Blog: Electric cars and a nuclear irony

Major cities in the Eastern Hemisphere – Berlin, London and Paris, among others – will soon be experimenting with all-electric cars that use charging stations throughout the city. It’s only a matter of time before this idea crosses the pond.

But the effect this will have on the electrical grid will be monumental. Imagine in Phoenix, where A/C units hum throughout the day. Where will the juice come from to deliver a fast charge to thousands of electric vehicles Valleywide at once?

If you think it’s coal or natural gas plants, think again. That kind of energy is just a fraction of of our power.

The answer is nuclear power.

In a monumental article that barely drew a sneeze in a time of global financial crisis, the World Nuclear News ran a story online last week that said, in so many words, that this "green" idea puts nuclear power "in the fast lane," according to the headline. The chairman of Daimler motors says a large-scale switch to electric cars would almost double the demand for energy such as nuclear, which could in turn lead to a "very large scale" deployment of nuclear power plants, the article states.

Here’s the catch: No one in the U.S. knows where to put the spent nuclear fuel rods that help produce electricity. Right now, they sit in large swimming pools to cool off until they’re not radioactive anymore. The one storage facility proposal, Nevada’s Yucca Mountain, has been stymied and will now cost an estimated $96 billion.

So we could have fleets of eco-friendly vehicles powered a not-so-eco-friendly technology, as far as waste is concerned. The irony is almost glaring. Hang onto your bikes.