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The Nuclear Powered Planes |
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Aviation experts in the U.K. are arguing that the industry should push to
convert their planes from using fossil fuel to using nuclear energy, an idea
that's sure to illicit a visceral “holy crap, god no!” reaction from the get go.
But while it's hard to separate the idea from the mental image of flying
hydrogen bombs, there ARE actually a lot of good reasons to go nuclear in the
sky.
The most pressing one is that changing to nuclear will help reduce the amount of
emissions from planes and keep them flying in the air longer. A plane sipping on
nuclear energy could take off in London, land in Australia, and then go to South
Africa without needing to refuel, and it'll have zero impact on the atmosphere
as well.
Plus, the safety risks we tend to knee-jerk envision with nuclear are tied more
to its image in popular culture than any real scientific facts. Nuclear
submarines have been around since the beginning of the Cold War—when was the
last time you heard of an actual meltdown related to one of those? Now compare
that to the tons of other fuels that have been leaked into waters over the
years. Safe nuclear planes have been feasible since the 1950s, but lost favor
when the military decided to start building intercontinental ballistic missiles
instead.
While there are a few genuinely valid concerns we need to address before we
actually let nuclear-powered planes take off—how to automatically jettison the
reactor in case of a plane crash and what to do with spent fuel, for instance—
there's no reason why we shouldn't at least hit the power button on research.
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