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The critical
issues of Peak Oil, and more generally, the end of cheap global energy, and
Climate Change are generating new priorities. We can only hope that scientists and business can succeed in
bringing renewable energies to their fullest potential as soon as possible, accelerated
by responsible political sponsorship, so that the near future is not as
devastating as it could be, before we figure out a more permanent solution to
our energy and environmental conflicts.
Going Nuclear Commentary by Patrick
Moore, Washington Post, Sunday, April 16, 2006; B01 In the early 1970s
when I helped found Greenpeace, I believed that nuclear energy was synonymous
with nuclear holocaust, as did most of my compatriots. That's the conviction
that inspired Greenpeace's first voyage up the spectacular rocky northwest
coast to protest the testing of U.S. hydrogen bombs in Alaska's Aleutian
Islands. Thirty years on, my views have changed, and the rest of the environmental
movement needs to update its views, too, because nuclear energy may just be the
energy source that can save our planet from another possible disaster:
catastrophic climate change. Look at it this way:
More than 600 coal-fired electric plants in the United States produce 36% of
U.S. emissions - or nearly 10% of global emissions - of CO2, the primary
greenhouse gas responsible for climate change. Nuclear energy is the only
large-scale, cost-effective energy source that can reduce these emissions while
continuing to satisfy a growing demand for power. And these days it can do so
safely. I say that guardedly,
of course, just days after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad announced that
his country had enriched uranium. "The nuclear technology is only for the
purpose of peace and nothing else," he said. But there is widespread
speculation that, even though the process is ostensibly dedicated to producing
electricity, it is in fact a cover for building nuclear weapons. And although I don't
want to underestimate the very real dangers of nuclear technology in the hands
of rogue states, we cannot simply ban every technology that is dangerous. That
was the all-or-nothing mentality at the height of the Cold War, when anything
nuclear seemed to spell doom for humanity and the environment. In 1979, Jane
Fonda and Jack Lemmon produced a frisson of fear with their starring roles in
"The China Syndrome," a fictional evocation of nuclear disaster in
which a reactor meltdown threatens a city's survival. Less than two weeks after
the blockbuster film opened, a reactor core meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three
Mile Island nuclear power plant sent shivers of very real anguish throughout
the country. What nobody noticed at
the time, though, was that Three Mile Island was in fact a success story: The
concrete containment structure did just what it was designed to do - prevent
radiation from escaping into the environment. And although the reactor itself
was crippled, there was no injury or death among nuclear workers or nearby
residents. Three Mile Island was the only serious accident in the history of
nuclear energy generation in the United States, but it was enough to scare us
away from further developing the technology: There hasn't been a nuclear plant
ordered up since then. Today, there are 103
nuclear reactors quietly delivering just 20% of America's electricity. Eighty
percent of the people living within 10 miles of these plants approve of them
(that's not including the nuclear workers). Although I don't live near a
nuclear plant, I am now squarely in their camp. And I am not alone
among seasoned environmental activists in changing my mind on this subject.
British atmospheric scientist James Lovelock,
father of the Gaia theory, believes that nuclear energy is the only way to
avoid catastrophic climate change. Stewart
Brand, founder of the "Whole Earth Catalog," says the
environmental movement must embrace nuclear energy to wean ourselves from
fossil fuels. On occasion, such opinions have been met with excommunication
from the anti-nuclear priesthood: The late British Bishop Hugh Montefiore, founder and director of
Friends of the Earth, was forced to resign from the group's board after he
wrote a pro-nuclear article in a church newsletter. There are signs of a
new willingness to listen, though, even among the staunchest anti-nuclear
campaigners. When I attended the Kyoto climate meeting in Montreal last
December, I spoke to a packed house on the question of a sustainable energy
future. I argued that the only way to reduce fossil fuel emissions from
electrical production is through an aggressive program of renewable energy sources
(hydroelectric, geothermal heat pumps, wind, etc.) plus nuclear. The Greenpeace spokesperson was first
at the mike for the question period, and I expected a tongue-lashing. Instead,
he began by saying he agreed with much of what I said - not the nuclear bit, of
course, but there was a
clear feeling that all options must be explored. Here's why: Wind and
solar power have their place, but because they are intermittent and
unpredictable they simply can't replace big baseload plants such as coal, nuclear and hydroelectric. Natural
gas, a fossil fuel, is too expensive already, and its price is too volatile to
risk building big baseload plants. Given that hydroelectric resources are built
pretty much to capacity, nuclear is, by elimination, the only viable substitute
for coal. It's that simple. That's not to say that
there aren't real problems - as well as various myths - associated with nuclear
energy. Each concern deserves careful consideration: §
Nuclear energy is expensive. It is in fact one of the least expensive
energy sources. In 2004, the average cost of producing nuclear energy in the US
was less than two cents per kilowatt-hour, comparable with coal and
hydroelectric. Advances in technology will bring the cost down further in the
future. §
Nuclear plants are not safe. Although Three Mile Island was a success
story, the accident at Chernobyl, 20 years ago this month, was not. But
Chernobyl was an accident waiting to happen. This early model of Soviet reactor
had no containment vessel, was an inherently bad design and its operators
literally blew it up. The multi-agency U.N. Chernobyl Forum reported last year
that 56 deaths could be directly attributed to the accident, most of those from
radiation or burns suffered while fighting the fire. Tragic as those deaths
were, they pale in comparison to the more than 5,000 coal-mining deaths that
occur worldwide every year. No one has died of a radiation-related accident in
the history of the U.S. civilian nuclear reactor program. (And although
hundreds of uranium mine workers did die from radiation exposure underground in
the early years of that industry, that problem was long ago corrected.) §
Nuclear waste will be
dangerous for thousands of years. Within 40 years, used fuel has less than
one-thousandth of the radioactivity it had when it was removed from the
reactor. And it is incorrect to call it waste, because 95% of the potential energy
is still contained in the used fuel after the first cycle. Now that the US has removed the ban on
recycling used fuel, it will be possible to use that energy and to greatly
reduce the amount of waste that needs treatment and disposal. Last month, Japan
joined France, Britain and Russia in the nuclear-fuel-recycling business. The
United States will not be far behind. §
Nuclear reactors are vulnerable to terrorist attack. The six-feet-thick reinforced concrete
containment vessel protects the contents from the outside as well as the
inside. And even if a jumbo jet did crash into a reactor and breach the
containment, the reactor would not explode. There are many types of facilities
that are far more vulnerable, including liquid natural gas plants, chemical
plants and numerous political targets. §
Nuclear fuel can be diverted to make nuclear weapons. This is the most serious issue
associated with nuclear energy and the most difficult to address, as the
example of Iran shows. But just because nuclear technology can be put to evil
purposes is not an argument to ban its use. Over the past 20
years, one of the simplest tools - the machete - has been used to kill more
than a million people in Africa, far more than were killed in the Hiroshima and
Nagasaki nuclear bombings combined. What are car bombs made of? Diesel oil,
fertilizer and cars. If we banned everything that can be used to kill people,
we would never have harnessed fire. The only practical
approach to the issue of nuclear weapons proliferation is to put it higher on
the international agenda and to use diplomacy and, where necessary, force to
prevent countries or terrorists from using nuclear materials for destructive
ends. And new
technologies such as the reprocessing system recently introduced in Japan (in which the plutonium is never
separated from the uranium) can make it much more difficult for terrorists or
rogue states to use civilian materials to manufacture weapons. The 600-plus
coal-fired plants emit nearly 2 billion tons of CO2annually - the equivalent of the exhaust from
about 300 million automobiles. In addition, the Clean Air Council reports that coal plants are responsible for
64% of sulfur dioxide emissions, 26% of nitrous oxides and 33% of mercury
emissions. These pollutants are eroding the health of our environment,
producing acid rain, smog, respiratory illness and mercury contamination. Meanwhile, the 103
nuclear plants operating in the United States effectively avoid the release of
700 million tons of CO2emissions annually -- the equivalent of the exhaust from
more than 100 million automobiles. Imagine if the ratio of coal to nuclear were
reversed so that only 20% of our electricity was generated from coal and 60%
from nuclear. This would go a long way toward cleaning the air and reducing
greenhouse gas emissions. Every responsible environmentalist should support a
move in that direction. Patrick Moore, co-founder of Greenpeace,
is chairman and chief scientist of Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. He and Christine Todd Whitman are co-chairs of a
new industry-funded initiative, the Clean and
Safe Energy Coalition, which supports increased use of nuclear
energy. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/14/AR2006041401209.html |
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