Dropping the bomb, a New York Times' commentary declared recently that nuclear energy is the best alternative for America's energy needs. Writes Nicholas D. Kristof: "...it's time for the rest of us to drop that hostility to nuclear power. It's increasingly clear that the biggest environmental threat we face is actually global warming, and that leads to a corollary: nuclear energy is green."
The supreme irony of the peace/environmental movement is that its disdain for nuclear power has increased our dependence on coal and oil. The peace movement, by steadfastly opposing nuclear power, has brought only war... and global warming.
Demand for energy is growing, and unless we are collectively willing to live back in the 1800s, the world will have to find new sources of energy. According to the International Energy Agency, world demand for energy will increase 60 percent in the next 25 years, particularly as China and India's economies grow. Even if one ignores the doomsday predictions that oil supplies will be exhausted soon, these supplies will surely be strained. But that's not the gravest concern.
The highlight of Kristof's article is the suggestion that nuclear energy is green. One simply has to look at the number of appliances, computers and televisions one has at home to know that demand is on the rise. Consider also the enormous amount of electricity goes into the production of those goods. When science fiction writers envisioned modern society, did they realize how much energy would be required to build that society?
Conservation is key, but progress toward that aim is unsubstantial--shamefully so, but nevertheless, unsubstantial. Real-world problems need real solutions, and nuclear energy has to potential to realistically solve our energy needs. Not to minimize the risks, but nuclear energy is substantially a safer source than coal or oil.
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Article comments
1 - Temple Stark
>>The supreme irony of the peace/environmental movement is that its disdain for nuclear power has increased our dependence on coal and oil. The peace movement, by steadfastly opposing nuclear power, has brought only war... and global warming.
I like that and it makes sense :-)
But to be a little more accurate really it hasn't been environmentalists who've stopped the production of nuclear power plants. It's been politicians - and there has rarely been but a handful of true environmetnalists in Congress.
There just hasn't been the will - and for along time the start up costs were so high government was pretty much the only player in town.
That has started to change. Still high but not as high. Government better be involved though. There's a few things it is very much NEEDED for. This is one of them. I don't want people looking at the bottom line first when it comes to nuclear energy.
2 - JR
I don't particularly trust industry (or the government) to maintain safe nuclear power plants over the long term; but hey, lesser of two evils...
It's still a fossil fuel though.
3 - Leoniceno
I agree, go for nuclear energy. Kansas has one of the few nuclear power plants in the US, Wolf Creek, and it creates safer and cleaner power than oil and coal.
4 - Bennett
Vermont has a reliable and safe power plant that has provided a third of the state's electricity for 30 years. Europe has pressed ahead with nuclear power generation while we have continued to rely on coal and oil burning plants.
The thousands of deaths per year due to athsma and lung cancer (coal plants) MUST be weighed against the potential risk of radiation exposure from nuclear power. There are always trade-offs in power generation.
I believe nuclear is the way to go.
5 - gonzo marx
you have got to be kidding, right?
let's have a look at this madness that borders on saying cigarrettes are good for you...
my first Question about how "green" nuclear(not "nukuler") power plants are should start with a very basic Question..
what do you do with the spent fuel rods?
they are VERY radioactive
their half life is greater than that of any containment material available to known science
there's more, but you get the Idea..
now..let's examine the security Issue a bit..remember what we just talked about above?
how scary is it that a single person, with a quick trip to a walmart and a copy of the "anarchist's cookbook" can have everything they need to not only kill quite a few folks(depending on the plant's location),but render the area affected COMPLETELY devoid of the ability to sustain life for hundreds, even thousands , of years
this whole Premise attempts to stand on two legs..one that this source is "green" since it does not produce ozone deteriorating or greenhouse gas emissions...which IS true enough
the second leg is that this will soemhow impact the overall level of such emissions to a significant level
NOT true...go have a look, and then tell me what percentage of the US electricity supply is generated by direct buring of oil....no worries..i'll wait............
..............................
see? insignificant
previous commentors have mentioned Costs as well as Safety concerns...both are more than worthy of thoughtful consideration for quite a few Reasons...the US Navy has a spotless record of utilizing nuclear power for a number of reasons
cost is not an issue, so highest quality and standards are maintained
those working on the plants are the best trained folks in the world
since the facility is not a profit driven organization there are no pressures to overuse nor underbuild/staff the facility
on and on...
to your humble Narrator, any talk of nuclear energy as some kind of "green" is just silliness and serves only to distract form the real culprits in the harmful emissions fiasco...
cars and trucks
nuff said?
Excelsior!
6 - Mark Adams
Worried about spent rods? How about the tons of radioactive material thrown into the sky by coal-burning plants? I'd rather have in a neat, little rod which can be stored rather than spread across this green planet.
7 - gonzo marx
Mark,
as a resident of western Maine, i can tell you that i know all about the outflux from supposedly "clean" coal plants...check the western mountains sometimes, and you can harvest all the mercury you want from the leaves on the trees...
as bad as that is, it pales by several orders of magnitude what can happen if one tablespoon of plutonium is dropped into the water table
the Navy War College estimates that 2 ounces of plutonium deposited thus would kill EVERY living organism east of the Mississippi river within a generation
now, how many thousands of pounds of spent fuel rods are we currently "holding"??
and how many per year are you planning on adding?
what do you propose to contain them in for the next few thousand years? concrete and leadlined steel barrel will decay in a few hunder years from the physical heat and radioactivity...
currently , we have NO means to store the waste product effectively...
so, try and address the Issue rather than futile attempts at Distraction..ok?
objects in mirror may be closer than they appear...
Excelsior!
8 - RJ
I support all of the above.
"Clean coal" is a great idea that deserves further investment. The US has coal reserves up the ying-yang. If you make burning it cleaner, then you help to both ensure a cleaner environment as well as move towards energy independence.
Nuclear power is expensive, and has the potential to be VERY unsafe. However, there are almost no environmental drawbacks, assuming there isn't a meltdown or a terrorist attack. The spent fuel rods can be stored somewhere where they won't be a major problem for the foreseeable future. And if they become a problem later? Then we will hopefully advanced to the point where we can FIX it later.
But the main thing is, we need to invest more in wind-power, hydro, geo-thermal, solar, and fuel-cell technoligies. There are all clean, safe, and potentially infinite sources of energy.
However, I want to point something out: Fossil Fuels are NOT going to be depleted anytime soon. Sure, easy-to-get-to oil is becoming more and more hard to come by. But there are other reserves that have gone untapped thus far because of the expense. And then there is a large quantity of natural gas available. And an even larger amount of coal. And an even larger amount of oil shale.
So, while we should push forward with alternative energy technologies, we are not in danger of running out of the old stand-bys anytime soon (a few hundred years).
9 - Temple Stark
It's a balancing act of preference.
Do you want all the drawbacks of oil-dependence - including wars in the middle east - because they've got it and we don't enough.
not to mention - especially when you add coal into the mix - the usual suspects - pollution on every level to every organism.
and this is is when there are no accidents.
Or do we go nuclear? That is worse pollution at every level if there is an accident?
Agree characterizing it as "green" might be pushing it. But if you balance out the pros and cons - well, I go with nuclear (and I would live as far away from them as I could :-) ).
Nuclear plants do have a very high safety record - though there are other things that happen that don't get widely reported every month. There are real-life Homer Simpsons.
People's balance-o-meter will vary.
Or, apropos - your mileage may vary :-0
10 - Mark Adams
Don't forget Chernobyl was a horrible accident in a horribly run, horribly constructed plant. Tens of thousands have died as a result, but note, the world has not come to an end--and that's a worse-case scenario. Plants in America are infinitely safer, and newer plants will be safer still.
There are two issues really:
1. We (the modern world) need an awesome amount of energy. Alternative sources of energy simply can't deliver at present.
2. Coal and oil are killing thousands every year. And if global warming is caused by these pollutants, millions if not billions might die.
Let's not be afraid of something because it is so awesome. Once, people were afraid of electricity (and, yes, people die every year as a result of electrical accidents), but in the long run, it's made our lives better.
11 - JR
as bad as that is, it pales by several orders of magnitude what can happen if one tablespoon of plutonium is dropped into the water table
the Navy War College estimates that 2 ounces of plutonium deposited thus would kill EVERY living organism east of the Mississippi river within a generation
That has to be bullshit.
Radioactive material comes out of the ground, we concentrate it and use it to breed a lesser amount of somewhat more radioactive but shorter (half-)lived material (kind of like a transformer swaps voltage for amperage or vice-versa). So we don't actually create any radioactive energy - we can only make it more "active", albeit for a shorter amount of time. The stuff was already in the environment; what made it dangerous to us is that we dug it out of whatever rocks were shielding and diluting it.
I haven't seen the study, but it seems to that if you could spread two ounces of plutonium across the entire eastern half of the continent, both the radioactivity and toxicity of it would be so diluted as to vanish into the background noise of the plutonium already there.
BTW, according to Wikipedia, "Since 1945, about 10 tons of plutonium have been released onto Earth through nuclear explosions."
So how come I ain't dead yet?
12 - gonzo marx
JR, it is uranium that comes out of the ground, plutonium is the processed product, and MUCH more dangerous to handle..
as for what wikpedia states, let's just look at what happens AFTER the nuclear reaction occurs via explosion, the remains are of a different category that what i am talking about..
read the parameters of the War College's exam that i spoke about above
pure plutonium introduced into the water table...
i hope that helps to clarify..
Excelsior!
13 - Mark Adams
According to scientists, the dangers of plutonium are greatly overstated:
Abstract:
"Following the seizure of 10 ounces of plutonium at the Munich airport in August 1994, some press accounts stated that terrorists could kill "hundreds of thousands of people" by introducing plutonium into a municipal water supply. In response to such incorrect and misleading statements, we describe the acute and long-term health effects that can arise from ingesting or inhaling various amounts of plutonium. Our estimates indicate that plutonium introduced into drinking water supplies would produce a radiation dose much less than normal background, and could kill only a very few people (by inducing cancers that might take years to appear). We also estimate the (considerably greater) risks associated with the inhalation of plutonium, clarifying press claims that "a tiny speck ... can cause lung cancer." We estimate the number of people that might die of cancer if terrorists were to introduce plutonium into the atmosphere in a large city. This paper provides a scientific perspective for evaluating possible terrorist threats."