Foster 1

Stephen Foster
Government
Mr. Rogers
24 October, 2015
The Nuclear Energy Reduction Act
In 1986, a disaster on the nuclear level directly displaced 120,000 people while rendering
an area of almost 1,000 square miles uninhabitable. In 2011, an earthquake caused the absolute
meltdown of a Japanese nuclear reactor that caused an estimated $500 billion dollars in damage,
not including the irreversible effects it had on our invaluable environment. The aftermath of both
these events will be felt for centuries to come, however even through the "safe" production of
power through the use of nuclear energy, the effects on our environment and our economy are
increasingly becoming more and more drastic. Here in the United States, many argue the nuclear
energy is the way of the future, even with the massive repercussions an accident may cause.
Even so, most are not educated on the technicalities of the overall cost of nuclear energy here in
the United States; both economic and environmental. The Nuclear Energy Reduction Act of 2015
should be signed into law because it removes government incentives for the expansion of
infrastructure in the field of nuclear energy in the United States, forces energy corporations in the
United States to take fiscal responsibility of the effects of their manufacturing process, and
extremely encourages increased infrastructure and research in clean, safe, and alternative sources
of energy such as solar, wind, and hydroelectric power.
Essentially, nuclear energy in the United States is impossible without government
subsidies. Without government subsidies to offset the cost of labor, land, and construction

Foster 2
materials, the cost of building a nuclear reactor and using it to generate electricity to sell
to consumers is just not profitable. "For one, single 1600 MW nuclear reactor, government
subsidies clock in at around $495 million dollars a year, or about $15 billion dollars over the
course of 30 years."(Koplow) This is a monumental use of government money, considering that,
"There are currently 61 commercially operating nuclear power plants with 99 nuclear reactors in
30 states in the United States."(United States Energy Administration) The worst part is, nuclear
energy only generates roughly 20% of the United States' electricity. Even after the completion of
a nuclear reactor, no one knows if the cost of producing electricity at that reactor will be able to
compete in the constantly fluctuating market. In other words, the fiscal risk of constructing these
reactors have been shifted from the investor to the taxpayer, directly via government subsidies.
The Nuclear Energy Reduction Act aims to put an end these subsidies which is great considering
that the consumer (taxpayer) more often than not is paying a lot more for energy they most likely
do not use and is also indirectly supporting an industry that is just not ready for the energy
market in its current technological state.
Nuclear energy doesn't create electricity without any unwanted byproduct. In fact, the
very byproduct that nuclear energy does produce is highly toxic and has extremely detrimental
effects to the surrounding environment. The United States' nuclear waste pile grows at about
2,200 tons each year, but what's most shocking is that, "Currently, there are no permanent
nuclear waste disposal sites in the United States. Some of the temporary sites contain four times
the amount they were designed to handle." (S.E. Hasan) The current situation that the United
States is facing

Foster 3
in terms of its nuclear waste problem has become dire. If not corrected promptly, risk of a major
accident will grow exponentially. The first permanent nuclear waste disposal facility is the
proposed Yucca Mountain Repository that, "...will cost over $100 billion, and if were used to
house the current amount of nuclear waste in the United States, would be over half full of its
estimated capacity."(S.E. Hasan) These permanent repositories would be the only safe way to
permanently dispose of nuclear waste, which means that all corporations who create nuclear
waste, should be able to provide the means of storing it. The Nuclear Energy Reduction Act
specifically holds the owners of the plant to be in direct responsibility of the legal and permanent
disposal of the nuclear waste their plants generate, which in turn will ultimately create a much
safer process and also increase operating costs for nuclear energy corporations. Legally holding
the corporations accountable for the waste they generate will directly influence their operating
cost, which in turn will further discourage the production of electricity through nuclear energy.
Many regard nuclear energy as a viable answer to our energy crisis; their main reason
being that it is just as clean as any other source of energy. Unfortunately, very often does all the
prep work to creating electricity through nuclear power get looked over. The construction of a
nuclear power plant takes years and billions of dollars, but also the construction of the plant
pollutes an astonishing amount of CO2 into the atmosphere. First, mass amounts of CO2 are
generated by the mining of the uranium and the huge trucks that haul the ore to a processing
facility that then pollutes even more to process the ore. Then, the ore has to be shipped to the
plant that will use the ore to generate electricity. Interestingly enough, "Almost all the uranium
used in U.S. commercial reactors is imported. After reaching a peak in 1980, domestic mining

Foster 4
now accounts for only 10% of the fuel used in U.S .reactors."(WISE) It's unimaginable how
much energy is used and how many pollutants are generated from importing tons and tons of
Uranium and Thorium ore from other countries, not to mention the economic and environmental
cost of it. "Estimates place the CO2 per unit of energy at 4-5 times higher than the average
quantities of CO2 produced from traditional renewable energy sources." (Romm) Alternative
forms of renewable energy to nuclear energy are truly non-polluting, however nuclear energy
relies on fossil fuels to operate efficiently. The Nuclear Energy Reduction Act takes the billions
formerly offered to the nuclear energy corporations and introduces those same subsidies to
alternative energy corporations, in order to create infrastructure and to support a new and
growing industry that is both the solution to our energy crisis and significantly more clean than
nuclear energy.
Nuclear energy has come to be known as a very stable and consistent way of producing
energy. When other sources fail, nuclear power has been able to provide emergency energy when
it's needed most. However, should this fact be the sole justification for an increase in
infrastructure of an energy source that is just as risky as it is reliable? Accidents have been few
and far between, however when they do strike, the effects have been devastating. In 2006, a
Russian publication supported by the New York Academy of Sciences reported that between the
years 1986 and 2004, "...there have been approximately 985,000 premature cancer deaths that
have occurred around the world as a direct result of the Chernobyl Nuclear Incident." (Yablokov
15). Imagine the effects a disaster in the United States would have, even if it was near a less
dense area in terms of population. Thousands would be at risk of fatality, with many more at risk

Foster 5
of the long-term and horrendous effects of nuclear radiation. Not to mention what it takes to
actually clean up a nuclear disaster on the scale of Chernobyl. Between the years 1986 and 1987,
"240,000 recovery workers were called upon to aid in the clean-up of the incident, along with
over 360,000 more called upon in the following years."(Bennett, Repacholi, and Carr). The
amount of raw manpower necessary to take on such a disaster is unfeasible nowadays, especially
when you factor in the necessary funds to do so. To get an accurate estimate of just how
expensive the accident was, we must look at Fukushima as an example. The estimate of the total
economic cost of Fukushima is, "$250-500 billion dollars."(Caldicott and Gundersen) The total
economic cost, the physical manpower necessary for a cleanup of that size, along with the
endangering of thousands of lives is too high of a price the United States would pay if such a
disaster occurred. An uptime of 99% is not enough to justify all of the possible consequences of
nuclear energy, which is why The Nuclear Energy Reduction Act must be enacted.
The world has been encountering an energy crisis like we have never seen before, and
although nuclear energy is seen as the energy of the future, we must understand what it takes for
us to actually use it. Without government subsidies, the nuclear energy industry wouldn't be able
to survive in the United States. On top of that, in its current technological state, nuclear energy
has proven to be highly pollutive as well as extremely dangerous. There are plenty other sources
that are significantly more clean, as well as being hundreds of times more safe than nuclear
energy. The Nuclear Energy Reduction Act of 2015 not only intends to solve this energy crisis
through empowering other sources of renewable and clean energy, but does it in a way that
protects thousands of lives as well as our environment.

Foster 6
Works Cited
Bennett, Burton, Michael Repacholi, and Zhanat Carr. Health Effects of the Chernobyl Accident and
Special Health Care Programmes: Report of the UN Chernobyl Forum Expert Group
"Health" Geneva: World Health Organization, 2006. Web.
Goodstein, D. April 29, 2005. Transcript of The End of the Age of Oil talk
Gundersen, Arnie & Caldicott, Helen. The Ongoing Damage and Danger at Fukushima. Fairewinds
Energy Education. Web. 6 Nov. 2012.
Koplow, Doug. Nuclear Power: Still Not Viable without Subsidies. N.p.: Earth Track, n.d. Print.
"Nuclear Power : The Energy Balance" by J.W. Storm and P. Smith (2005)
Romm, Joe. "The Nukes of Hazard: One Year After Fukushima, Nuclear Power Remains Too Costly To
Be A Major Climate Solution."ThinkProgress The Nukes of Hazard One Year After Fukushima
Nuclear Power Remains Too Costly To Be A Major Climate Solution Comments. Climate
Progress, 11 Mar. 2012. Web. 18 Sept. 2015.
S. E. Hasan, "International Practice in High-level Nuclear Waste Management," in Concepts and
Applications in Environmental Geochemistry, ed. by D. Sarkar, R. Datta and R. Hannigan
(Elsevier, 2007).
World Information Service on Energy (WISE), Nuclear Information & Resource Service (NIRS). Nuclear
Power: No Solution to Climate Change. Nuclear Monitor, Feb. 2005. Available
Yablokov, Alexey V. Chernobyl: Consequences of the Catastrophe for People and Environment. New
York: New York Academy of Sciences, 2009. Print.