Economic Benefits of Nuclear Power

ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF NUCLEAR POWER

Economic Benefits of Nuclear Power

Robert Gloden

Florida Tech

April 6, 2014

There are many different forms of electric energy offered these days, ranging anywhere from coal and natural gas all the way to nuclear power. While these different energy sources can each offer many different economic benefits of their own, I believe that nuclear power plants can provide the most significant benefits. Nuclear power plants create hundreds of jobs in many different ways and can be much more cost effective than all of the other energy sources. I consider nuclear power as one of the best economic options for a country to use in order to enrich its economy.

Any type of power plant in the world, whether it be coal, oil, or nuclear (my personal favorite), will provide some amount of jobs. According to a recent study, the nuclear industry creates double, sometimes even triple, the amount of jobs that any other power company provides, as well as an increased income (Nuclear Energy Institute [NEI], 2013).

This study only reflects the jobs created when the plant is operational, but there is a large impact on the economy during the entire life cycle of a nuclear power plant. One of the largest job influxes comes with the construction of a nuclear power plant. This job creation ranges from the construction workers that work directly at the plant all the way to the companies that make the materials needed for the construction. According to a recent article, "A single new nuclear power plant requires approximately 400,000 cubic yards of concrete, 66,000 tons of steel, 44 miles of piping, 300 miles of electric wiring, and 130,000 electrical components" (NEI, 2013, p. 4, para. 3). As you can imagine, this is a huge boom in business...