The west's nuclear mistake

This is a lesson Americans should consider too. The state of California, once a nuclear leader, has decommissioned three of its four nuclear plants, and is planning to close its last in the middle of this decade. Those plants have fallen victim to the same post-Fukushima anxiety that ended Germany’s nuclear era. Their closures portend equally grave consequences for California’s postcarbon future. The still-operating Diablo Canyon plant alone produces about 9 percent of California’s electricity. If Diablo Canyon goes offline in 2024 or 2025, filling that gap will almost certainly require burning more gas. Gas already provides 37 percent of California’s electricity; solar and wind together provide only about 24 percent. In the near term, less nuclear means more gas.

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All energy choices entail trade-offs. Wind interferes with migratory birds and despoils open vistas. Solar panels are manufactured by coerced labor. Fabricating the panels—and disposing of them—can exude hazardous materials into the environment. Nuclear energy, too, has costs and hazards: radiation risks in the present; the disposal of spent fuel that must be safeguarded for centuries to come. But no other technology can so massively and so rapidly substitute for carbon-emitting electrical generation. No government that really regarded climate change as its top energy priority would close nuclear plants before the end of their useful lives.

The world is warming because political systems find it hard to act today against the problems of tomorrow. Balancing present fears against future dangers is difficult. Nuclear seems scary. Climate change seems remote. And so in Germany and in California, politicians protect themselves in the here and now with choices whose costs will be paid decades later.

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