America's Nuke Plants Are in Trouble

The article 'America's Nuke Plants Are in Trouble' by Stackpole claims the fact that nuclear power plants in the United States are facing serious industry crisis. A few plants in the America have been shut down rather recently. The articles gives three major reasons of the streak of plant closures. Firstly, regulation: people has experienced nuclear accident in the America. Therefore, people take extreme caution when considering power plant construction. More than half of the future nuclear plans that were proposed have been put on hold or canceled., court blocked new permits and many on going projects are experiencing delay or cost overruns. Secondly, expensive upgrade: the industry rather keeping old reactors and extending their lives than building new reactors due to too high of budget requirement. But most nuke plants in the U.S. are in their senium. Thirdly, cheap natural gas: the price of natural gas going down recently really makes the nuclear power industry lose their economic favor. The simple fact is that electricity from nuke has become too expensive. After listing the disadvantages of nuclear plants and the reasons causing it, Stackpole says that the reactors mothballed are actually less than people predicted. And there is still hope to this industry as a new project of making a new kind of nuclear reactor that fueled by nuclear waste has been proposed and under further determination.
Nuclear power plant is one of the most important renewable energy of the United States. Even the industry is facing difficulties, I don't believe it going to its end anytime soon. Stackpole tells us that there were four closures this year but there are still few dozens of plants in the America and most of them are running fine. As long as the safety issues are settled and waste are proper deal with, nuclear energy should has its advantage over other natural resources since they will be ran out one day in future. Besides, as technologies developing rapidly every day, nuclear power industry should find a economic-sufficient way to survive.



http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2013/09/americas-nuke-plants-are-trouble