YET ANOTHER LOOK AT NUCLEAR

Nuclear is so seductive: emission-free energy in a world so hungry for energy. But what about dwindling supplies of uranium? What about the water consumption? What about the waste? What about weapons proliferation and terrorist targeting?

When you think through all those questions, you get to the inevitable one: What about wind?

Nuclear Energy Using New Momentum to Take On Old Obstacles
Jay Lindsay, July 1, 2007 (AP via Yahoo Finance)

WHO
Jim Riccio, Greenpeace; Bill Chameides, chief scientist, Environmental Defense; Scott Peterson, nuclear's chief lobbyist, Nuclear Energy Institute; Patrick Moore, Greenpeace co-founder & nuclear energy advocate
what about wind? there's no real down side (click to enlarge)

WHAT
Despite questions about nuclear waste, accident risk, weapons proliferation and terrorist targeting, nuclear’s non-greenhouse gas emitting, non-intermittent power is alluring in a world threatened by climate change.

WHEN
The last US nuclear plant to open was in 1996. Construction took 22 years and $7 billion.

WHERE
Last new plant opened in Tennessee. Sites permitted in Illinois and Mississippi. Plant proposed in Alabama.

WHY
- 104 commercial reactors supply 20% of US power. The Department of Energy (DOE) expects a 45% rise in electricity demand by 2030. 35-50 new nuclear plants would maintain nuclear's 20%.
- 33 nuclear reactors are presently in some stage of planning or application for license.
- Nuclear energy produces no greenhouse gas emissions. Waste presently stored at plants. Proposed national waste repository at Yucca Mountain in Nevada facing stiff opposition and won’t open for a decade and a half or more. Waste recycling creates weapons fuel which some call “predeployed nuclear weapons.” Advocates say precautions have been taken.
- Newer nuclear plants are safer from accidents than those of the 3-Mile Island era.
Advocates say nuclear energy is the only scalable solution to the world’s rising electricity demand. Opponents say wind is cheaper.


QUOTES
- Riccio: "You have better ways to boil water…This isn't just a bunch of environmentalists who think this is a bad idea…It's most people who aren't being paid to think otherwise."
- Chameides: "I think it's somewhat disingenuous that folks who agree that global warming is such a serious issue could sort of dismiss it out of hand…It's got to be at least considered."
- Peterson: “[Growing demand, not global warming,] has been the single biggest factor in companies looking at building large nuclear plants again…"
- Moore: "You don't ban the beneficial uses of a technology just because that same technology can be used for evil…Otherwise we would never have harnessed fire."