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Hi, Karen and everyone, It seems to me clear that nuclear energy must be the way to
go, at least for the coming decades. I’ve said this several times in the
past and always my enviro friends have taken me to task. Indeed, one of my old
and treasured mentors, Ted Taylor, a nuclear physicist who turned deliberately
to finding alternatives to nuclear systems, would have done the same. Nonetheless,
France’s experience with nuclear suggests that it is a viable
alternative. The problem of long-term waste treatment is not nearly the problem
that some have made it out to be. But nuclear power is confounded by some with nuclear weapons,
and so the popular view of nuclear power is jaundiced. Too, the nuclear power
industry has been, as it seems too many corporations are, duplicitous and
secretive about its engineering problems and profit-driven practices, and so
the industry has lost in the US much of the credibility that an industry
running a sensitive process must have to be given authorization by society to
proceed. (I note that Patrick Moore asserts that Three Mile Island was a ‘success’,
and that the containment vessel worked as designed. In fact, though not much
known publicly, there WAS a release of radioactivity into the air.) Where waste treatment and keeping nuclear materials out of
the hands of terrorists or countries that have not joined the IAEA are the
problems that are usually offered to oppose nuclear power, the true obstacle to
doing so may be corporate credibility and behavior. Until this is addressed
effectively, we may not be able to develop a greater nuclear power capacity –
and I cannot imagine from where sensible power will come if not that. We
should be using oil and gas as a material feedstock – not burning it as a
fuel. Biofuels, to the extent that they too are ultimately dependent on
oil-based products, also have their non-trivial limitations. I said that nuclear may be the way to go for the next
decades. After that, I think some variant of the solar/hydrogen energy economy
is necessary. It is clean and plentiful wherever sun and water are found. That
is where we should be putting our ultimate attention, IMO. Cheers, Lawry From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On
Behalf Of Karen Watters Cole 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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