Nuclear important to energy mix

Everyone uses electricity. Unfortunately, producing electricity these days is often dirty, the result of burning fossil fuels. Pollution from coal plants alone results in over 10,000 premature deaths each year just in the U.S. In addition, to address climate change concerns, we must lower our CO2 emissions quickly and drastically.

We're often told that renewable energy sources such as solar and wind can readily replace fossil fuels. While renewables can help, by themselves they are not up to the task. First, they are unreliable, so backup sources (usually fossil fuel) are required to keep the lights on when they are not producing. Second, they require large areas of land. Finally, it takes a lot of natural resources to build solar panels and wind turbines, (e.g. copper, neodymium).

Scaling renewables up to produce all our electricity would require lots of (non-renewable) backup generation, huge amounts of land and may require more of some resources than we can currently mine.

In Illinois, we enjoy a remarkably clean energy mix. Half of our electricity is produced by six modestly sized plants. They run over 95 percent of the time on average, and are shut down to refuel only once every 18 months (during low-demand time). They produce no emissions, and are unaffected by weather.

These are nuclear plants. They produce a whopping 90 percent of the clean energy in Illinois. They are safe, reliable and clean - all the things we want our energy to be. They also require a remarkably small footprint, and their waste is tiny in volume, carefully managed and presents no risks to the public, now or in the future. To clean up our energy, we need to use all the tools we have, including renewable energy, efficiency and especially nuclear. The future depends on it.

Alan Medsker

Arlington Heights