News recently broke that the infamous 3-Mile Island is losing its last nuclear plant. It got me thinking about the current state of nuclear and its role on our grid moving forward.

A few right-wing ideologies aside, everyone understands what we need to do to fight climate change. The international community must come together and completely cut out carbon emissions by 2050. The more fraught question, however, is how to do it.

From the “Green New Deal” to Greta Thunberg’s speeches, it’s easy to think renewables are the only path forward. They are as clean as they always were, but now they’re cheap and efficient too. Even on cloudy, windless days, there’s no reason to use any other energy sources thanks to new batteries that store surplus renewable juice.

Well, I think most people in the know understand a 100 percent renewable future is a very long way away. Yes, it’s true that wind and solar are no longer the subsidy dependent cash-drains they once were, but we still can’t rely on them all the time. Just look at Germany. The central European nation has gone all in on a renewable-fossil-backup grid over the past decade and made little progress on carbon goals. What’s more, electricity prices are through the roof and the government has had to compensate wind producers for mandatory cutbacks.

Besides for nations like Norway that are blessed with abnormal hydro resources, the all-renewable grid is a fantasy. There is only one way to realistically hit ambitious climate-fighting goals: nuclear. Just look at France and Sweden. They’ve had zero emission grids for years now and electricity prices are much lower than in Germany.

So then, why are we closing nuclear plants in the U.S.? From what I’ve read, it’s mostly due to nebulous regulations and bad economic opportunity, both stemming from the public’s irrational fear of nuclear. The truth of the matter is that nuclear is much safer than fossil fuels, which kill millions every year by polluting our air.

It’s time to tackle climate change, rationally. To get our grids off gas, we must embrace nuclear.