Editorial Board
Nuclear Power Is Worth Saving
If market forces are allowed to shut down reactors, the climate and public health will suffer.
Cost overruns.
Photographer: Pallava Bagla/Corbis via Getty ImagesLast week's bankruptcy of Westinghouse Electric Co. is yet more evidence, if anyone needed any, that the economics of nuclear power are not good. Like coal, nuclear energy can't compete against cheap natural gas and ever-cheaper renewables.
Unlike coal, however, nuclear energy is a crucial tool in the fight against climate change. So the public subsidies that benefit the nuclear industry in the U.S. are justified, whereas efforts to prop up the coal industry are not.