Nuclear power is neither good nor bad.

Tt is a physical property that exists, like gravity or chemistry which has no inherent moral value assigned to it. Whether that property is used for "good" or "bad" all depends on how it is used and what values are assigned to that use. The Earth, for example, uses naturally occurring nuclear power to keep the iron core molten. This spinning molten iron creates the magnetic waves that form a protective shield around the Earth that keeps out the cosmic rays that would destroy our atmosphere and all life on Earth. In this case, all but the most misanthropic wretch would agree that nuclear power is used for the good of mankind. Artificial nuclear power is also used for the good of mankind. Nuclear medicine is the practice of making particular radioatve elements for the treatment of cancers and other ailments. The medicines are made in nuclear reactors and usually have a very short time before they decay and so must be made fresh and used very quickly. Nuclear power plants are used to generate about 20% of the electricity in the US, the same percentage as natural gas generators. Nuclear power plant main generators do not produce carbon dioxide (CO2) or other green house gasses or the acidic discharges of coal burning power plants and, in fact, discharge less radioactive material to the environment thatn coal plants discharge. The value of nuclear power plants is a subject of debate. Nuclear power is frequently associated with nuclear weapons, the atomic and thermo nuclear bombs used to end World War 2 and later terrify the world's populations during the Cold War. It is only fair to point out that nuclear power plants cannot explode like a nuclear bomb - physics just won't allow it. Anyone who has worked in the industry knows that it is not a simple technology and it has the inherent disadvantage of being associated so closely with nuclear weapons in the eyes of the public. As it is used today in the US and in most of the rest of the world, nuclear power has proven to be safe and reliable. The below opinion demonstrates some of the negative publicity that the industry must face. To be sure, when the Chernobyl reactor experienced a steam explosion and ejected the core into the parking lot below, an example of the worst case theoretical accident was experienced live. Several key points were demonstrated at that time.

1) Nuclear reactors should have a containment building to provide a last barrier between the nuclear fuel and the environment. Chernobyl had no containment building because the Soviets believed that their RBMK design (graphite moderated, low pressure) reactor didn't need containment. ALL US reactors and all foreign PWR and BWR reactors have reinforced concrete and steel containment buildings which are designed to withstand pressures above the design basis accident. 2) Graphite moderated reactors are not stable over part of their operating range. US reactors are Pressurized Water and Boiling Water Reactors which are stable. 3) It is a bad idea to use a nuclear weapons production reactor for electrical production. The RBMK was designed for on-line refueling to transmute U238 to Pu239 for their weapons program. Electricity was a sideline. Consequently, the political agencies had as much authority as the utility managers and forced plant staff to perform a test. 4) It is an extremely bad idea to run a test on a reactor which has not had a rigorous safety evaluation performed and reviewed by nuclear qualified personnel. The event at Chernobyl was the result of running a test which would determine if the residual heat in the plant following a scram would provide enough electricity to run the main coolant pumps. This was a bad test that should never have been done but was ordered by the central committee. Nothing like this is ever performed at US sites. For all of that, something like 50 people died during or shortly after the event as a consequence of fighting the fire. Large areas of Ukraine are off limits to outsiders although many people have chosen to remain against government recommendations. While the actual health effects won't be fully known for another 50 years or so, the huge numbers of cancers which were predicted by John Goffman and the like haven't materialized. With respect to the high level nuclear waste issue, the controversy is a red herring. Spent fuel should not be viewed as waste to be discarded but as a resource to be reprocessed and reused. There is still something like 90% of the available energy in the fuel rods when they are removed from the reactor after three fuel cycles (the typical

period). If the highly radioactive fission fragments were extracted and the fissionable material reprocessed into new fuel (as they have been doing in France for decades), the remaining volume of radioactive material would be significantly reduced. By the way, the 10,000 year figure used below is based on the very long half life of Plutonium, which is a fissionable material. If that is extracted for new fuel, the remaining nuclides decay to background activity levels in something like 600 years. I have been in this industry for 35 years and I believe that when all factors are viewed equally, nuclear power is the best method to produce the amounts of electricity that modern society has grown to depend upon. When a better method is discovered I will be happy to promote it however I don't think it will happen in my professional lifetime.