OPINION — There has been a lot of interest and focus by Arizona policymakers on the environmental virtues of nuclear energy. They are absolutely right: Nuclear power is a clean-energy marvel.
As a former corporation commissioner, I advocated for nuclear as part of the backbone of our energy grid, alongside natural gas. Nuclear’s reliability is unmatched, and its footprint is impressively small. Our Palo Verde Generating Station is a crown jewel of our grid, providing 27% of our state’s electricity.
However, in the world of energy policy, there isn’t a “silver bullet.” We need “silver buckshot.” We don’t have to choose between nuclear and renewables. We need an energy portfolio that includes both. That keeps prices low for Arizonans and meets our skyrocketing energy demand.
