Two Reasons K-12 Leaders Should Consider Championing Nuclear Power

If nuclear energy conjures images of Homer Simpson, Monty Burns, and vast vats of glowing green toxic waste, I want to talk.

Thirty-plus years of the Simpsons have left an indelible effect on the American psyche, and unless you have direct experience with actual nuclear energy production and byproducts, Springfield comes to mind when you think of nuclear power.

That seems to be what holds most people back from full-throated support of nuclear energy in the US. Fears of Three-Mile-Island or Chernobyl have set us back decades in the quest for affordable, sustainable energy.

Affordable, accessible energy underpins every conceivable American interest, from foreign policy and national security to domestic issues of poverty and education.  

In my line of work, the benefits to K-12 education present themselves often. I am immediately drawn to the potential impact on operational costs for public schools. In Indiana, traditional public schools rely on property taxes to fund all operational expenses. That’s everything from parking lots and HVAC to custodial and accounting staff – and yes, it includes the power required to keep facilities (and Chromebooks and school buses…) powered and ready for modern learning.

This is an enormous expense to the tune of about $8 billion (that’s taxpayer dollars) spent annually to power US public schools. That makes it the biggest budget item outside of human resources.

Nuclear power plants present a higher up-front cost to construct, but in the long term, the energy they produce is cheaper. This is why Small Modular Reactors (SMR) are becoming a popular alternative.

This is a long-term solution for a growing problem for K-12 operating expenses, but the importance of nuclear energy for education does not stop at the bottom line. School leaders with any degree of situational awareness and vision for the future are keyed into the mounting importance of Artificial Intelligence in the classroom.

The benefits of AI for instruction and quality of life for teachers are tremendous. Of course, we must work through the appropriate guardrails for its use, but AI is like any other human tool. It can help and hurt. So while policy makers must find the right balance that maximizes the help and minimizes the hurt, school leaders need to be working through the logistics of implementation at the building level.

None of that matters without a significant increase in our energy output. The data centers that make AI possible are power hogs. One AI data center can suck up the same amount of energy as a mid-sized city. Last year, Goldman Sachs predicted a 160% increase in power demand from AI data centers alone.

If you believe in a future full of the benefits of optimized AI, then you need to be getting behind the current push for responsible nuclear power.

These are just the two most obvious reasons for K-12 schools to be weighing in on the nuclear power debate. There is an opportunity to change the generational perception of toxic green goo and advocate for truly responsible power options for the future that protect and benefit us all.

For some enjoyable content on nuclear energy, visit Kyle Hill's YouTube channel. Get started with this gem: We Solved Nuclear Waste Decades Ago