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Nuclear energy is held up as the obvious successor to fossil fuels as a solution for producing base load mainstream electricity. But is nuclear a viable long term solution or just another quick fix?

Undoubtedly fossil fuels have serious issues associated with them. Peak Oil production is one such problem which will very soon make its presence felt at both the national and individual level. Another even more serious concern is the possibility of serious and perhaps irreversible climate change brought about by pollution primarily in the form of Carbon Dioxide emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.

So given these issues how does Nuclear energy hold up as a long term solution to energy production? Nuclear has a bad name due to unfortunate incidents including Three Mile Island and Chernobyl where reactor problems caused major long term human and environmental suffering. Despite this, casualties associated with electricity production in the Nuclear industry are far fewer per unit of energy than in the coal and oil industries.

When nuclear power stations were first developed there was the issue of waster storage. The liquid waste had, and still does have the potential to leak into water tables and cause severe contamination. This problem has largely been overcome as Nuclear waste can now be stored in solid form.

Use of fuel enrichment to produce weapons grade nuclear materials such as Plutonium-239 is an unfortunate but essential part of the economical use of nuclear fuel. It is worth remembering that no aggressive nuclear strike has been carried out since the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War Two, and that many millions of casualties have occurred in conventional warfare since that same time.

But perhaps the most significant issue is that Nuclear energy is itself based on a non-renewable resource of Uranium. This fact alone should be enough reason for us not to place too much stock in it as a long term energy source. Given that worldwide energy use is increasing continuously and will do so far into the future, it is easy to see that Nuclear energy will one day face its own peak of production.

It does not make sense to replace fossil fuels with an energy source that is doomed to face exactly the same problem. Those who champion Nuclear power say it is the solution to our current energy and pollution crisis, but those people are not looking far enough into the future.

We need to be making plans not just for our own well-being, but also that of our children and grandchildren. Adopting wide scale renewable energy production from solar and wind sources is the way forward. These are proven technologies that are more than capable of meeting our energy needs and which have very limited adverse environmental effects, if they are manufactured and deployed sensibly.

It is time for Governments around the world to stop looking for excuses and start making moves that assure the coming generations a safe, energy rich and pollution free world. We need to begin implementing massive scale renewable energy immediately.

To find out more about Nuclear energy and issues associated with coal and oil use, visit the Fossil Fuels section of Roger Vanderlely's website. There you can also find information about possible energy developments such as the Bakken Oil Field.