Letter to the Editor of the Dallas Morning News about the Benefits of Nuclear Energy

The following is a letter to the editor I wrote in response to an editorial about why we should not be using nuclear energy.

The Benefits of Generating Nuclear Power

Arjun Makhijani's column has it exactly backward: the facts are that nuclear energy is the safest, and cleanest source of energy that we currently have available.

He fails to mention that not even one single American has died as a result of a commercial American nuclear reactor incident. He fails to mention the fact that France generates about 80 percent of its electricity from nuclear reactors and not one single Frenchman has died because of it. He fails to mention that Great Britain delivers electricity from nuclear power at a cost of around 6 cents per kilowatt-hour – even less than what it costs using coal or natural gas.
He fails to mention that the waste heat from a nuclear power plant can be used to liquefy our own coal and turn it into oil, so that we would not be dependent on foreign sources of oil. And he fails to mention that spent nuclear fuel can be recycled into new nuclear fuel.

The United States and the rest of the world are suffering due to the high cost of oil and electricity. These high costs affect us directly in gasoline prices and in our electricity bill, but they also affect us indirectly, since virtually everything we buy uses energy in its production.

Nuclear power provides safe, pollution-free, and greenhouse-gas-free energy and can be used to make our own oil. Let's build them right now so that all Americans can benefit. 

Tim Farage, Richardson, TX
March 3, 2008