Pros And Cons Of Nuclear Energy Sprawl

Energy sprawl describes the amount of area, on land and offshore that is dedicated to the production of energy. Solar and wind require massive amounts of area in order to produce an equivalent amount of energy to a nuclear power plant. As of about ten years ago energy sprawl must be heavily considered since the United States believes it is possible to reach a 20% overall energy production from wind by 2030, in order to meet that goal 186,000 wind turbines must be built. Such a large amount of wind turbines that can be 328 feet tall would take up 25,000 square miles of land, when compared to the nuclear energy equivalent of 100 plants on 100 square miles of land there is a significantly decreased amount of energy sprawl (Alexander). All this
While there is no doubting that solar and wind will create jobs and bring in its own income, ultimately nuclear power will be more beneficial for the United States. In order to bring wind generated energy production up the tax payer will pay a heavy price, to raise the wind energy production level from just 1.5% to 4% over the next ten years it will cost at least $29 billion in federal subsidies (Alexander). Nuclear power is better suited for the economy as it is a cheaply produced source of energy, yet the United States is not capitalizing on it. This lack of nuclear energy investment on the United States is resulting in other countries to capture the benefits of this cheap energy source; China, Russia and Japan are all cashing in on nuclear power for its cheap energy. The benefit of cheap energy is that energy intensive industries have an incentive to set up sites using nuclear energy for the lessened power bill they have to pay. If other countries continue to produce cheap energy American industries may want to consider moving to these countries with lower energy costs. If businesses move over seas the United States losses jobs to other countries and we are no better