Fossil Fuels or Nuclear Power?

There are two ways to read the title of the well-argued and optimistic piece “America Is Petroleum-Independent, for Now” (April 5), by Nicholas Eberstadt, Derek Scissors, and Evan Abramsky.

Under the first, intended, reading, America is indeed exporting more oil and gas than it is importing. Our production exceeds consumption, on average, over the course of a year, even at a time when coal consumption is dropping rapidly owing to substitution by natural gas in electricity generation.

But the Texas blackouts of February 15–18 support a darker reading in which an inversion of the title would be more appropriate: America is in fact mortally petroleum-dependent.

What happened? The weather grew cold, the wind stopped blowing, the sun was indifferently inclined, and our need for natural-gas heat and power exceeded our ability to produce and deliver. We can fix some failures by aggressive spending to weatherize gas production and gas-powered electricity generation.

But across America, our shocking gas boom, with accompanying low prices, has been used as an excuse to shut down young nuclear plants whose operating lives are no longer limited. (Will they last 80 years? A century? Longer? To be decided.) The plants are not being closed due to wear and tear, obsolescence, or for poor operating performance, but only because the short-run market-clearing prices for wholesale electricity are often falling below the operation costs of nuclear plants.

We cannot allow the strategic boon of this petroleum boom to be squandered by the loss of nuclear power, which forms the bedrock of our nation’s electricity generation. Nuclear is undoubtedly our most weather- and disaster-proof energy source. Wind and solar, as their advocates made clear during the Texas blackouts, were never intended to be relied upon. And they never will be: At the hour of deepest deficit, Texas’s $70 billion investment in solar and wind collapsed to supplying only 1 percent of expected total demand.

Wind and solar won’t protect us. This gas boom and its gift of petroleum “independence” might not last. We must secure the long-term operation of our nuclear plants. Only then should we celebrate the economic and strategic advantage of high domestic petroleum production.

Mark Nelson Managing Director, Radiant Energy Fund

Nicholas Eberstadt, Derek Scissors & Evan Abramsky respond: We appreciate the thoughtful points Mark Nelson raises regarding the limitations of oil, natural gas, wind, and solar, as well as the corresponding strengths of nuclear power. Indeed, on paper, nuclear power would seem to be a highly underappreciated green-energy alternative. It would certainly be better to expand nuclear power using a secure supply chain than to expand the use of other sources of energy that heavily depend on contributions from China.

As long as shale-oil and gas production remains more cost-effective and public skepticism of nuclear energy remains high, however, we feel it’s unlikely that nuclear energy will be capable of making a significant contribution to U.S. energy consumption. Meanwhile, we are concerned that there is inadequate understanding of how successful America’s broader energy transformation has been and that there is some corresponding willingness to undo that transformation, perhaps even citing the difficult events in Texas as justification. If the reality and benefits of greater domestic-energy self-sufficiency are more fully appreciated, including the very important foreign-policy benefits, it may then open the political door to the reconsideration of large-scale nuclear-power generation.