In 2021, the United States experienced a brutal cold snap in Texas and an extreme heat wave in the Pacific Northwest. These so-called once-in-a-generation (or even once-in-a-thousand-years) events are becoming increasingly common.

Time is running out before the worst effects of climate change set in to cause permanent damage and possibly destroy human civilization.

Fortunately, there is a safe energy source that is well proven and can meet Minnesota’s energy needs: nuclear power.

Not only is nuclear power safer than fossil fuels (in 2019, air pollution from fossil fuels killed 60,000 people in the United States), but it can provide the energy that Minnesota needs to keep the water running, the lights on and the whole state ready for cold snaps.

If Minnesota began to construct new-generation nuclear reactors across the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, we could not only get off of fossil fuels much more rapidly than with renewable energy alone, we could also achieve energy independence from foreign sources of energy.

We can meet the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement. But only with nuclear power.

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