public first became aware of nuclear energy through warfare, reactors have always been thought of as "silent bombs." But nuclear plants cannot explode. The fissionable isotope of uranium must be enriched to 90% to create a weapon. In a reactor it is only 3%. You could not blow up a nuclear reactor if you tried.

Nor is the threat of terrorists crashing an airplane into a reactor and setting off a holocaust very plausible. The Department of Energy once crashed an F-4 jet going 500 miles per hour into a concrete wall the thickness of a nuclear containment structure. The plane vaporized while the concrete was barely dented. (You can watch it on YouTube: "Plane crashes into wall.")

Finally, the problem of radioactive waste has been absurdly exaggerated. More than 95% of the material in a spent fuel rod can be recycled for energy and medical isotopes.

We have a nuclear waste problem in this country because we gave up reprocessing in the 1970s. The fear was that terrorists or foreign nationals would steal plutonium from American reactors to build bombs. This is a bit like worrying that terrorists will steal all the gold from Fort Knox. Other countries have built bombs in the intervening years. They didn't need American plutonium to do it.

Meanwhile, France has proved that reprocessing works. With a fully developed nuclear cycle, the French now store all the waste from 30 years of producing 75% of its electricity beneath the floor of one room at La Hague in Normandy.