On Wednesday, the House Committee on Oversight and Reform held a hearing to examine our environment and ways we can reduce pollution to leave a cleaner, healthier planet to our children and grandchildren. The panel of witnesses all discussed different ways we can chip away at the amount of pollutants we produce, but one topic was absent from many of the testimonies.
Nuclear Energy.
When nuclear power was villified in the 1960s, we were just starting to scratch the surface of this novel way to produce energy. Projections from that time said that we would be producing 50% of our energy from nuclear power by today. Sadly, that number currently sits at 20%. While it is true that there have been problems with nuclear power in the past, many of today's experts, like Michael Shellenberger, President and Founder of Environmental Progress, believe it is an underutilized resource and that the stigma assigned to nuclear power in the past does not reflect the great strides in safety and efficiency we have made.
Plus, nuclear power is much cleaner than coal, oil or natural gas. The "smokestacks" we see at nuclear power plants are actually cooling towers and the "smoke" coming from them is just steam.
I spoke to Michael Shellenberger at the hearing on Wednesday, and this is what he had to say about nuclear energy:
