Should Minnesota’s ban on new nuclear power plants be lifted?

Yes.

States with cheap and reliable energy are going to have advantages in the marketplace for companies over states leaning too heavily on aging coal and gas plants with ever-increasing costs.

Without hydro, the only option Minnesota has for inexpensive energy is nuclear.

The plain fact of the matter is there have been many advances in nuclear energy since the ban was put in place 17 years ago. Put simply, it is not the stuff of Three Mile Island anymore. The technology behind the safety, monitoring and prevention systems has vastly improved in existing plants, and the next generation of nuclear plants will be even safer.

Problems with a nuclear reactor indeed could be disastrous. But consider this: Thousands of Americans each year suffer from respiratory problems caused by fossil fuels polluting the air we breathe. No American has died from a nuclear reactor.

Nuclear power plants generate a massive amount of electricity and emit nearly no carbon dioxide. This is an important consideration in a warming world as a result of greenhouse gases. This point alone has swayed many people concerned about the future of the planet in favor of nuclear power.

Some people argue the cost of building new nuclear plants is too high; however, that largely is because one hasn’t been built in the United States since 1977. As more are built, construction prices will come down sharply.

The issue of nuclear waste, unfortunately, has not been solved, but get this: The Wall Street Journal in 2008 reported “all the waste produced so far in the U.S. would only cover a football field about five yards deep.”

So while there is a lot of wrangling over which deep, underground location to place the waste, a lot of the urge to fight stems from lack of knowledge of how safe nuclear power and disposal of the waste has become.

Minnesota always has been a leader among states. We pride ourselves on doing things right. With more technology coming out every year, demand for electricity is going to increase in the factories and at home, particularly when the time comes for more automobiles to be plugged in, rather than fueled up. By being ahead of the curve, Minnesota will once again show the nation that it was right to go nuclear.