http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/5/30/14423/4313

Rebuklear

The latest sorties in the war over nuclear power

Posted by David Roberts at 8:54 AM on 01 Jun 2008

There have been several good entries in the never-ending nuclear debate lately. I'm pulling several together into one post, so all the vicious arguing can center in one comment thread. Fun!

In a long, detailed, and devastating cover story in The Nation, Christian Parenti asks, "What Nuclear Renaissance?" Peeling away the hype and PR, he discovers that there's much less than meets the eye:
This much seems clear: a handful of firms might soak up huge federal subsidies and build one or two overpriced plants. While a new administration might tighten regulations, public safety will continue to be menaced by problems at new as well as older plants. But there will be no massive nuclear renaissance. Talk of such a renaissance, however, helps keep people distracted, their minds off the real project of developing wind, solar, geothermal and tidal kinetics to build a green power grid.

The Congressional Budget Office recently released a report on the costs of new nuclear plants [PDF] in light of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (which contained beaucoup subsidies). On his blog Green Energy War, ex-California Energy Commissioner John Geesman has three great posts digging into the report -- one, two, three. Here he summarizes the top-line conclusions:

<snip>

And finally, last but not least, don't miss a brief, pointed, and utterly devastating article from Amory Lovins, Imran Sheikh, and Alex Markevich: "Forget Nuclear." I won't start quoting parts, 'cause I'll end up quoting the whole thing. Suffice to say, micropower and efficiency are kicking ass and attracting enormous private investment; nuclear is attracting none. And there's a reason for that. Read the whole thing.

<snip - see website for entire article and comments>

--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change.

Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude.

To post to this group, send email to [email protected]

To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]

For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---

Reply via email to