New York Times letters page: “Invitation to a dialogue: Using nuclear energy”
DOI: 10.1063/PT.4.0196
The New York Times this weekend will carry a handful of brief responses to a letter from a retired nuclear engineer who argues that the coming “enormous demand for new generating capacity must be met while also containing global warming and minimizing pollution and other environmental damage.” He says this will inevitably require “clean and safe nuclear energy.”
Here’s the heart of Zvi J. Doron’s letter:
Solar and wind energy are nowhere near ready to take on this kind of load. Coal, oil and gas are polluters and major carbon dioxide generators—hence major contributors to global warming. Oil and gas also have geopolitical issues. Nuclear power is the only major electricity source that is both ready and does not contribute to global warming.
There is no question that nuclear plants must be built with the highest regard to safety. Modern nuclear plant designs therefore incorporate greatly enhanced safety features that, for example, allow a reactor to shut down and cool itself by natural forces like gravity and natural circulation, without external electrical power. Fukushima could not happen in these plants.
The Times adds this editors’ note: “We invite readers to respond to this letter for our Sunday Dialogue. We plan to publish responses and Mr. Doron’s rejoinder in the Sunday Review. E-mail: letters@nytimes.com.”
And I add this reporter’s note: Since the Times must select responses and then give Doron time to prepare his rejoinder, all probably by sometime on Friday, it seems advisable for those who respond to be not only pithy (maybe 150 words or less) but prompt.
Steven T. Corneliussen, a media analyst for the American Institute of Physics, monitors three national newspapers, the weeklies Nature and Science, and occasionally other publications. He has published op-eds in the Washington Post and other newspapers, has written for NASA’s history program, and is a science writer at a particle-accelerator laboratory.