Michael Shellenberger, Founder-President of Environmental Progress: Global demand for electricity is set to rise 70% over the next 25 years. New nuclear reactor components can increasingly be mass-manufactured in factories and shipped around the world for reassembly on site. What’s at stake is a market worth $500 to $740 billion over the next decade and hundreds of thousands of high-skill and high-wage jobs. This essay applies to America and other countries who promote nuclear energy, nuclear medicine, and nuclear science for peaceful purposes. This new Atoms for Peace effort could inspire and unite the world around something almost everyone wants: cheap, clean energy and its beneficial and very valuable by-products and services.
Andrew Kenny, Nuclear Africa: Decommissioning of nuclear power plants is neither mysterious nor very expensive. In the USA, more than a dozen nuclear facilities have already been successfully decommissioned, and all around the world many more are being decommissioned or are about to be. New nuclear plants are easier to decommission than old ones, so as time passes the process of decommissioning will become easier and cheaper. Furthermore, as techniques improve, especially with the increased use of robotics instead of humans to dismantle the plants, costs will come down and exposure to radiation will decrease.
Gary Young, mechanical engineer, major product development manager - Before retirement, he worked on product development that significantly contributed to profitability of a global technology company. In this three part series of articles titled "A Galactic Visitor's Essay," he uses a fictional galactic visitor to let his outstanding technical knowledge and practical experience describe important new ways to use existing nuclear power that can solve many problems existing today in nuclear power and energy needs in general. Part III is the presentation of his grand idea, starting in the United States.
Catrina Rorke, R Street: With the recently announced planned retirements of nuclear facilities in Illinois and California, nearly 10 percent of the U.S. nuclear-energy fleet either already has closed or is scheduled to close within the next 16 years. Worse, there are no plans to replace them or add new plants. Similar in Germany and soon also in Switzerland. France wisely planned to replace their nuclear power plants. Russia and China are going ahead with nuclear power for the long term future.
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