Whenever the discussion turns to ways to provide for increasing electricity demand while addressing climate change and national energy security, more individuals are reaching the same conclusion: Nuclear power must be part of the nation’s energy mix.

“Given steps that have been taken over the years to make nuclear energy safer and the obvious environmental advantages it offers in reducing CO2 emissions, there is no longer a persuasive case against nuclear generation at the expense of coal,” writes Alan Greenspan, former Federal Reserve chairman, in his latest book, “The Age of Turbulence.” 

“The safeguards at nuclear power plants in the United States are such that the public has never suffered a radiation-induced death or a serious injury owing to a breakdown. … I believe we significantly underuse nuclear power.”

The clean-air benefits of nuclear plants, which do not release carbon dioxide during operation, have drawn the attention of other influential business executives, like Vinod Khosla, a co-founder of Sun Microsystems.  “For every nuclear plant that environmentalists avoided, they ended up causing two coal plants to be built,” he wrote earlier this year in Earth2Tech, a publication devoted to the intersection between technology and industry.

“That’s the history of the last 20 years,” Khosla said.  “Most new power plants in this country are coal, because the environmentalists opposed nuclear.  When you ask [some environmental groups], ‘Do you prefer nuclear or coal?’ They’ll say, ‘We prefer nuclear to coal, but we don’t want either.’ It doesn’t work that way; we need power.”

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush in a Jan. 25 op-ed in the Miami Herald wrote: “Americans are beginning to recognize that nuclear energy caters to both our lifestyle and our greening mentality.  And it offers the most proven means for our country to achieve much-needed energy security.”

That same day, Joseph Cannon, editor of the Deseret (Utah) Morning News, penned similar thoughts on the newspaper’s editorial page.  “We are running out of time,” he wrote.  “And by not choosing to aggressively build nuclear power plants, we are deciding either to embrace a high-cost, economy-debilitating and less-reliable energy future or we will default to what we know best.”

In the nation’s capital, the National Association of Manufacturers featured nuclear energy on the cover of its January issue of Manufacturing Leadership, the organization’s flagship magazine.  “While it is clear that we will need all sources of energy to meet [the] growing demand [for electricity], nuclear power is an option that
can have multiple benefits.  Increasing concerns about the environmental consequences of greenhouse gas emissions and rising anxiety about America's energy security reveal a need for a proven source of clean, affordable and abundant electricity.”

In an accompanying editorial, John Engler, the association’s president and former Michigan governor, put it succinctly: “Nuclear energy is positioned to play an increasingly important role in U.S. energy security.”