Nuclear power plants, which use atom-splitting fission to release energy and produce electricity, currently generate about 19 percent of America’s electrical output. A far greater percentage of the nation’s electricity is created with fossil fuels like coal, natural gas, and oil. These are used to heat water into steam which turns the blades of a turbine, which in turn rotates the shaft of an electrical generator, causing a coil of wire within the generator to spin in a magnetic field and create electricity. Coal today is used to produce about 49 percent of America’s electricity, while natural gas and petroleum account for another 20 percent and 2 percent, respectively. Other sources of electricity include:

• hydropower (accounting for 7 percent of U.S. electrical production), where flowing water is used to spin the turbine·
• geothermal power (less than 1 percent), which harnesses heat energy buried beneath the earth’s surface
• solar power (less than 1 percent), which is four times more expensive than nuclear power and at least five times the cost of coal, and is undependable because it produces electricity only when the sun is shining.
• wind power (less than 1 percent), which is similarly expensive and undependable because its turbines produce electricity only about a third of the time (i.e., when the wind is blowing)
• biomass power (about 1 percent), a highly inefficient system that uses agricultural waste to produce electricity; to shift America’s electrical production entirely to biomass, a farming area ten times the size of Iowa would be required.
• fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and petroleum) currently account for a combined 71 percent of U.S. electrical production.

Nuclear energy offers an extremely clean, cost-effective alternative to those fossil fuels. Nuclear plants put no carbon dioxide into the air, and the relatively miniscule quantities of radioactive waste they produce are stored in sealed, self-contained, carefully guarded sites. A coal-fired plant releases 100 times more radioactive material than an equivalent nuclear reactor—and not into a self-contained storage site but directly into the atmosphere. By generating electricity whose production otherwise would have required the use of fossil fuels, the 104 nuclear plants now operating in the U.S. prevent the release of approximately 700 million additional tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere each year; that is the equivalent of removing 96 percent of all passenger cars from U.S. roads.

If not for nuclear energy, America’s dependence on foreign oil would be even greater than it currently is. During the 1973 oil embargo, nuclear technology produced only 5 percent of the U.S. electric supply, while oil accounted for 17 percent. Today those figures are 19 percent and 2 percent, respectively. If more nuclear plants are constructed, they could replace coal and natural gas as America’s major source of electricity production.

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