Up here in Ontario we’ve had nuclear power for decades now.
For about 20 years our reactors churned out the power with no problems at all. Lately, however, the plants have turned into an expensive millstone around our necks. It will cost billins of dollars to fix them and almost as much if we decide not to fix (you can’t just flip a switch and close a nuclear plant. They are dammned expensive things to turn off and tear down).
The Ontario government’s reaction has been to call for new nuclear plants to be built.
I don’t have a lot of trouble with nuclear power itself. There have been serious problems at plants all over the world, but if people realized that nuclear power is something you can’t be sloppy about and the rules have to be followed to the letter (unlike Chernobyl) it’s certainly better for the environment than coal or it’s oxymoronic brother “Clean (?) Coal”.
I do object to the fact that the costs will probably be about 50% higher than the $15 billion our government says they’ll cost.
I get a lot of heat from my leftist friends for this, but I believe that although renewable is the way to go long-term, for the next couple of decades we need nuclear. I just worry about price.
