Dear Next President,

Hello my name is Dylan, I am a sixteen year old highschool student from Napa, CA. I would like to bring to your attention nuclear energy. I feel that you should put more funds towards the research of new nuclear reactors. These reactors are able to quickly startup and shutdown,They will be able to be used for emergency power, and later in the future we may be able to start using more nuclear energy for our main source of power.

Nuclear energy is an underused resource which can provide a solution for numerous issues that we are faced with today. It appears that we need more funding for research of new nuclear reactors that can then be implemented for backup power. Currently we are using; diesel, gas and, propane, which are big producers of greenhouse gasses.

Not only is nuclear energy cleaner than burning fossil fuels, but as of today, August 29, 2016, we have no backup plan for clean energy.The clean energy we do have cannot produce enough power to support the mass population of the U.S. This is all the more reason why we need more nuclear power research to be conducted.If more funds are put towards nuclear reactors that can power up and down faster than the reactors that are in use now, these reactors could then be implemented as backup generators to replace the current backup generators that run off fossil fuel. This is important because the current reactors can take up to an hour to start up and cool down which is far too long to consider these as a possible source of alternative energy.

Some concerns regarding this issue may be nuclear meltdown and waste disposal. With how far technology has come I really think that meltdowns caused by human error or design error are slim to none. Given that there are strict precautions set in place to almost completely eliminated human error and design error. However, there are always natural errors such as earthquakes or typhoons, but if there's a will there's a way! Right? These reactors could be put in the middle of the desert say in California or Nevada where people don’t live so that if there was a problem the number of people who could be injured or put out of there homes is few to none. With the regulations from the NRC and EPA nuclear waste disposal is safe and secure. The NRC and EPA regulations state that the holding facility must be at least 800ft from humans in any direction and 2,000ft, in the ground. Since it is required to be so far from civilization that if there was a leak or problem it wouldn’t harm any human civilization.

I hope this brings to light some of the advantages of nuclear energy such as it’s more efficient than any other clean power plant, it’s cheaper than the alternatives, and it lowers our carbon dioxide and greenhouse gasses significantly. Thank you for your time.

Dylan Dunn 11th

Napa, California