Wisconsin is one of several states across the country with laws in place designed to prevent the construction of new nuclear power plants. Our current moratorium restricts the building of new nuclear power plants until two standards are met: First, the federally licensed repository for permanent storage of high-level waste must be open and, second, the Public Service Commission must find that nuclear power makes economic sense.

Proponents of the ban will tell you it is not a ban at all but rather two “common-sense” restrictions. And technically they are right, but by implementing restrictions that no other power source is subject to — one of which opponents know, due to their efforts, won’t be met anytime soon — the law functionally prohibits the building of new nuclear power plants in Wisconsin, making it no different than a flat-out ban.

The most intriguing thing about Wisconsin’s standards for expanding nuclear power is if you examine them a bit more closely, it’s not hard to realize they are indeed far from “common-sense” and that, in fact, no energy source meets both the requirements of being the most economical and having a safe place for permanent storage of waste.

First, let’s examine the idea that in order to build new power sources, electric companies ought to be bound by law to choose the most economical source of power. First of all, this is an unnecessary restriction for any sector of the economy. The cheaper a company can produce its product, the more money it can make. So-called corporate greed makes such a restriction unnecessary.

It is also a telling sign that despite the ease with which it could be applied to other sectors of energy production, it has only been applied to the nuclear industry. The secret remains that if companies built the cheapest sources of power, we would have quite a few more coal plants than we do today. Even with massive tax subsidies, solar power costs several times the current rate of electricity. And that is in the sunniest places in the U.S., not snowy Wisconsin. Wind power does significantly better but still requires massive federal and state subsidies and tax breaks to even come close to coal and other fossil fuels like natural gas. The exact costs of electricity production vary based on region and with time as fuel prices and efficiency change, making a direct comparison difficult, but there is a reason that, despite decades of heavy tax breaks for solar and wind, nuclear and hydroelectric continue to make up over 95 percent of all emissions free-energy production, according to the Department of Energy.

The economic requirement, however, is by far the less restrictive standard of the two at this point in time. As long as there is no federal repository for permanent storage of high-level waste, the debate about the economics of electricity production is insignificant. In this aspect of the nuclear moratorium, our politicians have once again applied an unfair standard to the nuclear industry.

Spent nuclear fuel rods are currently safely stored all over the country, mostly on-site at nuclear power plants. The question is not whether or not we are currently storing high-level nuclear waste safely but whether or not storage facilities will be safe for the long-term. Current facilities have been certified by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to be safe for several decades and must be able to safely store spent fuel for 30 years beyond the lifetime of a power plant.

In a political world in which “long-term” often means until the next election, it is quite interesting to hear opponents of nuclear power claim there is no “long-term” solution to a problem which has a current solution that would be perfectly fine for the remainder of their lifetimes. The long-term solution of which they are speaking of is a storage facility that would be able to safely store the byproducts of spent fuel for tens of thousands — or even a million — years even if left completely alone without maintenance, monitoring or upkeep.

While the building of a permanent storage facility ought to continue to be a goal to work toward, a standard requiring something to be safe for the next hundred thousand years if humans were to suddenly disappear would seem ludicrous if applied to any other industry that produced harmful wastes of any kind.

The problem is not that the nuclear industry is held to a higher standard of safety than competing industries but standards unrelated to safety ought not be unfairly imposed solely on the nuclear industry. There is a distinct difference between high standards and unreasonable ones. Current laws clearly fall into the latter category and are irresponsibly preventing nuclear power from becoming an option for Wisconsin‘s future energy mix.

Patrick McEwen ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in nuclear engineering.